Reminising about Germany Part I

A number of weeks ago, after Rowan’s visit to California, I headed to Germany to spend a total of about 8 days with my good friends Amanda and Zeb. A lot of people thought that I had spent more time there, and I wish I had.

I had a direct flight from LAX to Frankfurt, on which there was an empty middle seat. For those of you that travel long distance you know how much of a God send that is! It was overall a good flight and I had slept for a lot of it. I was quite proud of myself. I was thankful for the sleep on the plane, because when I arrived I still had a train ride to the small village of Landstuhl, the closest train stop to where Zeb’s parents were living. Amanda, Zeb and I were pretty happy to have free accommodation. Thanks Zeb’s parents!! While we were there, we made a few day trips to surrounding areas.

Trier

Our first day trip included a trip to the quaint small town of Trier.

Upon arrival in Trier it was cold, rainy and windy, and we were ready for a nice hot soup. After spending some time wandering and trying to figure out where we wanted to eat we came upon a restaurant in old town. The food was BEAUTIFUL! It was nice to have a good onion soup and schnitzel. Amanda and Zeb seemed to think the beer was pretty good as well.

In Trier we visited the Trier Cathedral and another church that is said to be the old throne room for some Roman way back when. I was never good at remembering historical things that that. Needless to say the Trier Cathedral met all the expectations of an old Catholic church, dark, somewhat gloomy with beautiful and detailed architecture and art. The Christian church however was kind of a disappointment. It has a very interesting and detailed history posted on one of the walls, but after the war they reconstructed the building and left the walls blank in memorial. Structurally it was a building that looked like a huge tissue box made of bricks. It was not aesthetically pleasing in any way, shape, or form. I was actually a slight bit happy when we realized that we arrived only five minutes before closing … at 4pm. Germany has the most interesting closing times in the winter.

Our adventure wasn’t over after we braved the February rain and wind of Germany in Trier however. Whoever said that German trains are all ways on time was full of it! We happened to have some of the worst luck with trains while we were in Germany, and it started with this incident. As our return train headed towards Landstuhl we began to notice that the lights and heat in the train kept going on and off. It was very weird, until the train came to a complete stop all together. There was an announcement, but even the two German speakers of the group, Zeb and me, couldn’t understand at first what had happened. (Think of loud speaker announcements in English and then put them in a language that is sometimes difficult to understand when it’s spoken to you directly... and that’s what it was like.) It was entertaining at first and we took a few pictures of us sitting on a dark German train, but when Zeb and I finally realized that the train wasn’t able to restart and it looked like we weren’t going anywhere for a few hours the three of us started thinking alternatives… mainly Zeb’s parents. The conversation with Zeb’s parents proved fruitless… we were on our own to wait for the next train or figure out the bus system. We were only less than an hour by car away from our destination… but there seemed no way to get there and the conductor said he would let the train know as he had more information on alternative routes. It seemed like we were going to be on the train all night and we had already been on the train for over 45 minutes. To our surprise however it wasn’t half an hour after the last announcement that we were asked to switch platforms and catch the next train. I think it must have been an express train that had been asked to make a local stop. I have no idea though.

By the time we got back to the house we were starving. Luckily dinner was ready… and with full stomachs we decided that all together we had a pretty good day. :)

Day trip number two… the Rhine Valley… to be continued…

(Zeb and Amanda… you know how my memory is about details… so if I’ve completely messed up some details, please let me know! :)