Ostfriesland and Central Illinois

[beige_alert]

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, went to high school in what was at the time the western edge of suburbia, with farms nearby, and went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the very flat middle part of the state. I spent lots of time cycling around in the corn fields, where the roads passing over the highways were the highest ground around, offering what passes in the region for great views.

Northwestern Germany is similarly flat, though also rather closer to sea level, not to mention rather closer to the sea. Still, I was very much struck by the visual similarity, at least in some respects.



It was actually the first thing I felt on the drive to Emden. Flat, green, cows, corn—just like my old home. Just like my old home except for the sturdy masonry buildings, the road signs in German, and the fact that we were going 170 km/hr, that is.

Giant wind turbines everywhere I looked was also a striking difference, but if you ignore those, this looks just like Champaign, Illinois:


This very narrow road looks a bit like something I might have ridden a bicycle down years ago:


It's true that central Illinois is very much lacking in these:

Standing up on the berm beside the water, though, felt like standing up atop the highway overpass, the only high ground around.

Greetsiel may be just painfully lovely in a very non-Illinois-like way, but you could practically convince yourself that you were on the way to Homer Illinois while driving along a road like this:

Comments

[dragonbane.livejournal.com]

Agreed. :) I could even see the windmills, though not in such quantities... but what's with the lighthouse thing?

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

It's cool looking (http://www.pilsumer-leuchtturm.de/), isn't it? But while Illinois obviously lacks that sort of thing aside from Lake Michigan up in the Chicago-corner of the state, standing up on that grassy mound looking over the flat fields (and wind turbines) really was oddly reminiscent of standing up on a road overpass looking at the flat fields in Illinois. Just ignore all the water behind you.

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

I'm missing the comparison to Illinois :-)

I get nostalgic. I was born up north and the flat land, the lighthouse, it's all like *home* to me *sighs*. Not the energy windmill, though. They didn't exist back then and they are fairly ugly.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

Well, it's flat and green, like Illinois. It's funny, I really did have a very strong feeling of "just like my old home, kinda." At least like it in some important way. I'll see if I can find any old Illinois photos to scan. But look at this from Wisconsin (http://www.flickr.com/photos/beigephotos/246056266/).

Wind turbines... Germany is famous for the super-insulated houses (we sometimes use the term Passivhaus in English) and the tiny Diesel cars (which you nonetheless drive really fast) and the wind turbines. I knew there were a lot of them, but, wow, there really are a lot of them. Much as I appreciate bucket wheel excavators at lignite mines (http://beige-alert.livejournal.com/165723.html), I think the wind turbines are a lot prettier than a strip mine.

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

It looks a bit like our northern flatlands. More like the lake area around Plön though. Very fertile, a lot of water.

Germany is the country of high oil prices. Since people used to heat houses with oil (our house still does) we have a history for insulation. We use around 3000 liters of oil per year for heating and hot water. I hate to burn all that CO2 and valuable raw material, but what can I do? I can't very well install a wind turbine in the back yard :-)

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

Re: the wind turbines. There are more and more of those, even in Illinois. There is a lovely wind farm near Paw Paw, Illinois.