(Day 7) There are a number of cities, towns, and villages that feature in my book. There’s even a little hamlet. Most are at least based on real places, but two of them are made up entirely out of whole cloth.
To my knowledge, there is no sinister Bavarian Alpine valley village named Waldheim, and if there is, I did not write about it. I wanted to get this out there, because there is a real place in Saxony named Waldheim, and from the look of it online, it appears to be a marvelous place: https://www.stadt-waldheim.de/waldheim/idx.asp
I’ve never been. But now I want to go…
Bremen is real, and the story of how my protagonist came to find herself from that fair city begins back in 2008 on my last trip to Europe and my last night in Germany. My wife and I had arrived on the train earlier that day and spent the afternoon tripping around town, polishing the bronze along the way. We’d already eaten dinner and my wife was tired. I was tired too but decided to hit the bar for a nightcap, and it was here that I met Stephan along with his friends. They were a card club—gamers just like me—on holiday—just like me—and probably within a year or two of my age. Stephan spoke English—just like me (haha)—and I spoke German (well, sort of)—just like him. It was a meet cute over my search for an exceedingly rare liqueur that resulted in a night time five star hosted tour of the city (again, only this time native style; it reminded me of my days back in the 80s).
Such hospitality was utterly extraordinary. And here’s the kicker: they were from Münster!
So I got a double tour of the town, and made some new friends. It really made an impact on me. Anyway, it doesn’t hurt that Werder Bremen shares its team colors with my Alma Mater.
And then there’s the mystery city…
There is a city that is never named in my book—understandable, given that it does not appear. However, it does play quite the role decorating the set: offering names, places, and things which I repurposed. Perhaps you’ve already guessed it from the little clues I’ve left here and there. Anyway, this city that I used to live in is the one that’s my favorite in all of Germany. I’ll leave its name unspoken, just in case they want to avoid claiming me, which would be perfectly understandable in light of the weird uncategorizable nature of my book, but I did send them a copy. I sent it right to the city library. It should arrive next week.