Germany! I loved it!
I went with my German friend Anja, who lived with me at Halstead Co-op in Austin last year (when she was doing an exchange) and who has now moved to Paris for a few months to do an internship. I have almost no knowledge of German, except for when I sang lieder in high school/college (although I never liked to sing in German because of all the consonants), and I would have felt 100% lost without a German-speaker to help me with every interaction!
Anja taught me a few phrases, so now I can say all the "Gutens" (guten morgen, guten tag, etc) and I can count to ten, which actually kind of came in handy because I bought A LOT of wonderful things at the (world famous) German Christmas Markets!
I got out of class earlier than Anja got off work on Friday, so I took a train two hours earlier and stopped in Strasbourg until Anja caught up. Making a 1.5-hour solo tour of a city definitely requires a bit of planning, and I wanted to get a guidebook of Strasbourg to make the most of my short time there. Unfortunately, traveling two weekends in a row definitely made life a little hectic last week (I basically don't know what happened/where it went) -- Thursday night rolled around and I still hadn't found time to pick one up at the library. "No big deal," I thought, "I can go tomorrow morning." WRONG! So most City of Paris libraries don't open until TWO PM on Fridays! (And they aren't open at all on Mondays.) Rushing to the nearest one (which luckily had what I needed) after class made me a little nervous about catching my train, but that's studying abroad I guess -- BUSY.
Luckily Strasbourg is pretty small, so I saw most of the historic center (conveniently contained on a small island in the middle of the river Ill), moving on foot the entire time and armed with my LonelyPlanet guide and my camera. I love how train stations, unlike airports, are usually located near/in the city center!
A city which has been passed back and forth between France and Germany over the last few centuries (and now marks the border), Strasbourg is now in France, but the German influence is strong. For this reason, it was the perfect introduction to Germany for me!
Anja's mom and sister picked us up from a train station about 45 minutes from their house in Shoental, a collection of seven small villages which translates to "beautiful valley." Once we were in the car, driving through the dark and silent German countryside, Anja said "First time in Germany, Alina!"
"Yep!" I replied.
Then her mom turned around from the driver's seat to say: "Autobahn!"
Between the drive to and from Heidelberg Saturday and then to Mannheim to catch the train the Sunday evening, much of my weekend was spent on the famous autobahn! And it's true that many parts - including a lot of what we were driving through - have no limit! Anja pointed out that Germany is the "land of fast cars" - Audi, Mercedes, Porsche...and on these parts of the highway you actually have a chance of using all that fabulous horsepower. Honestly I don't know how fast we went - I couldn't see the speedometer when Anja's mom was driving...but I'm not sure I'd have wanted to!! :P
On Saturday we went to Heidelberg, a historic university town complete with a fifteenth century castle. We were so busy exploring the city's main street that we didn't get to the castle until the sun was long gone (ahem, sunset STARTED around 3PM). But I really enjoyed the night views from high up on the hill. The rest of the evening was spent wandering the Christmas markets and hanging out with Marie-Louise, one of Anja's friends who studies in Heidelberg. I was surprised to learn that the markets are all outside, considering Germany's climate during the winter, but that explains the popularity of the glühwein (hot wine with spices).
On Sunday I had a big German lunch with Anja's family before going to the Christmas market in the main settlement of Shoental. We saw a saxophone orchestra concert (!) and I bought even more German goodies, most of which will probably become gifts. A couple of them are going to decorate my room, though, so look out for pictures in the next couple of weeks...
Have a great week everyone!
Alina :)
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Wuderbar!!!
ReplyDeleteI love saying that word, and now it is timely.
Those north Europeans are sure a hardy bunch, eh? It reminds me of your great-grandfather Smith, who when he came to Texas from London would spend long periods just sitting in the sun. Goethe's Faust went to Heidelberg University. We are so glad you survived the Autobahn! Love, papa