how efficient the germans are!

last weekend, i took a very pleasant trip to western germany to meet my friend, imke, and to view the castles of the rhine valley.

i missed class on friday because i took the 12 noon train to bonn. i traveled first class and think that i am now officially in love with train travel.

this is a picture of the chart that shows where first class is on each train. it looks less impressive in this picture, but it was very cool. so efficient of the germans to show where the car will show up in the station!

i was slightly disappointed with the trip to bonn because my first class seat was in a cabin. i don't really see what the difference between the first class cabin seats and the second class cabin seats. maybe first class is bigger? how can it be, though, if the trains are the same size? i don't know. there were plug-ins so i could charge my laptop, so i guess that is good. a man came around to each cabin and started asking me questions. i looked at him blankly and finally said "ich spreche kein deutsche." then he said, "oh. tickets?" so i give him my ticket and rather than validating it, he copies down all the information on a piece of paper on his clipboard. then he KEPT asking me questions. my blank stare must not have been empty enough. finally i heard the word "arbeiten" which means "to work." so i said "nein, ich habe eine freunde" (no, i have a friend), hoping that he would get that i am meeting a friend. i guess he did and apparently it was very important he find out exactly why i was on the train.

so imke and i meet at the train station in bonn. we rented a car so we could go out of town and drive down the rhine valley. fri night, after we met, we picked up the car and got a bit lost trying to find our hotel. eventually we found it. we ate at the hotel that night - we were one of the last people to be seated. they let us order, but when we went to order dessert (i am on a search for the perfect strudel), they told us the kitchen was closed. i was kind of annoyed they didn't ask if we wanted anything else before closing. it just might have been perfect, but now i'll never know.

saturday morning we started out and took our time driving down the valley, stopping in small towns here and there. this is a picture of a typical german house:

in this town, we stopped to have some tea on the river. they served us tea on these cute little trays. rooibush tea is very popular here - i had it 3 times last weekend. the clear little bowl in the picture is for your tea bag. how efficient!

we then followed my eyewitness Germany book and it took us to this town called Boppard. Do not go to Boppard. Sure, it's cute and German, and all that, but it's a tourist trap. it was horrible. there were sooo many people and all these chincy souvenir shops. the first town where we had tea was better (but i can't remember what that was).

however, in boppard, we did see this statue for hansel and gretle with englebert humperdink, who, in my opinion has one of the coolest names ever. apparently, englebert bought a place in boppard after making beaucoup de niro composing the play hansel and gretle (based off of the brothers grimm story). here is an interesting story on it to go along with the photo below.

we decided not to eat in Boppard and continued on our trek toward mainz. we stayed in a hyatt, not as impressive as the one in warsaw, and went out to eat after we checked in. we ended up eating at this german/spanish/mexican fake-fusion type place. we had fajitas and some other things and it was quite good, although the fajitas were not at all spicy. the coat rack in the restaurant was another example of german efficiency - the top row of hooks was on a piece of wood further out than the bottom row. how smart!

sunday we got up went to use the gym which was a HUGE disappointment. i'm going to write a letter to the hyatt and complain. it was really annoying. finally, we got back on the road to bonn to return the car and catch our trains. we went like 140 on the autobahn. i think thats fast. it seemed fast. oh! and i think some people might be impressed by this, but the fact was lost on me, we had a pretty nice mercedes as a rental car.

oh, the final example of german efficiency is below. in front of the hotel in bonn (we had to go back because i forgot my ipod), there is an area where you can turn your car around. in this area (below) is a green sign that looks like this: