home game

I've just returned from Bochum, Germany, where I've stayed at a friend's for three days. The trip was unique. In contrast to earlier travels to Germany, I took the train this time. Flights were a bit too expensive, and the train connection I discovered suprised me with its simplicity and relative quickness. First, the TGV to Paris, there an anachronistic transfer from one station to another, then Thalys through Belgium to Köln, and from there to Bochum with the ICE. About ten hours door to door and the benefit of breathing Paris for an hour.

I can't help writing about the TGV, especially compared to the ICE. Whereas the German train floats silently, seemingly at rest, betraying not a hint of the mind-boggling speeds it's moving at, the French train brags with its strength, moving jerkily as if it were too powerful to just go straight. Comfort is secondary, nothing but speed matters. The train is second to none in this respect.

One could imagine an old but reliable truck that is suddenly connected to a nuclear power station with its unlimited energy. Protesting at first, then hopping a bit in its rails, the train slowly gains speed, gaining more and more of it, never stopping. Finally, it's whipping through the flat countryside with the brute force of a stray rocket. One can't even look out of the windows for fear of nausea. Cars rolling parallel to the tracks seem to be parked on the highway, and the black and white spots of cattle melt into a gray fog hardly visible against the blurry green of French pastures, meadows and hills. Paris is reached in no time.

A few hours later I was in Bochum. The first item on my visitor's program was Wuppertal, famous for its railway running suspended above the river for a good ten miles. It was built from steel and not much else a hundred years ago – when the area was famous for steel and not much else. This Sunday, it wasn't running, though, for no apparent reason. As a backup, we decided to visit Villa Hügel. With close to 270 rooms extending over 90,000 square feet, the dwelling, set in a lovely and expansive English garden, used to be the Krupp family resdience. The immensity alone stunned my senses.

The Villa would have been the pride of any nobleman. Its interior is entirely decorated in dark wood. The barrel-shaped roof high above the large ballroom admits plenty of natural light and recalls major train stations, those cathedrals of industrialization at the tail end of the 19th century. I read this as glorification of industry, but here as everywhere else, everything is in wood. The disconnect between the material and the appearance was striking. Herr Krupp must have been mighty sick of all the iron and steel his factories were pumping out and wanted nothing of that sort in his home.

Villa Hügel is definitely worth a visit, but no one would travel to Bochum for it. Neither did I. The event that had triggered my trip took place in the stadium, home to the local soccer team, one day later when the stadium was home to the local hero, singer Herbert Grönemeyer. After two major shows in Gelsenkirchen, only 15 minutes away, the previous two nights, Monday night was a more intimate concert in front of only 25000, apparently in the smallest venue of his current tour.

For me, it was by far the largest concert I've been to, and I enjoyed it a lot. We had a great spot about ten meters from the stage, protected by a fence from the rest of the crowd. The atmosphere was ecstatic, but no one pushed too hard, and the weather held. The rain clouds that had been sitting menacingly over the town earlier in the day disappeared when the opening act came on stage, and everyone starting singing, bopping and dancing with delight. In the end, however, people were a bit upset because Herbert played Bochum, his ode to the city, only once, despite untiring calls for more. The fireworks didn't make up for it, nor could the local radio station that played the song about five times in the two hours after the show.

Today I came back to Grenoble the same way I went. I had a bit more time in Paris and found a great bakery right outside the Gare du Nord. Go buy a bread at Moisan if you're around. Thirty minutes later I was at the Gare du Lyon wondering why in French stations the platforms are only announced ten minutes before departure of the train. It makes for great chaos in front of the screens. But that's just one little inconvenience was has to endure if one wants to travel at the speed of TGV.