Several weeks ago we went on vacation. We had to “sleep” on the hard linoleum floor of the airport prior to our early morning flight because the metro doesn’t run at night, and a taxi would probably cost as much as the plane. In Europe, the kings of budget flights are Ryan air who seem to save you money but put you through all kinds of scams first. For example they fly to Frankfort-Hahn airport and call it Frankfort. It’s not. So we flew in almost sleepless, and commenced taking buses to Bonn, Germany. The plan was to meet up with Becky’s friend Liz in Bonn, at the house of their mutual friend Hagen and his girlfriend Lena. Hagen, Becky and Liz had all lived in a communal flop house in Michigan for stoners and skallawags. Someone asked Hagen his favorite memory from the house and it was some time he was so wasted that he didn’t remember it…he only knew the story from what other people said. So in other words he couldn’t remember his favorite memory. Good times. I call mine “the lost years”.
Neither of us had actually thought much about Germany, it was primarily the place where we would meet up with people and launch our journey to Czech, Hungary and beyond. It turned out to be really beautiful and we were catching it in full fall colors. By pure chance, our initiation was the Rhine valley which is dotted with castles and blanketed in deciduous forests, in addition to having nice cliff faces from time to time. I didn’t really know what Germany looked like…really nice actually. We ended up staying four or five days in Bonn because it was simple, easy, and a totally pleasant place to hang out. I had a vague and totally unfair image of Germans as being uptight and robotic and always one step away from attempting to take over the world (the true motive behind the European Union as you may know). They were not, not and not. Actually totally courteous and perhaps not outgoing, but friendly. All around a very civil society. And stuff was comparatively cheap there, which was a nice surprise when travelling Europe these days.
Hagen and Lena became our part time tour guides which was great. Hagen did display some funny German traits. For example, meticulous precision and a desire to control: we ate pasta one time and he said he liked the pickled cabbage with it. I promptly started mixing it into my pasta, when he clarified that the way to enjoy it is with the cabbage on the side, and perhaps mixing in a little with each bite. He was very clear that German bread should not be eaten with peanut butter. The barley bread was not to be toasted because all toasted bread tastes the same, and that would ruin the unique flavor of the barley bread. It was the most rigid, and amazingly specific eating regimen I have ever seen. Besides learning how to eat, we also went to Koln, which is nearby, to see the cathedral, the chocolate museum (never quite made it there) and have the local specialty beer style: Kolsch. As a brewer I have tried and failed to get my head around Kolsch, first it is fermented warm like an ale, then it is lagered. So it starts like a steam and finishes as a typical light lager. It is served in really small glasses dismayingly reminiscent of the Spanish cana. The KEY difference is that there is a dude walking around who takes note of whether you have finished your beer. Unless you place a coaster over the top, the default is that you want another, and it arrives in seconds. To be honest I thought the light German lagers were about as lame as the American counterparts. But I was enjoying the BIG food…finally a place where people eat enough for an adult, instead of child-sized tapas reminiscent of cat food with an olive in it. Later I sampled some German dunkel beers which were generally damn good, the Weisse were good too, the best in the world if you are into that sort of thing (a little sweet for me but Becky likes them).
On one of our last days we all went to Berg Ells, a castle in a beautiful river valley. The castle came about gradually as a series of large houses with a shared inner courtyard and shared walls. The tour was the perfect level of information and interp, really pretty fascinating. You usually don’t think about how things like castles came about. In this case, according to their version, the castle belonged to a family which regulated the trade route, i.e. the river valley within which the castle seemed to be sort of a guard station. What they didn’t say, but is likely to be true, is that traders had 3 choices: 1) travel really slowly over roadless hills and forests, 2) pay these people for safe passage, or 3)be killed trying to pass without paying. Repeat this cycle a few centuries and you have have a family rich enough to build a castle and still rich today after the collapse of 2 German empires.
Germany has a sort of web-based ride share board which is totally cheaper than the train. Any traveler should use this, but our first experience was pretty flipping insane. With our German translators’ help we arranged a ride to Berlin after a few days. Lena was given a description of the guy that sounded like a personal ad: SWM, 6’0’ sandy blond hair, slim & athletic, 30 years old, enjoys Nordic walking, seeks like-minded passengers to Berlin. So we were planning the ride to be Liz’s first date with this dude. The driver was a freaking maniac. He was in his 50’s and the first thing he did when I recognized him and tried to wave him down was nearly run me over. Really! The autobahn sounds really cool, but actually it is terrifying. If someone was driving too slow in front of him (less than 100 mph), he would pull up beside them, honk the horn and make sure they saw him flip them off. All of this was done on the autobahn at 100 mph or so…that’s right no eyes on the road just finger and angry face aimed at some haplessly same person who doesn’t want to drive that fast. He was a retired trucker than took a van load of people back and forth from time to time. The roadside gas stations had robot pay toilets which cleaned themselves after every use. I peed in the bushes instead, i don't pay to pee...but nobody told me about the robots before hand, that might have changed my mind. I might pay for robots. When we arrived in Berlin, the maniacal truck driver turned into a really friendly chatty guy, cheerily dropped us off at the hostel which was in his neighborhood and bid us goodnight. Schizophrenia.
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