Germany

I never finished blogging about this summer! So, since it takes a lot of work to be able to write everything (I wrote about every day for 5/8 weeks- good enough), I'm publishing the last bit I'd written, and some of my pictures. Hooray! Let's reminisce about Europe. <3 <3

*Note: my phone SD card became corrupted for some unknown reason, and as a result, I have less pictures from this time as I would have liked.

Monday:

We packed up our stuff in the morning to head off to Germany. We said our goodbyes to the Tardent Family (and Neil) before hitting the road.

We drove to Freiburg to exchange the car. We took out all our stuff and put it on the sidewalk before getting the new car. Looking at all our stuff in one pile and not on us like when we're at the airport.. I was impressed. That pile was our everything for 8 weeks. And it all fit in a 5-seater car.

Our new car was pretty sweet. It was a Volvo, but this time it was light blue. Every other car was black. It also had a lot of lighter plugs and USB plugs which was AWESOME. And a built-in GPS that was in German, but it worked! We learned a little German vocab from that thing.

We stopped at the Aldi next door and got some food, marveling at the prices. Denmark and Switzerland are super expensive. Germany is not. We will be stocking up in this country.

There was a section of "American" type foods. The packaging was all red white and blue, which I thought was funny. Can't remember what all the section included besides chips.

I'm a little weird. I don't really like a lot of flavored chips. I will eat any and all tortilla chips with salsa all day and night, but when it comes to potato chips, I like plain, salt and vinegar, and the general group of salt and pepper or sea salt or whatever. I don't like barbecue. I don't like sour cream and onion (I like both of those outside my potato chips). I don't like cheese and onion. I don't like paprika. I don't know why those last two flavors are so popular in Europe, but they can stay here. They taste totally strange. And why does it seem weird that I like salt and vinegar chips? My parents say it's mainly popular in the UK and not really in the US. Since when?! I must have never got that memo, because I thought salt and vinegar was totally standard in the US. I thought the 4 standard potato chips in the US was original, barbecue, sour cream and onion, and salt and vinegar! I'm really confused by this.  

Either way, we got an American barbecue bag and a Balsamic Vinegar bag, and I thought that was cool. I'd never seen balsamic vinegar chips before, and my dad thought they tasted like normal vinegar chips, but you could tell. They had a slightly sweeter balsamic-y taste. Not bad. I prefer the normal salt and vinegar, but I liked these too.

After Aldi, we continued on to Frankfurt. Not much happened on the way, except that parking was interesting when we got there. We had a pretty good spot, it was just noteworthy how close the cars were. More on that later.

In Frankfurt we met our couchsurfing host, Kurt. His apartment was on the top floor (6th), so he had some great views and a really nice rooftop garden.

After settling in, we walked to a small grocery store for dinner stuff. Right next to it there was a small playground with a cool rope climbing sculpture thing. We played around that, got food, and headed back.

While making dinner, Kurt, Bella, and Alex made ice cream. First one was orange flavored, but colored pink. Second was lemon flavored, and blue. It was great fun.

Tuesday:

So today had 3 missions; to go to the Baha'i house of worship, to find a library (hopefully with wifi), and to eat pizza.

Kurt left for work, so once we were ready, we headed off to fulfill our first mission. The Mother Temple of Europe.

 

We were able to find a library, but unfortunately, it did not have wifi. Oh well. But I did find a Rick Riordan book!

We successfully found a pizza place for dinner, but I do not have any pictures from that.

Wednesday: Frankfurt

I think we can agree that this was the worst day from our trip. People just didn't get along together, it was hot, we couldn't get Internet anywhere, and we'd been together for a lot of time. But, we got to know some of the public transport, we walked across a bridge with a lot of love locks (really interesting to see!), we blew bubbles, and we had a really delicious Thai dinner at the restaurant downstairs.

Thursday: Drive to Blomberg

Highlights from this day was reuniting with Marion, Harold, and Sören, eating amazing cake, and spending time together. Family tensions from the day before seemed to have calmed down. We had a great evening together.

What the heck does this construction sign mean?

Friday:

Still in Blomberg with Marion and her family, this day we went to the market, grocery shopping, and then visited this natural rock formation thing known as the Externsteiner.

Saturday:

We went to a cool free zoo and saw a bunch of animals! Then, Ikea and shopping.... Let me point out, Denmark and Switzerland are extremely expensive, and Germany is not, so we were totally more willing to spend money in Germany where we'd get more bang for our buck, and also, to stock up for our journey back to Denmark.

Ikea is the best

Sunday:

Hung out more with Marion and family, then drove to Hamburg. In Hamburg, we were staying at the apartment of someone who had couchsurfed at our house a few months earlier. Unfortunately, he was away, vacationing in Africa, but we got to meet his roommate, and he was nice enough to have us stay at his apartment even when he wasn't there.

Monday:

My dad left us and flew to Copenhagen (because car rentals. It's complicated. But it saved us money) so we had the day to ourselves. We found a tourist office, wandered around Hamburg, and did some shopping. Namely, finally buying our album of the summer, George Ezra's Wanted On Voyage. Because this was something we did want on our voyage. And play it, we did. Also, we got the deluxe version because WHY NOT and also because it was NOT AVAILABLE in the US what the heck why would you do that to us. But hey, all's well, because we got our new favorite British singer's album in Germany.

 

LOVE YOU, GEORGEY

Tuesday:

From our visit to the Tourist office the day before, we discovered there was a free 3 hour walking tour every day, so duh, we were totally going to take advantage of it! After, we visited the German Customs Museums because it was super cheap (and easy to walk to) and it turned out to be fairly interesting. That evening, my dad arrived back from Copenhagen in the newest rental car.

Above, a church. Below, the scene of the 2nd Great Fire of Hamburg (if I remember correctly).

Apparently, Hamburg has more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined.

Wednesday: 

A trip to Hamburg wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Reeperbahn. Hamburg's red light district, if ya didn't known. Also where The Beatles performed many a time in early in their careers. In the day, well, it's still a little sketchy, but not too much so anymore. Afterwards, we drove to Denmark.

Denmark is coming soon! And also, more stuff about Panama (I promise. I am living in Panama after all). Soon I'll have my Europe trip fully documented. I hope you enjoyed seeing this as much as I enjoyed making this. Miss you, Germany.

See ya.