I went to a local cultural event today, at which Aachen celebrated its various city partnerships. All eight partner cities were represented by their own booths with lots of brochures, as well as local food and drink specialties. Several of the cities had also brought local singers and dancers to this event who performed in front of the appreciative audience. The first ones to perform were a group of English sword dancers from Halifax.

Sword dancers! How cool is that? Up until today I didn’t even know that England had sword dancers!

Many other groups performed, including some singers and guitar players from Toledo in Spain. Yes, that Toledo – the city that probably makes the best blades in Europe. They had a very impressive sword and a rapier at their booth. I didn’t touch them to see how sharp they were – I value my fingers and I’d like to keep all ten of them. Later I saw some square dances performed by a group from Arlington, USA.

But when they dragged in members of the audience to participate in the dance, I made a break for it...

Oxygen deprivation also had a part in that – the hall’s ventilation was not as good as it could have been, and I desperately needed some fresh air. But I did have a good look at Arlington’s booth before that – especially since I remembered the city’s name from somewhere.

Then it hit me – Arlington was the site of the US National Cemetery, where the Americans honor their war dead. It pops up in the news at regular occasions even here in Germany.

After talking to the booth staff, I learned that a bicycle club in Aachen apparently organizes vacations and bicycle tours in and around Arlington, and the next scheduled one is probably around Easter. I’ll try to save some money for this so that I can participate – I’ve always wanted to visit the USA, and I also like to bicycle a lot, so this would be a great way to combine the two. I hope I can pull this off.

And while I’m there, I’d also like to put down some flowers at the WWII Memorial there. I think it is important to show that, even in these troubled times where US-German relationships have deteriorated, Germans to appreciate and honor the sacrifices US soldiers made in WWII to free Europe – including Germany.