Germany District Convention

This blog is written by Mark Eisinger, the President of Civitan International for the year October, 2009 to September, 2010. I chronicle the times, travels, stories, ideas for service projects, fellowship and knowledge. Come back often and I will alert you to updates if you follow me via www.twitter.com/civimark and/or www.facebook.com/civimark. Previous Blogs are available, please see panel on the right. I encourage you to read "Cancun Rocks", a blog about Cassi and my preview visit to Cancun in preparation of the 2010 Civitan International Convention September 3-6, 2010. www.civitan.org More information for the Cancun Convention now available at http://www.civitan.com/template.php?t=sr&id=43.

Travel From Hungary to the Germany District Convention

The drive through pastures and hills reminded me of the Midwestern United States, there were many windmills, similar to the ones I saw in Indiana only weeks ago. It was very rainy, windy and cool. We drove through Budapest and John described that we were on the Buda side and we would cross the Danube River and be on the Pest side. We stopped high above the Danube so we would see the huge Parliament across the river. There was a beautiful cathedral, statues and square. We stopped in a couple of shops, but the rain pushed us back into the car to continue our journey.

We arrived in Gyor around 2:00pm. We checked in to our Hotel Kloister, a building built in the 1700’s that had been a church with a convent, a prison and a shelter for homeless, before becoming a quaint hotel in 1986. We wanted to get something light to eat. We explored the squares with many shops closed for Sunday. We had a light lunch at McDonalds (can you believe it?).

Then, the rain pushed us back to the hotel where we finally had some downtime to snooze or read a book. Later we went out into the heavy rain again and found a small restaurant nearby and had a wonderful dinner of breaded pork and roasted beef. I worked on a few things on my computer before going to bed. Cassi read and fell asleep early.

The next morning, we woke to still more rain and wind. We ate breakfast at the hotel and went out to explore the shops, only a few were open, we bought a few gifts in a glass shop. Then we began our Monday journey to Austria. We stopped in Batislava, Slovakia on the way and walked around the many squares and took photos of a clock tower and the castle. The rain and cold were too much, so we decided to continue driving.

On to Salzburg, Austria. Along the way we saw more windmills, the borders were near non-existent. There were border buildings/huts but no one stopped us. We drove around Vienna, but did not stop. The rain has finally stopped for now.

We stayed overnight in Salzburg, walked to old town and saw Mozart’s home, the castle on a tall hill, many old buildings including a cathedral. Some were built in the 1300’s. The alley ways were full of all kinds of shops, some for tourists, others for locals. We ate at a table with a couple from Slovakia, two women from Austria, and a mom and daughter from Japan. The daughter is studying violin in the city.

Tuesday, May 18^th, we went to Garmisch, a quaint town in Bavarian Germany, on the way to Weilheim. Garmisch had beautiful murals painted on the stores, homes and businesses. The half timber houses were beautiful. The rain would not go away. We left there and went to Weilheim.

Wednesday morning, awoke to a great breakfast at the hotel. We packed the car and headed toward Biberach, Germany, home of the Eisinger Bakery. We used the GPS and we were directed to the bakery/store/café. We went into the store and there was Hilde Eisinger behind the counter. One of the staff called Gustav Eisinger. While we waited, I took some pictures and looked at all of the Eisinger logos. Gustav arrived and we sat and sampled his famous pretzels, bread and cinnamon rolls, with coffee and cappuccino. Then Gustav began a tour of the bakery back room, where all the bread and pastries are made from scratch. After that we began a walking tour of Biberach, he said there were five Eisinger Bakery locations in Biberach and four in surrounding towns. Each location has a coffee service, pastries, sandwiches, pretzels and other things. It is similar to Starbucks with an emphasis on the pastries and bread rather than coffee. We had lunch in a private room of the Restaurant Ente with Gustav and Hilde. For the first time, I had fish, a local fish with fresh large asparagus.

We continued our walking tour as Hilde went to visit her friends. We went up many steps to the top of a hill, from there you could see the whole city. There was a large wall that went around the whole city at one time. In fact, a small portion of the wall is still in the bakery. Other portions are still surrounding the city. At the conclusion of our tour, Gustav mentioned that he is the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Biberach. We had a last coffee and gave Gustav Claxton Fruitcake. He gave us some Eisinger balloons, a mug, a cup and saucer and two plates, all with the Eisinger logo, which Gustav tells us has the pretzel in the logo. He gave us directions to Attenweiller, the small town where my great grandfather lived in the 1800’s. We drove to the mill pond, the mill and the area where great-grandfather lived. Although the mill is no longer working and the old homestead burnt years ago, it was calming to see the small stream created by the mill pond. This stream was described in a document written by my great-grandfather’s brother.

We continued our journey toward Rothenberg. This town was my mom and dad’s favorite when they toured this area. It is an ancient walled town that survived many battles and still remains a walled city today. The streets were cobblestone and the buildings were very old and architecturally beautiful. Although it was still rainy, we left the hotel to visit some stores. There were many shops with hand made items, souvenirs, beer steins, Black Forest wood coocoo clocks, and many others.

The next morning, Thursday May 20^th, was misty, but Cassi and I shopped for gifts for self and family. We bought a coocoo clock, and had it shipped to our home. We also bought a small suitcase to pack our many souvenirs and gifts from Hungarian and German Civitans. Around 11:00, we left for Heidelberg. This city was affected by war more than the previously encountered cities. Many old buildings were next to brand new glass buildings. Again beautiful architecture everywhere you looked. We saw a bombed out church that was left to remind the citizens of the tragedies. We also saw the old Heidelberg Bridge and drove to the U.S. military base, then to the castle.

The next day, we went to Hannover where this modern city still has some older buildings that are maintained. Our next stop was our final one, Sehnde, the site of the Germany District Meeting. We arrived at our hotel, dropped our bags in our room and met Hans Jurgen Grethe and his wife Renate and left to go to a local castle for dinner. We saw many windmills along the way. The castle was “only” 150 years old, they told us, a young castle compared to many others. We ate inside the castle walls, another authentic German meal with Governor Michael Koneke and Civitan members from the Sehnde Civitan Club.

The next morning, we met Hans Jurgen Grethe, Germany Governor Michael Koneke and the Sehnde Civitan Club President and many other Civitans in the meeting rooms at the hotel we stayed at. A representative from the Mayor’s office, Meike Vorholt, greeted us and made a speech in English. We found out later that she was a lawyer and had been a foreign exchange student in America when she was in High School. After a presentation of gifts, we all drove to Die Tafeln Sehnder Tafel, or food bank, a project of the Sehnde Civitan Club. We toured the facility and learned the history of this project. They serve many local hungry every week.

We went back to the hotel where the German District Meeting began, we gave gifts to each other. And Cassi and I tried to understand the many different discussions, some of the information was translated for us. We went to an Italian buffet dinner at Bei Baki for our final meal in Germany. Then back to the hotel room to pack our bags for the trip home.

It was hard to believe that our trip had come to the end. The time went very fast. We left for the airport in Hannover and the ANA flight headed toward Amsterdam, we had another very short layover, but made it to the plane for the Delta flight to Minneapolis. We were fortunate that the volcanic ash cloud had dissipated. A week earlier the Amsterdam airport had been closed. This plane had monitors in each seat. The monitor had a wide selection of free movies, television, games and many more time consumers. I watched Avatar while Cassi watched It’s Complicated. She also played some games as she likes computer games.

Fortunately, we had a long layover in Minneapolis, because when we gathered our suitcases to go through customs, only one of our two checked bags arrived. Our suit bag did not arrive. We were told to wait and it never arrived, so we finally went thru customs with only one bag and were told to report our other bag when we arrived in Las Vegas. After customs, we re-checked our one bag and then headed to the gate for our flight to Las Vegas.

Back on a regular domestic plane, we rested on our trip back to Vegas. We arrived in Vegas, still no suit bag. I reported it lost and the agent told me it never made it out of Amsterdam! It took two days for it to finally be delivered to our doorstep.

Cassi and I have many fond memories of this trip and thank the Civitans and the Civitan organization for allowing us the opportunity to represent them in Europe and throughout the world. It was truly a fantastic experience.