European Adventures - 3. Cousin Monika

3 Cousin Monika

Cold Cuts and Cheese

I do love those European Breakfasts. It’s not like in the U.S. where you get paper plates, plastic utensils and pre-packed food. No matter the establishment, the breakfast in Europe is a meal. 

Croissants, Banana Bread, Sweet Rolls

Fresh bread, fresh small rolls, cold cuts, cheeses, real fruit, real juices, REAL coffee and what an array of other assortments. I love those breakfasts.

After we stretched and looked around in the morning I realized I can do better in the way of Hotels. While the breakfast was good, the room in the Niederrheinischer Hof was smallish and kind of basic.

Hotel Van Der Valk

I booked a better hotel near Moers, a town nearby by and we will move to the new “Hotel van der Valk” this afternoon. They had a special price listed on Hotels.com, a good source for hotels in Europe.

I had made previous arrangements to meet my cousin Monika at around 1 pm in Tönisvorst, a suburb of Krefeld, but we had some time before the meeting and we did not have to be in the new Hotel until later in the day. It was good to know we had reservations at Hotel van der Valk, getting to the actual Hotel was just a matter of driving there; our GPS would show us the way. I love a GPS.

We had some time before our meeting and I drove down to Tönisvorst and did a dry run, just to see if I could find the Restaurant Monika described in her email to me.

Tönisvorst is a small town, a bit tricky to navigate through since a lot of streets are one-ways, and narrow, but yes, we found the place for the 1 pm meeting and now we had some time to spend just exploring this hamlet. We walked the streets a bit, stopping at an Apothecary to find some essentials. The walking after the flight and the long sitting in those airline seats did bother Carol more than she likes to admit. We had the car parked safely in a designated parking spot, no money needed to park there; more about my parking in much later blogs.

After we just wandered about a bit, it was time to go to the Restaurant to meet Moni. (Monika) and I found out this Restaurant only opens up at 5PM, it is now 1 PM.

What to do?

Communication has come a long way, but still, who knew this place is not open for lunch during the week, only on weekends.

Cousin Monika

We stood outside for a while and I had to put my thinking cap on. I thought Moni would still be coming and try to enter the Restaurant and I would find her that way and then we could make other arrangements but… we stood there, near the entrance… nobody showed.

There was another couple standing about 20 meters away but I did not know them. I paid no attention to them. 

After a few minutes however, I started looking around and the couple over there did the same thing. It turned out to be Moni with a male friend, who was also waiting to see who would walk into the Restaurant.

Cousin Monika

Well, you see, I have not seen Moni for some 60 years. I don’t really know her. My father’s brother’s child, she was much younger than I. She is still much younger than I am now. A person’s look changes a lot in 60 years. I only remember her as a child.

A great hello and lots of explanations and we found an outside Italian Restaurant nearby. No problem, all worked out well.

So Here It Is Monica, Have All You Want

We, Monika and I, had lots of talking to do. All in German of course, and I felt a bit sorry for Carol but it could not be helped. We exchanged old pictures, told some old stories, updated the family progress as best we could and the meeting lasted almost 3 hours. I believe Moni liked me; she wanted me to adopt her and send her birthday cakes made out of this kind of stuff. 

We could have talked some more but we also needed time to process all the new information we had just heard and learned about. Family is something you need to work on and I am not good at it. But that does not mean I forget. Whenever I come back to Germany I will stop by from now on and say hello.

After our long lunch meeting we had to now find the new hotel in Moers. 

On the way to Moers, I drove to the section of town where I grew up, or what was left of it. All the housing, coveted right after WW2, was really substandard for today’s living and all of it was ripped down, replaced by more modern buildings. Well, the streets are there but the houses are different. The people definitely moved on in life. Everything changes over time. 

More Modern Housing

The area today seems overbuilt to me. The wide open spaces of the fields around my old neighborhood are gone. A soccer field exists today where I used to dig for left over potatoes, potatoes the farmer missed in the fields. 

Krefeld expanded and I don’t think it is as nice as it used to be.

In my memories we also lived, ate, drank and walked. We had a life, albeit a much simpler life. We had no TV, no cell phone, not even a land line. I used my bicycle to go everywhere and never had trouble finding a parking space for it. Not so today… the world is becoming overcrowded. Modern technology, the so called helpful things invented to make living easier, sometimes are not so great.

The Old Swimming Hole

Even the swimming hole I splashed in when about 6 to 10 years old, “Holthausens' Kull” is turned into a kind of park today; an environmental refuge for ducks or other wild life. When I was younger this water-hole contained a swim club and people used this Lake to cool off from the oppressive heat that can hit here. Krefeld can be hot like it is now, but it is extremely rare. The times “they are a-changin” as the song goes.

Garden Sheds Converted to Homes

While at the ‘Kull’ Carol and I walked along the path and explored the still existing garden shacks some people here prefer to live in. A man speaking in, for him, a difficult High German (his native tongue was Kreewelsch Platt), explained to me that there are still people who go swimming in this lake, even though it is now illegal to swim in it. Every year, someone also drowns in this ‘Kull’, he explained. 

A few years ago, he told me, he personally found a man bobbing on the surface. He called the Fire Department to extract the body but when they came they could not find the cadaver even though the man showed them… where it had been before sinking. It finally took divers from Duisburg, a far away town, to get this guy’s body recovered. They finally used a diving team, which Krefeld does not have.

The Man Who Found the Body

To the shock of the garden man, they just left the body, after they pulled him out of the water, on the grass beside the lake. The divers used a phone and called the relatives or someone to take care of the remains.

It took about an hour, he said before the ‘relatives’ claimed the body. Meanwhile, this old chap was standing at his window, watching it all. I thought to myself ‘believe-it-or-not’ but some of this story checked out. I read a report in an old newspaper from 2013 that confirmed some of it. The Kull looks idyllic but is a lake with murky water, full of plant life.

Another stop we made, near the Holthausens' Kull was to look at a house that was owned, or may still be owned by a very large Industrialist in Krefeld. K…, my mom once told me, was their name. I just stood there, looking at the house and it brought back memories from when I was very, very small.

I am peculiar, I have an exceptional memory for events, and some go back to when I was very, very young. This is one of those memories.

All You Can See of the House of K... is the Garage

This family named K… had a girl who was about my age. As a very small child, by coincidence we played together, this girl and me. The girl lived across the street so to speak. She came over to ‘our’ side of the street to play but only until her parents found out a few days later. They put a stop to the girl playing with me. My Mom told me I could no longer play with that girl. The girl’s Mom spoke to my Mother and told her to not let me go across the street and play. I was not the “kind of people” her daughter should play with. We were ‘beneath’ her class. My folks were workers while her life was with the ‘elite’. Those two do not mix well she told my Mom. I was there, I heard it. 

While I stood there now, in my old age, thinking, I remember the lady at the Budget counter yesterday, behaving just like that… she only wanted to talk to the Elite, too.

Well, I have experienced this class distinction in Germany many, many a time.

But here, at this house, looking at the NO-see-through fence, is where it started for me. 

So I just stood there, letting the surroundings fill me with the sights and sounds and I had to smile, because even today, in 2018 these folks have a NO-see-through fencing around that house. You cannot see the house, the gates are locked, and the actual house is hardly visible behind trees and bushes. Still, after nearly 67 years, these folks do not want the neighbors to be any part of their lives?  In a way I pity them; to be of such a mind is sad. I am glad I grew up differently. 

Wishing you luck, K…s.

I drove to the Spielplatz, the playground we had in the middle of the Siedlung that was part of our neighborhood. The huge, old Chestnut Trees that surrounded this square are all cut down, gone. Those majestic Horse Chestnut Trees were replaced by puny new trees that still need a stick to lean on. Ahh, I am getting nostalgic. 

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I saw a couple at a house on the Canisius Strasse, cleaning the roof over their door-way and I walked over to say hello. I found out I don’t know them, even though they were part of the original group of people that in or about 1952 moved here. They were from the East of Germany at the time, running away from the advancing Russians during the war years. Ah history, my history covers some really bad times. This blog is not long enough to cover it all.

Raised Area Is a Grass Covered Bunker and They Line Each Side of the Park

On the Spielplatz, the play ground, are still 4 low concrete bunkers (air-raid shelters). They are covered with just grass now, but underneath it all are bad memories. I kind of felt like that, bad memories now covered up with my kind of ‘green’ (money) so nobody can see what is below. 

Yes, look at me; do you know what really lies below me? Do you see the experiences that lie below? Or do you just see the money I may ‘have’? Ha!

We drove to the Hotel in Moers, a much better hotel than the one we had last night. 

Spacious Lobby

We even ate at their restaurant, since the Hotel itself is a bit away from town. 

Again, there was no A/C in this hotel. Lots of German hotels, the older ones, do not have A/C. it never gets really that hot, or let’s say it never used to get that hot.

Now, A/C is needed!  Or is that just in my head. Was it that hot years ago, too?

Dining Room In the Hotel Van Der Valk

I forget some things, but I do remember this K girl.

See you tomorrow.