Germany

My friend and I traveled through Germany during our five day break last weekend. I started to learn a little bit of German the day before we left. I picked up a couple of new words, and was able to recognize enough to get us around. I loved the little challenge of a new language. The farther we were away from the tourist towns, the less English was spoken. Used charades when all else failed.

Thursday morning, after staying up all night, I met him at the train station. Around 10:45, we arrived in Cologne; we walked around a little and then headed down to Bonn. There, after a little confusion, we met up with my friend who was in my language class in Paris. We dropped our things off at his apartment, then went out on a tour of Bonn with his bikes. This moment was one of my favorites: riding along behind my German friend through the back streets of a little city. I knew that I was really there. After seeing buildings and fountains, talking about politics and the upcoming election, we bought some vegetables at the market. Back at the apartment, my friend and I cooked dinner. A little bit of trouble with the stove (a problem we would encounter in every apartment), and a lot of cooking style conflicts later, we had a wonderful meal. Exhausted, we went to bed.

Friday, our friend gave us a ride to Neuwied, the town where he worked. From there, we caught a train to Koblenz, then another to Braubach (after missing our stop and having to double back). We picked up some vegetables and terrible wine, then climbed a little trail up the hill to the Marksburg castle. I lingered, taking pictures, while my friend launched ahead. At the top, we had a picnic next to the castle, overlooking the Rhine river. The only way to go inside is to have a tour guide. We were supposed to take a tour in German, but we were the only people, so our kind tour guide decided to do it in English. The castle is enormous, intact, and roughly 700 years old. It has been lived in continuously since its construction. We walked through the entryway, in and around the different buildings built at different periods. We saw the cannons, the batiments, and the gardens. We walked through little rooms and through tiny staircases. Asking a ton of questions, we saw things I have only read about in stories. Suits of armor, treasure chests, a smithy, a "torture" chamber, and a large, old kitchen. It was incredible. Afterward, we bought postcards, and mailed them from the castle. We were interrupted by a cute goat that walked up to the fence; we named him BG for biergarten (beer garden), and fed him a peach.

We tried to catch a boat, to go down the Rhine a little, but it didn't stop where it was supposed to. So, we lingered in Kaub, another little town, watching the water float by. We skipped stones and counted ducks. Actually, we had an intense castle counting game going on all day. Castles dot the hills along the Rhine river; whoever spotted them first got a point. I was in the lead for awhile, but my friend eventually won by two. Since one was a tower, and another was tiny, I think we tied.

After missing a train due to un-announced changes (though we were helped by many Germans), we made it down to Speyer, a town relatively close to the Black Forest. We met up with our first host, a young woman who recently graduated from college. She speaks fluent English and French. We chatted and cooked; her apartment was quite nice. After we ate, we went out into the city, because there was a festival going on. We saw a few of the monuments, went to an impressive art gallery, and listened to music while drinking real German beer.

Saturday, we took a train into the Black Forest, to a town at the western edge of the Central bit of the forest, called Offenburg. The tourist office was closed (another common problem), and even though I had the right information, I got turned around. Instead of working harder to find out where we were, we chilled in a park. Finally, we found bikes we could borrow for free, and went out towards the hills of the forest. We biked through the vineyards and the little towns. We definitley stood out, and one old German man who spoke no English asked if we were lost. I am convinced we had a full conversation with this man without a common language. Between my little German, acting things out, and deciphering what he might mean, we managed to explain that we were coming from Offenburg on bikes (he gave us accurate directions to go back), and asked about a street nearby. We continued on, along the hill where we could see the valley with the Rhine and the towns below us. Absolutely gorgeous, and the rain didn't ruin a thing.

We made it down to Lahr, a town near Offenburg, to meet our next host who was 19 and lived in a flat with her best friends. She was a lot of fun, with two cute pet rats and a large place next to the train station. She cooked us vegetarian German food: potatoe-y balls and salad, with beer, of course. We talked for awhile, then went to a hookah bar, then out to the nightclub where she works. The music was pounding so much that our chairs shook, and there were lights flashing, and a fog machine. The two of us were so tired we fell asleep. So we went back to her place to crash. In the morning, we decided to take a later train, so we could listen to some German music and talk.

At this point, it was Sunday. We took a train down to Freiburg, the largest town in the Black Forest. After exploring a little (another closed tourist office) and eating falafel, we found Freiburg University, where Martin Heidegger used to teach. After a photo shoot with my book on Heidegger, we found a place to rent bikes. We rode along the little river in town, where there are trees and parks, people out walking or lounging around. We fell asleep beneath some trees until it began to rain. We took cover, along with a man who was practicing tight-rope walking. We had a picnic underneath the eaves of a building nearby.

After racing to get our bikes back on time, we took the train for a few minutes out to Freiburg-Luttenweiler, where we met our last hosts. A tattoo-artist couple, they welcomed us immediately, offering their home as ours. They had bought vegetables, not knowing what exactly we would eat, so we started cooking dinner. They ran out to get more beer. More trouble with the stove and a little creativity brought what I consider to be a good meal. After dinner, we rode bikes (I finally rode on the back of a bike, if only for a few feet) down to the little river. We drank beer on a park bench and chatted, watching the water flow by. Then we biked over to their tattoo shop, where we looked at their work and asked questions. They are truly both quite talented. Too tired to keep going, we went back to their place.

In the morning, after promising to come back to visit again, we took a train to Kirchzarten, a few minutes away. From there, we took a local bus into the Black Forest, through the valleys, and climbed up, up to Todtnauberg, where Heidegger had a little cottage. The view was incredible, with little houses dotting the hills, towns nestled among lines of trees, and everything was intensely green. We arrived at this village on the top of one of the hills. It is a skiing town, so of course there weren't really any tourists there at the moment. But it meant that they did have a little grocery store, and a hotel where we were able to get directions to Heidegger's cottage. We climbed through the town, past the houses and up to the very top of the rather large hill. Below, we could see the houses and the trees. A lot of trees. We followed a path through the fields, to a tiny trail through the brush, then across a meadow to his cottage. We saw the fountain outside that he wrote about, and walked around the little place. There, he wrote Being and Time.

After a picnic, we headed down, back to the bus stop; after a little confusion, and nearly losing my friend because he was asking someone when the bus pulled up, we went to Basel, Switzerland, to catch the train back to Paris.