Germany

So, despite the fact that Germany is my home base here on this trip, it's not exactly one of my travel destinations, but we've done a few fun things I thought I'd mention. Aaron and Rebecca live in Dusseldorf, which is in the northwest corner of Germany, about equidistant from Brussels and Amsterdam, and nowhere near just about any other major German city, haha. It's not really a tourist destination, but they have a fun little canal running through the center of town, and it sits right on the Rhine River, so there's also a nice waterfront. I spent my first few days here mostly just chillin and working through jet lag. We got out to run errands a few days, and one of the days Becka took me down to the canal and "altstadt" (old town), where we sat out by the river and had lunch (KFC, haha).

When we got back from Spain, Aaron had the day off work because of a bank holiday, which was excellent, so the four of us went downtown again. We found the most adorable little spot, it's a bar, I guess, but it's done up like a beach, with sand under the tables and potted palm trees all around, and they serve virgin margaritas, so we each got one, and it was absolutely delightful. The weather is starting to get warmer here, and it was a lovely day. Also, one of my favorite surprising things about Germany—they have rhododendrons here! I fell in love with rhodies on my mission, and they only grow in two places in the United States because they require a very specific soil pH level or something. But it's the perfect time of year and they're all in bloom!! Not as much color variety as in Washington, but they make me so happy.

On Saturday, Matthew and I went out to Lippstadt, about an hour and a half northeast of Dusseldorf, to visit with his friends the Herbers. The Kennedys hosted Lea Herber as a foreign exchange student, and Matthew had been to visit her family when he was in Europe before, so since they were not too far away (you'd be surprised how far apart many things are in Germany...), he wanted to get out to see them again. Only the parents, Thomas and Barbara, were at home this weekend. The children are all off at school now. But they gave us a little walking tour around Lippstadt. There's a ruin of a 900-ish-year-old church that used to be a monastery; it was torn apart for the stone after the monastery fell out of use, but the main shell is still standing and I guess they have concerts there now. In the main part of town, there was a farmer's market, and there's also another big church, but this one is still in use. Apparently it's been used as both an Evangelical and Catholic cathedral over time, so the style is somewhat mixed. And the town square has the most charming little fountain, with a whole bunch of statues that have joints you can move, and they're all on platforms that spin, almost like one of those German clocks, but made of stone. The Herbers also took us to this delightful little ice cream parlor, where they serve ice cream in the shape of spaghetti! It was so weird! But delicious. They also do pizzas made of ice cream. We finished up walking along the river—apparently Lippstadt is known as the Venice of Westphalia, because there are several offshoots and canals around the main river. Also, they have the most beautiful backyard. They created a little pond, and they keep fish and bees and birds—canaries that all look like various kinds of creamsicle—and it's just this little microcosm sitting behind their house, but Matthew and I were both inspired by it.

After that, we spent some time in a parking lot with Matthew re-teaching me stick shift driving... I drove home part of the way back to Dusseldorf, but we switched when we had to stop for gas. I had to learn it then, though, because Becka's friends were all getting together that night  for a party to watch Eurovision (apparently a yearly international singing contest?) at a place about 20 minutes from Becka's house, and I was our ride, haha (Matthew and Aaron were busy with their weekly D&D, which is usually Saturday afternoon for Matthew and I, but evening in Germany). I actually made it the whole way without stalling once (woohoo!!), and the party was really fun. It was neat to meet all Rebecca's friends, they have a pretty great group here in the ward, and there were several who I had mutual friends/acquaintances with, so that was neat. Also, I won both Eurovision bingo (by being the first to get a bingo) and the "sweepstakes" (we all drew countries out of a hat, and the winner of the game was the person whose country they had drawn won the contest—mine was Israel, lol).

And now we're back to home base again, after our latest adventure. We got in this morning on the overnight train from Munich—I'm not sure if this last one was better or if I just started getting used to the hard mattresses, but I felt like I slept a little better. We were on the top bunk again (see Austria), but this one had a net spread across the opening, so it made me feel better about not falling. Also, we somehow found ourselves in the middle of some kind of bachelor party—I remembered later that it was Friday night (time's been a little difficult to keep track of, haha), so I guess it makes sense. They weren't entirely raucous though—they were congregated in the halls until after I went to sleep, but they were relatively quiet, so it worked out.

I do have one last funny story to share, although it's possible you simply had to be there. Europe has this problem where coins are much more difficult to acquire proportional to their necessity in the general exchange of currency. There are no 1 euro notes, only 1 and 2 euro coins, and there are so many machines that will only take coins, but the ATMs only give bills, which has been frustrating—as a traveler, at least—on more than one occasion. Rebecca has a washing machine in her kitchen, but the dryer is in the basement and only takes 1 euro coins (not 2 euro, very specific). So we went to the grocery store today to acquire some coins so that I can do some laundry before going home. Becka had a stack of bottles to return—there's a machine at the store that spits out a receipt that you can redeem from the cashier—but because we specifically needed 1 euro coins, she did them in batches. After getting the receipt from the first batch, she sent me up to redeem the receipt while she finished up the rest. So I went and stood in line, and when I got to the front, the lady gabbled at me in German, which I understood none of, but then she gestured at the groceries that were up next on her till (from the person behind me), and I understood that she wanted to know if the stuff was mine, but no, I was just redeeming my bottle receipt. So by this time, Becka had made it to the back of the line with her other two receipts, so I joined her. And then we got all the way almost to the front when she suddenly realized she'd forgotten she needed to actually buy one thing, so she gave me one of the receipts and dashed back into the store. And I got up to the front and felt like a revolving door comedy sketch, just like, "Hello, it's me again!" And the lady looked up and did this massive double take—which Rebecca saw just as she was getting back in line again—and the whole not speaking English (or German, in my case) thing just made it that much funnier. So I went to rejoin Becka in the back of the line (again), and we just dissolved laughing and could barely get a hold of ourselves enough to conduct the third transaction. I was tempted to go up with the third one and pretend I wasn't with Rebecca after all, but I couldn't have kept a straight face, haha. So, you know, we're just up to our usual sister shenanigans here in Germany. As much as she drives me crazy sometimes, I'm going to miss this girl...