Hermannsdenkmal

Tag der Arbeit, Labour Day, a public holiday to honors the labor movement. It is 1st May in Germany. Germany’s Labour Day is no different at all compared to Indonesia’s Labours Day, people rally on the street, voicing their demands. Everything went well, no violence, no riot, and no bloodshed. Well, that was in Bielefeld. I don’t know what happened in a more prominent city like Berlin.

That day we went to Detmold. Planned by Natasha and Clara, and then Mas Adit and Mas Bing joined in. Mas has literally translated as big bro. It is origin Javanese. But most Indonesian used it when addressing a male person in a polite way or someone who is older. At Detmold, we met Biga, a young Maestro who studied at Hochschule für Musik Detmold. He guided us and told about the town. Fun fact: Famous composer such as Wagner and Brams also domiciled here.

We continued our journey to Teutoburger Wald. Biga said that it is going to be a leisurely 5 km wander. In fact, it wasn’t 5 km, it was 1 km shorter, but it was extreme uphill because this trail is a cut corners. We lost the way while following people, but it was nothing. In no time, we reached our primary purpose: Hermannsdenkmal.

Since we were there, we collected information that we like. Here are some facts, please correct me if I’m wrong:

    That big statue at the top is Arminius, a character from old Greek. He is a symbol of victory and glory.
    He wears Roman-style clothing and stands like Roman. Left foot forth and have a little gap.
    He faces southwest, France, and Roman Empire, where the world power was there.
    Engraving on the sword:
    DEUTSCHE: EINIGKEIT: MEINE: STAERKE
    MEINE: STAERKE: DEUTSCHLANDS: MACHT

            (GERMAN: UNITY: MY: STRENGTH
             MY: STRENGTH: GERMANY: POWER)

    Engraving at the shield: TREUFEST (Dominik Besier, Ph.D. Student, presumes that the word comes from TREU (loyal) and FEST (fixed, tightly). So maybe TREUFEST is tightly loyal )
    Its ankle is about 80-90 cm. Perhaps half of our height.
    Designed by Ernst von Bandel
    End of erection 16th August 1875

Our next destination was Paderborn. At that time Bielefeld has no KFC. We went to KFC and visited Castle Neuhaus. This castle now functions as Realschule. As we arrived, the event just ended. There were some cool and classic cars, Italian Maserati and Chevy. We don’t understand about cars, so we decided to move, take some pictures with castle and tulips. While waiting for the bus, we found that morphine was discovered by Friedrich Sertürner here in Paderborn. Another fact revealed :D

It was 21.30, but before the sun set, we push our self to visit Signal Iduna Stadium, Dortmund. Rumor said that this stadium is the biggest in Germany. We ended our journey here visited Borussia Dortmund BVB. After that we just went back home, exhausted.