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| Reutlingen |
Since we had so much fun during Thanksgiving, the Bremenites decided to meet up once again for Easter. We all (okay… maybe only a couple of us actually showed up… but some appointed Bremenites joined in too) made our way to southwestern Germany to a small town called Reutlingen, where our fellow CBYXer Brent lives. I took a Mitfahr there Thursday night (gotta love super cheap rides and meeting interesting strangers) and met up with the others.
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| Achalm Mountain |
Friday - Hiking
Friday, we woke up pretty early to start our day of hiking. We walked through the town and made our way to a mountain called Achalm. After swearing off German beer for making me struggle up the mountain, I sat down in the sun at the top and we all ate sandwiches and apples with a nice, hot beer (so my pledge didn’t last very long). We also climbed up the watchtower to get an incredible view of the city. Brent did some acrobatics on a flag pole, and we also noticed that a bottle of beer makes a good sun dial. We came back down to the grass and basked in the sun for as long as possible (this kind of weather couldn’t go to waste… especially after the harsh winter we all went through). We had to go pick up two more Bremenites from the train station, so we made our way down the mountain and then eventually back to Brent’s. There we all cooked homemade burgers and French fries (well… guys grilled, girls did the dishes… how… traditional). I pulled out my red solo cups from the military base and we all played our comfortable American drinking games, beer pong included.
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| Picnic with our new German friends |
Saturday - Frühlingsfest
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| Mmm... Eggs Benedict |
Saturday we woke up and everyone helped make a nice breakfast. Johnny made absolutely DELICIOUS Eggs Benedict (who knew I liked eggs when they’re not scrambled?! Awesome). Right when we were all about to go back for our second round of eggs, the electricity went out and we had to keep ourselves occupied. This is when Johnny introduced the now infamous “Jug-O-Wine” song (with Brent on backup harmonica) that was permanently stuck in everyone’s head for the rest of the weekend. Full of eggs and now mimosas, we took a 30 minute train ride to Stuttgart for opening day of their annual Frühlingsfest (Spring festival).
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| Love me some carnival rides! |
Stuttgart Frühlingsfest is ridiculous. It’s pretty much the exact same thing as Oktoberfest, but not as crowded (but still… over 1.2 million people or something). Of course, the first thing I do is run for a carnival ride. Johnny and I repeated New Year’s Eve and screamed our faces off just because we could. Brent was behind us enjoying the ride as well. I was even dumb (or clever? hmm) enough to bring my camera along for the ride, and now I have some awesome shots of the view up above.
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| Frühlingsfest Beer Tent |
We then went to a beer garden, and then some of us actually managed to get inside to a tent (without reservations... woo!). This resulted in Oktoberfest 2.0, with lots of “Prost!”-ing and singing along to Germany’s favorite drinking songs. Lederhosen, dirndls, broken beer steins, and even a stuffed tiger filled the scene.
Sunday – Easter in the Black Forest
Sunday we all woke up suuuper early to catch our 3-4 hour train ride (with multiple connections) to the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). I was extremely excited to see not only one of the most beautiful places in all of Germany, but also just to see all the freaking trees!! Ever since living in North Carolina, I love being around trees… they seem to always make me happy (is that weird?). We knew we were getting close when the train was completely surrounded by extremely tall, beautiful trees and small mountains.
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| Titisee |
Our first stop was the Titisee (unfortunately… or hilariously?... pronounced exactly like it looks). The town of Titisee had lots of tourists (but not too many) and the very scenic Lake Titi. We made ourselves a picnic on the edge, but some angry German man told us to get off the nicely shaved grass, which started a day full of disappointing German rules (the rules to the lake pretty much said: No swimming, no walking in grass, no smiling, no fun). So, we made our own fun. The weather suddenly turned cloudy and it started to rain, so we hung out underneath a Sparkasse bank for awhile (after getting kicked out from underneath a small shop’s patio for not being customers) and discussed why the heck a yellow Hummer was parked outside (how did that thing get to Germany?? And who would feel comfortable driving that thing in a country that is all about efficiency??). Who knows. We also moved closer to the lake and entertained some little girls under a gazebo by singing them American children’s songs (you can never forget Itsy Bitsy Spider).
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| Freiburg |
Next stop was Freiburg… the town that is known as the main attraction of the Black Forest. It was a charming German town with lots of people walking around, and we once again hiked to the top of the city mountain (the Schlossberg) to check out the amazing view. We hiked up another watchtower, but unfortunately it started to get cold and rainy again, so we chilled at a beer garden that was on the mountain, overlooking the town below.
After a full weekend of adventures, we were all ready to get back to Reutlingen for a nice, long sleep and head out the next morning. But man, we never saw what happened next coming. And now… any faith we ever had in Deutsche Bahn (the German railway system) is now forever gone.
Monday – The downfall of Deutsche Bahn
Sunday night, leaving Freiberg, we took the second to last train back to be safe. Well, the train was late getting to our next connection, so we ended up missing all of our other connections, which meant we were pretty much doomed. We ended up waiting over an hour at the now abandoned train station for the very last train of the night to come through… only this train just took us about 30-45 minutes closer to home, which didn’t help. The town we were in, called Rottweil, was so small it had no hostel or hotel, and nobody was around to help (it was Easter!). Travis, the CBYXer in our group with the best German skills by far, somehow managed to get Deutsche Bahn on the phone to try to work something out. They told us a taxi would cost 130 Euro each (we would need two of them) and they would only reimburse up to 80 Euro, which wasn’t even guaranteed. So, out of options, we thought we’d be sleeping outside on the benches in the cold all night. But thanks to Travis’s awesome German skills, we were given another option.
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| Sleeping on our very own ICE train |
Travis talked to the train conductor, who was about to leave and go home, who gave us the option of sleeping on his parked ICE (huge fast-speed) train. He said it would be parked on the platform all night, and would be heading to Stuttgart at around 7:00am the next morning (8 hours from then). After realizing he wasn’t joking, and was actually a genuine guy (he could get in huge trouble for this) we thanked him a million times over and got onto the train. There we were… 8 ridiculous Americans… making our own party on a temporarily abandoned ICE train. Absolutely unforgettable night.
We woke up around 5:30am, discussed the previous night’s events in a lonely train cabin, and eventually started seeing people showing up for the first train of the morning. We got to Stuttgart, and finally back to Brent’s in Reutlingen to get our stuff, and then we all headed out together for our rides home.
But Deutsche Bahn’s faults don’t stop there.
Waiting in Reutlingen, our train to Stuttgart was around 45 minutes late, and packed to the brim. It then stopped in a very remote area and told all of us to get off the train and pack into the first cabin, because something was broken. So. Many. People. We all somehow manage to squeeze on, then just stand there until they tell us, nevermind, everybody just get off and wait for the next train to come to take you.
We finally get to Stuttgart to find that our ICE train was about to leave, so we sprint through the train station, barely make it onto our train, only to find out that the train is extremely packed with nowhere to stand, let alone sit. With Travis as our very useful German persuader, he was able to convince a German ticket checker to let us sit in First Class, as long as nobody followed us. That definitely relaxed our moods, and I eventually got back to Mainz Monday night.
One adventure after another. Memories that you'll have forever. Enjoy!
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