Saturday, January 27, 2007

Return

By Nyna Sykes

After first loading the bus with our luggage, at a very early hour, we picked up a very brief breakfast from our hotel. The morning was rainy and the temperature was just at freezing, making the departure icy/dicey. Without incident, we rolled into Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, checked in with United Airlines, and got off on time for an early arrival into Chicago O’Hare. Then, most waited a while for the connection to Grand Rapids, arriving late Saturday night to rest up fro classes on Monday.

All in all, we had an enjoyable and educational European experience.

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Friday, January 26, 2007

Groningen, Staphorst, Arnhem, Nunspeet

By Nyna Sykes

This morning’s trip took us back to the Netherlands. Although we encountered some snow flurries, our precipitation turned to a cold rain by late morning. We had lunch in Groningen, provincial capital of the Province of Groningen.

Our afternoon’s drive took us southward into the Province of Drenthe and on to the small village of Staphorst. In this village, which operates much like our Mennonite or Amish villages, we observed some of the community’s quaint living habits and some of the inhabitants wearing traditional costumes.

Finally, we visited the Airborne Museum in the Oosterbeek/Arnhem area. This museum had an excellent movie and coordinated graphic display of the “Operation Market Garden,” a fierce battle to liberate the Netherlands that failed; this story is told in the context of “A Bridge Too Far.”


In the early evening, we arrived in the small village of Nunspeet for our last night of the trip. For two that had birthdays during our trip we had sparklers on the desert and sang “Happy Birthday” to them. Ken provided music for our song and for our dinner pleasure. We closed with thanks to all and goodbyes as some would start to go their separate ways immediately after dinner.















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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Bremen

By Nyna Sykes

This morning, half of our group visited the Daimler-Chrysler Assembly Plant. The other half visited Air-Bus.

The Daimler-Chrysler facility is principally an assembly plant for the sporty SL Series Mercedes-Benz. Our entry point to this 400+ acre facility was the Customer Center, where many people pick up their vehicles just after its production. We were shown a 15 minute sales DVD, which gave a little history of Mercedes-Benz but primarily focused on the pleasure and self-identity aspects of owning a Mercedes-Benz automobile..

We then had two plant tours: the first was to a body assembly plant, which is heavily (90%) automated with robots from Taka, a Bavarian company. Thousands (5076, typically) of welds are made to assemble the body parts, which are stamped and formed elsewhere and delivered by a just-in-time management system. Weld positioning accuracy is less than 0.1 mm, or the thickness of a human’s hair.

Our second plant tour was to a final assembly facility, which was only 10% automated.  Here, the body—which had been painted [triple dipped and then powder top coat finished[—was partially fitted-out, then “married” to the chassis, and finally completely fitted, started up, tested, washed and sent for delivery or distribution.

Our tour was tightly managed by a well-trained energetic, tour guide. At the end of our tour, we visited the Customer Center, briefly [no free samples!], observed the test track and headed back into Bremen Center City. [Photos at Mercedes-Benz were Verboten! In the plants and frowned on around the facility.


The second group, visiting AirBus, saw the complexities of the construction of wing sections, including flaps and control systems for Airbus’s 300 Series aircraft. The tour was led by a retired Airbus employee who was quite knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Again, all pictures inside the facility were Verboten!!

The afternoon was at leisure for last-minute shopping and independent exploration.

Dinner was at the Ratskeller and followed by a visit to the Schnoor.


The cottages in this quarter, once the home of fisherfolk, are all that remain of Old Bremen. In styles ranging from the 15th to 19th century, they have all been restored and are now used as art galleries, antique shops, restaurants, and craft boutiques.

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Hannover

By Nyna Sykes

This morning we traveled to Hamburg, visiting this lovely northern Germany city with its many spires and canals. Here we had lunch-Hamburg is a great place for fish!

Later in the day, we headed into Bremen, Germany’s oldest maritime city. The town had market rights from 965. In 1358, it joined the Hanseatic League and in 1646 it was declared a Free Imperial City; Bremen began direct trading with America as early as 1783.

Upon arrival in Bremen, we proceeded directly to the Garden Hotel for room assignment and dinner. We had an evening group meeting.



After dinner, we took the trolley into Bremen for a brief walking tour of the center city—amid a light dusting of snow, our first in this trip, despite the fact that heavy snows had been falling just a day or so after we had departed several cities.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Berlin

By Nyna Sykes

We woke to a very cold morning. In the last four days our high temperature has dropped been 13, 8, 5 and, today, 2 degrees Celsius. Today’s wind lowered the wind chill to 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet, the sun shines.

We boarded our warm and sheltering bus this morning as Joop took us on a tour of Berlin. Routing around Berlin’s famous zoo, we then drove into the former East Berlin and stopped at the infamous Treptow Platz memorial, a massive garden like structure built by the Russians to commemorate their victories over the Germans, especially the Nazis. The garden walkway is lined with huge granite blocks with bas relief on each side depicting the Russians suffering and/or becoming victorious over the Germans. On one side of the garden, these blocks have quotes from Stalin in German; on the other side, the quotes are in Russian.



We next visited one part of the wall built by the Russians, mostly in 1961, to wall in (or wall out) Berliners from Berliners. Everywhere along the old wall, and the “no-man’s land” that paralleled it, construction of new or improved facilities is evident by cranes, power shovels, and demolition-and-construction materials.


We continued on to the Dom Cathedral.  This magnificent church was built in the late 1800’s and has been maintained and refurbished. The magnificent dome is boxed by four elevated alcoves with paintings of each of the Gospel authors. Pedestals between them hold statues of Luther, Melanchthlon, Calvin, Zwingli, Fredrick the Wise (Luther’s protector), and others. The altar is magnificent, balanced by a large organ on one side and a choir loft on the other. The front of the church is decorated with pair statues of each of the four Gospel authors who tower over bas relief murals of Luther with different groups of his followers. The lower level is a crypt for the Hohenzolerens family.

We next drove through Museum Island past the large collection of art galleries and museums that are nearby, including an outdoor archway relocated from Greece and the famous Pergamon Museum.

We had lunch in the area of Checkpoint Charlie, formerly the sole transit point for Americans in and out of East Berlin, and then toured the Checkpoint Charlie (Berlin Wall) Museum which collects the myriad of ways that East Germans sought to escape to the west.

Nearby was the Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände. From 1939 on, this was the Reich security and secret police center, grouping together the headquarters of the SS, the Gestapo, and the SD. In the 1980s, on what had been considered just a stretch of wasteland, the foundations of the center’s prison building were unearthed. They have been left exactly as they are, silent witness to a “topography of terror.”

Next, we passed the Jewish Memorial—a block of dark grey granite casket-like stones, covering an underground memorial museum. This memorial was opened in May 2005 amid much controversy about its appearance.

Finally, we revisited the Brandenburg Gate, parking this time, to take a break for a full view of the Reichstag—the seat of government of Germany.



The remainder of the afternoon and evening was at leisure.

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