Friday I took the train to Dortmund via Limburg and Koblenz. What beautiful scenery. It was a perfectly acceptable November day; grey, dreary, foggy, pouring rain for a good chunk of the day. It added charm to the season and the scenery. Actually the weather has generally been very grey and dreary. Graue Nebel wallen. The stretch from Idstein to Limburg was fairytale like. The architecture of the old buildings in the villages reminded me of old Romanian architecture. If Romania isn’t fairy tale land then this little section is. We followed the Lahn river a lot of the way. It’s too bad ugly 70s 80s block architecture has to speckle the architectural landscape too though. The trip from Koblenz then took us along the Rhein river through romantic towns with their castles and ruins perched on the hilltops. I think my favourite train station in Germany is that of Köln. It’s right beside the magnificent cathedral. It’s beautiful to see when coming in to the city even if you’re coming from this direction. When you come from the other direction, from the north, there is a whole time where the cathedral looms right in front of you, in fact it looks as if the train may go right through it and just in time the track turns and you glide right past it.
Luise met me at the train station and we took a taxi to her place. She is an amazing 92 year old. Her hospitality was endless and she even had an itinerary planned out that included not only lots of activity but also napping. On Friday evening we walked a good distance to go to a concert. She had seen it in the paper but we didn’t really know what to expect. It was very good. The choir sang music of Bertholdt Brecht poetry and his contemporary musicians. It was all music of the 20s, 30s, 40s. The lyrics were politically relevant to the time and oddly enough, or sadly enough, also to ours. The choir was dressed as characters, like a group of villagers singing out their voice. The singers portrayed their characters very well. It felt like we got to know them by the end of the concert. Some of the songs were accompanied by a little high school jazz quartet. Very impressive. Luise very much enjoyed it too. 
On Saturday we headed into town, stopping at the train station to organize further train trips for me, and then we walked through the market and the pedestrian zone of Dortmund, window shopping and bumping into some of her friends. After lunch we had our nap, of course, and then in the evening we headed back downtown to the Christmas market. It was the first day of it and we walked around the whole market past all the little booths. There were many people but we enjoyed the atmosphere. We stopped into the church to have a look at it and rest awhile. A choir was warming up for a concert of Buxtehude later in the evening. We sat in on that for a bit. We had Glühwein too. That is a must at a Christmas market. Warmed from the inside with the mulled wine, we carried on our way. 92 years old and we spent 3 hours walking around the crowded market. Hooking her arm in to mine gave her that extra power, but she sure has enough of it on her on.
Sunday morning we went to her church. It was Totensonntag, the Sunday they honour and remember their dead. They read the names of all the members of the congregation that had passed away in the past year and then lit a tealight candle for each one, placing it on the baptismal font. I found it a beautiful symbol especially too how the bronzen bowl picked up the flickering candlelight. And in between the choir sang a German version of “In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful”. It was a nice service. After Luise made me lunch she sent me off again on my way. This time to meet Sieglinde in Recklinghausan.
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