“The Best Cutlets Ever” - Lommerzheim

There it is - pork cutlets with onions and potato salad!

 

When you’ve been teaching for years, it can get pretty stale if you just take the textbook, teach the students the words in the book like “good, better, the best” and then have them go through the exercises at the end of the unit.  I was looking for a creative way to teach a lesson on comparisons to my students so I wouldn’t end up like a desperately bored zombie about to pull out my hair, just to find a little excitement.    I needed a context to put these words into, something fresh, or it would first get stale, and then really old and moldy, like a loaf of bread stuffed into the back of the breadbox and forgotten.   Bread when fresh, is delicious.  Teaching, when it’s fresh, is exciting.

While pondering this, I remembered a tool that helps me find the best restaurants in whatever city I’m currently in – the computer.  Even though I live in Cologne, I hadn’t used the computer much to search out good restaurants, instead relying on recommendations from friends or the same books all the German bookstores have.  It never occurred to me to treat Cologne as though I were a non-German speaking tourist.  This time I went to the web and hit pay dirt – I found a short, to-the-point article in English about the six best restaurants in Cologne.  Perfect.  I made photocopies and brought them to class. 

My students peered at the page and began talking about the restaurants listed even before anyone had started reading.  Number one on the list was a place called “Lommerzheim,” a name I didn’t recognize, but my students certainly did.   “This is a fantastic restaurant,” Günter enthused.  “You used to have to sit on telephone books on top of empty beer kegs if you wanted to sit down.”  He added, “Now you get to sit on chairs at the tables.”  He looked disappointed. 

Sylvia added, “And the walls are a graying yellow, with a one-centimeter coat of old tobacco smoke.”  Thank God restaurants in Germany are now smoke-free. 

Steffie piped in, “You can get the longest bratwurst in the world there - two-meters long.”

“Do you know the story about Bill Clinton?” asked Günter.  “When he was in Cologne a few years ago, he wanted to eat at a Cologne brewery.  His aide called the restaurant and said, ‘I’m calling for President Clinton, who is with me.’  ‘If that’s President Clinton, then I’m the Emperor of China,’ answered Lommi.” 

“Did the President get to eat there?” I asked.

“No, Lommi wouldn’t let him come.  If Clinton came, his normal clientele wouldn’t have been able to eat there.  He chose to be loyal to his customers, so Clinton had to eat at another brewery.”

“Do you know Herr Lommerzheim?” I asked.

“Not anymore.  He’s dead.  Since he’s gone, the restaurant just isn’t the same.  It’s gotten more gentrified.  Nowadays, there are chairs for the people to sit on.”  His nose curled in disapproval.

This didn’t sound bad to me.

“Is the food still good?”

“Ah, the food!”  Peter smiled, his eyes glinting as he looked toward the ceiling, his head shaking slowly as he labored to find adequate words in English to express his feelings for this restaurant.  “They have the thickest pork chops in the world - four-centimeters thick.”  That would be two inches.  Very thick.  “And the cheapest price anywhere – only a few euros.”  He was doing very well with his superlatives.

My son was leaving for Korea the following day to study business, for who knows how long.  Maybe a night out for dinner would be a good idea. 

“What about the beer?”

“They serve Päffgen.”

In Cologne, that statement needs no further comment.  Most Kölner consider Päffgen the best beer going.  It is also my son’s favorite brand of Kölsch.  Other brands of Kölsch are served all over the city in various restaurants, but not Päffgen.  You can only buy Päffgen in the brewery itself on the Ring in Cologne – and at Lommerzheim.

“Can I reserve a table?”

“Ah, that will be difficult.  I don’t think so.  People start lining up outside the restaurant at 4:30 pm, when they open for dinner, and within an hour all the tables are taken.”

I taught the same lesson to the next class.  After only one lesson, the topic was still fresh, and I was curious to see if these students felt the same about this restaurant.

“I go there once or twice a week in the summer,” said one of the students.  Then the students started debating whether “Lommi’s” or Früh, a famous brewery near the cathedral, was better.

“Lommi’s has a beer garden,” said Torsten.  “Früh doesn’t.”

“It does too,” protested Sebastian.  “You can sit outside.”

“Ah, but it’s not a beer garden.”

I was beginning to feel a conviction in my tummy that this might be a good place to spend our last evening before Jon’s departure – if we could get a table.

I went home and phoned the restaurant, but only got an answering machine, instructing me to leave my name and number, and someone would call me back.  I left my name and number, telling the machine that I wanted a table for three at 7:30 pm.  We waited for a call-back.  And waited.  By 7:00 there still was no returned call, so we decided to simply go there and try our luck.

“Hey – this restaurant is on our side of the Rhine!” I announced to Jon as I checked the address.  It is very difficult to find anything interesting on the right side, so we usually have to endure long tram rides onto the other side of the Rhine when we go out to eat.

 

Lommerzheim Brew Restauratn - with the tiniest sign in red, on the left

After a short tram ride, we got off near the Deutz train station and started walking, Jon using his cell phone as a navigation device.  Lommerzheim was on no main thoroughfare, but we eventually found it, in the middle of a short, narrow street.  It was about as old as Deutz itself and looked ready for demolition.  It was certainly hard to find.  You needed to know the house number to find it.  It didn’t even have a sign saying “Lommerzheim” anywhere on the outside.  There was a tiny little area to the side where a few intrepid diners (it was rainy and about 60° - typical June weather in Cologne) were eating.  Ah-ha.  The famous beer garden, tables now sodden after hours of constant rain.  I didn’t want a table that badly.  There was a crowd of people standing out in front, though.  This didn’t look good.  When we looked closer, though, we saw that they all had beer glasses in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  Ah, so this was where all the cigarette smoke was landing these days.  Maybe our chances weren’t so bad after all.

After one glance around the restaurant, we could see that all the tables were occupied, but we asked a waiter anyway.  “You can try your luck downstairs,” he said. 

Downstairs, it was cozy and even sort of attractive, with a stained glass piece lighted up from behind.  We found one sole empty table, and bolted for it.  A friendly Köbes, the word for waiter in a Cologne brewery, came and took our order.  I told him I had tried to reserve a table on the phone.  “What time did you call?” he asked.

“Around five.”

“Oh, that’s when we get really busy.  It was certainly too loud to hear any messages.”

I didn’t know how to order.  Could I eat a four-centimeter pork chop?  Some friendly-looking people at a table nearby were also eating pork chops.  “Can we split an order?” I asked them.

“Of course.  What do you think we did?  I could never eat one of these alone,” the woman answered.  “Is this your first time here?” she asked.

After my affirmative answer, she said, “You’re in for a treat.”

The beer was ice cold and delicious.  My students were right about the beer.  We could order the pork cutlets either “juicy” or “well done”.  We went for juicy chops with onions.  Two plates arrived for the three of us, thickly laden with onions that threatened to spill off the plates.  We bit into the most tender and flavorful pork chops we had ever eaten.  We couldn’t decide between French fries or potato salad, so we ordered both.  The French fries were crisp on the outside.  Inside, they were soft, like comfortable tiny pillows, except you could eat them, and they had that earthy potato flavor.  The potato salad was creamy, with a slight mustard tang, a perfect balance to the pork chops.  With that order, we had practically exhausted the menu.  There wasn’t much left to choose from, but it didn’t matter.  We couldn’t have ordered any better solace for the months of separation to come. 

It’s hard to imagine a restaurant that could be plainer, but also more comforting.  Perhaps that is the charm.  Perhaps what draws people to this restaurant is not only the food and beer, but its unpretentiousness.  My husband Peter shivers each time we pass a restaurant with cold halogen lighting, pale, bare wooden tables, chrome and mirrors.  In this frenetic, insecure age, more and more people seem to need warmth, comfort, and the solidity of honest age, devoid of facelifts.  We crave friendly waiters and fellow customers who aren’t too reserved or uppity to talk to us, just as much as we crave the security of comfort food.  

I asked the Köbes about Lommi.   “Did you know him?”

“Oh, yes.  I worked for years with him.”

“How did he manage to get permission to be the only restaurant outside of Päffgen itself to sell this beer?”

“He was a Köbes there for years, and he won the trust of the owners.” 

There it was.  Lommi was trustworthy, and he created a restaurant with the same honest, straightforward core from which he lived an entire life.  He built a legacy which lives on.  After his death, and after his widow retired from serving Kölsch to what must have been hundreds of thousands of visitors, she sold the restaurant to Päffgen, who promised to maintain the restaurant in the décor in which they received it.  The owners of Päffgen, also following in the tradition of their founder, also proved trustworthy.  The only thing that has changed is that Lommerzheim has been brought up to hygienic and construction standards.  For instance, the kitchen and restrooms are clean.

“This is one place I’m going to bring my Korean friends when they come to Cologne,” Jon said as we walked back to the tram.  “I can’t wait to tell my students about it,” I said.  I love it when my students teach me things.

Me eating there again - I forgot the onions!  They came later.

Lommerzheim

Siegesstrasse 18

Köln-Deutz (tram stop on 1, 3, 4, 7 and 9 - Bahnhof Deutz)

Telephone:  0221/ 81 43 92

Opening hours:  11-2:30 pm, 4:30 pm – 1 am; closed Tuesdays

Credit cards not accepted. 

A Taste of Turkey - Day Six

A rug weaver at a carpet manufacturer in Istanbul

Today we pay a visit to the beautiful showroom of the Nakkas carpet manufacturer and dealer.  We're greeted by a representative of the firm who speaks excellent German, and who shows us a woman weaving a silk carpet.  The threads are dyed with dye produced by Bayer, the company I get most of my English students from!  The dyes are weather and color-fast.  He tells us that these weavers have to be trained, but that any young woman who weaves carpets will have received training in her home.  The progress she makes is very slow – it would take a year and a half to weave a 1x1-1/2 meter carpet with ten knots per centimeter.  Carpets vary, we learn, by the knot technique and by the number of knots per centimeter.  The higher the number of knots, the finer the carpet.  Silk threads make a more lustrous carpet with more sheen, but wool can also make a beautiful carpet.  He shows us angora wool gathered in the warm months, when the sheep is outdoors and not lying in a muddy stall, dirtying his fleece.   He says that the term “angora” for the goat that provides this wool comes from “Ankara”, the origin of this goat. 

We learn about the different regions these rugs come from.  Armenia rugs are geometric, with stripes or angled patterns.  Hereke rugs have pictures, like the “tree of life”, which he shows us.  We meet the designer of one of these beautiful carpets – he has won an award for his design, which include a river and the tree, a typical Muslim theme which we’ve seen in paintings, wall hangings and in mosques.  Some of the rugs we see have been made with natural dyes such as saffron, indigo and pomegranate. 

The government of Turkey is actively promoting this handicraft.  It gives many women otherwise unemployed an occupation and it also helps an ancient craft to survive.  More and more carpets are being made industrially today, in Turkey too, and fewer and fewer handmade carpets are being made.  It would be a shame for this handicraft to die out.  But – the price of a nice rug is astronomical!  We see a beautiful silk rug only about 50x 80 cm in a beautiful pattern in turquoise and beige shades, more than twenty knots per centimeter, which would normally cost over €2000.  Two couples in our group buy carpets – one purchases this small rug for €2000 and another a rug about 1x1-1/2 meters, for over €3000.  The salesmen are aggressive in their tactics, but willing to go down if one is persistent.  One of them attacks me in the short period of time I'm separated from my husband to go to the toilet.  After Egypt, I'm much more on guard.  I use the broken record tactic - keep saying no, but tell him they’re really beautiful.  He finally asks me directly, “What is making you shy about buying a rug?”  

 “It’s the money,” I reply.  “I simply can’t afford one of these carpets.”  Which is the truth.   

I’m not sure all the carpets they sell have been made with double knots, but I learn that all Turkish rugs are made this way.  Double-knotted rugs last forever and don’t fray.  If I had loads of money, I would certainly buy a large double-knotted silk rug.

The Blue Mosque as seen from the roof of the Nakkas carpet manufacturer

After our salesman is satisfied that I don't intend to buy, he suggests that I go upstairs to the terrace, where I can enjoy a stunning view of Istanbul.  I follow his advice,and am overwhelmed to see the blue mosque so close-up.  “Don’t miss the basement,” says Harun as he sees me head upstairs.  “The building is built over a Byzantine cistern.”  So after gazing at the brilliant Bosphorus and admiring the best views yet of the monuments we have been admiring, I walk down to the basement, where there are the same Corinthian columns lined up in straight lines, exactly like what we saw before at the Basilica Cistern.  Here, you can smell the mold, though, and there is very little water in the cistern.  I read that this cistern stems from the sixth century A.D. 

Interior of the beautiful Rüstem Pasha mosque

A tile in the Rüstem Pasha mosque

We ride in the bus a short distance after our carpet exhibit to yet another, our final mosque of our sojourn in Istanbul, the Rüstem Pasha mosque.  This mosque was designed by Sinan, who built all of the other mosques we have seen except the Hagia Sophia, his model, which was originally a church.  This mosque is filled from top to bottom with gorgeous hand-made blue tiles.  This is much more of a blue mosque than the one named so.  Harun says that Rüstem had unbelievably good kismet – a word that seems synonymous with fate or karma.  Rüstem managed to live a happy, fulfilled life, not seeking to outdo his master, the sultan, but rising on his own to enormous wealth.  People tried to discredit him, but he always foiled them, rising above their tricks.  My guidebook describes him in less favorable terms.  It says that he and Roxelana, Süleyman’s wife, plotted to turn the sultan, Süleyman, against his favorite son, Mustafa.  The book says they succeeded in getting Süleyman to order Mustafa to be strangled. 

We walk to the edge of the new mosque and listen to the call for Friday prayers.  It is so beautiful, and the few moments of stillness, listening, bring me closer to God.  I stand there, eyes shut, smelling chestnuts roasting and coffee, feeling the hot sun.  I thank God for all of this, and bless the people in the group.  I love the way Harun talks about God and the beliefs of the Muslims.  Harun has said something not quite accurate about Christianity, however, and this bothers me.  He says that Christians and Jews don't believe in work as a means of glorifying God.  So, the first moment I get a chance, I show him 1 Corinthians 10: 31 – “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  I just happen to have an English translation of the Bible stored in my android phone.

Harun has told us not to be misled by the stylishly dressed, forward-thinking people of Istanbul.  He says, "Don't think these people are not devout Muslims, just because they don't necessarily have their heads covered, or you see their teenagers strolling down the Istiklal Cadessi hand in hand at night.  Just because you don't see them stopping everything to pray doesn't mean they don't pray.  When you see wine and raki here in all the restaurants, it doesn't mean the people drink alcohol every day.  These are people of deep faith and strict morals, who go to the mosque regularly."  He goes on to tell us that Istanbul, with its mushrooming population of poor Turkish people streaming in from the country to find work in Istanbul, faces many cultural clashes between the classical urban Istanbulians and the newcomers.  There are just as many problems trying to integrate these differing approaches to faith and life here in Istanbul as there are in Germany, which is also struggling to integrate Turkish and other immigrants into modern Germany.  

I take note of what Harun says, but I am not convinced.  I still think the people we've seen in Egypt appear more devout.  In Istanbul, we see many Turks drinking alcohol.  We hear western music as well as Turkish blasting from the discos.  Orhan Pamuk says in his book Istanbul that his family and many other wealthy people in Turkey were nonbelievers.  Atatürk, the man responsible for transforming this country in the early twentieth century into the modern, forward-looking nation it is, belonged to no religion at all.  He said, "I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men."  I have found this quote in the link above, and it can be found in Ataturk : The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango.  Atatürk created Turkey into a secular democracy devoid of sharia law, into a nation that has written the death penalty out of its constitution.  I believe that his spirit is still strong in Turkey, despite the increase of traditional Islam which you can see everywhere as well.  The young women are much more modestly clad than those in Germany, but they fit right into the rest of Europe and the Western world.  Young men are all wearing jeans.  Commerce and consumption appear to be very much a part of life here.

I don't know, of course, what is going on inside the hearts and minds of the millions of people inhabiting this city.  To me, living in a place that is not radical would feel a lot better than being around religious fanatics.  Harun tells us the crime rate is quite low in Istanbul.  It looks as though tolerance is quite high. 

I believe it is possible to be spiritual, to be connected to God from the core, through to every pore in one's body and mind.  In fact, I believe those most deeply connected with their Source are the ones who are so connected, they have learned to live in love and harmony with others.  I am not afraid of spiritual people who are tolerant.  I hope I am one of those.  I welcome others who live and think this way.  It the fanatics who want to impose their way upon others who cause me concern.

For lunch, Peter and I eat fish sandwiches near the New Mosque and the Egyptian Market - on the shores of the Golden Horn.  This is a charming location to eat lunch.  The customers are on solid, firm land, whereas the fish sellers fry the fish from boats, rocking along with the movement of the water.  

Later we shop in the Egyptian market, where we can buy all the wonderful spices we bought in Egypt earlier this year.  We're already running out!  The spices here smell great, but not as intensely as those in Aswan, the best market I have ever seen for spices.  We also buy some Turkish delight - lokum -  at the Haci Bekir, a shop near the New Mosque, to bring back to Germany.  Harun says this is the best shop in Istanbul for Turkish delight.  He has shared cinnamon and rosewater flavored lokum - both of them delicious, so we choose the same flavors, among the many on offer.

The Bosphorus Bridge, seen from our boat ride

For the remainder of the afternoon, we enjoy a peaceful, beautiful boat ride on the Bosphorus.  Harun has hired a boat just for us.  The warm sunlight comforts us as we think about returning to colder climes tomorrow.

And later, dinner in the “Fish Point” Restaurant on the Galata Bridge, looking out in the evening darkness at the Topkapi Palace lit up in the distance.  Most of us have sea bass – and a host of different meze.  We have been a rather quiet, introverted, yet harmonious group.  By now, we all enjoy each other and are sorry to part.  We are all a bit sad about going home, leaving this wonderful, vibrant, sunny city for cold, rainy, wet Germany.

I intend to come back – next time with our son and his girlfriend in tow.  They would love the Istiklal Cadessi, the pedestrian zone filled day and night with thousands of young people.  This must be the liveliest city I have ever seen, except possibly New York City.  It is a lively, peaceful, vibrant city.  We must come back.      

  

Paris with Sarah and the Phantom

Scene from "Phantom of the Opera"

If you are one of my readers who is trying to follow my life in any consecutive way, I just want you to know that you are about two months behind with my life.  I wanted to write to you about Paris, and this post is about Paris, but I will write about the trip I took last week and not the one I took there two months ago.  I had big plans to write about that trip.  I traveled to Paris in May with two dear friends of mine who didn't know each other before then, and we had a trip worthy of a novel, or a memoir.  Who knows - maybe that piece will appear one day, too.  So much of life seems to get expressed, and worked on, out of order.

And so here I am, two months later, another Paris trip behind me.  This time I went with my niece Sarah, who is visiting from America.  She's still here, and we're really busy a lot of the time, but I think I have time to capture my thoughts about her and her visit now and then.   

Sarah had never been outside of the United States until this point, and she was really excited to come.

One of the things I love about Sarah is her complete naturalness, openness and honesty.  She is as beautiful and fresh as a spring day, and she is in the spring of her life.  But she's also like a spring thunderstorm.

I went to a Rapha (see link) personal development workshop in England recently and learned that, at least from the perspective of the trainer, each generation has more personal baggage than the previous generation.  Our modern life is so difficult, so viciously competitve and merciless, and the values so blurred, each generation finds coping with life more difficult than the previous one, and has more to overcome.  Sarah would be the first to admit that she has a lot to overcome.  She sees her past as dark.   She is a lively person with a volatile personality.  She has already experienced trauma in her life.  She is drawn, I think, to dark things at least as much as to lightness.  But then, so was I when I was nineteen.  I remember that my favorite piece of literature was Notes from Underground, a dark piece about an outsider, written by Dostoyevsky.  After reading this, I made a conscious decision to be the outsider I already found myself to be.  Sarah's hero is Erik, the anti-hero in "Phantom of the Opera".  He is an outsider, choosing to live in the cavern underneath the Paris Opera.  Erik is in love with Christine, whom he has trained to be the beautiful singer she is.  He remains  invisible, and is thought to be the ghost who haunts the theater.  But he appears before Christine and is very much alive.  Sarah, I think, sees herself as a sort of Christine, drawn to the beauty of Erik's darkness and suffering.  Christine is also in love with Raoul, a wealthy, handsome, successful Viscount, a symbol of light and unpoiled innocence.  Who but an unspoiled, innocent person who had never seen the dark side of life would not be more attracted to the mysterious Erik?  It makes perfect sense.  And yet, my heart cringes at the thought of choosing life partners who would lead us down to live in the caverns of life.    

Part of the grand stairway

Grand Foyer of the Garnier Opera

Box five is second from the right.  The box on the right is the imperial box.

One of the first things we visited in Paris was the Garnier Opera House, the one where the phantom supposedly lived.  It is truly a spectacular place, full of more gold, glitter, marble and velvet than any other place I have ever been to.  We saw the imperial box, where Napoleon III watched performances with his wife and companions - and also box five, the box seat Erik sat in.  The main foyer, where the opera-goers drink champagne between acts is more sumptuous to me than the hall of mirrors at the Versailles Palace that Louis XIV had built.  The inside of the theater is unbelievably light, due to all the mirrors, gold-plated sculpture, and candleabras all over the place.  It evoked longings in both of us to be princesses for at least an evening, showing up for the ballet in a horse-drawn carriage, escorted into the ball by a handsome young man dressed in a long dress coat, while we wear beautiful gowns showing off our perfect bodies, glittering from diamond tiaras.  Actually, I think Sarah would rather be one of the singers in the operas that are also performed there.  The costumes are also pretty magnificent.  It's interesting to me that much of the story in this opera takes place, not in the spectacular theater, but in the dark, mysterious, murky underground cavern and lake underneath the opera house.  I learned that the lake really does exist.  It was the lake that inspired Gaston Leroux to write this piece that Andrew Lloyd Weber turned into a musical.  

Café de la Paix

After visiting the opera house, we went into Café de la Paix, which was designed by Charles Garnier, who also designed the opera house.  It is similarly grandiose.  I don't know why we weren't too intimidated to enter.  Possibly because we both know that we descend from King Edward III.  We let that sink into our psyches.  Anyway, neither of us had ever been in such an ornate, perfect café.  There was no table ready for us, so we had to sit at the bar for a while.  I was already in the reckless spirit Gil must feel in the Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris", when he finds himself transported into 1920s Paris, conversing with famous literary figures from the past.  We were there with the characters from the "Phantom".

Sarah drinking absinthe at the Café de la Paix

Sarah had already been asking about drinking an absinthe.  She is under age to drink in the United States, but it's perfectly legit here in Europe for a nineteen-year-old to be drinking absinthe.  The fascination was surely the supposedly addictive qualities and the fact that this drink was banned for so long.  When we started sipping our drinks, sitting in possibly the most high-class café in Paris, certainly one that served absinthe to people llike Christine in "Phantom", the thing we most noted was that it tasted quite normal, a lot like Pernod, and that we would be have to be lying or hallucinating to say that we had seen any green fairy.  But the café did not disappoint us.  Sarah liked her crème brulée so much, she ordered another one that same day in the evening.  Now she is known as the one in her family who ate two crème brulées on the same day.  One of them cost $15, but was the best I had ever tasted.  

That evening we watched "Phantom of the Opera" in our tiny but chic hotel room, on my laptop.  I downloaded it before we left for Paris.  It must have been at least the twentieth time Sarah had watched it, but only my second.

Since returning to Cologne, I've been helping Sarah with her music.  I've taught her to read music so that she can play the notes on the piano and sing them.  This should help her to sing the notes more accurately.  I've been helping her with breath support and projection.  I, who have sung solos only a few times in my life.  I, who also had the dream of being a musical performer.  I am, but only in a gospel choir.  I don't dream about singing solo anymore.  I am content to help Sarah achieve her dreams.  The music she is practicing so diligently is really complicated, with incredibly difficult intervals.  She brought the music with her - Christine's songs from "Phantom of the Opera".

My dream for Sarah - and still for myself - is that she - and I, who also am not finished with my life, can use the darkness in our souls to explore and understand the depths.  That is so that she and I can climb out ouf them.  I hope that she will continue to join forces with God, working with God's help, finding herself, as I do for myself, less an less a captive of the darkness.  I hope that she can accept the darkness when it comes, but that she will dwell in the light, one day helping others to find a way through their own darkness, as she lives in the light that's there for all of us.  I hope to see us both laughing, joyful because we are overcomers.

If You've Drunk from the Waters of the Nile...Day Ten

"Guten Morgen, Noura! Guten Morgen!" Mohammed joins us again for breakfast. I love Egyptian breakfasts. At our hotel you can OD on pastries, or you can have a very healthy meal. I have to take the healthy choice - doctor's orders, it's all for my sinuses. But this, by now, is also what I would choose. The foul (pronounced like "fool"), the fava bean dish, is marvelous, nice and mushy, with chopped tomatoes, onions, tahini and olive oil all mixed in. I probably shouldn't be eating the raw tomatoes with my stomach the way it is, but with Mr. Arabi's medicine, I'm doing OK.

I am no longer "Nanzi" for Mohammed. He has declared he prefers "Noura" because it means "light", and his daughter is named the same. Or simply "Noreen". He has no name for Peter, and I have none anymore for him. Speaking German, we are still officially on the formal basis, something that comforts Peter, but drives me crazy. And Mohammed too, I suspect. He bounces from "Sie" to "du" like a basketball.

Almost the first thing he asks is, "How was your evening with Jayson? What did you talk about?" My, these Egyptians are nosy! I tell him about the plan I heard about to partition Egypt, which I find absolutely shocking. "Jayson is right," Mohammed says. "Those maps were found. Not only that, but the Americans increased their budget to the NGOs for this year, way out of proportion. They are clearly intent on fomenting chaos."

This is how our morning goes. Intense discussion in the taxi on the way to El-Galmaliya, the part of Cairo he wants to show us today. He continues talking as we cross streets, his hand protectively around my shoulder as he leads us across the heavy traffic. "I have a story," he says. "I meet up every year or so with some of my school classmates. Guess who one of them got a job with several years ago - he's a geologist." Not a clue. "Haliburton! And so, just before the Iraq war began, we were talking about people demonstrating in America and hoping that they could influence Bush to stop the war. My friend laughed and said, 'You have no idea! There are no weapons of mass destruction, and this war is going to happen. The oil companies have already divied Iraq up among themselves. It's all planned.' I have no problem with Americans," Mohammed says, "but most Americans are certainly naive about politics." I hear more examples like this, which increase my confusion about my government. Peter's too, since four of the NGO people arrested are from the Adenauer Stiftung.

"I can't imagine the Adenauer Stiftung being part of a plot to create conflict among Egyptians," Peter says.

Bab Zuweila

"Germany has to do what the Americans want," replies Mohammed. "Believe me, I know. And I know that Obama has no power to change anything in America. Don't you see that nothing is any different?" Yes, I have noticed that. The prisoners are still in Guantanamo, and the Patriot Act is continuing under Obama. What can I do about being so ignorant? Blame myself for it? Try and become more informed? No, I'm not really that political a person. But I can be truthful myself. As for politics, yes, at this moment my head is spinning, and I feel almost sick, wondering what is true of what we hear in the news, wondering how on earth I can interpret what I hear.

Eventually we start talking about the things at hand - spices, oils, and shops with strange equipment for Egyptian-style restaurants. He leads us to a a beautifully ornate structure. "This is the Bab Zuweila", he says, "a city gate built in the middle ages. It was built by the Fatimids." The Fatimids were a Shi'ite group of Islams who came to Egypt from Tunisia and made Egypt their capital, building up Cairo in about 969. This seems to be the golden age of Islam - the Fatimids were tolerant towards Jews, other Muslims, and the Coptic Christians. During their reign, Saladin invaded, ending Fatimid rule. The gate is beautiful.

Caravanserai, also known as a wikala

quilts in the caravanserai

Mohammed leads us into what he calls a caravanserai, something that was once a roadside inn where travelers could rest. Now it's a quaint market, dominated by the tent-makers, which in reality seem to be quilters. During my first trip to Egypt, I saw quilts in the Khan El-Khalili bazaar and thought this was a technique they were copying from the American quilters. How wrong I was! Wikipedia tells me that the earliest known quilt was on an ivory carved figure of a Pharaoh dating from about 3400 B.C. We stop at one of the shops, and the owner invites us for a cup of tea. He expressly says he doesn't care whether we buy or not. Mohammed likes this attitude. We sit for a long while, admiring the quilts as we sip our tea, and eventually buy two quilted pillow cases.

On we go, now to a mosque. On the way to the mosque, though, Mohammed shows us a sabil, a fountain built by a wealthy patron in the middle ages for the village, so that the poor can have easy access to water. They were also fed by the patrons. We pass several on this day, and they are rich in ornate ironwork on the grids, as well as interesting stone work.

a door at the "red mosque"

We enter one of Cairo's oldest mosques, absolutely beautiful with inlaid woodwork, marble stonework, and beautiful alabaster lamps. It's called Al Muayyad, or the "red mosque". The story is, says Mohammed, that the man who was later to become the Sultan al-Mu'ayyad was imprisoned. He suffered so much in prison, also from flies and lice, that he made a vow to God that if he was released from prison, he would change this prison into a holy place of learning and worship, and that is what he did upon release. It was constructed between 1415-1422, and became a very important mosque and madrassa (Koran school). This mosque has many features similar to the Hanging Church - the same type of alabaster lamps, ornate metal work, the same inlaid ivory stars in woodwork. The sultan died a few years after his mosque was constructed, and had the reputation of being a humble man.

a bag of cotton

Women's gallabeyas

There is lots to do today. We saunter through a souk that Mohammed promises rarely sees tourists. For me, the most interesting thing is the enormous bags of raw cotton. It is used in stuffing mattresses and cushions, Mohammed says. Cotton grows only in the Nile delta. During the time of the Pharaohs, cotton was grown, then it disappeared until the time of Muhammed Ali in the nineteenth century. We also see shop after shop of cheap women's wear - gaudy red and pink negligées decorated with glass beads, (why aren't these forbidden in this sexually strict country?) and women's black form-fitting gallabeyas, also trimmed with rhinestones. I don't get it - I thought the gallabeyas were meant to discourage male attention. These do manage to cover the entire body, but the rhinestones only serve to draw attention. I smile - you can bring religion to the people, but you can't make them discard their natural human drives.

On to the Al-Azhar mosque, which tops Peter's list of places to visit. This is not only a mosque, it's also a university - in fact, the oldest university in the world, founded in 970 as a Koran school (madrassa). Mohammed tells us that he is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, but he went to a different campus. Before we enter the mosque, he explains the philosophy of the university to us. Al-Azhar is important in the entire Muslim world, and its decrees used to be defining, but are now declining in influence unfortunately, as the fundamentalists gain in popularity. Al-Azhar was always the university with the most liberal position. Students here are required to study all the religions in the original, encouraged to think for themselves. Mohammed thinks he has received an excellent education here. Every student is required to study Islamic studies, plus something else. He did German studies.

In the courtyard of Al-Azhar Mosque

Mohammed walks over to two young women bent over in a corner, fumbling in their pocketboks.  He starts an animated conversation with them.

"Look at that!"  Peter exclaims.  "He's flirting with them." 

Mohammed likes me partly because I am a woman, but he's not obsessed with me.  How nice!  Just as I thought - he simply likes women.  I'm not annoyed.  In fact, I don't feel anything at all except relief that Mohammed hasn't singled me out for attention.  This relationship isn't going to get complicated. I was only the one he chose to hang around with more on our last trip.  Now I am simply a speciman of something he finds appealing, and I find that appealing.  I'm learning late in life to enjoy the opposite sex without craving anything more.  Before I used to just shut out that part of life.  It's much nicer and more interesting this way.  Well, go ahead, Mohammed.  No harm done here at all.

He comes back to us, smiling.  "One of these girls comes from my home town," he says. "They're students, here on a day trip."

Al-Azhar is very large, graceful and beautiful.  We enter the mosque proper.  We see a group of women in a side room, sitting around on the floor, as a professor lectures to them. People are sitting around everywhere, bent over their Korans or other books, sometimes reading out loud, or talking to others. Some are even sprawled across the floor, asleep. We spot a corner with literature. "It's all free," Mohammed assures us. We take every piece of literature about Islam available. It's there in all the main European languages - a brochure about the role of women, another about Jesus, another about what Muslims really believe.

Over lunch we discuss Islam. I've been asking questions all morning. I ask Mohammed about something he said during our last trip, that Islam is a further development of Christianity and Judaism, a progression. I ask him how he sees it as something that takes us on.

"It gives us complete principles about how to live our daily lives," he says. Here it comes - sharia law. He says the Koran is very enlightened about how we should live, but that people go and interpret it in a very inhumane manner.

"But the Old Testament also has a complete set of rules for living," I say. "It's in the Torah."

"Ah, but the Koran is older than the Bible," he answers. Did I hear that right? I dare to contradict him. "No, it's not," I say. "The Torah is older. It was written about 3,000 years ago," I say, and then look to Peter for support. "Isn't that right, Peter?" Yes, approximately, he answers, the Torah was starting to be written about 1,000 BC. End of subject. But I'm not finished.

"What about this sharia?" I ask. "To me, it's much more humane to punish a thief in prison than to cut off his hand."

"That happens very rarely," Mohammed says. "Only after about six or seven times of getting caught. A thief would have to be very hardened to keep stealing then, and then he should lose his hand."

I'm not a bit convinced. Peter is quiet. I feel we've reached the end of any discussion about Islam, at least any critical discussion.

We talk about other things for a few minutes and then Peter and I leave to go look for a suitcase at the Khan Al-Kanili bazaar. We find one. We leave the suitcase at the restaurant and walk together through the bazaar and check out yet another mosque.  Mohammed helps me find a pair of silver earrings for a friend.

It's late afternoon - time to go back to the hotel. An ancient, run-down Chinese taxi that runs on a combination of natural gas and gasoline stops to pick us up. The driver's trunk is so full, and small, there's no room for the suitcase. But Egyptians are full of Egyptian solutions. He simply pulls a piece of rope lying next to a gasoline cannister in the trunk and ties the suitcase onto the roof. We're off.

There's one more thing Mohammed wants to discuss with us - Mormonism! I'm surprised by his subject. Neither of us is a Mormon. "But you should know something as an American, Noreen," he says to me, "and you, Herr Nanz, you're versed in theology. What do they believe?" He seems particularly interested in the history of polygamy in the Mormon church and fascinated to learn that there are offshoots of the official Mormon religion - groups called fundamentalist Mormons, who still practice it. When I tell him that I have heard of men marrying biological sisters, he is horrified. "Even Mohammed forbade this," he says. He also finds the idea of baptizing dead people distasteful, especially since the dead and their descendants aren't even aware of the baptism. I tell him how I discovered that all my ancestors on my mother's side were baptized after their death by Mormons. "Unbelievable," he says, shaking his head.

I wonder if we'll discuss religion anymore. I rather doubt it, at least as far as our respective beliefs are concerned. We've had it out with one another.  We've gone as far as we can go, at least for now.