Germany, Story 1 (of... ?)
Here are the stories you have all been waiting for. For the past 10 days, I was off visiting my family in Nettlingen, Germany. Nettlingen is a little town, like very small, about an hour (depending on how fast you drive... heh) south west of Hannover and about 3 hours south east of Berlin.
I've thought long and hard about how I am going to elaborate on my final 'hurrah' before I embark on a completely different journey as I learn every last detail about the human body. I've decided that I am going to tell this story in many parts as there was much that we did, and I also decided to keep the details more to a minimum and tell more about the funny, exciting, and moving experiences from Germany. Something that I probably won't say too much is that we did sit around and do a lot of talking. It was really cool getting to know these people, and sort of learning about our history, and establishing the relationships that we hope will last. As I said previously, our families lost contact in the war and for over 50 years, we knew nothing except a couple of the stories my grandfather told his kids when they were younger. Stories of a hotel and restaurant. Stories of a small town and a bowling alley. Apparently my grandfather was something of a story teller, so many, especially including the bowling alley, weren't believed. When my uncle saw the bowling alley in the hotel a couple years ago, he knew then that this was the place my grandfather spoke of and had visited twice in the 1910's as a boy, and our family had finally been reunited.
To wet your whistle, so to speak... here are some stories that are to come:
Food
Berlin
Driving on the Autobahn (yes, me driving)
The Tour de France
Water skiing
Searching grave stones for more of our family
Today's story is about the first day.
Arriving in Berlin at 9AM local time, we got off the jetway and it finally hit me. I haven't used my German in about 6 years and I needed to start remembering even simple phrases. We rented an Opel (similar to chevy) station wagon and drove to the town of Nettlingen, where we were greeted by Monika and Siegfried, who are the people of my parent's generation. Dinner was steak and mushrooms; Usually I am person that doesn't like mushrooms, but these were actually pretty good, and they were fresh. And we started drinking. Beer. Pear Schnapps. Beer. Astenbecker. Beer. (Schnapps is a lot stronger in Germany and Astenbecker is like grain alcohol or something. We have nothing like it in America) Keep in mind, besides that little nap I got in the afternoon, I did not sleep on the plane, and thus by 10PM that night, I had been up for something like 30 hours. We had lots and lots of fun talking with our family, giving presents and just hanging out.
Ok, I promise this gets better.
Around 11:30, Kate and I head back to the hotel and decided that we needed to walk around some. So we headed out to the pond that is in town, and we some people around our age drinking and talking and having fun. Naturally, I stopped and starting talking to them. And after a few drinks, many of you know I get talkative, and I start speaking more German as my inhibitions of speaking the language are gone. 1AM comes, and they all say that they wanted to go swimming in the Freibad (local pool). So we decided that this was an amazing idea. We hopped in a car, drove 2 minutes and went swimming. There were about 20 of us there and Kate and I were a little concerned about hopping a fence and going swimming in a pool that was obviously closed off (barbed wire over the fence). I then remembered at Mike's bachelor party the same thing happened and went forth with it. After a little while, I got out of the pool and started talking with people (broken German and broken English, but the ideas got across) and around 2:30, we decided that it was probably a pretty good idea to go to bed. This time, we walked. Finally, Kate and I headed up to the room, and decided it might be a good idea to not really say anything about our little adventure on the first night.
Breakfast was at 10 o'clock the next morning and the partially jet-lagged, partially hungover, partially way-too-tired-because-we-stayed-up-too-late Kate and I showed up to breakfast. Naturally Kate went back to bed, but I sat around with the cousins some more. Later in the day, Iris, a cousin (in-law) who is my generation, said that she was taking one of her kids to the Freibad and wanted to know if we wanted to go. Sheepishly, Kate and I said yes, conveniently leaving out the fact that we had been there the previous night.
While there, Iris and Kate went to get some ice-cream and while walking back to our towels, she says to Kate "I hear you swim here last night?" Kate said no with a smile, and Iris responded "Well my friend's daughter says she goes swimming with an American here last night." Like I said in a previous post: small town America, everyone knows everything. Of course then Kate says we were swimming, and we all have a laugh, now that half the town knew about our adventures. Iris said her husband, Mark (my cousin) did it all the time before they were married and it is essentially a right of passage for Nettlingeners. So we fit right in.
And it gets better. At dinner that night, the cousin who runs the hotel, Peter, told everyone that Kate and I went to the Freibad last night. We all then laughed even more and we asked how in the world he figured it out, and he said that he overheard us the night before as his window overlooks the area where we were hanging out.
It was just real funny in that on the very first night there, we met these random people, went swimming, didn't say anything about it... then the whole freaking town knows. From that night, we knew that this was going to be an amazing trip.
So that is the first story.
We had so much fun, and when I get back to Richmond (still in Baltimore now) I will start putting pictures up so you can see the fun we had.
If you want to hear about this, keep posted. If you don't. Oh well.
still waiting,
-wait
I've thought long and hard about how I am going to elaborate on my final 'hurrah' before I embark on a completely different journey as I learn every last detail about the human body. I've decided that I am going to tell this story in many parts as there was much that we did, and I also decided to keep the details more to a minimum and tell more about the funny, exciting, and moving experiences from Germany. Something that I probably won't say too much is that we did sit around and do a lot of talking. It was really cool getting to know these people, and sort of learning about our history, and establishing the relationships that we hope will last. As I said previously, our families lost contact in the war and for over 50 years, we knew nothing except a couple of the stories my grandfather told his kids when they were younger. Stories of a hotel and restaurant. Stories of a small town and a bowling alley. Apparently my grandfather was something of a story teller, so many, especially including the bowling alley, weren't believed. When my uncle saw the bowling alley in the hotel a couple years ago, he knew then that this was the place my grandfather spoke of and had visited twice in the 1910's as a boy, and our family had finally been reunited.
To wet your whistle, so to speak... here are some stories that are to come:
Food
Berlin
Driving on the Autobahn (yes, me driving)
The Tour de France
Water skiing
Searching grave stones for more of our family
Today's story is about the first day.
Arriving in Berlin at 9AM local time, we got off the jetway and it finally hit me. I haven't used my German in about 6 years and I needed to start remembering even simple phrases. We rented an Opel (similar to chevy) station wagon and drove to the town of Nettlingen, where we were greeted by Monika and Siegfried, who are the people of my parent's generation. Dinner was steak and mushrooms; Usually I am person that doesn't like mushrooms, but these were actually pretty good, and they were fresh. And we started drinking. Beer. Pear Schnapps. Beer. Astenbecker. Beer. (Schnapps is a lot stronger in Germany and Astenbecker is like grain alcohol or something. We have nothing like it in America) Keep in mind, besides that little nap I got in the afternoon, I did not sleep on the plane, and thus by 10PM that night, I had been up for something like 30 hours. We had lots and lots of fun talking with our family, giving presents and just hanging out.
Ok, I promise this gets better.
Around 11:30, Kate and I head back to the hotel and decided that we needed to walk around some. So we headed out to the pond that is in town, and we some people around our age drinking and talking and having fun. Naturally, I stopped and starting talking to them. And after a few drinks, many of you know I get talkative, and I start speaking more German as my inhibitions of speaking the language are gone. 1AM comes, and they all say that they wanted to go swimming in the Freibad (local pool). So we decided that this was an amazing idea. We hopped in a car, drove 2 minutes and went swimming. There were about 20 of us there and Kate and I were a little concerned about hopping a fence and going swimming in a pool that was obviously closed off (barbed wire over the fence). I then remembered at Mike's bachelor party the same thing happened and went forth with it. After a little while, I got out of the pool and started talking with people (broken German and broken English, but the ideas got across) and around 2:30, we decided that it was probably a pretty good idea to go to bed. This time, we walked. Finally, Kate and I headed up to the room, and decided it might be a good idea to not really say anything about our little adventure on the first night.
Breakfast was at 10 o'clock the next morning and the partially jet-lagged, partially hungover, partially way-too-tired-because-we-stayed-up-too-late Kate and I showed up to breakfast. Naturally Kate went back to bed, but I sat around with the cousins some more. Later in the day, Iris, a cousin (in-law) who is my generation, said that she was taking one of her kids to the Freibad and wanted to know if we wanted to go. Sheepishly, Kate and I said yes, conveniently leaving out the fact that we had been there the previous night.
While there, Iris and Kate went to get some ice-cream and while walking back to our towels, she says to Kate "I hear you swim here last night?" Kate said no with a smile, and Iris responded "Well my friend's daughter says she goes swimming with an American here last night." Like I said in a previous post: small town America, everyone knows everything. Of course then Kate says we were swimming, and we all have a laugh, now that half the town knew about our adventures. Iris said her husband, Mark (my cousin) did it all the time before they were married and it is essentially a right of passage for Nettlingeners. So we fit right in.
And it gets better. At dinner that night, the cousin who runs the hotel, Peter, told everyone that Kate and I went to the Freibad last night. We all then laughed even more and we asked how in the world he figured it out, and he said that he overheard us the night before as his window overlooks the area where we were hanging out.
It was just real funny in that on the very first night there, we met these random people, went swimming, didn't say anything about it... then the whole freaking town knows. From that night, we knew that this was going to be an amazing trip.
So that is the first story.
We had so much fun, and when I get back to Richmond (still in Baltimore now) I will start putting pictures up so you can see the fun we had.
If you want to hear about this, keep posted. If you don't. Oh well.
still waiting,
-wait
mindless ramblings by wait at
6:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home