Ancient History : The Mystery of Rome's X Tombs

Dr. Michael C. Scott

I finally managed to catch-up on my prescribed Ancient History viewing last week. The Mystery of Rome’s X Tombs, presented by my favourite Ancient Historian, Dr Michael Scott. youtube. In the programme the good Doctor examines the current research being untaken by an international team of specialists, on a large number of human remains found in the so-called X-Tombs in Roman. The tombs came to light when flooding caused a collapse in some Roman catacombs. The programme was directed by Dr Olding. He has posted lots of pictures from the production on his website.

Once again, thanks to the person who upload the programme to

I highly recommend the programme. In Scott's usual style he combines education with wit and of course bag loads of charm. At one point he refers to parts of the catacombs as “bunk beds for the dead”. He gives an understandable explanation of carbon dating [link] especially for the non-scientists. Other favourite bits include: his reference to the top of the Insulae [Ancient Roman Apartment Blocks]as the Penthouse, and not one you would want to live in; and his reference to all “the Poo”. Rome apparently produced about 

50 000 kg of human waste a day.

 At the end, Michael offers a hypothesis on about who these people might have been. So if you like a good detective story, try and watch the programme. Oh yes, you will also learn about DNA fishing.

Michael Scott has a new three part serious starting this week about Ancient Drama called The Greatest Show on Earth . Still need to catch up on Mary Beard’s documentary about the Roman Emperor Caligula.

Wine, Athletes and Hair Cuts

Wine in Wiesbaden

Church and Wine Festival Wiesbaden

Last weekend the 38^th Wiesbaden Wine Festival started. It is all ather civilised and offers the visitor the opportunity to sample local wines and sparkling wines from the region. Mostly white wines, so the red wine drinkers might feel left out. All at very reasonable prices too, between 2.50 to 3.50 € a glass. We went down on Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday we got speaking to this really interesting German couple. Perhaps, I found them interesting because they found me interesting. No, that cannot be the reason could it? They had both visited South Africa on a number of occasions, so we were able to exchange views and ideas. It was nice to actually talk to people for a change rather than be ignored or invisible, as I often feel I am. People say you need to talk to people in German to improve your language skills; but in order to do that you need to get the opportunity to talk to people; and not only the people pushing in at the check-out. [And they might not even be German these pusher-inners]. So it is possible to meet interesting people when you go out and I look forward to meeting more like the couple I met on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday also saw a Triathlon [swimming, cycling, and running] take place in Wiesbaden. When we walked down to the Wine Festival on Sunday we noticed that there was hardly anyone around, after it had been very well attended on Saturday. We were wondering where everyone was, thinking that perhaps they had tasted too many glasses of wine the previous night. There was some evidence to this effect on the pavements. We followed the signs of life and discovered where the rest of the town, and all those under the age of 60 were hiding. They were watching the final stages of the Ironman/woman competition. It is very motivating watching tri-athletes complete, although I often wonder if they are remotely human or perhaps some sort of alien breed of A-personality over-achievers.

Two observations: Firstly the Master of Ceremonies was an extremely irritating man. His accent soon revealed he was South African. Not only did he have a ghastly accent when he spoke German, but he went on about Cape Town being the most beautiful city in the world bla bla. Cape Town is nice enough, but it really is not the centre of the universe, contrary to what the people who live there think. In fact he never stopped talking the whole time, and made all sorts of comments about the competitors’ smiles and goodness knows what else. He kept addressing the competitors by their first name. Makes me wonder how the German competitors felt about this. The usually prefer to be addressed as Herr oder Frau, rather than Jurgen or Anna.

The other thing that made me smile was seeing an old lady chain smoking while all the hyper- fit, athletes ran past. Watching can be very exhausting and she had no doubt earned her cigarette.

After watching the running for a while we went back to the Wine Festival. I think the festival ends this coming weekend. I imagine I might find myself there at least once more at the weekend. Before then I need to have my haircut. This is always a bit of a challenge for me. So far I have been to two hairdressers in Wiesbaden and on both occasions I decided not to return. The last decent haircut I had was in England in April. London is a bit too far to go for a haircut. It seems to be very difficult to explain to the people here what I want. I even show them the photographs of my hairstyle from the UK, but they are still not able to manage it.

So I imagine I will be wondering around aimlessly over the next few days hoping to find someone that can do a decent job, at a decent price. I am all for the fact that hairdressers in Germany now earn a minimum wage, prior to this some people were paid 3.60 € an hour. A few years back I could and did get my hair cut in Berlin for 5.00 €. On the two most recent occasions here in Wiesbaden, I have paid multiples of 5.00 € for worse haircuts. Even the offer of a free 10^th haircut at either of these places; has not been sufficient reason to return! Wish me luck as I look for a hairdresser, here in Wiesbaden. If I am really lucky I might find one that I can go back to for a second visit in a few week's time, but I no longer believe in miracles and wonders.

Germany and the Art of Queuing

I have had two occasions in the last few days to consider the issue of Queuing in Germany. It is something that the locals really do not like doing. Be at the bus, the bakery or supermarket. They prefer to stand in a huddle and then to push their way forward. On Sunday I went to our local bakery to buy some bread rolls for breakfast. And instead of the good people standing one behind the other, they stood around in, you guessed it, a huddle, and the dominant individuals were service first. I am not a particularly pushy person, so I always tend to lose out in these competitions. I do not generally try to complete, as I consider this pushy behaviour very common, rude and beneath my dignity. I did start to get a tiny bit irritated when the fourth person who had arrived after me was about to get helped before me. The lady at the counter finally noticed me and I was actually serviced. You could say I need to be more assertive and pushy now that I live in Germany, but it is not my nature, so I will just quietly mumble to myself about it [or Blog].

Yesterday, I was at Lidl [not the most upmarket store around]. You could of course say that if you go to Lidl, you should know what to expect. Well Lidl, is usually okay, but this particular one is rather pokey and badly laid out. Between staff unpacking pallets and people with walkers and prams it is a bit challenging. After I had managed to negotiate my way past the above mentioned hazards, I was finally in the check-out queue. There were two lanes open, but the queue only split just in front of the checkout stations [you do not want to decide until you are right there]. The result was that there was a space in front of the one till/cash register/check- out because the person had not yet decided which queue was moving faster. No problem for a particular woman, she simply walked to the front of the queue, and said to the person behind her, “Well if you are not going to stand here, then I will”. To a general outcry the old lady in question found herself “shamed” into going to the back of the queue.

There is another rather strange custom here. If you are in the check-out queue and have a lot of items, there is an expectation that you will let people with a single item or fewer items than you ahead of you in the queue.  I do this occasionally, but people actually have the nerve to ask, if they can push ahead of you.

This is only one of the reasons, why I do so love shopping in Germany.

CSD Wiesbaden 2013

Last Saturday was the Christopher Street Day (CSD) - Gay Pride March in Wiesbaden. It was the second year that this had taken place in Wiesbaden. This year there was a march though the pedestrianised part of Wiesbaden. About 500 people toke part and although much smaller than in Cities like Frankfurt or Berlin, I feel that we got our message out. Saturday was extremely hot and we had expected rain showers, but they did not materialise. At the end of the March a cultural festival had been arranged at Schlachthof, a cultural venue close to the Wiesbaden train station. There was the usual panel political discussions that one has come to expect at these functions in Germany. I think that the representative of the Pirate party made the most sense, or at least he was the best speaker. It was also good to be greeted by the recently elected mayor of Wiesbaden, Sven Gerich.

After the political debate a number of artists performed. We left around 5 pm and returned later for the after party. I am pleased that I went, even if it was not the personal social success I had hoped for. I felt that I had performed my political duty on the day. To be seen to take part and to add to the numbers was vital when so many other were not bothered to show their support for CSD. Obviously too busy enjoying the freedom of expression that other had fought for on their behalf. The after party itself was very well attended.

InterNations and Blogging

Wiesbaden from Neroberg

When I realised that I would be moving back to Germany from the UK in February, I decided to do an internet search of what expat groups were available in the area. At the time I was not sure if we would end up in Maiz or Wiesbaden, the two cities on opposite sides of the Rhine River. In fact the two cities are both the capital cities of two different German provinces. Wiesbaden is the capital of Hessen while Mainz in the capital of Rheinland-Pfalz (unpronounceable in English as Rhineland-Palatinate). As it turned out we ended up in Wiesbaden.

I discovered Internations.org who hold meet up covering both cities. There is a free membership as well as a premium service which costs a few Euros a month. InterNations, apart from having regular meetings for members to get to know each other, has a premium service allowing you to access useful information about the country you are moving to. This is no doubt a very useful service, as they say forearmed is forewarned. You need to know things like were to register your car, how do you separate your recycling, what about liability insurance?

To be honest I have not made it to any of the meetings as yet. But I am well informed of when things are happening. It was a nice touch to receive a birthday email recently from InterNations. I know I said in a previous post it should be a real card, but not in this case. For those who would like to accuse me of inconsistencies in my story telling. When you move to a new country it is good to know that others have similar issues. Yes, yes I have lived in Germany before Wiesbaden so knew what to expect, but always life in hope of meeting some interesting people. Who knows it might still happen one day.

A number of InterNations members maintain blogs of their travels and experiences, which if not always directly relevant to me, makes interesting reading. Lets me see how they are developing there web presence. It is for this reason that I have decided to have my blog added to the list of InterNations Recommended Blogs, [I think this is a membership site]. Who knows maybe something I write may be helpful to someone moving to Wiesbaden or even Germany. At least they will get to read something from what I hope is a slightly different perspective - to the usual expats - and I will reach a wider audience.