|
Dusty
|
| Tschüss Deutschland! | Fri, Sep 8th 2006 9:08am |
| 178 days, 25 weekends, 108 work days, 1 baseball season. That’s how long I have been living in Germany. When I arrived on March 19, the road to September 12 seemed endless. It was the feeling of the being yanked completely out of my comfort zone and thrown into a foreign (in the most literal sense of the word) environment that made the 6 month co-op assignment seem nearly impossible. But as time went on, I became acclimated to my surroundings and the differences became the norm.
The longer I stayed here, the more I became interested in the way the Germans ran their country. Just by traveling around, you can see a major difference between the former East cities and West cities. It’s really like two different countries. The biggest difference is going from Munich to Berlin. There’s so much history in both cities, but Munich (Bavaria in general) is still living their history. They seem to have forgotten to advance with the rest of the country. In fact, most of Germany resents the southern state of Bavaria. I’ve been told by more than one German that “Bavaria is like Texas; they think they’re better than everyone when they really have no clue”. (Please note I am not saying that, it was said to me.) Also, something I learned very quickly was the whole gig about German efficiency is a myth they pull off very well. It takes FOREVER to get something done here. If you thought the US was bad about having red tape, you haven’t seen anything. Forbes magazine ranked Germany as having the #1 most difficult tax system in the world. Another example: when any department at BOSCH wants to buy anything, such as a copier, no less than 7 other departments have to approve it first… and this is a minimum. I know this because I am the one who takes the approval form around. Every department signs the same form, so I drop it off and wait for it to be signed and I take it to another department. It takes 1 day minimum per person. Sometimes that person is on vacation, so it can be delayed up to 3 weeks… just for a copier! Lastly are the trains. You’re lucky if you arrive on time. Usually you’re only about 5 or 10 minutes late, but when you have a 4 minute window to catch your other train, you have to wait 1 or 2 hours for the next one. After visiting other countries… especially France… I think Germany is probably the most organized country in Europe, so everyone tags them as the best. I think some of the biggest perks have been that I got to live in a small town that has not been influenced at all by tourism. It gave me a chance to see the real Germany. Also, I have actually been living in a house, not in a college dorm, which gave me a chance to interact with a family. (Even though the kid would always kick a soccer ball against my wall when I was trying to sleep). Best of all, ice cream is on 60-70 cents a scoop. So it was hard to resist the urge. I’m going to miss going on awesome adventures every weekend and being able to say “hey, I live less than an hour from Switzerland, France, Austria, and Italy”. Walking out my door and looking at the foothills of the Alps is going to be a sight I’ll miss. And I’ll miss being able to make memories like my near death experience in the Alps, the hiking trip in the Black Forest, going to Paris, walking through an Ice Palace, having the most famous castle in the world to myself with my girlfriend, and a whole lot more. None of that compares however to everything that I miss in good ole Cincinnati. I can’t wait to see a Reds game, or take a late night trip to Skyline, or just turn on the TV and understand what’s going on. I can’t wait to go to a restaurant and have good service and be able to get water or pop and have free refills with both of them. (Water and pop cost more than beer here and there are no free refills). I definitely can’t wait to drive my car, roll down the windows, and crank my radio up. Riding on trains has been fun, but I always seem to pick the train cars with screaming kids in them. Most of all, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again. Having cookouts and watching movies and eating pop corn. Spending 30 minutes in Blockbuster with Veronica arguing over a chick flick or war movie. And yes, Sam Adams. (Let's face it, German beer is good, but it's no Sam Adams). All in all I think my time here has been enjoyable. There have been ups and downs, but you’ll have that anywhere. I have made a few really good friends here and I feel lucky having someone to visit in a couple different countries when I come back here. I got to know people from India, France, Iran, Malaysia, Albania, and China. Actually, 3 of my housemates were from China… that was interesting. (Doesn’t “3 Chinese and an American” sound like a cheesy sitcom?) Hopefully I’ll get around to seeing them all again. So this is it. It’s time for me to pack up my computer now and start moving out of my little town in the Alps. The past 6 months have been something that I’ll remember forever and will always be able to talk about. I learned a lot, about myself and about the world, that I never knew before. I think that alone was worth the trip. I thank you all for reading my blog and keeping in contact with me through the summer. I look forward to seeing you all again soon! Until then, take it easy… and take a vacation. Shoot, the Germans take one every other day. Goodbye Germany, thanks for the memories. I’m going home. -Dusty Israel |
| Comment! 1 person already has! |
| The Craziness of the German Economy | Tue, Sep 5th 2006 11:03am |
What is your idea of high unemployment? 5%, 8%? Where does 10% rank? Let’s go a bit higher to 20%. I think by this point there would be a revolution brewing; at the very least calls for numerous government officials to step down. Well, the mythical numbers I just gave you aren’t mythical at all if you live in Germany. Ever since reunification in 1990, Germany has been going through a dramatic identity crisis which has led to a lot of hasty decisions that has hurt the economy so bad, the effects are still being felt 16 years later. However, it’s not just that. There are a lot of labor laws and social policies which make no sense at all. Let’s start at the beginning, 16 years ago… Weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, the eastern government collapsed. It had no power, the people clearly were not listening to what they had to say, and western law and lifestyle was quickly taking over. As it was described to me, everything that was associated with the east was cancelled or closed with no consideration. It was assumed that everything happening in the east was bad. While this may have been the case for most things, there were apparently a few good things that were lost in quick downfall. One of the things I have heard mentioned many times was day-care. It turns out that there was a higher percentage of employed women in the east than there was in the west. One of the reasons the Germany believe this was so was because of day-care. It was free for families with children. During reunification, day-care was cancelled. It didn’t exist anywhere in Germany. This made it very hard, if not impossible, for both parents to work. In fact, day-care is JUST NOW starting to come around in Germany. As one of my co-workers said, “It’s just too expensive to have children in Germany”. This may be one of the reasons why Germany has a declining population as well as very few families where both parents work. Also, companies that were operating in the east were closed down. It didn’t matter whether they were profitable or productive, they were closed. Unemployment in East Germany sky rocketed after reunification because of this. There was an instant shortage all over Germany as the Easterners raced west to get a job. The thing was, the people from the east would work for far less than people from the west, so unemployment in the west skyrocket also. Today the whole country is still trying to recover from this. In the Western part of Germany, unemployment is hovering around 10% while in Eastern parts, it’s upwards of 20%. In fact, there are some Eastern cities that are kept alive only by tourism. But let’s move past the mistakes of the past. Hindsight is 20/20 and most Germans know that the handling of reunification was a mess but they are trying to move on. There are some current policies in place which absolutely blow my mind. I mean, I’m not economist, but some of these economic problems seem blatantly obvious. The biggest problem is the law on the book that forces almost all businesses to close by 8:00pm on weekdays, 6:00pm on Saturdays, and not even open on Sunday. I have no idea what the logic is behind this, but it’s quite possibly the most annoying law in the world. Stores are only open when everyone is at work!! How does Germany expect people to go to the mall ONLY from 8:00am-8:00pm on weekdays?? You should see some of the cities at night and on weekends. There are hundreds… thousands of people walking around with NOTHING to do! They window shop because that’s all they can do. The stores aren’t open. What kind of business would these companies do if they were open? In order for people to go shopping at a mall, they have to take time off work, which decreases the productivity of the company they work for. At the very least, this law takes over 52 business days a year away from companies. And for what?? Forced family time?? Give me a break. After living in a town full of teenagers, it doesn’t take long to see that the kids here act the same as they do in the US. Shoot, yesterday (September 4) I was walking home and passed a young guy shooting heroine in a tunnel I have to walk through. (Today when Emily and I walked through the same tunnel, the syringe container and some bloody bandages were all over the ground.) The second problem: free education. Now, before all of my liberal friends welcome me home with a Lord of the Flies scene featuring my head on a stick, I’m not saying I’ve switched my position and am against education assistance. (In fact, I think the way Republicans are butchering education funding is borderline criminal.) But here, education is free for EVERYONE. There are even two other UC students in the co-op program here that are taking college level classes at the universities in their towns just for the heck of it. They don’t count for UC credit, the classes aren’t going toward their majors, but it’s FREE, so why not? Just last year student had to start paying 300-500 Euro a year for college and there week long protests. You would be surprised at how many people just stay in school upwards of 10 years, just because they can. This decreases the amount of people in the work force while at the same times takes a massive amount of money away from other programs. Lastly, the customer service. I can promise you the worst customer service you have experienced in the US is still better than the best customer service here in Germany. It’s ridiculous. (It’s even worse in France. In face, I think everything is worse in France. But I won’t get started in that rant.) For example, when you go to the grocery, there is no smiling cashier, no helpful baggers. It’s literally a race to bag your own stuff before the cashier starts piling the groceries of the person behind in on your stuff until everything falls on the floor. They don’t even slow up for the elderly. It’s insane. Other examples which almost every German will complain about is the telecom companies. Mostly T-PUNKT (known as T-Mobile in the states. It’s a German company, not an American one.) When you order the internet from them, or any other provider for that matter, it can take weeks before you’re online, and that’s assuming you don’t have a problem during hook-up, which is almost a promise. Then, when you get your bill, there are random charges and you can’t dispute them. And, speaking from experience, the internet service ALWAYS goes out. I don’t think my internet connection has been on for more than 2 straight days since I’ve been here. In a restaurant, when you sit down, you are immediately expected to know what you want to drink. If you don’t have an answer for them right then, it will be a good 15 or 20 minutes before they come back to your table. (Again, just thinking about this has me fuming about France). And if you want to modify your meal, good luck. You can ask, and they may even tell you that you can, but it’s a crap shoot. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked for one thing and gotten another. The bad part, the companies can act like this because they ALL act like this. So it’s not like you can take your business elsewhere. You just give up entirely. So those are just a few of the MANY issues I see with the German economy. I have been told recently that the Germany government passes a measure last month that will ease restrictions on business opening hours starting next year. We will see. I mean, if the most profitable business in the world, Wal-Mart, can’t make a profit, what’s going on? (In case you didn’t know, Wal-Mart announced it will sell all of their German stores next year because they can’t make a profit here) Yikes. |
| Comment! |
| Berlin! Part II | Mon, Sep 4th 2006 10:57am |
| After we got done with the memorial, our guide walked us to this dirt parking lot in front of some normal looking apartment. Between the road and the parking lot was a small patch or grass that was dead in some areas. It turned out the patch of grass we were standing on was the location Hitler’s bunker. This was his main bunker and it was where he spent the last 3 weeks of his life because as Berlin fell, he killed himself and ordered the soldiers to burn his body and the body of his wife. The soviets were the first to find the bunker because they saw smoke coming from a manhole as they were patrolling the streets. When they found the bunker, the confiscated the remains and tried to destroy the bunker. Being the smart ones they were, they originally tried to destroy it by throwing explosives in it. When nothing happened and they remembered they were trying to blow up a 3 foot thick concrete box, they took a jackhammer and tore down the walls and ceilings. Now it is completely filled in with just the concrete slab remaining. The apartments we were standing in front of had two entrances to the bunker and there was another one right at the edge of the parking lot. The Berlin Wall ended up being built right down the middle of street where were located and the apartments became the nicest apartments in East Germany. Why were they nice? Because they were right next to the wall and the people who lived in them could see everything that was happening on the west. So only the most trusted people… usually movie stars and government officials… got to live there. We then took a stroll past what was left of the Berlin Wall. Ironically, it now has to be protected from the people. There is only a very small part that remains and it’s not really easy to find. From there were walked down a road that was controlled by the east on one side and the west on another. You can tell which side was which just based on the buildings. Then we arrived at checkpoint Charlie. There is nothing left of the original checkpoint. Now it is a small little building with a couple German college students posing as American guards. There’s a museum there that shows all of the different methods people used to escape from the east. Some of them were really interesting like a guy who invented a mini submarine which the US government then based the design of some of their mini subs on. The house the museum is in was also used as a starting point for tunnelling under the wall. So that was pretty much the tour. After that we ate lunch at a sandwich place then went through the Check Point Charlie museum. After a good 2 hours in there, we headed across town to meet up with Doug. Thing was, the subway was doing construction on part of the track so you had to change cars halfway through and you were actually travelling on the wrong side for a bit before you were supposed to get off and change trains again. Too bad we didn’t know you were supposed to get off and change trains a second time. While we were sitting there waiting for the train to take us on to our destination, it suddenly started going back in the direction it came from. So we had to go through the whole process again. That was fun. After finding Doug we went to one of my favourite restaurants in Germany, Hard Rock Café. We were there for a good two hours because they were having computer problems and their systems were down for a while. But the food was still good, so that’s all that matters. And for an apology, the waitress brought us a gigantic ice cream desert. It was a huge brownie Sunday, too big for all three of us, and she didn’t charge us. Nice. To cap off our night in Berlin, we went to a theater and saw “Superman” in English. (In my opinion: boring movie). The next day we slept in a little and then went to Unter den Linden street. It is the most famous street in Germany. At one end you have the Brandenburg gate and at the other you have the victory tower. The length of this road is a bit deceiving because once you start walking on it, you realize how long it is. So after about 15-20 minutes we made it to the victory tower and hung out there for a bit. While we were standing around, a long motorcade of SUV’s and Sedans with lights on came driving by… it was Angelia Merkel! I tried to get my camera out but they were gone before I got the chance, so I have no proof, you just have to take my word at it. So after all that we headed back to the Brandenburg Gate and got some pictures. We then just happened to walk past the US Embassy. I got one picture before being yelled at for walking to close to take a picture. Apparently if you’re 100 feet away you’re allowed to take a picture. If you’re 50, you’re not. I missed the big sign on the fence. Oops. But while we were walking around trying to waste time, another ling of cops came driving by with their lights on. This time I had my camera out and was ready to get a picture of Merkel! And then their escort appeared. The police were not escorting Merkel this time; they were clearing the way for a bike race for senior citizens. That ooops. Still no proof. After watching the elderly bike race for a few seconds, we made our way back to the train station and headed out of Berlin. I wish we would have had more time to hang around and take another guided tour, but I guess that’s incentive to come back to my favorite city in Europe. |
| Comment! |
| Berlin! | Thu, Aug 31st 2006 1:39pm |
Last weekend I took advantage of something that we learned in our German class and that everyone here does so I could take a 3 day trip to Berlin. I think it’s the worst kept secret in Germany really. It’s called “blaumachen.” Really, it’s just calling in sick when you’re not really sick so you can have a 3 or 4 day weekend. You see, everyone gets 2 sick days a month and 2 sick days for each kid they have. Well, towards the end of the month you rarely see people here on Fridays and Mondays because everyone is “sick”. Yeah huh, right. Well, last Friday I was “sick” also… sick on my little town that has nothing to do. So after calling in sick I made a quick breakfast and went into town to catch the 10:18 train to Berlin via Augsburg. 3 hours later I arrived in Augsburg, picked up Julie, and spent the next 5 hours on the fast train to Berlin. We arrived at about 9:30pm in quite possibly the coolest place I’ve been to. When you arrive in Berlin, you’re greeted by a train station that is over 3 stories tall… with trains on each level… that cost over 1 billion dollars to build and took more than 11 years. It was just opened in June before the World Cup. The place is amazing. It’s bright, shiny, and resembles an American mall. It even came complete with a McDonalds, Millie’s Cookies, Dunkin Doughnuts, Pizza Hut, and Burger King. While we were looking around the place, our friend Doug who lives in Berlin called and we told him we would meet up with him in an hour. That was a mistake. 2 hours later we were still looking for the place were staying. Julie knew this guy who let us stay in his apartment and it was a bit tricky to find. After getting lost 2 or 3 times and walking around in the rain, we finally found it… fairly close to the subway. We just kept walking in the wrong direction. But 2.5 hours later we got back to the train station and had dinner with Doug at Pizza Hut. Afterwards we jumped on the subway and went to an area of Berlin called “Potsdamer Platz”. This place was definitely one of the coolest places I’ve seen and it’s certainly one of the newest parts of all of Europe. The architecture was amazing and the skyscrapers were lit up during the night. You have to see the pictures to see what I’m talking about. The best thing about: an English movie theatre! That was it for the night and the next day we got up early and went back into town. Want to take a guess where we had breakfast? That’s right! Dunkin Doughnuts! That made my day. When we left there we walked to the government center where the Chancellor’s office was having a public open house. We didn’t go in because we wanted to see the Reichstag (parliament building), but we did see a water bridge and the two huge soccer cleats in front of the train station as part of Germany’s “Land of Ideas” exhibit. For the most part, there are huge models of things which Germany contributed to the world. They have soccer shoes for soccer, a big pill for Bayer, a stack of books for Einstein, and so on. So we passed up the massive amount of security going into the Chancellor’s office and went onto the Reichstag. This building has seen a lot. It was built in the 1800’s and it was nearly destroyed in WWI, then the Weimar Republic was formed in it, then Hitler had it burned nearly to the ground (although he never stepped foot in the building) and blamed it on the communists which started the Holocaust, it was destroyed more during WWII. After Berlin was liberated by the allies, the Soviets stormed the building and took it over and sent a soldier up to the top to wave a soviet flag over it. Stupid soviets. During the cold war, the building was never used and West Germany used Bonn as is capital. After reunification they voted to move the capital to Berlin and refurbished the Reichstag and a British architect designed it all and put a nifty glass dome on top. Inside the dome is a tower of mirrors that reflects light down into the debating chambers where you can also look down and watch the government at work. This is supposed to symbolize and open government and to remind the politicians that the people are above the government. Also inside the dome is a history of the Reichstag and a double spiral that you can walk up and see all of Berlin from there. It was definitely worth the wait. After spending about an hour in the Reichstag, we walked out heading towards the Brandenburg Gate. As we standing there, we heard someone giving a bit of a history lesson… in English. It turns out it was a FREE tour given by an American! It was great; the guy really knew his stuff. We followed him for about 3 hours. Our first stop was the newest memorial in Germany. It is called “The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.” I can’t really begin to describe what it is and what it means; it’s one of those things where you have to be there to understand. But it’s made out of over 2,500 dark colored blocks. Each block is a different height and not all are straight. They are laid out in a grid patter with the smaller blocks being on the outside and the bigger one on the inside. The biggest ones were about 10 feet tall. Once you start walking through the memorial, the ground starts to slant and it becomes a bit uneasy to walk. As you’re walking through suddenly someone comes from around another blocks and freaks you out a bit. Usually the only thing you can hear is your own footsteps along the brick and gravel. Our guide was giving us a bit of a history lesson about the memorial and it turns out that in order to keep the memorial from being damaged by spray paint, there was a special chemical put on all of the blocks that would repel paint. About half way through the project though, it was discovered that the company supplying the paint repellent was the same company that supplied the Nazi army with the killing gas used in the concentration camps. Big ooopps. The company in turn donated all of their profits from the project, to a charity and offered to do the rest of the blocks for free. They did not feel it was right to profit off of the memorial for obvious reasons. But that memorial was probably was my favourite memorial. I really liked it and I thin the architect did a fantastic job. To this day he has never told anyone what he was symbolizing in his design. The only thing he will say is that you need to experience it to know what it means. He was right. Okie dokie, that’s all for today’s history lesson. In an effort to keep the blog entries shorter, I’m stopping here and will continue tomorrow. There is more to come, such as finding Hitler’s bunker where he killed himself, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the difference between the east and the west, and probably some other stuff that I’m forgetting at the time. Oh yeah! I saw Angela Merkel’s motorcade! So come back tomorrow and check it out! |
| Comment! |
| Dragon Slaying!! | Wed, Aug 23rd 2006 4:32pm |
When I first got here in March, my friend Anne found a festival that would be happening in August near the town she would be working in. The festival was in a tiny little town near the Czech Republic called “Furth im Wald” and it would feature what was called a “Drachenstich”, which translates to a dragon slaying. Yes, you read that right… a dragon slaying. Now, the last time I heard, dragons went the way of the unicorn. But hey, who knows what the communists conjured up in East Germany way back when… So for the next 5.5 months, I have been looking forward to seeing this dragon slaying. I mean, who gets to say they saw a dragon slaying?? When the day finally came, I was pumped. I arrived in Furth im Wald on August 19 at about 1:30pm with Anne, Julie, Kyle, and Katie and we met up with the rest of the group who ended up being on the same train but we never saw because there were so many people on it. This town was… interesting… to say the least. The obsession they have with fire breathing, mythical creatures boarders on being unhealthy. There are dragons painted on some of the houses, business, and even the church! There was a dragon park, a dragon street, and a kind of food called “drachenschnitzel” which mean “dragon cut”. People were walking around in medieval battle gear so the place looked more like the set of Braveheart than a small town in Eastern Germany. Now, the actual play in which the dragon would be killed didn’t start until 8:30. It was in an outdoor theater that was set up right in the middle of town and it looked like an old European city complete with walls and watch towers. So in the mean time, there was a kids festival that was taking place in the area outside of the theater and a bigger, more grown up festival taking place in a field just outside of town. Before we went to the festivals though, we had to make our way to the hostel so we didn’t have to carry everything with us. Luckily, we ran into a guy who was going to be in the play later that night and he gave Julie, Katie, and I ride to the hostel. There was only room for 3 people so the others walked. As I went to get in the car though, I kind of forgot to look both ways in the road caused an old German lady to slam on her breaks. She… was not happy. So I got in the car quickly and the guy drove off. A few minutes later we were there and checked and the others arrived about 15 minutes later and did the same. Once we got situated, we walked back into town where the festivals were. It cost 3 Euros to get into the kids festival, so we only went in to get our tickets and then left so we wouldn’t have to pay. We then went to the bigger festival where it cost 4 Euros to get in. I thought it was pretty ridiculous that they were charging for the festival when the tickets for the play cost 16 Euros, but what can you do? When we got in, it reminded me a lot of the Renaissance Festival in Wilmington, except everything was in German and had a dragon theme. There was sword fighting and “handmade” jewelry and stuff like that. And of course there was a ton of food booths. Also, towards the back there dozens and dozens of tents, which probably explained why the hostel was empty. We hung out in there for the rest of the afternoon and evening. When it got to be about 7:00, we left and went into town where the play was going to take place. We walked around the town for a little bit and at 8:00, we went into the theater. The theater itself was built in the middle of town between buildings and blocked the road. They pour dirt all over the ground and build a small stage. When the play started at 8:30, the sun was setting, the sky was clear, and we were about to see a dragon get its butt kicked! But like most of the things that have happened this summer, it didn’t stay that way for long. First off, we were in Bavaria near the Czech Republic, so the accent they had was not the easiest to understand. By “not the easiest” I mean “nearly impossible”. So not a single one of us actually understood everything that was going on. Now, I will give the play “drama points”. Every once and a while a part of the wall would open up and horses with authentic war carriages would come storming through the theater. The sound it made along with the people yelling was awesome. Plus, the opening sword fight was pretty sweet. Buuuut that was about it. Now we went into this thing expecting to see a dragon fight! We didn’t know what it was going to look like or how long it was going to be, but a dragon fight was for sure. Well, we would get the dragon fight, just not in the manor we were expecting. The play started off with a family fight (I think) which led to the evil king wanting to marry his niece. Somewhere in there a religious battle broke out and turned into an argument of good versus evil. The whole time the play was going on however, there was something ominous looming on the horizon. It wasn’t a fire breathing beast. No no, this fire was different. As soon as the sun went down, you could see lightening in the distance. When I first saw it, I thought to myself “well, at least it’s not right over us.” I mean, you could still see the stars in the area where we were. But as time went on, the storm got closer and closer. The stars started to disappear and the play was still ranting about a king marrying his niece. Still no dragon. Then I felt the first rain drop about 1.5 hours into the play. (I figured the play would be over by this point, but nope.) So again I thought to myself “it could be worse, it could be pouring”. Well apparently my thoughts were heard because about 30 minutes later the rain picked up. Finally it started pouring. I’m sitting there in shorts and a t shirt in 60 degree rainy weather. And there was still no dragon!!! I looked down the row where we all were sitting and I saw totally blank looks on the rain soaked faces of the group. For some reason, I bust out laughing. It was not an appropriate time to laugh, but for some reason this all seemed funny to me. I’m sitting here in Germany, in the freezing rain, watching at play that I can’t understand where a dragon is supposed to be killed yet all they’re talking about is religion and the king marrying his niece. FINALLY, after 2.5 hours of this play the dark music picks up and the wall opened up again. Through the smoke came the beast! Now, the last dragon I saw was at Disney World in the “Fantasmic” show in MGM. That dragon was a 60 foot tall fire breathing beast that could shoot flames halfway across the stage. So I figured since we are in the country where engineering is mythical gold standard (that’s a topic for another time), they would at least come close. But no. This dragon looked like something that one of the frats could have built for the UC homecoming parade. It was about the size of a float and the head and eyes moved a little and there were a few small flamed that came from the nostrils. The “hero” then road out on a horse, threw a spear that landed on the tongue and then hit over and over again with his sword while riding around on his horse. After 5 minutes, it was over. That was it. 2.5 hours of semi interesting garble followed by 5 minutes of slight excitement. We didn’t wait around for the stage calls. After all, we were drench, freezing, and it was still raining. We just left our seat and went to stand under a roof near our seating area. However, it was full so we couldn’t fit so we took off in a slight job down the road for a bit. By now the rain was coming down extremely hard. We eventually broke into an all out run and finally got under and awning in the town somewhere. Brent and I were cracking up, although we didn’t know why. The others didn’t seem as entertained. After standing there for a few minutes, we decided to go down the road to a restaurant so we could wait in there until the rain stopped. We ran down the road again and jumped in the restaurant. It turns out it was called “the romantic beer garden”, so you can imagine the looks we got when we walked dripping wet. We stayed in there for about an hour. Finally the rain stopped and we took the 20 minute walk back to the hostel. Brent, Kyle, and I were sharing a room and the girls were in another one. The place was completely empty except for us, so it was quiet. The rest of the night, Kyle, Brent, and I told random stories and eventually fell asleep sometime after 1:30am. So all in all, it was a great trip, and I got to see a dragon slaying. |
| Comment! |
| The Fastest Month - Part V | Tue, Aug 15th 2006 3:00pm |
| Story IV – Garmish and Fussen A couple days after the Munich trip, Teresa and Mary Beth went down to Zurich, Switzerland and Veronica and I went to Garmish and Fussen. Our first stop was Garmish which is in the heart of the Alps. It is also the place where I went skiing when I first got here. The hotel we were staying at was a 15 minute train ride from civilization at the foot of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain. In fact, the train that you take to get there uses a cog wheel to get up the mountain. When we arrived it was a very nice day. The sky was blue, the lake was clear, and our hotel room had a balcony that overlooked the lake and had a full view of the Zugspitze. We were planning on going to the lake and renting a canoe after a short nap, but that didn’t happen. About 45 minutes later and storm blew in pretty quickly and didn’t go away the rest of the night. It came in so fast that the people on the lake didn’t have a chance to get back before it, so they were being blown around on the lake for a while. So we just hung out and explored the hotel for a little while. A couple hours later we went down to the restaurant for our “free” 3 course dinner. I think this is going to count as another learning experience for Veronica and me both. The food as ultra fancy, at least they thought it was. We first ordered some kind of roast beef appetizer, because how could you go wrong with roast beef?? I don’t know, but they did. First, it wasn’t cooked at all, it was still bloody, then it had some nasty cream stuffed in it. I choked the 4 of mine down, but Veronica gave up after one. For the second course, I got some kind of noodle and Veronica got a meat. That was strike two for the food. Again, went sent the plated back with a ton of food still on them. By this point, the waitress was not happy with us. First, she spoke Bayrish, so I couldn’t understand her very well and she didn’t speak English. Second, I think she was annoyed that we weren’t eating everything. But she would get over it. For the third course was the desert. We could choose between a cheese buffet and something that we didn’t know what it was. Playing it safe, Veronica decided not to get anything. However, thinking that cheese also can’t be that bad, I went for the buffet. Again, I failed. The cheese was miserable. I took one bite and immediately was looking for something to spit it out in. I finally just swallowed and didn’t any more of the cheese on my plate. I wanted to ask for cubes of good ole American cheese, but no. We just left. Later that night we found a spa area in the basement of the hotel so we went through the whole spa process. It was free, so why not? Now, it’s not like there was actually anyone there helping, it just had everything you need for a spa. The cold showers and cold pool, the scented steam rooms and saunas and footbaths. Everything. We hung out down there for a while until I started to feel like I melting in the steam room (140 degrees!). The rest of the night we just relaxed watched TV. Well, we watched CNN because that was the only thing in English. The next morning I went down for breakfast and it was ok; they had eggs and such. But then when I tried to turn the toaster on, it wouldn’t work. The thought going through my head was that this was some kind of cruel trick. Why couldn’t something just work??? So I played around with it and pushed some of the buttons that were on it and it still wasn’t working. At this point I’m getting really frustrated. I put my plate down and was just starting to check the plug when THE SAME WAITRESS we had the night before was working and came over to me and rolled her eyes. I HATE THAT! She then crawled under the table and plugged it in and it worked! She and I never did get a long. When I found a seat, I tried to flag a waitress down for coffee but they all ignored me. They helped the tables on both sides of my, but acted like I wasn’t there. After about 5 minutes I walked by the waitress stand and grabbed a pot of coffee that was sitting on the cart to take out to customers. One waitress said something to me that I didn’t make out but I just responded “Ich wartete!” (I waited) and kept walking. They never did stop by my table, but I had my coffee so I was happy. Later that day Veronica and I left Garmish after spending a few hours in the main part of town and eating at Pizza Hut. We boarded the train to go to Fussen, which is about 30 miles away from Garmish. Unfortunately, the train had to go all the way back to Munich then down to Fussen, so the ride ended up taking 3 hours! To make it worse, they were doing track work in Fussen, so we had to stop at the town closest to it and take a charter bus. Now, you may remember that I have been here before. The last time I was here, we stayed in the town Fussen, which is about 3 miles away from the Neuschwanstein Castle. (The Cinderella Castle) It’s the closest town to the castle, so most people stay there when visiting. However, this time I found a nice little hotel at a good price right at the foot of the castle! There are only a handful of B&Bs and tiny hotels here, and the buses stop running at 6:00pm. So after that, there is almost no one around. But we got there without incident and arrived at our hotel. When Veronica and I checked in, it was about 7:00. Our hotel room had a balcony that look out directly to the castle with an unobstructed view. It was amazing. After settling in, we decided to walk up to the castle and the bridge that runs behind it. The walk was a bit longer than I remember. I told Veronica that it was only about 15 minutes but at 25 minutes we went there yet, although we could at least see it. It was starting to get dark too which was a bit of a concern, but not much since there is only one path there. Finally we got up to the castle but we kept climbing so we could get on the bridge behind the castle. This is probably the steepest walk ever. It’s probably a 55 degree incline. At this point, Veronica is about to kill me for not mentioning this part to her. But we made it after about 10 minutes. The last time I was at this bridge, it was so crowded that you had to walk sideways to get through. There were about 300+ people on it and considering it was built in the 1800’s with a wooden floor that was bending under our feet, I’m pretty sure it was over packed. This time however, there was no one. It was just veronica and I. However, when Veronica first walked onto the bridge though she froze. This is understandable because you’re suddenly hundreds of feet above rocky ground that has a creek and a waterfall directly in the center. Not to mention, the boards BEND when you walk on them. But after getting over the initial fear, we both wondered out to the center and enjoyed the view. We managed to get a picture by tying the camera to the handrail and using the timer. I liked the view so much more this time because we could actually enjoy it without being pushed around by thousands or rude tourists. We stayed up there for about an hour and never say a single person. Finally it was getting very dark so we headed back down the mountain. By the time we got back down, it was so dark on the path that we could barely see 10 feet in front of us. But we made it. When we got back to the hotel we got dinner in the restaurant and the people there were about a hundred times nicer. The owner spoke perfect English; in fact, I thought she was American at first. The next day we got up and it was pouring down rain. We got tickets to the castle anyway and took a tour through the Hohenschawgau and Neuschwanstein Castles and had really interesting tour guides for both of them. This time, things were back to normal. The place was packed and you had to squeeze through almost everywhere you went. After the tour we went back to our hotel, had lunch, then left the little village to go back to Fussen to take a train to Munich. Then I went to board the bus though, my feet got tripped up in the suitcase and I fell face first into the stairs. Luckily I fell on my suitcase so I didn’t get hurt. As soon as we got to our seat though, Veronica made it very clear that if I were to get hurt and pass out, we would have serious problems since she didn’t know German. But I survived and we boarded the train to take us onto Munich. |
| Comment! |
| The Fastest Month - Part IV | Thu, Aug 10th 2006 4:49pm |
| Story III – MB’s Best Friends For my birthday, I went with Veronica, Teresa, and Mary Beth to Munich to visit the Hofbräuhaus and eat some good ole American food at the Hard Rock Café. It was a great birthday present and we stayed there until about 9:30pm, then had to go catch a train back to Reutlingen. On our way, we had to work through the crowds that were gathered to watch Germany play in the Semi-Finals against Italy. But we beat through the crowds and got on our train. We had almost a direct stop to Reutlingen, but we had to change trains a little north of the city at Plochingen to catch the final leg back to Reutlingen. Well, the first half went smooth. It was a quiet train, we had a small little area all to ourselves and since it was a 3 hour train ride, most of slept. The other train was not the same story. We arrived in Plochingen at about 12:30 am and transferred trains without much of a problem, or so we thought. The train was packed from people coming back from watching the game. About 95% of them were drunk because Germany lost and they were trying to drown their troubles. Luckily, we found a place for all four of us. Teresa and I had to share a space with 2 other guys and Veronica and Mary Beth were right next to us sharing with two other people also. All was fine for about the first 5 minutes of the 20 minute train ride. Then the guy right next to me began to talk. He was so drunk he didn’t know what was going on… or what he was saying. At first I just thought he was mumbling something incoherent, but then I heard English. He kept saying “pretty… blah blah blah… pretty” and he was leaning across me looking at Mary Beth. The whole time he was doing this, his friend was telling him to shut up in German. Then, out of the blue, he looked right at Mary Beth and blurted out something that I can not repeat, but it a rather vulgar relationship to hooking up for the night. I was totally in shock, Teresa and Mary Beth burst out laughing, and Mary Beth as stunned. His kept telling him to shut up and apologizing to us. But the drunken friend kept at it; saying stuff that I’m sure you can make up on your own. Finally, about 10 minutes later at the next stop they had to get off and I stood up to let them out. As he was standing up, he had his eyes locked on MB, so I moved to stand in front of her. Sure enough, when he got next to her he leaned down to get around me to give her a kiss. MB threw her hands in his face and I stepped to my right to block him and his friend pulled him away and off the train. After we pulled away we just kind of looked at each other and started laughing. That was definitely the first time I’ve seen THAT happen here. 10 minutes later we were back in Reutlingen where all headed to bed without running into anymore drunk guys the rest of the night. |
| Comment! |
| The Fastest Month - Part III | Wed, Aug 9th 2006 3:11pm |
| Story II – The Backpack As many of you may know, I bought a new backpack since I have been over here. I love my backpack; it’s grey and blue and is perfect for weekend trips. I sew patches from all of the countries I have been to on the front of it, and I watch it like a hawk. Well, I usually watch it like a hawk. It was July second and I just picked Veronica, Teresa, and Mary Beth up from the airport. We were on the train heading back to Reutlingen after making a brief stop in Stuttgart. When I looked at the schedule from Stuttgart to Reutlingen, a 20 mile trip, I noticed we had to change trains at a train yard called Plochingen. I have NEVER had to change trains when going from Stuttgart to Reutlingen, so this was a little odd to me, but there was nothing I could do about it. So we got on the train, Veronica and I on the top level and Teresa and Mary Beth on the bottom level, and headed to Plochingen. About 20 minutes later, our train arrived and I grabbed my suitcase, and helped the others get their bags, and we headed to our next train about 5 tracks over. Once we got to our next train we got our stuff on and got settled into our seats. A few minutes later I decided to get a picture and went for my camera. It was then that terror shot throughout my body. It was like a replay of the last 10 minutes was replaying right before my eyes: “I could see me getting up from the earlier train and walking off onto the platform. As I walk off the train, the camera zoomed into the area behind and there, lying on the shelf above my seat, was my backpack. Forgotten like a neglected puppy.” I immediately jumped up and thought I saw the train still sitting on the track so I started to run off the train. From behind me I hear Veronica yell “what’s wrong” and I just respond “get off the train! I’ll be back!” I got off the train and tore into a dead sprint to get to the train before it left the station. I had to go down some stairs under the tracks and then back up. I got to the last set of stairs, jumped up them 3 at a time, and turned to track… it was empty. The train was gone with my backpack, along with some clothes, a book, a card, some papers, and most of, my digital camera. I was totally enraged with how dumb I was. After thinking for a few seconds, I went into the train station to talk to the Deutsche Bahn people to see if they could radio the train and let them know that my backpack was on there. But of course, it was closed. I don’t know why since this was the biggest train yard in Baden-Wurttemberg. So I checked when the next train was to Reutlingen and where the end station was for the train with my backpack. We had 45 minutes to wait for the next train, which was not good news for the three whom just spent 9 hours on a plane and are suffering from serious jet lag. So I just sat down and tried to think of something to do. Teresa came up with the idea to talk to a train steward on the next train to come into the station. Great idea. So when the next train pulled in, I ran over to them and told them what happened. The response I got was typical of the customer service you’ll get in Europe, which was none. The lady said she couldn’t call the train but gave me a “service” number to call that cost 50 cents a minute. This was odd to me since they call the trains all the time to tell them when other trains are running late. So I called the number and they asked for a control number, which I didn’t have, so I gave up. My next attempt was a train that had been sitting on the track for a while. I saw two men and a kid, and a woman walk into the conductor’s area earlier, so I decided to give that a try. This time I had a lot more luck. There was a lady standing by the window who spoke English! Turns out her dad was the conductor and she and her husband and son were going to ride with him… and she used to live in Miami, FL. So I told her what happened and she told her father. I heard him talking to someone in the background for a while. In the mean, I talked to the lady who told me how much she loved visiting the US. After about 5 minutes the dad interrupted and said that he called the train and as long as someone hasn’t already stolen my backpack, it will be found and delivered to the Stuttgart train station the next morning. AWESOME! So I went back and waited with Vron, Teresa, and MB until our train came. While I was waiting, I kept thinking that the schedule said the train was supposed to end in Ulm, not Stuttgart, so I starting worrying that he called the wrong train. So after we got back to Reutlingen about an hour later, I again had to make the other three wait while I tried to talk to the people at the Reutlingen train station. They said they couldn’t do anything for me, which really ticked me off. So I Veronica, Teresa, MB, and I walked to the hotel where Teresa and MB would be staying. (It was really hot and they were all really tired, so the walk seemed a lot longer than it was. Just throwing that in there in case you hear anything different). Of course when we get to the hotel, the lady who owns the place doesn’t speak English, so I had to use my German in front of people for the first time. But we got checked in and we all decided to walk back to my place, which is about 20 minutes away, all uphill. Again, being that it was about 95 degrees and they were jetlagged, this was not a fun walk. In fact, Veronica actually threatened my life at one point. But then, about half way there, I realized something else; my keys were in my backpack. CRAP. When we got back to the house, the front door was unlocked so I took the other three down to the living room where it was much cooler. I then went to get my landlord to tell him why I needed another key… hopefully for only a couple days. Well, when I told him what happened, he told me that he would go talk the train people. Awesome! I ran downstairs that I had to leave but shouldn’t be gone long and to make themselves at home. My landlord and I then jumped in his car and went back to the train station. This time, they told him that he needs to call the Tubingen train station to file a report. They then wouldn’t let him use their phone and wouldn’t answer their question as to why he couldn’t just do it there. So we jumped in his car and went to Tubingen to fill out the report. The whole time he was ranting and raving about how horrible the customer service here is. It was amusing. Long story short, we got to Tubingen, filled the report out, then he took me back. When I walked down to my area of the house, on the floor are Veronica and Teresa asleep and MB is in the chair. I woke them up and the rest of the night was uneventful. The next day, I asked a co-worker to call a number the report guy gave me and my backpack wasn’t turned in yet. I was sure it was gone, along with my camera. I left work at noon to go to Stuttgart with the others so we could check out the city and the castles and stuff. We ended up running into a wine festival which was fun. At about 6:00, we decided to head back to Reutlingen. When we got to the train station, I decided to give it one last ditch effort to find my bag. I talked to train people who took me to the lost and found. I told the guy I was missing a bag a described and he went back to look. About a minute later, out he came… WITH MY BAG!!!! I was ecstatic. Best of all, nothing was missing from it! It turns out the lady from Miami saved the day! So we went back to Reutlingen and this time, I put the bag at my feet. |
| Comment! |
| Part II | Tue, Aug 8th 2006 1:25pm |
| Story 1 – Heidelberg Everything started on July 1. Veronica, Teresa, and Mary Beth were leaving Cincinnati on the first and would be arriving at about 8:00am on July 2 in Frankfurt. Now, in order for me to get to the airport in time, I would have had to leave Reutlingen at 12:15am and spend the night at the train station in Stuttgart. Seeing that there was no way I was going to sleep at the train station in an unlocked room full of drunks, I chose to go to a city just south of Frankfurt and get a hotel there for the night. I would have just stayed in Frankfurt, but a semi-finals game in the World Cup was taking place there, so a single bed hotel room was running somewhere around 500 Euros. So factoring everything together, I decided to stay in Mannheim that night. Now, Mannheim is not your typical “tourist town”. It’s an industrial city with a few cool sites. I saw them in all in about an hour after checking into my hotel at noon. However, a city that nearly everyone has heard of is Heidelberg, which only about 10 minutes away by train. This was one of my “must see” cities and this was going to be the only opportunity for me to get there. However, I saw a street car that was going to Heidelberg, and my friend Mindy that lives there said they never check tickets on it, so I jumped on. Little did I know that the street car took nearly an hour compared to the 10 minute train ride. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. I finally arrived in Heidelberg and immediately stopped by the tourist office to get a free map. Now if you look Heidelberg up on the internet, you’ll see what is so awesome about this place. It had the nicest, most fortified castle in Europe at one point; most of it, at least the shell, is still there. It also has one of the oldest bridges in Germany. Even more, it was spared in WWII because General Eisenhower happened to visit there before the war and thought it was beautiful so he wanted that to be his base once they took control of Germany. So I headed off with my map toward the “Altstadt”, or old city, where the bridge and castle were, along with lots of food and cafes. The Altstadt, like most old cities, was located next to river, so I didn’t think it would be that hard to find and just started walking on a road that led to the river. About 20 minutes into my journey, I still didn’t see the river and the road suddenly branched off into 4 directions and I had no clue which to take. The map wasn’t detailed enough to provide and help either. After about 3 minutes of looking at the map, I hear a voice behind me asking if I needed help. It was another American! So after he told me how to get to the Altstadt, he said eventually I would see a bunch of people and to just walk in their direction, and that the castle was about 1.5 miles away. Great. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, there were the people, and then I saw the Altstadt. From there I could see the castle up on a hill, so I started walking toward it. Along the way I ran into some weird, random parade, the old bridge, and a Pizza Hut where I ate lunch. I then walked up what is possibly the steepest hill I’ve ever climbed to get into the castle… where they then CHARGED you 3.00 euros to get in. As if the death climb wasn’t enough. Inside the castle, you can walk down to the area where the moat used to be and some of the old passage ways. But then, there’s the main attraction. The world’s largest wine barrel. Way back when, people could pay their taxes using wine as currency, and the ruler of Heidelberg put all of the wine in gigantic wooden barrels, one of which holds 271,000 litres! Talk about a big party. So I was up there and looked around for a few hours. By the time I left, it was about 5:30, so I decided to head back to Mannheim, on the train this time, and find some food and relax a little before watching the World Cup game. I noticed that my backpack was a lot lighter, and it was because I drank all of my water. Did I forget to mention it about 90 degrees out? Hmmm. So I started heading back a different way than I came in because I was in the back of the castle in the court yard when they closed it for the night, so I couldn’t get back around front. I didn’t think this would be a big deal since I had a map and I could just walk a few streets over and be back where I started once I got to the bottom of the hill. Funny how things work out though. I got to the bottom of the hill and I walked, and walked, and walked some more and I never came to the end of the street that I was on. I couldn’t see the castle anymore but the map showed that I should be close to the road I was looking for, so I kept walking. Well, along the way I saw a cool fountain that I wanted a picture of and really kind of wanted to jump, so I stopped and grabbed a picture. When I was done, I reached to get my map to see how close I was and got a sudden surge of panic at what I found… which was nothing. I lost my map! I yelled something in English and the guy on the bench looked at me weird then I took off the in the direction I just came from hoping the map was still laying on the group. But it wasn’t, it was gone. I have no idea where I am or how far I have to go, so I was a bit ticked off. I only had 5 euros in cash on me, so I didn’t know if I had enough for a cab. But luckily, my backpack came to the rescue. On one of the straps there is a compass, a compass that nearly everyone has made fun of me for having. But it saved it me. I remembered the direction the river was from the train station and some of the turns I made, so I just went the opposite direction. About 45 minutes later, I was back at the train station. I downed a liter or water in about 2 minutes then waited for the train to take me back to the hotel. I took a little nap, got some food, and then went to watch the Brazil versus France game with a bunch of French fans and 1 Brazil fan. Brazil went on to loose, unfortunately. (I can’t bring myself to root for France). I then slipped out of the craziness and headed back to the hotel so I could be ready for the day I have been looking forward to for a long, long time. |
| Comment! |
| The Fastest Month - Part 1 | Mon, Aug 7th 2006 3:18pm |
| Overview
Hello all! I’m sorry about the month long hiatus, but I’m back now! A lot happened in the month of July, and there is no way I can write about it all, so I’ll just give you a brief overview and hit on some of the more interesting stories that occurred. I have a feeling this blog is going to be another multiple day entry, but I’m not sure. I’ll just start writing and see where it goes… It all started on July 1 when I left Reutlingen early in the morning to go to Mannheim to pick up Veronica, Teresa, and Mary Beth. They were flying into Frankfurt International Airport, but there was a World Cup game there the night before and the cheapest hotel room was around 500 euros for a single. So I stayed 30 minutes away in a 45 Euro hotel. But being that there is nothing really exciting in Mannheim, except for the worlds first bicycle, I checked in then went to the next town, Heidelberg, over and spent the day there. (Pictures are on the website). The next day I got up at 5:30am to get ready and make the 6:30 train to Frankfurt. Veronica and the gang came walking through the gates at about 8:00ish. It was definitely the best site I’ve seen in about 4 months. So then we got their bag and made our way to the trains and back to Reutlingen. Over the next two weeks, we went to Stuttgart, Tubingen, Garmish, Munich, Baden-Baden, Triberg, Füssen, and Paris. There was a lot of travelling and we got to see a lot. Paris was definitely the most disorganized city I’ve ever been to, but according to my co-worker, that should not have been a surprise. (More about that later) Veronica and company left on July 16 at about noon and I headed back to Reutlingen. That was definitely not the most exciting day of my life. After 3 days of working, I went to pick up my parents at the Stuttgart airport on Wednesday July 19. We didn’t hand around Stuttgart and just came back to Reutlingen to get them checked into the hotel and find some food. I worked a half day on Thursday then we took off across 4 countries. In the time they were here, we went to Munich, Garmish (my second home), Salzburg (Austria), Interlaken (Switzerland), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), and Cologne. So there it is, a very brief overview of what went on during the 31 in July. I’ll go into some of the stories tomorrow. Some of which may include the drunk guy on the train wanting to hook up with Mary Beth, a swan attacking a dog, Gerson having a little trouble with the Paris subway and Veronica coming to the rescue, my trip to Garmish and Füssen with Veronica, getting lost in Paris, Paris being a pain in the butt in general, the hot nights without AC, the Ice Palace, and more. So tune in tomorrow for another instalment of “The Fastest Month”. |
| Comment! |
| Previous 10 posts |