In the first of my "I'll tell you more later" entries, here's the belated story of last weekend:
I celebrated my 29th birthday by sleeping in very late, doing some laundry, eating lunch, and then heading out to a Weinmesse (wine convention) that I'd seen advertised the day before. After the ad in the subway caught my eye, I'd visited their Web site, saw that this was going to be a pretty large affair, and decided that it might be a good introduction to this strange new world of German wine.
The Messe was huge -- about the size of the Santa Barbara County Vintners' Festival back home, spread out over four floors inside an exhibition building. The first couple of floors held winemakers from the various wine regions in Germany, along with a few local cheese and chocolate makers. The third floor was split between more Germans and winemakers from across Europe (France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Greece); the top floor was everyone else (mostly South Africans and Australians). Did I learn a lot? Not really. Did I drink a lot of interesting wine? Yes! (I found a German winemaker offering a Pinot Noir, and it was awful -- I think we'll definitely stick with France for red wine while we're here.)
Between the remaining language barrier and a lack of experience with white wine, it was hard being as enthusiastic as my German bretheren, who would discourse animatedly and at length with each winemaker and then go off into corners to scribble tasting notes into dog-eared notebooks. In contrast, I tended to make a note of something interesting-looking and then wait until that booth was mobbed to get a sample, so that I wouldn't be stuck alone with the winemaker. The few times that I did have to make small talk, I got a big response by explaining that I was from California, and while my in-laws were part owners of a winery, these German white wines were still a big mystery to me, but your wine -- your wine, ah! -- was excellent!
(Actually, through poor word choice, I think that I may have accidentally upgraded Gary to a winemaker, rather than just a part-owner, but the likelihood of a Horst or Gunther showing up on the doorstep of McKeon Phillips to talk to Gary-the-winemaker seems pretty slim, so I think we're safe.)
After leaving the Weinmesse, I headed off to Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, giant model railroad and tourist attraction. Even though I got there pretty late (6 PM) on a rainy day, it was packed full of people -- many families with kids, but also lots of couples and singles of all ages.
Miniatur Wunderland is an amazing spectacle -- almost 5,500 square feet of model railroad, with over four miles of track. The whole affair is broken up into different sections -- you've got Hamburg, with many well-known local attractions in miniature; there's an Alpine section featuring tall, snow-capped mountains, with ski slopes and chair lifts high above the tracks; another section is a mountain valley full of hikers and vacationers, with tracks running along the riverside through small towns; there's a more generic "city" -- and then there's "America", which is a strange almagam of the desert Southwest, the swamps of Florida, and Las Vegas. (Watch locomotives of the Milwaukee Road haul freight past Indian pueblos, or MBTA commuter trains from Boston stop at a station right next to the Space Shuttle!)
Their website says that they spent over 4 million Euro to build it, and it shows. Besides all of the trains, there are hundreds of automobiles travelling semi-autonomously through the city, sound effects, flashing lights, and animated items (that either move on their own, or move in reponse to visitors pressing buttons distributed along the railings of the layout). They've taken the model kits that most model railroaders only gape at in catalogs -- a Ferris wheel and roller coaster, or a giant construction crane -- and have bought, built, and customized multiple copies of each. Every 15 minutes the entire layout cycles from "day" to "night" -- and when it gets dark, a whole different scene comes into play -- houses light up, cars turn on their headlights, police cars and firetrucks with flashing blue lights chase around.
I'll definitely be going back for another visit -- one trip just isn't enough to take it all in. Pictures coming soon (honest!)
Posted by at February 13, 2004 11:31 AM