I don't talk about Germany enough, I don't think. Here's a NHR but culture-related post.***
Last night we drove on several autobahns to visit a friend and the traffic was terrible. My man kept tuning in to traffic news where they relay the lengths of the blockages.
Traffic reports are a little different here, they go like this:
A1 in between Burscheid and Leverkusen - 3 kilometer traffic jam. A2 ....
They go thru all the highways in alphabetical order and say where and how long each traffic jam is. When traffic is especially bad, they say "This traffic report will only indicate blockages of 3 or more kilometers." Then you know you're screwed no matter what highway you're on.
Well last night they said "blah blah 5 km traffic between blah and blah due to a defective automobile" (I like how they say "defective.")
And then, "8 km traffic due to bomb disarmament."
I said to my man, "Did I hear that right - the traffic is due to a bomb?"
"Yes. This is common."
In case you haven't been reading my blog long, I'll repeat that they find WW2 bombs regularly here (and not just here). Construction crews are trained to recognize them, and traffic stalls. People leave their homes for a few days.
Between 400 and 600 bombs are discovered a year in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, where the heavily industrialized Ruhr region was a major target for Allied bombers. (Spiegel-online)
Between 400 and 600 bombs are discovered a year in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, where the heavily industrialized Ruhr region was a major target for Allied bombers. (Spiegel-online)
***
Arriving at our destination finally....
I should say something about the cool Belgian Nike missle base that we visited. It was so dark and the wind turbines were rotating clockwise in groups flashing red warnings above us. I love the wind turbines! We crawled through a hole in the fence and started wandering among deserted buildings.
"So why is this a BELGIAN missle base?" I asked.
"Cuz Germany doesn't have nuclear missles." Christian answered.
(On Cougar Mountain back home is another former Nike missle base, now it's a big grassy knoll good for cantering around in.)
I was loving this deserted place and wanted to go into the falling down brick structures and as we debated a screaming winged creature flew for our faces - a bat? It was just a bird but we were sure scared!
We found this information about the site:
WARNING - Many of the roofs, windows, hand-rails, underground magazines, etc. have been collapsing, breaking, vandalized, rusting, filling with water, mud, dirt and who knows what for at least 30 years. Please look, no touch, from a respectful distance. A 15 foot fall from a rusted out radar tower ladder onto a concrete pad can ruin your whole day or life. Many old Nike sites are on private property and the owners do not wish to be sued for more than they are worth just because you are curious and careless.
.JPG)
10 comments:
Kewl. Geocaching?
haha, yes and no. we were there with our friend christian cuz he wanted to show us the place. as soon as we arrived my man said "oh my i know there has to be a geocache here because this is just too kewl."
later that night we read the warning info in a cache description. you got it aarene! christian is not a geocacher, he just likes to show off cool stuff (he also showed us an ancient walled city nearby and i was gasping in disbelief the whole time - amazing!)
hey, i wanted to say it's christian who is in seattle this week with my family! i'm so jealous!
he showed the city of cologne to my family when they came here for our wedding, so my family is happy to host him on his first trip to america. i sure hope he gets to see a lot of the goodness that is my home! specially the 14.5K foot vanilla ice cream feature.
Very interesting.
Well, if I had known your friend was coming, he could have visited Casa Fry, as well!
Bomb disarmament: who would have ever thought??
Thanks for the 'snapshot' of life in Germany! I've been there a few times but have only been on a bus going from the airport to a tourist area and back - no traffic jams!
We love our iPad (and iPhone). You can get a map of the local area and turn 'traffic' on. It will indicate whether traffic is red (stopped), yellow (slow) or green and the approximate distance involved. On trips we've avoided some bad jams by knowing what was coming.
I guess I never had that problem when we lived there since we were without a car. But I do remember when the Strassebahn was delayed and or stopped do to issues and announcement would come over loud speaker..a sense of panic always came over me...clueless on what they we're saying. Kind of miss that! Have a wonderful Monday!
Interesting! Cant say I have ever heard of traffic stopped cause of a bomb. But spose its safer that way.
Those sound like some big traffic jams, and the Germans do seem very efficient in telling you about them. Here in Britain you find out when you land on one. Then one turns off the jammed road and sees just how lost people are when their satnav cannot cope!
I used to work with an engineer who found a WW2 bomb in London. It was lodged by the foot of a major bridge over the River Thames, and they found it after draining the water within a cofferdam. His report included some words like: "the construction crew evacuated the site with especial alacrity". I bet they did.
At first I was shocked, "bomb?!" but then just as you mentioned it I remembered that you had posted before about old bombs being found.
I love that warning, especially the last sentence.
I didn't comment at the time, but I did read this post when it first went up. It's one reason I wrote about Hawthorne - I think it's so cool to hear your POV on Germany, and I bet there are people who think it's cool to hear me describe the high desert. :)
Post a Comment