A European Odyssey

With Becky recently gone for home from our European visit, I remain in the Wuppertal river valley of the German foothills above the city of Cologne. Our friends, Thorsten and Jovanka, with whom we have shared many experiences over the course of a decade, greeted us in Amsterdam and carried us back to their home in this story-book German setting. While Becky was still with us, we embarked on an essential European experience: visiting a late medieval castle in Schlossburg, marveling at the great gothic Cathedral in Cologne, and even witnessing a host of well-known female rockclimbers pit their strengths at a nearby competition (something innately European). I am already missing Becky, having just shared the experience of a lifetime in Kazakhstan, and look forward to the assembly of our new family to be united. For now, I will delve and ponder the ways and wonders of European life as I await my return to Almaty.
Germany is an exemplary example of European lifestyle and the rich world at large. People here take great care to ensure a high quality of life, and the examples range from the superb breads, meats and cheeses that arrive at our dinner table to the immaculate landscapes and details of their homes. Even the quality of the roads here is extraordinary, something especially noticeable when you are shotgunning a mid-range BMW down the Autobahn at 125mph. Nothing that Becky and I saw in Kazakhstan could compare to level of sophistication that this society employs. It is interesting to consider that during the thousand year interim between the shattering of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the Italian Renaissance - a period known as the Middle Ages - Germania, as it was then known, was among the more depressed regions of the civilized world. A bit of European history helps to lay the framework:
The Middle Ages was when modern Europe began to take shape. After the fall of Rome (for which the fatal blow was dealt by Germanic tribes), continental Europe, particularly north of the Alps, fragmented into thousands of independent feudal communities. Where Rome was a civilized society with literacy, art and architecture such that the world had never known, the Middle Ages regressed to a pre-civilized state of sustenance farming and superstitious preoccupation. As farm production gradually improved and figures such as King Charlemagne of the Franks began to set a new state building precedent, the wealth that had continued to float on the Mediterranean Sea, as drifting from the Silk Road and the Byzantine Empire, started to find its way back to Europe.
The Bubonic Plague, or Black Death as it is commonly called, arguably kicked off a new dawn for late medieval Europe. A deadly disease that found its way into the West after traveling along the Silk Road from China, the Black Death reduced the European population by nearly half. The severe reduction in size of the European labor class effectively overhauled the “social contract” as feudal farm tenants suddenly gained a greater value in society. Eventually, this bottom up restructuring gave rise to a bourgeoisie middle-class, an important development for the free-thinking minds that would later contribute to the Age of Enlightenment, a period of heightened philosophic and scientific inquiry.
The Age of Enlightenment is considered by many to be the turning point from which Western civilization pulled away from the rest of the world. No longer content with the Biblical explanations of the natural world, Enlightenment thinkers began to rally over many of the great unsolved problems, such as the role of the earth in the physical universe, and the evolution of man and biological species. As scientific understanding increased, manipulation over nature also increased. This movement is expressed in the burst of industrialized effort from this period. But this era of problem solving wouldn’t stay bound to the confines of Europe for long. New knowledge about maritime navigation and the spherical nature of the globe pushed European colonial efforts to ever expanding frontiers until the Western influence was felt the world over. Years later, a circumstantial power shift would give favor to one of these European colonies, and America would emerge to become the greatest globalizing power of all time. It will be interesting to see where this power lies in the future.
Germany is an interesting vantage point from which to cast this survey of historical perspective. Despite a couple of bad episodes that still reverberate through the modern day (read the World Wars), Germany is a country that holds deeply to its national heritage. The people here are still in the thrall of a way of living that must have held steady through their ancestral ages: the mandatory look in the eye upon mealtime “cheers”, the kiss on the cheek upon friendly greetings, and the tactful deliberations among casual friends (not to mention a love for sausages, a weariness of the “Franks” and “Hollandaise”, and a penchant for BMWs).
Near Jovanka’s flat in Wuppertal, there is a footpath that leads to a nearby forest. Every morning, I like to walk there, musing at the ornate and picturesque German houses along the way. From the far edge of the forest floor, I can see the rolling hills of the most beautifully manicured farmland I have ever seen. My imagination runs wild during this time, thinking through the ages of European development, about America’s rise to colonial and world domination, and about how places like Kazakhstan got left behind. Despite my being enamored with this place that is not my home, I consider myself immensely lucky to be American, and I hope that Andrei will grow to feel the same way.