Yeah…long weekends make me realize how much I like not having to move around constantly. I like seeing other cities, but I like being in places longer than one day. Here’s a rundown of how it went:
Thursday The whole group packed up early and drove an hour to Koblenz. We spent the morning at the brand spanking new university (they have these cool ‘smart TVs in the classrooms!) and tried to do this activity on these cute little laptops. That wasn’t very successful becuase too many people are dumb and were being asses on purpose. I seem to have figured out who I like and can handle and who I need to avoid. Hopefully. After free lunch in the cafeteria and chatting with a very tattoed student with awesome sunglasses we went into town. Dropped off at the Deutsches Eck (a very important and apparently controversial place in Germany) where the Rhein and Mosel meet and was instructed to be back at 4:30. Walked across the river to the fortress where the youth hostel is housed, it’s a long walk and I tooke the chair lift up. That was scary, ’cause I’ve never been on a chairlift before and I was having vivid daydreams about it coming loose and falling. Yay overactive imagination! Get my room, ride the chairlift back down, meet up with classmates and get my bag. I walk up the hill to the hostel this time, and decided that I wasn’t leaving again ’cause I didn’t want to walk up that hill again. There was a large, loud school group in the hostel which I wanted to kill. I hope my students are never like that. Chatted with a couple from Singapore and a man from Potsdam, got to work on my German conversational skills a bit.
Friday Got up early and walked down the big hill, which is worse than walking up it. Caught a boat to Bacharach at 9 am and spent the morning chatting with a nice Australian woman about everything under the sun, and managing to get a sunburn despite the sunscreen I put on. I managed to miss putting any on my chest or part, my scalp is very tender. The river is beautiful in a way that reall defies description, it’s something that needs to be seen. Hopefully my pictures will do it some justice. After five hours on the boat we arrive in Bacharach, and I make the hike up the hill to my hostel in the local castle. Holy crap, I thought I was going to die along the way it was so tiring. I talk with the surly girl behind the counter who, the minute she sees that I’m american on my paperwork ceases to speak German with me and uses only English, tells me that there’s a convention there this weekend and is annoyed that I didn’t have a reservation. It turns out that there’s a RPG convention there this weekend. Oh my! I see two pairs of leather pants, which are unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) not rockstar tight. There is, however, no shortage of tight black jeans. It was awesome. They were a really mixed group; some people looked like they were big into RPGs and some looked like the last people you’d expect to see there. I met a guy from Ann Arbor, talked with a Californian that’s lived in Berlin for the last 16 years (yes, that’s before the wall came down), chatted with a cute german guy and explained german drinking habits to the japanese woman who’s in my room (there are only 5 of us not there for the conference) while sipping a glass of wine from the region. Once I went back to the room I talked to a really amazing girl from South Africa who’s in my room for about an hour.
Saturday It turns out that I saw pretty much all of what there was to see in Bacharach on Friday, so I decide to go to St. Goar/St. Goarhausen for the day. Have breakfast with Celeste (the cool girl from Cape Town) and proceed to explore around town a bit more before I catch my train. We see some goats and take pictures. She is awesome, I wish we could have hung out all day. It only takes about 10 minutes to get to St. Goar (an hour by boat) and I hike up to the castle. I almost didn’t pay the €4 to get in, but I’m glad I did. It was really cool, though it would have been much better with a giuded tour. Went back into town, and took a ferry across the river to St. Goarhausen and proceeded to hike to Loreley. The path I took went behind Berg Katz and along the hilltops over to Loreley. All this climbing has left my legs feeling like jello. Europe is going to give me TBAE (the best ass ever)! Excellent. Eventually make my way back down, go back to St. Goar and buy a bottle of wine for Alice whom I’m seeing the weekend after next, and return to Bacharach. Get back to the hostel, the gamers are doing something really strange now. They’re all dressed in costumes and running around. This is so awesome. I meet the 5 other girls in my room, they’re really nice, and we share travel stories. I have a receommendation for a tour guide in Rome, must not forget to ask for Brandon. Chat with girls again over a glass of wine and crash.
Sunday Leave town early for Trier. Train arrives around noon and I go to my hostel and leave my stuff. Trier is ‘the oldest city in Germany’ and has lots of Roman ruins as it was once a capital-type city. I buy a day card, take two free guided tours in german (which I understand about half of) and head back to the hostel for a nap. It turns out there’s a jazz festival in town this weekend. It’s hilarious to hear a guy singing in German trying to do a Louis Armstrong impression. Meet the other person in my hostel room after the nap, a cute german guy about my age from Freiburg. I go out and take twilight pictures in the city, despite the light rain. Cities are the pretties at night, especially when they’re all lit up. I also found some cool underground graffiti, I’m not sure if it’s truly graffitti or if it was commissioned. Regardless, it’s cool and I took some photos. Come back to the hostel, chat with cute german boy whose name I never learned and hit the hay.
Monday Wake to the sound of neighboring room child crying. Perfect. Cute german boy has overslept and we walk to the train station together. After two trains I finally get back to Mayen. It turns out that my guest sisters had a party this weekend while their parents are in Stockholm. I’m not sure if their parents know about the party, I’m not going to mention it to them…but I’m also not quite sure what to do if they ask me. Ugh. It rained on me on my way into town, but has since cleared up. There seems to be some sort of large street-market going on. I think I may go explore this shortly.
Sorry this is so long. Alot happened. I even left out most of the details. Wow, so much to tell.
Bis später,
Vanessa