Into the Harz of Germany

Glad to be standing at the top of Brocken after a crowded steam train-ride. 

Ever hear of Goslar? It's fine. You likely haven't. But you should drop by this town if you're in the neighbourhood, which also isn't likely because the only thing in Goslar's neighbourhood are rocks, trees, and the Harz Mountains.

The places that usually draw people to Germany are on the country's fringes. From Hamburg to the north, down to the southwest to the Dorf, Cologne – then further down the Rhine, you can reach Frankfurt, Heidelberg, the Black Forest, never straying to far from the border. Then turning east into Bavaria, you'd reach Munich with the Alps on your right. which are shared between Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. To the northeast, you reach Nuremburg, Dresden, and Berlin – every city close to Germany's borders.

The Harz Mountains are in the middle of that fringe. It's rugged country, where Germanic myths of witches and dwarves and bridge trolls come from. Kings ruled from castles here to guard the silver mines, the Nazis built V-1 and V-2 missiles in bunkers beneath the mountains, and the Iron Curtain ran through it. Most people flock to the fringes without really seeing the heart, or Harz, of Germany.

Express trains run around the Harz, so it took two train changes to reach Goslar. Then we got lost in the town. This is no cookie-cutter rebuilt town with a shiny old centre. Goslar wasn't carpet-bombed during the war, so most of the old town is as it was, with all its twisty, not-so-modern-German streets and its old timber houses. 

Sure, Goslar is a touristic draw. There's a Kaiserpfalz – an Imperial palace/castle from the medieval days – and old mills and German-style breweries. But the untouched old-timey centre is big enough to absorb them, so you get wonderfully quiet moments to yourself on these old, twisted cobblestone streets and alleys, hemmed in by ancient wood houses.

Having Goslar to yourself is a common feeling.

Down the rail line is Wernigerode, the starting point for tourists who take a crowded steam-powered train to Brocken, the Harz's highest peak, and back down again into town, where they crowd souvenir shops and Eis cafes. The buildings are also old, but the town is completely given over to tourist kitsch, which was disheartening and uninviting. We were ready to write off Wernigerode completely until we walked down a residential street, past a plague for Paul Renner, the typographer behind Futura. So not all bad, after all.

On our last night in Goslar, we we sat in our apartment deciding on our next destination as Empire Strikes Back dubbed in German played in the background. We had planned to go to Dessau to see the Bauhaus sights. But a Bauhaus Design and Architecture Museum was still a few years from completion and there were no architecture tours in English. It's astounding that Dessau hasn't embraced its Bauhaus heritage. We had to change trains in Berlin, so instead of changing trains, we stayed in Berlin.

One day in Berlin

What do you do when you have one night in Berlin? We had no time for anything, so we planned as much as possible for the rest of the afternoon. Kata suggested we visit the Boros Bunker to see some contemporary art. We got turned away because it's appointment-only. Berlin amateur move. Kata used to live in Neukoeln, so we went there for dinner, but choked and couldn't agree on a restaurant. We rushed hungrily into a joint that, to put it lightly, sucked. Another amateur Berlin move. We should have known better.

The next day, we walked along the Spree in the sun, had a cool drink by the river, and ate amazing burgers in the Mitte. We had no plans. We didn't make it to another museum and that didn't matter, strolling through the Tiergarten was enough. We threw away our plans and the expectations that come with them. And we were reminded that Berlin has nothing but rewards for the relaxed visitor.

Berlin views.

Baby Naming Struggles

When we started our baby name list we agreed to a Hungarian name, because he'd have an awesome Anglo last name. There was just one condition: I had to be able to pronounce his name in my maple syrup-y Canadian accented English. 

That eliminated Abel, because a Hungarian would pronounce it like A-Bell, while a Canadian would say it like Able. We decided this would confuse the poor kid.

Kata really wanted Samuel, because the cutesy pet name for it would be Samu, pronounced Shamu. I decided naming our kid after a famous whale wasn't a good idea. I vetoed it, but Kata never understood the North American reference.

Hungarians pronounce their S like Sh, so that pronunciation issue eliminated Simon (Shimon, phonetically). A Canadian Jacob, would sound like Yak-ub. Benjamin made its way onto a few government documents, like our daycare sign-up (yes, you have to sign up early for day-care here). But that J issue popped up again. Plus, it isn't a Hungarian name.

Kata had a girl name figured out, but thinking of a boy's name hadn't occurred to her and she didn't want her son's life to be like a JohnnyCash song. I approached it with my usual shrug and let's-not-think-too-hard-and-something-will-pop-into-our-head attitude. So, the process went on for a while. A Hungarian woman and a Canadian man living in Germany can have a tough time thinking of a name.

Armin was a favourite for a while, but then it wasn't. We both pronounced Felix the same way, but we didn't like it because it's far too common in Germany and it was not a Hungarian name. As an expat family, Felix was raus! as the Germans say.

For a while Kata was fiercely advocating for Csongor, pronounced Chong-Gore. I should have liked it, it's a great Hungarian name, but it always rubbed me the wrong way. Csongor. Chong-Gore. Little baby Chong-Gore. Nope.

Another great Hungarian name we both liked was Attila. Hungarians have been naming their boys Attila since the days of Attila the Hun, the great barbarian... pillager... plunderer... oh... right...

There was Áron, which was our choice for a week or so, but then I would write Aron all the time because my Canadian computer keyboard doesn't have an A with an accent on it, so that was out. Another name starting with an A was Antal, for Antal Szerb, my favourite Hungarian writer and one of Kata's favourites too. That was cut after a while. I can't remember why.

There was Gellért, for the hill in Budapest I wind-sprinted up a lot. Then Bence, the Hungarian version of Vincent. Both considered, liked for a day or two and cut. Imre? Out.

There was one name that kept popping onto the list and was never eliminated. We've been using it for the last few months now. "How is ____ doing?" or "Oh, ____ kicked!" And neither of us has vetoed it. The name has stuck. So, with six weeks remaining until his arrival date, we have a name for him.

Familiar Territory with Family

Discovery Walks in familiar places.

The only condition my brother-in-law had to drive his wife, a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, a four-year-old son, and a one-year-old toddler 1,185km from Budapest to Dusseldorf was to see the North Sea. That was it. His wife, also wanting to dip her toes into the sea, happily conceded.

The actual drive went alright, from what I was told. Two days of driving with a night's rest in Bavaria. No crappy weather. No drama on the autobahn. The kids went into their car seats without kicking, squirming, screaming, or any other drama – they're far more well behaved than I remember me and my brother being on the family road trips.

Although, there was little room for squirming or kicking because the car was rammed full with a playpen, a stroller with three different seat attachments, baby clothes in heavy vacuum-sealed bags for the expected arrival of our own little road-tripper.

They arrived on a Thursday night – Kata's birthday. I worked in Aachen all day Friday, arriving in the evening to a raucous apartment filled with three happy kids who spent the day at the Dusseldorf Aquarium, walking along the Rhine, and being young tourists in the Dorf. They were running from room to room, playing with their umbrellas, and rolling around atop their air mattress. Their long march across the Dorf hasn't seemed to tire them out.

We were back on the road on the weekend, heading to Ghent. The kids, all settled into their car seats had one tablet to share. The baby wasn't going to use it (she has little hands and fell asleep before we left the Dorf), so the other two had to share it. The older sister took it, telling her younger brother she was going to use this tablet, but she had an invisible tablet he can use. She handed him the invisible tablet, which he accepted. I don't now how long that move will last, but I hope she gets a lot of mileage out of it.

The details in Leuven's city hall.

The road were taking was one Kata and I took two years before. We were driving towards Ghent, with a stop in Leuven for a snack. Leuven is a fun place to stop. It's at a point on the highway through Belgium where you think it might be wise to stop before you hit Brussels ring road with its wild combination of reckless drivers, merging lanes, and diplomatic license plates. Leuven's city hall is the real treat. You don't see it until you turn a corner and then you walk right into a gothic building covered with gilded stone and statues.

And Ghent? 

Instagram-able Ghent!

Ghent is great. We had visited in the spring, so there weren't the August crowds in the streets of the old town like there was this time around. The canals, which were still when we visited, were choked with boats. The weather was far more warmer and sunnier. The Flemish summer can be amazing. And yet, the press of people and shoppers and cafe drinkers didn't push in on us. The town was beautiful when we visited in spring of 2016, but it felt livelier now and, in a way, better. I kind of envied the road warriors for seeing it the first time that way.

The umbrellas were the ultimate toy on this trip.

Each place they visited, the kids brought along their colourful kid umbrellas (I think Kata told dreary rainy horror stories to her family in fairer-weathered Hungary). When we arrived at our airbnb in a Belgian hamlet, they took their umbrellas onto the big deck in the back, swung them around and played with them until the sun set behind the neighbouring deer farm.

We awoke the next morning, packed up quickly and began the next leg of our super-quick road trip: Bruges.

Bruge-ing on a Bruges boat in Bruges.

Everything you heard about Bruges from that movie is true, but August is no time to visit. Unlike Ghent, where the streets accommodate the visiting hordes and is made more vibrant by them, Bruges felt like a stone and human vice. The streets were choked with tourists. You could stop and appreciate a medieval building or snap a photo of some pretty facade, but you'd risk being shoved by a ill-tempered tourist trying to eat his waffle and walk and take a selfie at the same time. Not a great place for several small child. But they have boats in Bruges! So everyone piled in and saw Bruges properly.

And what about the North Sea?

That was our first stop in the morning. It was wild and windy at Ostend, so you had to wear a windbreaker instead of a bikini, but we had the beach almost to ourselves. The tide was out too, so we walked a desert-length of beach to reach the sea. Shoes and socks were taken off and the adventurous travelers waded in as the tide rolled in.

Reaching the North Sea.

Of course, this whole odyssey was never just about the seeing the North Sea. It was also about family time. It was about the first of hopefully many family visits to Dusseldorf from the Hungarian side. It was about sharing the familiar and the new on the road together. And it was also about wiggling some toes in the Sea.