Day 13-14 Germany

If flying to Düsseldorf, then taking a two-hour train ride through Germany’s rust belt and spending two cold rainy days in a tiny town where all the stores are required by law to be closed on Sunday sounds like the perfect weekend getaway, read on!

I went to visit friends, who are really nice people, and we had a good time despite the fact that there wasn’t much to do. And honestly, sitting around drinking tea and eating great food a few times a day is something that I should probably get better at. It gave me time to appreciate the extraordinary length of German words and have interesting discussions about, for example, why all of the houses in the neighborhood have garages, but none of them are connected to the houses, so that even if you park in the garage, you have to walk through the rain to get in the house. And we thought the Germans had everything figured out! 

The rain did let up enough for us to wander through the town streets . . . sorry. . . street. But only on Saturday when the stores were allowed to be open. 

We also visited the Junkerhaus “museum,” a home built by a guy in town, Herr Junker, at the turn of the last century. He was either a brilliant artist or a slightly deranged loner with OCD (I vote for the latter, and even the informational plaques at the house allow for the possibility that maybe it’s a stretch to put this guy in the same category as Frank Lloyd Wright). They call his work reflective of a movement called “Raw Art,” which is characterized by lack of formal training, impulsive behavior and indications of psychiatric disorders (really). 

Every inch of the interior looked more or less like this.

Then a lovely hike in the woods and back home for more tea. A good time was had by all.

Before I left to come here, I attended a presentation at the nonprofit I’m volunteering at about a groundbreaking new Spanish law that gives legal status to any immigrant who can prove at least 5 months’ residency in Spain and no criminal record, probably the most liberal law of its kind anywhere, and the meeting was extremely well attended by lots of people (including all of my students) who want to take advantage of it. 

Sounds easy, but then questions started to come up. Like if you don’t have a passport or any documents, how do you prove you have been in Spain for five months. And if you come from a country like Algeria, which barely has a functioning government, how do you prove that you don’t have a criminal record? I enjoyed teaching my colleagues the English expression El diablo está en los detalles (The devil is in the details).