It was on Wednesday last that I embarked upon my first field trip since the eighth grade. We were traveling to Trier, “the Rome of the North” in the Holy Roman Empire days. Our tickets that were applicable to most of the public transportation systems in and around Mannheim didn’t have the range to get us there, so Professor Hasty had engaged a bus to take us there.
The dapper mustachioed driver stepped out of our vehicle, mopping his brow with properly moistened handkerchief. It was hot from the German perspective, about 68 degrees. Upon boarding, I immediately suspected that we had shanghaied the Mannheim football team’s bus. For one, the gaudily colored upholstery smelled faintly of sod and Gatorade, and all they had for the movie feature was soccer training footage. It also said “Mannheim Vfr” in large red letters on the exterior. But myself, being a rare gentleman of fortune, would take what comes.
Not so was the case later while I tried to finish reading the Nibelungenlied, a medieval epic tale of thousands of men being slaughtered over the blood feud of a widowed queen and her husband’s murderer, whilst some knave in for’ard decks blasted the auditory nerves to smithereens with the sweet strains of “Hips don’t lie.” Incidentally, as I plotted an evil revenge for them and their entire household, it occurred to me that the fierce bloodletting of the aforementioned poem might affect my habits in a negatory fashion. I had best guard myself against that likelihood.
The trip proceeded without incident as we left the Rhine river valley and headed north. North by northwest, that is, (Couldn’t resist. As shameless as that is) high up into the surrounding mountains, their visages crowned in clouds as we passed the countryside, our vehicle in the shadow of the giant windmill power plants that would’ve made even Quixote think twice. Edelweiss never had such strange companions.
After awhile we began our descent from this lofty cruising altitude, gliding gently down into the Mosel River Valley, driving over viaducts and bridges of such monumental scale so as to lay entire dales into the panorama. I recall it very vividly: it was green and fogged-in for the most part. I cursed myself silently for not bringing my rain slicker.
We disembarked and quickly debauched at a public toilet, where an old crone was collecting tolls. Our horde was soon joined by a similar German; only she held the distinction of wearing a toga and holding several pictures of things from Roman Antiquity. She was our guide, and proceeded to impart much wisdom and knowledge concerning Trier upon us.
The procession began with the Porta Nigra, which translates from some dead language as “the Black Gate.” Naturally I was fascinated by an object with such a formidable name, and made a special study of taking several photographs of it, and was joined in this communion by nearly everyone else in that square. The shutters sounded like the mechanical clicking of androids chattering in some unknown tongue.
We were lead down the main boulevard that in ancient times had lead to the Gate of Mars, which was comprised of many buildings and shops, one of which was the former house of Karl Marx himself (an imperative sight for all visitors from the People’s Republic of China). The Christians tore down the white gate, but left the Black to hold the distinction of being converted into a church. They have yet to do anything about Karl Marx.
The guide continued to stop us in the middle of the avenue to tell us many enlightening and important and thought-provoking things, while other tourists passed around us with envious looks at the turnout of our guide, and other Germans gawked merely out of habit.
Next our multitude converged upon The Basilica of Constantine the Great, which served as the Emperor’s throne room in days of ancient glory past. It was largely dissimilated from the grand structure that it had been so many years ago. The ceiling was completely reconstructed after the Second World War. Allied bombers had destroyed the cedar pressed wood construction, which was somehow built without the use of any nails whatsoever. Nowadays you often cannot count how many important relics of time have been shattered by wars innumerable in this country. Truly the have suffered much.
But they had started dismantling the Basilica almost the day after old Charlemagne moved out. It was as if somebody draped a huge banner over the wall that said in man-high letters “FREE LOOT.” They carried out the marble flooring, the marble walls, the marble fountains, the marble slipcovers (marble was popular in those days), and the other adornments, like the gold statues of the Imperial household.
After showing us where the Imperial Baths, the Imperial Cafeteria, and the Imperial Casino used to be, the professor set us loose while he sallied forth to go lose himself in a museum.
I gallivanted about Trier for quite some time, taking shelter from the weather in various sanctuaries, none of which, however, were, in actuality, a church. The weather in Trier was quite tempestuous, causing some of our company to question whether the humble burg had somehow managed to earn the wrath of the terrible weather gods back in the good old days when invoking evil spirits without a license was more commonplace.
However, I did buy the selected sketches of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in a rather small bookshop in the main square, which I used to plot my revenge on the unnamed villain during the return journey, who was now listening to some horrid mixture of the country and salsa genres. However, I couldn’t make up my mind whether to drop a 15-ton weight on them, send them to an argument clinic, or somehow contrive to have them shut up with a man who speaks in anagrams for the rest of their days. I suspect that either would be equally horrid, and made a note of it in the log.
Feeling the rays of the dying sun on me, I lifted my hat as we descended once more into the now-familiar Rhine river valley. I was eager to be home.
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