And Gutenberg Lived Here: John Adams, Abigail Adams, Gomez Addams

Saturday, after the usual twenty-seven crises

and forty-two errands,

we decided we had had enough.

And took the car,

drove through the city of Gutenberg

since the bridge across the river near us still isn’t functioning right,

resulting in three-hour traffic jams

(for a twelve-minute trip)

headed across the Roman-built Theodore Heuss bridge,

up the river,

and

voila

Rouletteburg.

The town described so brilliantly by Dostoyevsky

in The Gambler.

Not that we wanted to gamble.

Except on whether we would get a parking spot or not.

And actually, we did get a spot-

and ended up parked right in front of the White House-

a perfect copy of the US President’s Home,

built for a very homesick daughter of a Brewer from Milwaukee,

named Pabst,

who married a German Champagne maker-

named Söhnlein,

moved to Germany,

and then discovered she didn’t like Roulettenburg much.

So he built her a copy of the White House.

(White House Wiesbaden aka Villa Söhnlein)

Right at the Kurpark.

Now that takes guts.

So there we were, finally.

Saturday,

an afternoon off.

No errands.

Meaning we finally had time to take a long leisurely walk through the Kurpark,

which can easily take several hours, if you:

view the large formal gardens

with swan boats,

and a huge chinese pagoda

for the chinese ducks-

and, yes, much as I hate to say it,

Peking ducks-

but not cooked, thank heavens-

take in a concert in the park’s famous outside bandshell,

with a small refreshment garden,

and everything from jazz,

to swing,

to the kind of soppy romantic music

(check out Andre Rieu- an excellent musician, so why does he do this?- on YouTube)

that gives spa concerts their name.

And all of this beautifully kept up by the city,

in order to attract the gamblers,

and, of course,

since about the seventeen hundreds,

the spa guests,

who come to drink the waters-

steaming hot sulphur water

from a circa eighteenth century formal fountain,

with metal cups on chains hanging from the edges.

In our case, though, we wanted something more enervating

formal afternoon tea-

in my case, actually a fantastic salad-

I’ll have to try out some of the ingredients at home,

and formal Assam-Ceylon tea-

hi Pat, at Tea and Tales.

(Actually, my hubby made up for it with a four-layer chocolate-nougat-marzipan cake.

That’s how they do it over here.)

And then it was off to the Staatstheater-

the state of Hessia’s double A class house.

(A double A means they pay the highest civil servant wages to their musicians-

class A-

and then add a bit on top to get the best.

They can get by with it, since the House-

Large gold white and red velvet “Large House”

small neat and mostly beautiful wood “Small House”

and “studio”- underneath the others with only a few seats,

and often VERY modernistic and experimental-

(but well-done)

pieces

has lots of donors,

thank heavens,

and takes relatively high ticket-prices for the World Famous May Theatre Festival.

(As students, we had the unbelievable luck to see  the Bolshoi Opera company

sing Khovanshchina, (Moussorgsky)

and Furst Igor (Borodin)

(both at student standing seat prices,

since the front seats of a couple of hundred per

were a bit out of our price range),

And now, after waiting a half a year,

we had gathered those most priceless of the priceless tickets-

two seats for a Saturday night performance of

get ready for it-

the JUST (Young State Theatre troupe)

in

the musical

The Addams Family.

What can I say?

It was wonderful,

a real kick.

The “kids”  (teens and early twenties)

were very talented,

the choreography very good,

the live band terrific.

And all very well received.

(an over five-minute standing  ovation.)

Hit of the evening,

for me

were the two “oldies”-

seasoned troopers

as Fester and Alice Beinecke,

who hung from rising moons,

danced on tables,

and, in my opinion,

showed what the kids will be like in just a few years.

From John Adams

to Gomez Addams,

the Americans did pretty well for themselves

here in Rouletteburg Saturday.

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