One day and 750 km (~ 470 miles) after I left my home I returned and I had a great time. Here’s a list of all the places we went to. We had to cut three stations because of lack of time but we found one place that we didn’t plan on going to.

February 18th:
Diekirch, Luxembourg (National Military History Museum)
St. Vith, Belgium
Baugnez, Belgium (Baugnez 44 Museum)
Bastogne, Belgium (101 Airborne Museum)
Sedan, France
Reims, France

February 19th:
Reims, France (Cathedral, Museum of the Surrender)
Épernay, France
Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France (American Military Cemetery)
Vauquois, France
Brabant-sur-Meuse, France (German Military Cemetery)
Verdun, France (Fort Douaumont, Ossuary)
Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, Val du Scheid, Luxembourg

The first stop in Diekirch, Luxembourg, was the biggest surprise this trip. Got to Diekirch, saw the museum, which didn’t look very big from the outside and we were overwhelmed when we got in. The museum has so much to see and I will stop by there sooner or later again.

We skipped the beer museum in St. Vith because we were quite late and rushed to Baugnez, Belgium, close to Malmedy. During the Battle of the Bulge German SS-troops murdered 84 American POW’s and the museum told the story but also covered the whole Battle of the Bulge. Good museum, little bit pricey, but OK. The unusual thing about the museum was the souvenir shop where they have original items on sale. I’m a bad tourist, by the way, didn’t take many pictures so the only one I took in Baugnez was the proof that some German military gear didn’t change in almost 70 years.

The last big stop was Bastogne. There I wanted to see the 101st Airborne Museum which was interesting as it told the story of the Screaming Eagles’ role in the Battle of the Bulge. Wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside so here is the building!

The places I really wanted to see on day one were all done. After Belgian fries for dinner we had an easy ride to Sedan, the place where the Prussians took the French emperor as a POW in 1870. Didn’t plan anything for Sedan. Just wanted to be there and buy an iPhone charger for the car because I used the GPS on my phone and the battery was dying.

We arrived in Reims at about 8pm and checked-in at the hotel. The quality of the hotel was as good as 35€ for a night can offer. But I couldn’t care less. Went into town and had a couple beers. Beer in France is a bit more expensive as it is in Germany. Pint of Kilkenny at a pub was 5.80€, at a different pub 7.50€. The next morning we left quite early to inspect the cathedral. My friend attended mass and I took pictures.

Second stop in Reims was the Museum of Surrender. Former HQ of General Eisenhower. Now, except for the museum part, a school again. Highlight is the room where the German representatives surrendered. Hasn’t been changed and I thought it was something special to stand there.

Goodbye Reims! Finally! Now heading to Verdun with a quick stop at Romagne-sous-Montfacon, where the biggest WW1 US-cemetery is located. The remains of more than 14,000 soldiers rest here.

On the way to Romagne-sous-Montfacon we passed a German cemetery and we passed one after the we went to the US cemetery. The third one shouldn’t be forgotten. So we stopped somewhere close to Brabant-sur-Meuse. It took me a while to find this one online but I found it. More than 11,000 German soldiers are buried here. Take a special look at the crosses. The Versailles Treaty forced the Germans to use black crosses…

The highlight was planned for the end. Verdun. I doubt there is an other place in the history of WW1 that was as cruel as this one. 700,000 people died and even 96 years later I felt the death is still there. 96 years later, still thousands are MIA and probably buried under the earth. First picture is the Douaumont Ossuary. I didn’t take a picture of the bones you can see from the outside but feel free to google  an image.

After we walked though the Ossuary we moved on to Fort Douaumont. It’s a tragic place. For example, more than 600 Germans died because an ammunition cache exploded. They couldn’t take the bodies out because of the fighting, so they just walled them in. Before going there I advise to look at some pictures from the time before the Germans bombed hell out of it. Today it’s all ruins and the area around Douaumont is still dangerous.

As I said, it was a great trip. Saw a lot and it motivated me to go for a trip again. Planning will begin soon…

Europe, especially the BeNeLux countries, France and Germany, is heaven for military historians. Both world wars and many other wars happened here. There are also many places you can see, visit, explore and most of these places are accompanied by museums.

Earlier this week I decided to do this trip, no matter what happens. The previous week was kinda crappy and I needed a timeout. I asked one of my best friends, who is also interested in history, to join and he was in. I’m really looking forward to this trip.

Gonna charge the cameras, pack my stuff, do some research, find out the addresses for all the places and then tomorrow morning we’ll head out.

View Larger Map

The first destination will be Diekirch in Luxembourg, where we’ll check out the National Museum of Military History. On the way to Malmedy in Belgium, where we’ll walk through the Baugnez 44 Historical Center, we’ll have a stop at a beer museum in St. Vith, Belgium. Our last stop in Belgium will be Bastogne. It’s famous for the Battle of the Bulge and we’ll try to see as much as possible.

As a last sightseeing/exploring stop for the day we planned Sedan in France. There, in 1870, the French emperor Napoleon III surrendered to Moltke, Wilhelm I and Bismarck. It was an important point in the Prussian-Franco War. We might check out the Château de Sedan for a little bit and then continue to Reims for dinner, beer and rest.

The next day we’ll taste some champagne in Épernay, move on to Vauquois Hill and then explore the Forts at Verdun. I’ve been to Verdun once years ago. The Battle of Verdun was one of the most cruel battles in WW1. Almost 700,000 men died and the area is still scarred by this battle. Wikipedia has a quite good article about it: CLICK ME.

Then we’ll continue to Metz to rest a bit, otherwise we’ll go straight to Luxembourg to salute to Gen. Patton at the American military cemetery and also visit the German military cemetery just a few kilometers away.

Expect some photos and a report on Sunday or Monday!

Not even a day later there were dozens of posts on facebook where people degraded her career and compared her death to the ones of military service members. Right or wrong?

Although I never really liked that sort of music I think she was a great singer. And I prefer to remember her as the singer who sung classics like “I wanna dance with somebody”, “One moment in time”, “How will I know” and the all-time classic “… and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu”. These songs will remain excellent (no homo) and she shouldn’t be forgotten for that.

While I agree with most people that she fucked up and maybe shouldn’t get all that excessive sympathy as she is getting right now, she shouldn’t get rude comments from especially one group – military members.

Don’t get me wrong. I think servicemen deserve more credit than they get right now. Servicemen decided to sacrifice lots of their life and sometimes, unfortunately, they sacrifice their whole life. And they decided to do this for a really lousy paycheck, regarding the job, the working times and conditions.

But they decided to do this and accepted all the troubles and hard conditions with putting on the uniform. And one thing shouldn’t be priority for those who join the military and that’s fame. The top priority is and should be serving the country and comradeship. I’m sure Lt. Michael P Murphy isn’t forgotten. I read his story years ago and I haven’t forgotten his name.

Now back to Whitney Houston’s death. She had her flaws and died because of drugs but who didn’t? Google for drug-related deaths and Wikipedia gives you a good list. Let me tell you a few people of that list:

Marilyn Monroe, Layne Staley, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse…

This is just a small list. None of these people I just listed (except for Amy Winehouse) are getting bashed on for passing after taking drugs, alcohol or whatever. At least I can’t remember that it happened. I know that many military members like the work of these musicians and actors and so do I.

One more reason why the military should think about the Whitney-bashing again is Whitney Houston’s concert for the military servicemen and their families who came back from the Gulf War in 1991. You don’t see big musicians or bands doing this that often.

But the person I am, I make my jokes about all this, I admit…

Good night!

Barton Silverman/The New York Times

I watched the game and I was hoping for a revenge for 2008 when the New York Giants ruined a perfect season. Although I’m not a big follower of American football and the NFL, I still like to watch it. And that’s why I always watch the Superbowl. It’s also the only NFL game I can watch anywhere with a TV because it’s the only game on German Free-TV. Although this years’ broadcaster Sat.1 did a crappy job. There were a few occasions when they missed some moments of the game because of commercial breaks.

Since I’m somehow related to Boston and like the New England region it makes it even more interesting. But it’s not just the location, since 2009 the Patriots have a German player in their roster and apparently is doing great.

As I said, I’m not a big follower but I think it was easy to see New England had troubles with the Giants’ offense. And from what I’ve seen and heard about the Patriots’ defense it wasn’t very strong. But I’m not an expert.

After two quarters I fell asleep (the game started at 12:30am in Germany) and I woke up at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Why I fell asleep? I HATE THE HALFTIME SHOW! 30 minutes is so unnecessary. In association football, the real football btw, halftime shouldn’t be longer than 15 minutes. Even in baseball there’s no very long break but multiple short breaks and in the MLB extremely long at-bats.

Well, the last time New England had possession while leading they seemed to just try and waste too much time with running plays. Then Wes Welker didn’t make the catch and the Patriots had a problem. Would have made sense to try and score earlier and then try and defend really hard? Buuuuuuuuut I’m not Bill Belichick and not an expert.

Still, it’s sad to see that Vollmer missed the chance to become the third German champion in the States after Dennis Seidenberg winning the Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins and Dirk Nowitzki winning the NBA Finals with the Dallas Mavericks and becoming MVP. The World Series title will have to wait a while because the highest league a German plays in is AA I think.

Although the picture I posted isn’t a photo taken right after the game it could be. It shows the shock and the loss of hope in the bit of Brady’s face you can see through the cage. In that case Vollmer might have said: “Come on, there’s always next year!”

While I’m watching retarded shows on TV where people embarrass themselves in front of the whole nation for 1,500 € I thought I share the latest “Papp of the Week”. I’d like to thank my former USAFE co-worker Mr. C. Murphy for this wonderful discovery.

My friend posted the URL to this page on facebook and he has a great talent for finding such gems. He also has a very sarcastic sense of humor so I immediately clicked on it. I didn’t really expect such an impact on my evening. Because that show I was watching was quite funny actually.

Anyways, the page is made by George “Maddox” Ouzounian who also runs The Best Page In The Universe, a page I stumbled on a couple years ago. He rates kids’ arts, writings, etc. and it’s wonderful. Why is he doing that? From his “about”…

I was standing around in a co-worker’s cubicle at my old job one day, and noticed that she had poorly drawn pictures hanging in her cubicle. So I told her they sucked. She took offense and brought to my attention that it was drawn by her 4-year-old nephew. It changed nothing. In fact, it only strengthened my resolve to grade children’s artwork, because I don’t think kids should get a free pass for being kids. Coddling children ruins them. Mozart wasn’t coddled, and look at him: dead and famous. Most people will only ever accomplish being dead in life. Mozart accomplished two things.

Let me show you an example from Maddox’ page:

The “F” word bird…. yup. I hope my unborn kid won’t start producing such things otherwise I know what I’m gonna send him…

It started so good. Know the feeling when something hasn’t even begun and you know it will be great? I had that feeling. When I walked up the stands and heard the music (Bläck Fööss – Du bes die Stadt) they were playing I was getting really excited. Then the hymn of the club (Höhner – Mer Stonn zo dir) and if it didn’t happen already I get the creeps because it’s an amazing thing to hear 50,000 people chanting and waving their scarves during that song. And even after song when the game is on the fans continue and it’s even more amazing. I love it. I love to go that place. I have great memories of the RheinEnergie Stadion and I know I can’t stop returning and paying money (where I sit I usually pay 37€) for it.

The game begins and it took Cologne three minutes to score the first goal. They played excellent! At least for the first 20 minutes.

An ugly game. It’s the worst thing for a fan to see an ugly game. A 0-0 can be good, although a goal is always better but the way both teams played was an insult to football. Both teams made lots of mistakes, stupid mistakes that can easily be avoided by actually playing the game it is supposed to be. DO NOT pass the ball to the players of the other team or if there are some players waiting for you to pass the ball to them you SHOULD NOT pass the ball to the player who is covered by two defenders. Oh, and if there is a defender you SHOULD NOT try and run against him. In the first 20 minutes I thought that winning this game seems realistic, after the first half I thought that we can be happy with a tie and then when Schalke scored the equalizer I knew we will lose.

Schalke’s first goal came in the 60th minute. Cologne brought in a defender and a winger in the 69th minute but three minutes later Cologne was behind. The defender that just got on had to leave in the 78th minute because of a red card and that led to a penalty kick. 1-3. Oh, and there was another goal but many supporters didn’t see it because they left. 1-4 was the final result.

I wasn’t even sad when I left the stadium. I accepted the defeat. That’s the best thing you can do after such a day – sit down, have a beer (or two, or three…) and think of something else. But at home when I watched the sports show on TV my head’s analysis was working hard.

Where is the sense in bringing a defensive midfielder into the game when you’re behind 1-3?? Null points are null points. If you lose 1-3, 1-5 or 1-100. Doesn’t matter. Why don’t you take out a striker who touched the ball three (!) times during the game and was almost not existent? How come you have talented strikers and don’t use them? Uth, who played in the Cologne youth-teams, Ishak, 18-year old Swedish player or Roshi, another young and very talented kid? The news that totally ruined the weekend was the injury of Podolski, Cologne’s star player who scored 15 times this season (more than the half of Cologne’s goals this season). He will be out for a couple weeks. Guess who they signed today as a replacement? Chong Tese! Yea! Great player! North Korean who is playing second division and scored four times this season. In all his 39 matches for Bochum he scored 14 times. I’m so excited… I highly doubt (but hope) that this player is going to help us in the race for the points we need to stay in the division or even get a good place in the mid of the division.

See, that’s why I’m excited for baseball. The Red Sox can’t relegate!

If you clicked on the link at the top of my post you already visited one of my favorite blogs out there. It’s Grantland.com, a blog by ESPN and whose head editor is Bill Simmons. There are a few other writers for this page and it’s fun to read because a) you have many opinions thanks to the huge amount of writers and it covers everything, not only sports. It’s worth to stop by!

40 days

40 days until Spring Training begins. 73 days until the season opener against Detroit. 81 days until the home opener against Tampa.

That’s how long it will take until we see how the Red Sox do this season. Red Sox Nation will be excited to see how the team changed, how Ben Cherington and Bobby Valentine do, after Theo Epstein and Terry Francona left the club.

I dunno that much about Ben Cherington but the situation that will come up is comparable to the fate of Michael Rensing after succeeding Oliver Kahn as goalie for the FC Bayern Munich. Oliver Kahn was a goalie legend. People called him “Titan”. He played in 781 matches for Karlsruhe and Munich and played 86 games for Germany. He won the national championship eight times, the national cup six times, the UEFA Cup (Europa League) and the UEFA Champions League. He became the best goalkeeper of almost everything in his career. Then came Michael Rensing. Backup goalie, big prospect, had to wait forever until he moved up. In 2008/09 he became the #1. He played 37 games but at some point he got demoted to #2. In 2009/10 the new coach gave him a chance but he only made seven appearances.

Rensing was without a job for a half year, didn’t play for almost a year and then signed with Cologne where he became a great and #3 on the Goalie of the Year votings.

What I want to show is that it’s hard to fill successful people’s shoes. Rensing never was a bad goalie but couldn’t replace Kahn that suddenly. He got the chance in Cologne and is playing fabulous. Cherington has been with the Red Sox since 1999 and (I hope) had time to learn from Theo.

Bobby Valentine already has a good standing already but I bet once the Sox have a cold streak people will compare him to Tito. Or even now. I’ve heard friends mentioning that Valentine’s managing career hasn’t been that successful, not even close to Francona’s. Well, hold on. First of all it were the Rangers. From 1972 until 1985 they had five winning seasons. From 1986 until 1991 he had three winning seasons. Francona’s time in Philly didn’t include a winning season at all.

After a stop in Japan, where he did an excellent job, “Bobby V” joined the Mets and did good, even making it to the World Series against the Yankees in 2000.

Bobby Valentine and Ben Cherington deserve a chance.

Cherington worked on the roster trying to avoid the luxury tax and making room for a good rotation. Recently they traded SS Marco Scutaro to have some room for Roy Oswalt. I had to look him up as I’m not that much of a MLB expert and can’t keep track of all teams and players and what I saw wasn’t too bad. A career ERA of 3.21 and an average record of 16-10 looks good. His last season didn’t but maybe that was just an exception. He just needs to stay healthy. We also have other options regarding relievers and starters. Daniel Bard and Alfredo Aceves are still options for starters, although I think that Bard should stay as a reliever. Vincente Padilla might have a chance to get in the rotation. Andrew Bailey replaces Jonathan Papelbon and there are still a few more pitchers we can put in.

But who is gonna be on short? Scutaro’s backup, Jed Lowrie, got traded to the Houston Astros. That leaves us to Mike Aviles, Nick Punto and Julio Iglesias are options and should be given a chance.

Well, it’s still time until Spring Training begins… 40 days.

Flipboard it is! It’s a free app I found a couple weeks ago and it became one of my everyday tools. While I use it for news and sports updates only I read about people who use it as the primary facebook and twitter app.

The app is quite simple. Install, start, select a category and add the channels, feeds, boards or whatever you want to call it (I’ll call it channel for now). Flipboard offers channels that cover all publishers of a category or you just pick single publishers. If you don’t like the selection go and search for it! If you search for “mpitsch.com” you’ll see my inactive tumblr page, tweets mentioning the URL and RSS feeds. Just watch out when you selected a bunch of channels and want to add a few more. Don’t select channels you already have as duplicates could appear.

The design is great and whoever came up with it should get 100 years of free Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. It’s simple and it looks fun because all you have to do is to flip the pages. Just like a flipboard… Guess where the name comes from! Haha… Funny indeed. The first page shows a big box with an image for “Cover Stories” and it’s a mix of the latest updates. Two smaller boxes underneath the bigger one showing whatever you selected. You can sort the channels by dragging them in the “Your Flipboard” options. The pages are limited to four pages though so page 2 to 4 show up to six smaller boxes and if you have more than 20 channels you have to select “more” on the last page. Too bad. Once you selected a channel you can flip through the headlines. Select a headline and you get to the article where you can continue to flip through the content. I’m this app rocks on iPad…

flipboard.com

First of all: Air Canada is a good airline to fly with. I had a great flight! Had enough legroom in the plane and I didn’t need the extra legroom for $130. Not sure if it was that much more than the other airlines I traveled with before but I sat well. My plan to finish my book failed because I watched movies, read a little bit and slept for a little while. Surprisingly the food was excellent. Of course not as good as a restaurant but compared to other airlines this was superb! Not like Continental where I basically ate the desserts and the breakfast snack.

I landed a bit too late in Montreal and had to wait a few hours for the next flight but everything went well and in Boston my girlfriend and I had enough time to grab something to eat and take an express bus up north to spend Christmas with her parents.

2011 was the best Christmas I had in a while. While getting used to spend Christmas with your family at home and maybe forget the importance of being together with them I got reminded that it’s a very important season.

But I enjoyed the “post-Christmas” time as well. Boston is awesome and every time I come to Boston it amazes me. It’s beautiful and I almost feel more comfortable than in Cologne (which means a lot). Especially the historic buildings in the middle of the city, for example the Granary Burying Ground where famous people like Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and John Hancock are buried. Or, as shown below the Old South Meeting House.

Old South Meeting House

Just too bad I didn’t see any sports games this time. It’s Winter so I wasn’t able to see some baseball (last time in July I went to a game but against my expectations they started the game after the rain delay… and we were back in the apartment already…). The Boston Bruins just had an away game and the Celtics… I’m just not that much into basketball. But next trip is planned for July and I’m sure Fenway Park will have an excited visitor again. For some reason I’m really excited for the new season. Really excited to see how the Red Sox will do and I didn’t think I’m gonna be that excited in January already. For the past couple days I’ve been following ESPN and the Red Sox site. By accident I noticed that I finished 5th out of 20 in the past season’s fantasy baseball league that a former co-worker organized. Didn’t really follow it last year so I worked on my team every other week. Thinking about doing that again, especially after watching Season 3 of The League, hrhrhr!

On January 2nd it was time to say goodbye. It’s always sad to leave and it really stinks to know that you won’t see each other, except via Skype on the weekends, for four months. The longest time was when I was in Hamburg for a couple months. Didn’t see each other for almost five months and we didn’t even have Skype on most of the weekends. I’m really glad that both of us are patient people and willing to go through it.

It was quite a pain in the ass to get the ticket as I had to check with the company I do my intern at and couldn’t book before but it all went well. Then I did a mistake with the booking but everything is fine and Friday I’ll get on a Air Canada Airbus 330-300 to fly to Boston with a stop in Montreal, Canada. The flight from Montreal to Boston is with a Canadair Regional Jet 200 and I’m quite excited, to be honest.

The flight back to Germany will be with a Boeing 737-700 from Boston to Newark and to Frankfurt with a Boeing 757-200.  Both planes operated by Continental. I’m really excited as I used different airlines and airports every time since I visited the States from 2008 on.

1. US Airways: Frankfurt – Philadelphia – Boston – Philadelphia Frankfurt

2. Air Iberia: Frankfurt – Madrid – Boston – Madrid – Frankfurt

3. Iceland Air: Frankfurt - Reykjavík – Boston - Reykjavík – Frankfurt

4. British Airways/American Airlines: Luxembourg – London Heathrow – Boston – London Heathrow – Luxembourg

5. Air Canada/Continental: Frankfurt – Montreal – Boston – Newark – Frankfurt

By the way, this is just the chronological order of my flights from old to latest. Air Iberia was the worst regarding flying, London Heathrow was the worst airport and the best tour was with Iceland Air.

I love flying but when I wanted to reserve the seats I noticed that I need to pay $109-$129 for extra leg room. Now I’m about 6’2” tall and it sucks a little bit. In March, just a week before I left to the States again, a hip pointer incurred during PT made flying very painful and some extra leg room would have been so amazing…

And because I love flying, the amazing things like looking out of a window and see some cool stuff or the annoying things like little screaming children, my Papp of the Week will be TheOatmeal.com

It’s one of the funniest pages I’ve seen in the past couple years. Primarily I use this site for the comics because they are hilarious but the creator, Matthew Inman, does a fine job with quizzes and his blog as well. If you like one of the comics you can buy them as posters or, especially for Christmas, you can buy greeting cards from the shop as well.

Here are some examples, all with flying Just click on the image and get directed to the comic!

If I shouldn’t post again for this year I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate. Plus a Happy New Year! Stay safe and don’t kill yourself with fireworks! Fire and alcohol are dangerous together

]]> http://mpitsch.com/2011/12/22/this-time-its-canada/feed/ 0 TheOatmeal.com mpitsch Papp of the Week TheOatmeal.com TheOatmeal.com TheOatmeal.com