Lübeck and marzipan, let's blow this joint.

I went to Lübeck today, the old part of the town retains a quaint medieval appearance and is completely encircled by the Trave river. For several centuries it was the capital of the Hanseatic League, which was an alliance of trading guilds which maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic Sea and parts of the North Sea. However, today it plays second or perhaps third fiddle to Hamburg.

Five of the other exchange students came with me (Mike Levin, Subra, Meghna, Yihong, and Alex Watkins). First stop was the Holstentor Museum. The Holstentor being a large four story Brick Gothic city gate, completed in 1478, and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The most interesting thing inside the museum is a detailed carved wooden map of the old city, amazing created by school children towards the beginning of the 20th century. We also visited the Lübeck Museum of Theatre Puppets. Not bad, as far as museums of theatre puppets go. I think TV and Hollywood finished this profession off. The Dom church is apparently very famous, but there are several churches on the little old city island and the one we saw wasn't much to write home about. I also saw the Rathaus (pronounced Rat House), aka Town Hall. It is very telling that the place where the local politicians meet is the Rathaus.

Lübeck is famous for marzipan, and we visited the famous Niederegger Café. According to local legend marzipan was first made in Lübeck. The story, which is probably bogus, is that the town ran out of all foods except stored almonds and sugar, and used these to make loaves of marzipan bread.

Interestingly, we randomly discussed the origin and meaning of the word 'blow' in the sentence 'Let's blow this joint'. In this context 'to blow' means to leave the place immediately or in a hurry. Apparently, the word has had this meaning since the 18th century. But where did it come from? Our theory is that the phrase "let's blow this joint" appears to derive from the phrase "this place blows". "This place blows" derives from the phrase "this place sucks" (if you can't see this link it's probably not my place to explain it). "This place sucks" in turn appears to derive from "this place is for suckers". Suckers being people who are easily cheated or deceived.