Although it could be considered a suburb of Leipzig, Markranstadt is a town with its own long history. The town is about 800 years old, and therefore contains some substantial buildings, of various ages. Certainly, the town is easily old enough to llustrate the recent historical events of the war, the GDR, and the reunification. Most obvious are buildings that were neglected during the GDR and whose owners left for the west when possible, leaving them to decay for up to 70 years. Buildings are either restored, awaiting restoration, or too far gone and awaiting falling completely down. Building materials here are very permanent, though, so derelict buildings still just stand there.
We walked through the town and observed the various states of repair as shown above, but our true objective was the town's Greek restaurant. We have observed a lot of Greek restaurants all over Germany, but have no explanation for their exceptional popularity here. Here are some very miscellaneous impressions from this one:
Look Avi and Violet, you can get your ice cream in these containers.
The waiter made the mistake of letting me hold his $4000 order system tablet. I tried to order something for the next table, until Dodie took it away from me! The waiter said this innovation replaces two workers.
We went directly from the restaurant to Birgit's brother's place, where afternoon "tea" was planned, to be followed by an evening meal. What a change for the formerly hungry cyclists, the ones who would wrap a bun in a napkin, to help keep going for a few hours more later in the day.
The family had again gathered for this event, but really the term gathering does not much apply here. The reason is that in a way reminiscent of traditional societies, many are living clustered around Oma Kate - Birgit's mom. In fact, it's more than that. The family has occupied the same bit of land for a number of generations. Kate's father operated a bakery here, and lived next door. Now the original bakery is a workshop for Birgit's brother, Stephan, who lives with his wife Pia on the first floor of the house. Kate lives downstairs and their daughter Sandra plus husband Christian and 3 year old Lucas live upstairs. Then the son of Birgit's other (elder) brother's wife (Petra), Nico, and his wife (Jenny), live in an adjacent house that was derelict and that was just bought and renovated. I may have some of this wrong - not good on names and relations - the point is that Oma Kate has sons and daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren all clustered around. It's great for her, but also reflects the social structure here. We can also guess what a change it must have been to have Christian leave to visit far off Canada, and then come to be living at our place, 10,000 km away!
Though Stephan is an electrical engineer, he must retain some of his grandfather's baking inclinations because he is the
family baker. We were greeted with two Stephan creations, a layer cake with maple leaf decoration, and a pflammen kuchen.
Thinking about how Stephan had actually made the layer cake I speculated on whether and how the layers had been individually baked. In fact, they were from a single layer that had been sliced into three. For this, Stephan used his grandfather's long and broad knife. The same knife, then, achieved the even spreading of the icing layers.
The family gathering took place in the back garden, which is kind of a courtyard among the various family buildings. In all there is at least an acre of space, hidden from the street. Here the family can be together and enjoy the covered shelter, pond, pool, and gardens.
Skype from Canada with Christian and Melissa. Christian has moved far from the family home base, and his sister Anna too, though she remains in Germany. This is the first generation in a while to break away from home.
The restoration done by Nico and wife Jenny was very impressive and an example of what is happening in the area now. Building renovation is done with durable and good materials, too. One that I noticed is a kind of gas foamed, very light and insulative building block. You can cut and shape t with a saw, and build a sturdy durable wall quickly.
This costly BBQ sauce claims to be american flavor - but it's a cruel hoax from Kraft. The stuff no way tastes like BBQ sauce - it has been adjusted ramatically to fit German tastes.
So after many fond goodbyes, we managed to waddle the short distance back home.We need to rest up, so tomorrow we will go and check out Dresden. Birgit and I made a solemn resolution to (mostly) skip lunch there!
