Southwest Germany

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I LOVED GERMANY!!!!  Tyler, Patrick and I left Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon after almost missing the last train to Germany(they changed the time on us!!! luckilly we went about 3 hours early).  Unlike Amsterdam, as soon as we crossed the border, noone spoke English.  We got off to switch trains and the men at the station had to use gestures!!  This made us kind of nervous because our next train was late.  We thought, oh great, we're stuck in Germany with no money and no clue.  Luckilly, we met an Iranian-Turkish-Canadian that had lived in the US for awhile(strange) and he was headed the same direction as us.  He helped us to get off at the right stop and we safely made it to Koln at about 11 pm.  The problem is, we were going to meet Alfred the next day and we had no place to stay and didn't speak the language.  Thankfully, we found a little hotel for a fairly cheap price, and made it to the bus station in Worscheim on Hahn airbase.

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Germany was a very different trip than I had experienced.  Normally everything was so frantic and we were worried about seeing the most famous sites in every city.  With Alfred and Gabi, everything was just laid back, although they did bring us to some really cool places.  First, Gabi and Anke brought us to Idar-Oberstein, my birthplace.  The city was unlike anything I had seen.  Just like I pictured, there were those little white houses with wood crossing throughout the exterior wall.  What I didn't realize was that in the United States, it is just for looks.  It is just mocking the appearance.  In Germany, it was the style of architecture.  I believe they built the frames and then filled inbetween with some sort of cement/rock mixture.  It was interesting seeing houses that were obviously hundreds and hundreds of years old.

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Another interesting thing about Idar-Oberstein was the church built into the rock.  As soon as we got there it was one of the first things I noticed.  On top of the hill was part of an old castle, which I soon found out was nothing special.  I felt like every hill had a castle or at least the remains of what was once a castle.

At night, we usually relaxed with Alfred, Gabi, and Anke, told good stories, and learned a lot from all of them.  They were incredibly intelligent and I honestly could have listened to them for days.  While we talked, we experienced a variety of German drinks.  We learned that there are two main beers that people like, which are Bittburger and Flensburger.  Personally, I loved both of them.  We also tried schnapps (nope not crappy stuff from the states, it is just what Alfred called all hard liquor) that was homemade with pears and other fruits.  Last but not least we drank many different white wines, which were amazing considering Spain is all red wine.  My favorite was the semi-dry Reisling, which was made near the River Mosel.

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Which brings me our next adventures.  The River Rhine and the River Mosel, and I can't remember which stories come from which river, so you'll have to bear with me.  At one of the rivers, we took a gondola to the top of a hill.  On the way up we saw miles and miles of vineyards because it was the best climate for growing grapes.  At the top of the gondola ride, we arrived at a giant statue that basically warned the French that if they set foot on the land, they would be killed.  There is so much history in Germany that I didn't know about until talking with Alfred and Gabi.  The view from here was absolutely amazing, in fact one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

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River Rhine, River Mosel