Thursday, November 17, 2011

What the Sidewalk Says

Every morning I ride my bike through the schlossgarten (castle garden) on my way to work. It is the prettiest and also most direct way to work.  The schloss has an offical garden with a gate that closes at a night (more to come later on that). Outside the gate one finds playgrounds, bike/running trails, and more.  Once I exit the gate, I enter a long strech of sidewalk.  I have seen all kinds of things happening along this sidewalk, most memorable being half naked college students laying their clothes along the train track and drinking beer.  According to husband it is some sort of "welcome to the new school year" tradition. Interesting....


Oh the never ending amusment from working at a university.

Back to the point...today there was actually something written on the sidewalk.  It was the first time I had seen such a thing here.  My alma matta was notorious for having sidewalks COVERED in sidewalk chalk advertismentents. (Sidenote:  I looked for 10 minutes to find an example of the sidewalk ads at GT and had no luck.  For such a tech saavy university, there are suprisingly few photos availble :( )   It was such a simple reminder of home, but still a welcome sight on a dreary Thursday morning.

So what was it that was written on the sidewalk?
Picture courtesy of hubby's cell phone camera


Ewigkeit means eternity. I saw this written probalby 10 times between the gate and my office. It was also written all over campus.  While this is much simpler than what I was accustomed to seeing at GT, it still felt like a friendly reminder of home.

I was compelled to blog about this because I felt that I didn't walk away with a clear message.  I always assume that most messages here are political statements or people protesting the construction of something (such as Stuttgart 21), but this one did not strike me as such. It must mean something, but what.  I am stumped.  My other thought was that the message had some sort of religious meaning to it.  A reminder that short, but eternity is forever? Or am I just thinking that because of my personal beliefs?  I still have to wonder why someone would write something so many times.  It must serve some purpose, or not. 

Any ideas? Am I the only one that ponders these sorts of things?







1 comment:

  1. How cool. I like that a lot. Here's what I found:

    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/stace.htm

    Granted, this man wrote "Eternity" on the streets of Sydney. But perhaps the German chalker means to follow in his footsteps?

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