Returning from my business trip to Germany last week, it was so crazy to come home..to Dublin. While Dublin is now my home for now, Chicago will always be my "home home".
So Germany! I flew into Dusseldorf, but the conference I was attending called Gamescom was located in Cologne. I didn't have much time to explore the city since we were at the conference all day, every day for 3 days, then I flew home. But I did manage to take a photo from the cab on the way home from the show.
The cathedral you see there is said to be one of the only things that survived air strikes in WW2. Everything else, like the buildings you see below that were by my hotel, are post-war reconstruction.
Speaking of which, when I mentioned to my mom that I was in Cologne, Germany, it stuck a chord in her memory about my grandfather, Jack Keating's 35 missions in a B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber during WW2. She dug up his old war journal, and shared the Cologne entries with me, which I have shared with you below. It turns out that he was flying a mission in Cologne 67 years ago to the day that I was there on a business trip.
It was kind of like the Brad Paisley song, Welcome to the Future, when Brad talks about his grandfather at his base in the Philippines fighting the Japanese, but how he (Brad) was on a video chat this morning with a company in Toyko (and he is a SONY recording artist). Brad actually just played 3 concerts in Ireland, one being in Dublin on August 19th! I am devastated to have missed them, but I was still flying home from Germany from the one in Dublin, and the other 2 were in Mayo and Cork. Pad and I have no time for road-trips right now. It's the harvest after all- Peadar goes to work before I get up, and I'm asleep before he gets home! Good (hard-working) man!
But back to Germany. Grandpa K flew 4 missions to Cologne: #16, @24, #27, and his grand finale, #35. Our family is blessed he entered service towards the end of the war, when B-17's had fighter plane escorts. As they were carrying 6,000 pound bombs in them, if anything went wrong it usually did not end up good. And at the beginning of the war the chances of surviving your missions were catastrophically low. Still, 35 missions is a lot to have gone through, even after things got better.
It took 12 hours for my Grandfather to fly from his base in England to the targets over Germany and back- flying continuously over enemy territory for 10-12 hours. Planes were powered by propeller then, making them slow by today's standards, they didn't go nearly as high, and weren't pressurized, making it very cold! Now we fly at 36,000 feet with our feet up and a glass of wine not a bother in us!
See summaries of his entries here:
Mission #16 was August 15,1944, (67 years to the day from when I was in Cologne). The plane was "Chug-A-Lug"; target was the southeast city airfield.They had intense flak, but with good fighter escort. He flew squadron lead for the first time.
Mission #24 was on October 5, 1944, flying in "Wild Bill." Terrible weather...very hard to locate target which was the MPI Marshalling Yards. They flew at 29,700 feet, the highest he had ever flown! Another flyer's journal referred to the overcast as "Hitler's weather".
Mission #27 was on October 14, 1944 in "Wild Bill", targeting the marshalling yards. They had overcast weather; took a shot in the nose: a piece of flak flew over Carter's head and out the left side. From now on, he will have to lead; may not make X-mas dinner at home. (Carter was the navigator from Merced, California.)
Mission #35 on January 3, 1945. The weather was overcast; they had to divert to the secondary target (PFF Center City); they had 51's for escort. Jack said, "Nice one to finish on. Didn't sweat it out too much. That's all for this tour!"
*Jack noted in his journal on 11-6-44, "Chug-A-Lug went down today." Grandpa K flew nearly half of his missions in Chug-A-Lug in August and September,1944! However, on 11-6-44 he was flying in "Minnie the Mermaid" and he didn't fly on 11-6-44. The force was with him! By the grace of God, he made it through 35 missions and I am alive to tell about it!
All of this history got me thinking, and I was recommended the book In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. Some of you may recognize his name as the author of Devil in the White City (which I heard is being made into a movie with Leo D as creepy serial killer HH Holmes- cannot wait, that will be epic-ly amazing!!) which is about architecture and the Worlds Fair in 1893. But In the Garden of Beasts is about a University of Chicago history professor who against all odds was appointed Ambassador to Germany just as the Nazi party came to political power. His correspondence offers a non-bias look into how Germany transformed in the 1930's, and can help people of today better understand how the Nazi's managed to revolutionize Germany in such a short amount of time. I am only half way through as of now, but it is extremely good so far!
So you may be wondering what I was doing in Germany? We were attending a conference for Gaming companies, and we were pitching boxPAY to them as a mobile payment solution. All the big gaming companies were there:
World of Warcraft and the new 007 Goldeneye game.
In order to eat without getting poisoned, I had to figure out what Celiac was in German, and how to communicate that when I was ordering food. Apparently in German, I am Zoliakie! When I needed to tell them this I just held up my iPhone and had them read the screen on the right below, which basically says I can't have wheat :)
Oh yeah, there was also painted ladies (kind of like the playboy mansion) walking around as well, but dressed as video game characters. And no actual nudity, I think they had underwear on underneath.
But I am back in Dublin now and happy to be here. Last night we went out for a team dinner at the Schoolhouse Bar in Ballsbridge, and I STILL cannot get a dirty vodka martini anywhere. I think it's because they don't keep olives as a garnish at the bar, and if they do, they are sitting in oil, not brine, like the place last night. I ordered a seafood plate and was fully not prepared for what came out.....
Fully shelled crab, prawns (with claws and eyeballs and everything), oysters and these baby snails things. It was a serious effort to get about an ounce of food! But nonetheless delicious. Would you dare eat the plate above?
As a sign-off, I want to give a shout out to all the farmers out there harvesting 18 hours a day. If you live in Ireland and are driving around in the countryside this month, you might be especially slowed down by all of the tractors and International Harvesters. < Worth the click ;) Just be glad there isn't a traffic jam like the one below that you're stuck in!
Peace, Love & Tractors,
Amanda
