h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Kaiserslautern

Kaiser means Emperor - this town in the Northern end of the Pfalz is almost as regal as Speyer.

I don't know a lot about the place, but the following springs to mind:

They have a really impressive theatre with its own ensemble.
Football
Barbarossa
Pfaff sewing machines
A pretty good technical university which churns out engineers quite proliferously
The Americans (when they were here) used to call it K-Town
It's quite near to Ramstein - probably the biggest, certainly the most important, USAF air base outside the US.

To elaborate on a few of those points:

Barbarossa was one of the first Emperors of the Staufer dynasty. That is the one that followed hot on the feet of the Salier, (Salians), whose seat was in Speyer. The town's heyday was in the mid-1100's,

According to Wikipedia, Kaiserslautern today has more than 98000 inhabitants, and it is, in fact, the Kaiserslautern Military Community with 50000 US citizens, which is the largest base outside the US. So there are still plenty of Americans around to call it K-Town. In some parts near us we can get AFN on the radio. Back in the day (before the Berlin Wall fell), there were huge bases in Mannheim and Heidelberg and you could get AFN on practically all wavelengths.

The football stadium "Betzenberg" is one of the main attractions, and, although the team (who are known as the "Red Devils") are no longer the champions they used to be, they still have a large following - being the only team with much Top Division experience for quite a few kilometres. The games are reputed to be enjoyable and the fans peaceful and cheerful - typical Pfälzer!

Deb

[Amy P]

I used to regularly listen to the AFN broadcasts from Radio Downtown Kaiserrrrslauten.

I've heard of Barbarossa, but wasn't clear on who he was. His descendants have undoubtedly married into Queen Victoria's descendants' bloodlines, as so many other German princes' spawn have done.

Barbarossa and Charlemagne are bigwigs round here - there is nary a village, and certainly no town, in this area that doesn't have a street, square or building named after one or the other or both of them

Barbarossa's proper name was Friedrich I (sorry, should have mentioned that).