So before I left Germany the second week of May, our schedule was quite packed.
-I babysat for Ladell and then met up with Ryan and the trainees for drinks one night.
-Ryan and I had a double date in Stuttgart with Cassie and Christian. Cassie is an American from California marrying Christian, a native German. Both work for Bosch. We went to the Schlossgartens, a history museum, a biergarten for lunch and beer of course, and for dessert at a cafe. I had much trouble choosing which delicious cake to order for dessert and Ryan accidentally ordered ice cream with a shot of liquor.
-We saw an old coal engine train come through the Boblingen station. I think it was some kind of tour but it looked pretty out of place.
-We saw an old coal engine train come through the Boblingen station. I think it was some kind of tour but it looked pretty out of place.
-The night before my flight, Ryan and I went back to Fruhlingsfest with his coworkers. We sat with 10 native Germans and a couple from Hungary at the Grandls tent and ate chicken and drank beer. This time we were in the middle of the very crowded and loud tent standing on the benches to sing and dance. It was awesome to go with Germans that knew all of the songs and the band there was better than at the other tent.
Then I had two wonderful weeks in Chicago!
Since my return to Germany I do not believe we have had a day of sunshine. We did enjoy a fun weekend in Aachen though despite the poor weather. Saturday morning we drove 3.5 hours North to Aachen to visit Ryan's German friend and previous Bosch coworker Jan. We got to know Jan when he spent six months in Plymouth, MI working in Ryan's group. The drive on the Autobahn was great and would have been shorter if it wasn't for all the construction. The trip can be very short when you are going 225 km/hr or 140 mph!
Aachen is a very old town with rich history on the border of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Today there are three major schools there including the Aachen University, the University of Applied Sciences, and the German Army Technical School. It is a college town with apartments for student housing, restaurants and fast food places, a large number of bars and clubs, and buildings with offices and classrooms. The schools do not really have defined campuses and rather the buildings are distributed throughout the city.
We arrived at his apartment which he shares with his roommate Max who became our tourguide and had a beer before going out for lunch. As we walked to the city center we passed a large amount of "Love Trees". On the first of May, young men cut down small trees, decorate them with colored paper and mount them to the building of the woman they love. They are tied to gutters, pipes, and street lights and left up until the first of June. The role is reversed on leap years when the women do the same for the men.
For lunch they took us to a great restaurant for schnitzel. I enjoyed a Hawaiian style schnitzel with ham, pineapple, and an interesting cream sauce. I knew that Germans love Hawaiian pizza but German students in Aachen also love Hawaiian schnitzel and Hawaiian doner. Ryan and I noticed the price differences right away. Our check for four schnitzels with fries and four beers was only 30 Euros. In Stuttgart, we spent 30 Euros on three beers and two small entrees when we went out with trainees recently. For dessert Jan took us to the best ice cream shop in Germany. We each had two massive scoops for only two Euros a piece.
Then began our Aachen tour:
-We bought Aachener Printen which is similar to gingerbread except there is not any ginger or molasses in it and it is harder.
-The Aachen Cathedral is very pretty inside.
-Aachen is the "City of Fountains and Monuments"
-The university has a lecture hall that holds over 1,000 students. The new lecture hall is under construction and it will hold over 2,000 students and has numerous video screens to watch the professor lecture.
-Aachen has these "excavation site" exhibits throughout the city center where the ground is replaced by glass so that you can see underground where they found remnants of buildings, stone tools, and bits of brick. The largest site we saw is near a mineral bath.
We also drove to the Dreilandenpunt or the place where Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands intersect. There is a tall viewing tower there where you can see Aachen in Germany, the forest in Belgium, and small towns in the Netherlands. The view was worth the hike up the numerous stairs. To make the spot even more of a tourist destination, there is also a Dreilandenpunt Labyrint or maze. The activities there are definitely geared towards children so we decided to pass. While we were driving to the viewing tower we noticed the bikers. There were hundreds of bikers most likely from all three countries doing an organized ride through the area. It looked like a great time!
In the evening, I got my first taste of the German soccer culture. The Champion's League game held in London was between two German teams for the first time, Bayern Munich versus Borussia Dortmund and Jan is a Dortmund fan. We went to a bar over two hours before the game was going to begin to grab seats outside by the extra television sets. All of the bars and clubs in the area were set up with extra seating near mounted flat screen tv's. From the looks of things, many of the tv's came right out of employee's homes and were mounted and strapped down on beer crates. It was very crowded and very cold but I did enjoy the game and the atmosphere. Unfortunately for Jan, Bayern won. Since he was wearing a Dortmund scarf and the crowd was getting rowdy we decided to heat away from the area to a casual bar for one last drink. German soccer fans are pretty intense (and drunk) and I was glad to get away from the chanting, cheering, and fighting on the streets. The bar we found was awesome and very "hipster". There was not a television set in the place and it was full of people that did not care about soccer. I enjoyed a a hot cocoa with Baileys to warm up.
Sunday morning we had breakfast in our hotel, spent some time at Jan's playing kicktipp (a tabletop soccer game similar to foosball), enjoyed doner in Aachen and then headed back to Boblingen.
We stopped at the Burg Eltz on our way home in the rain for a quick viewing of the castle in the valley. We drove through the rolling hills of Northern German countryside with crop fields of rapeseed. The small yellow flowers of the plant gave the hills some color.
Although I had a very early morning today, I could not pass up the opportunity to get out on the bike since I had a shortened day babysitting and the weather was decent. I rode about 25 miles round trip to Herrenberg, the last stop on the S1 train we take from Stuttgart. I came home a very happy person!
On Thursday we drive to Denmark and Sweden!
We also drove to the Dreilandenpunt or the place where Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands intersect. There is a tall viewing tower there where you can see Aachen in Germany, the forest in Belgium, and small towns in the Netherlands. The view was worth the hike up the numerous stairs. To make the spot even more of a tourist destination, there is also a Dreilandenpunt Labyrint or maze. The activities there are definitely geared towards children so we decided to pass. While we were driving to the viewing tower we noticed the bikers. There were hundreds of bikers most likely from all three countries doing an organized ride through the area. It looked like a great time!In the evening, I got my first taste of the German soccer culture. The Champion's League game held in London was between two German teams for the first time, Bayern Munich versus Borussia Dortmund and Jan is a Dortmund fan. We went to a bar over two hours before the game was going to begin to grab seats outside by the extra television sets. All of the bars and clubs in the area were set up with extra seating near mounted flat screen tv's. From the looks of things, many of the tv's came right out of employee's homes and were mounted and strapped down on beer crates. It was very crowded and very cold but I did enjoy the game and the atmosphere. Unfortunately for Jan, Bayern won. Since he was wearing a Dortmund scarf and the crowd was getting rowdy we decided to heat away from the area to a casual bar for one last drink. German soccer fans are pretty intense (and drunk) and I was glad to get away from the chanting, cheering, and fighting on the streets. The bar we found was awesome and very "hipster". There was not a television set in the place and it was full of people that did not care about soccer. I enjoyed a a hot cocoa with Baileys to warm up.
Sunday morning we had breakfast in our hotel, spent some time at Jan's playing kicktipp (a tabletop soccer game similar to foosball), enjoyed doner in Aachen and then headed back to Boblingen.
We stopped at the Burg Eltz on our way home in the rain for a quick viewing of the castle in the valley. We drove through the rolling hills of Northern German countryside with crop fields of rapeseed. The small yellow flowers of the plant gave the hills some color.Although I had a very early morning today, I could not pass up the opportunity to get out on the bike since I had a shortened day babysitting and the weather was decent. I rode about 25 miles round trip to Herrenberg, the last stop on the S1 train we take from Stuttgart. I came home a very happy person!
On Thursday we drive to Denmark and Sweden!
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