Day 03 - Europe 2010

We landed sometime around noon at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.  It’s basically out in the boonies, very near the Luxembourg border.  After making a plane ticket reservation online, Nick called for a cab to the nearest train station. I freshened up in the bathroom terminal, hurrying so I wouldn’t miss our cab.  My haste was unnecessary though.  A whole hour went by with no sign of our taxi.  I called up the taxi company again and said, “Yes, my husband called for a taxi an hour ago,” and the man said, “An hour ago?  Really?  Oh okay, I’ll be there in a bit.”  Geez!  Good thing I called!

So another half hour later, this older gentleman comes by, apologizing for the mix up.  It was hard to hold a grudge when he was so nice.  He was all small talk on the way to the station.  I was impressed with his English and his many travels (he had visited more US states than me) but I was not a fan of watching our fare go higher and higher as the trip went on.  Finally, after a 15-20 minute ride to the station and a steep $60 fare, the man had gone from amiable to irritating.  I hoped that would be one of our most ridiculous purchases on this trip (ha!).

Our train station, which was in a country town called Wittlich, was actually closed so there was no one to direct us where we should go.  We looked at a little posting on the wall with departure times and figured out where we needed to be and what train we needed to get on, or at least we hoped we knew.  We went to the platform where, naturally, everyone was speaking German and we felt a little out of place being the only tourists.  During our wait, an announcement came on over the loudspeaker of which we understood nothing except the response from the German trekkers, swearing and shaking their heads.  Great, they are mad about something, but we don’t know what!  We assumed the train was delayed and we were right.

Our train took us over to a place called Koblenz.  We had just enough time to grab a little bite to eat in the train station, our first meal in Germany and unfortunately rather dull – just a sandwich and some fruit.  By the time we boarded our train from Koblenz to Mannheim, sometime around 7pm, we were both dog tired.  My eyes hurt from lack of sleep and needed a good rest.  But we traveled along a beautiful river on our way to Mannheim and passed such picturesque German towns, some with a little castle on a hilltop overlooking the area.  I remembered how I had slept a good deal on my journey through Europe as a high school exchange student and how I regretted not enjoying the scenery along the way.  So I determined to keep my eyes open and take pictures from the train and enjoy the terraced hillsides and steepled towns.

After about an hour, we made it to Mannhein where we boarded our final train Munich.  The scenery had become less romantic and at this point, about 8:30pm, my eyes and brain could not handle much more.  I double-checked for photo opportunities and gladly welcomed the bland scenery as my guilt-free ticket to nap-time.  The way to Munich was rest-filled for both Nick and me.

We arrived in Munich at 11:30pm and this is when things got really bad.  Because we didn’t know where we were arriving or when, we had not made reservations for a place to stay.  So we had to find a bed in a completely unfamiliar town, in the dark, with our heavy packs and our sleepy heads and everything closed down because it was so late in the evening.  We looked for an internet café but didn’t find one.  We tried to use the phones at the station but all the numbers we tried didn’t work and we didn’t even know if we were dialing right – is that an area code or what???  Whatever we tried, nothing worked, and I was getting very tired, cranky, and irritable.

Finally, we noticed a sign at the train station directing visitors to a nearby hostel.  We walked there and they had no rooms available.  They directed us to another hostel a few blocks away that took us a while to find.  An hour after our arrival, I started to give up hope and declare ourselves officially lost.  We passed some bushes and I started seriously considering, after 48 hours of travel and weariness, sleeping there.

But the hostel was found and lo and behold they had a room for us, a co-ed room with six beds (three bunk beds).  The room smelled… interesting… and was very dirty from current occupants who were nowhere to be seen despite the late hour.  There were chips on the ground and piles of various bottles on whatever surface could hold them.  But the beds were $12 a piece and we were overjoyed to finally lie down and put an end to our journeying.  Finally, we had reached our first destination, Munich, and the first thing on our to-do list was to SLEEP!

PHOTOS:

Nick and me on our first train ride through Europe!

Everywhere we looked, we saw vineyards!  They don't waste any land!

Just about every little town along the river was the same, with a few buildings surrounding a church with a steeple.

And a lot of them had a little castle on the hill above.  I thought that was really neat!