Part 2 of first day in Germany and other assorted ramblings

I think I am going to do the assorted ramblings because they are fresh in my mind.

Note: If you take a train in Germany, DO NOT go into the first car behind the engine unless you are a smoker. And also know that this car has VERY TINY windows and as soon as it takes off, everyone (including the 33 kids under 16 yrs old) lights up at once. *cough, cough*

Note: If you buy a "Go Bananas" calling card for 25€ in Germany, to take advantage of the 2 cents a minute calling to Italy and the 1 cent a minute calling to the US (I KID YOU NOT) be aware that you have to call from a land line. If you call from your cell, that 25€ gets used up in about 14 and 1/2 minutes. I learned this personally, yesterday.

Note, everything seems cheaper when you buy it in euros, until you get home and add it up, and then pass out on the floor when you realize just how much you spent in dollars.

Note: I have had more people do amazing things to help me in the 4 days that I have been here, then I had in 10 years of living in the USA. (sorry, but it is true)

Youth hostels in Germany.... I know, I even heard some of you groan out loud when I said youth hostels, (and that does include you, mom)

Youth hostels in Germany, well the majority of them are run by the government which, now that I think of it, explains WHY you have to pay for everything there.

Anyway, I am staying at one in Heidelberg since last night and until Monday morning, when I will have an apartment in Darmstadt for the rest of the month. (and that too is another story waiting to be told) The hostel is a pretty amazing place, but has its good and bad, that´s for sure.

The rooms are CLEAN, beds nice, food good, though I think I did a non-no by putting peanut sauce on my fish last night (it sounded good to me, but I think it was for something else by the way the serving girl looked at me ((those crazy fat Americans!!))).

The room I am staying in houses 4, there are two sets of bunkbeds, they look like they would come from IKEA, light wood, very plan, but nice.

There is a table with 4 chairs, a shower, sink, toilet room, and cabinets that lock for 1 € a time.

GERMAN WINDOWS ROCK! One more thing the US should really be picking up on. Ok, you have these huge windows, maye 4 feet high. When you turn the handle one way, it swings wide open, ( letting in the damn fly that kept landing on me all night last night) and when you close the window and turn the handle the other way, the window opens out FROM THE TOP about 8-10 inches. This way you get air coming in at night, but no one can break in. I am truly amazed at what a simple idea this is.

Anyway..... I checked in to the hostel yesterday afternoon, after catching a train from Darmstadt to Heidelberg. Staying there 3 nights cost me 81€, and would have cost me about 20€ less, but I had to buy a Hostel International card in order to be able to stay there.

Hostels in Germany, i mean there are businessmen staying there to save money! LOL
I saw several families (and heard there kids yelling and running up and down the halls) saw two or three of what looked like travelling youth sports teams, assorted bikers, kids with backbacks etc, and then there was me. I have to be honest, I pretty much look like I am homeless right now, which is kind of fun for me, playing the middle aged, homeless woman, when in fact it looks like I have a god shot at a nice job in Vienna, Austria. (YES)

I had no towels with me, 1€ each, my clothes REALLY needed washing (about 5€) I had no shampoo or soap, cause they are in my suitcase that is sitting at the last hotel I stayed in, in Darmstadt. (that too is another story) So I had to go buy that, cause they were out of soap to buy at the hostel. Sheets and breakfast IS however, included in your daily fee.

Let´s talk comforters and hotels in Germany and I am guessing the Netherlands. You know how the US always has those exposes on the news about what is on the comforters in hotels? Well, there is another great idea here. You have the comforter, you have a cover (duve??) they put the cover on the comforter, then when you leave, take off the cover, and put a clean one on for the next person. Shockingly simple, isn´t it???

Anyway, i had two roomates last night, but they both left this morning. One from Asia, the other from Germany, she looking for an apartment in Heidelberg because she is going to school here starting October. I love traveling alone, I think I said that before, but it is still true. I make myself sit down and talk to people, and you learn so much about the country you are in that way. Like The green bottle of water is fizzy, the pink bottle is sort of fizzy and the blue bottle is not fizzy. You don´t even have to know German to read the labels!

Last night the German girl and I sat in a side room watching TV and talking. German TV is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than Italian. There was a show on, the same stle as a couple of American one. The dufuss husband, the in Germany, was hysterical. A lot of the time I didn´t even know what was going on, but it didn´t matter, it was just fascinating watching the expressions on his face. i mean, this was a GOOD show, you could tell. Pretty cool.

The German girl and I got into sort of the standard conversation I seem to be having with people here. The differences between America and Germany, what a dumbutt Bush is, etc. Fast food and how Americans are all though of as fat, which I found interesting cause there are some WIDE people here, in fact I love the clothing depts, because regular sizes go up to a XXL, and THEN there is the fat section, which is called Grosse, which to me is hysterical.

Wireless internet, cost me FOUR € for an hour. Now that is just highway robbery. It´s like 2 € or $2.60 for every 15 minutes. AUGGGGHHHH. Times that by how many hours you there surf per day... YEAH, right... Internet cafes cost between 1-2 € an hour.

OK, enough of the hostel. It was nice, room was stuffy, fly bugged the shit out of me, I am going back tonight. :-)

OK; I am tired of typing, going to play pogo for a bit and then write more.

OK, I am back, I need to just push myself to get it done before I never do it.


Sooo.. let´s see, first day in German, I have managed to get myself onto a train, and the gentleman with a bike say he will help me at the next stop, he is going the same direction.(get your minds out of the gutter, this man is NICE)
Since he is staying in the bike section of the train,(YES!! so many people ride bikes, there are cars that have two levels, top has seats, bottom is open for the bike riders to store their bikes)and he wil meet me at the next stop and point me in the right direction of Darmstadt.

Well, he was such a huge help. showed me how to use the ticket thingy (ok, i admit i knew how to, but he was being so nice, i let him think i didn´t know how to get my ticket)

He got directions from the conductor on what stops to get on and off, what trains to catch, etc for each of the three or for connections I had to make. That made it so much easier on me, I wouldn´t be forced to make the dreaded "anyone here speak English?" shout again.... *grin*

While we waited at the station for the next train. (it left in like 7 minutes, and he sits down and starts to smoke a cigarrette. I guess the trains are pretty timely here, we got on with like 2 minutes left, and I was sweating bullets thinking we were going to miss it)

This man was the first person I had the America vs Germany talk with, so it was themost interesting. We talked about Prez George W, transportation systems, Europe´s vs.... well the US has none, so..
Gas prices, fitness, fast food, the whole nine yards. See, if I had written this the day after there would be more information, but now it´s sort of old for me.

Part of the train ride was along the Rhine river, and let me tell you, there must be a castle up on a hill ever 3 miles! pretty awesome, big old castles just sitting alone up on hills. pictures will follow if I ever see Jess again, she has the cable that we use to transfer from the camera to pc, to burn the CD...

Another thing that I have noticed every time I have taken a train, there are plots of land along the tracks. Long plots that are perpendicular(sp) to the tracks, that are gardens! No one living nearby, just all these amazing gardens, with little sheds and fences and one even had a table with the umbrella and chairs!

When I old my mom about it, she was suprised and said they used to call them "Victory Gardens" during the war. I had no idea that´s what a victory garden was, but what a smart way to use land by the railroad, where no one wants to live. I saw quite a few along the rivers´edge also.

Anway, it was fascinating to hear a European´s point of view on America. I have to tell you though, i think quite a lot of people think that America is this amazing place and would like to go...

Once my friend got off at his stop, I went the rest of the way into Franfurt and then down to darmstadt. OH! I don´t think I wrote about this yet, maybe I did,. but I am nt going back to check in the blog.

MAPS and Germany. HA! On the map I got offline, it showed the airport to the southeast of Frankfurt, and closer to Darmstadt than Franfurt. I guess Darmstadt is considered a suburb. Anyway, faced with the choice of a hotel close to the airport, or to the train station, I chose train station.

In turns out than in reality, the freaking airport is reall on the southWEST side of the city, WAAAAAY far away from darmstadt. It would have been smarter to take a train from the airport to Franfurt and spend the night. But then of course I would not have met the people I did, but damn it, it took me 4 hours of rain riding to get where I thought I would be able to go in about an hour.

WHICH brings me to the next part of the adventure. The reason I was going to darmstadt was to check out an apartment to rent. I put an add out on a student rental place and this person had responded about an apartment they had, it sounded perfect! I was supposed to meet them at 4 pm that day. Well, with all the train riding, I wasn´t able to get into Darmstadt until at least 4:30. AUGH. AND of course my cell phone with an Italian SIM card in it was not behaving, and I had no clue what numbers to dial from Germany, I mean phone numbers here are confusing to me. I am slowly getting the idea of what to put and when, but this person´s number was this:017627217288and then sometimes number have this extra number- 0176(0)27217288 and I have NO clue what THAT thing is for... GRRR..

i was calling back and forth with Jess and she was leaving messages, etc...a mess.

So I get into Darmstadt and grab a taxi to meet this person at the apt. This is when my second hero comes in. The cab driver was Iranian, and spoke German and 15 other middle eastern languages (honest, he told me) but was a bit behind in his English.

I hand him the address and he heads out, we start talking, most of which he understood, MOST being the key word, as I find out later.

He asks if I am a tourist, blah, blah, and we end up in rush hour traffic, so I am telling him how I am going to meet someone about an aprtment, etc... We get to where the place should be, but it is a block of all sorts of building, we see number 13, 11, 10, 15, no 12. At this point he decides to pullthe car up on the sidewalk and drive between the buildings. Oh yeah, and his favorite English word is shit. the German people treat him like shit, Taxi driving is a shit job, shit! when he almost hits a lady walking her bike across the street. (the only reason he didn´t is because I screamed AH!!!!)

Anyway, we can´t find the building and he tells me to stay in the cab, (which is parked illegally in the middle of a walkway between like 6 apartment building)and he gets out and looks around. AHA! he finds it, so we take off and go along a pathway that I don´t think was really big enough for a car to go through. He manages to get to a more open spot, and then to where you can leagally park a car, and we are there!

I tell him, "wow, you can REALLY drive a car" Thank you, he says.

We are at the building, but there is no one there we are about 45 minutes late, so.. I tell him I have no idea which apartment and the person who is going to rent to me does not live there. I show him the piece of paper with the person´s email address on it. We have no idea if it is female or male, but by the last name we have both deduced that the person is also Iranian.

He proceeds to go up and check all the names on the mailboxes. Nope, no person by that name. I have no idea what to do and I´ve decide the person left and I´ll need to email them, cause I can´t dial the damn number correctly on my Italian phone.

Now he is telling me that this could be a crazy man, just hwaiting to rape or kill me. OH GOD!!!!! By the time he was done, even I was worried.

I ask him to just take me to a decent, cheap hotel and I´ll deal with it later. I am tired, it is HOT, been travelling like5 hours and I just want a shower...

No, no, let me try to call. He calls the number using his taxi hone, and can´t get through.. PLEASE, i am saying, a hotel.... Finally he say the one right next door is good and how much do I want to pay? I say 70€???? not knowing what the hell that will get me in this town.. Ok, he decides we will go to the hotel next door and he will personally check to see what the prices are.

OH!!!!!!!!! also, and unheard of thing, every time we stop, he actually stops the meter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

S I wait while he goes in, meter stopped. He takes about 10 minutes, and he has me so worked up I am thinking, ok, what are they plotting in there for me??

When he comes back out, it turns out they didn´t have any available rooms and he made them call other hotels til they found one with a room that I could afford. Do you believe that?

So off we go to the other hotel, and he is still trying to call the rapist murderer. He finally gets through and a woman answers. He starts talking to her in whatever language, and doesn´t seem to get the right information from her, so finally hangs up. NOW he has decided that the evil rapist murderer lives with a woman and she has no clue what he has been doing on the side. (NOT making this up)

He takes me to the hotel, brings my bags in, and insists on talking to the people at the desk first to make sure they know just who I am.. LOLOLO

I thank him over and over, shake his hand, give him a big tip because of all the times he turned the meter off, and he leaves.

I get into my room, basement floor, cell not really working, hoter then hell, no air or fan or anything, and decide to go up to the lobby to the computer to check mail.

All this took about 45 minutes til I got to the computer, and after about 3 minutes a well dressed, Iranian woman comes around the corner and asks if I am Diana.

YES! I say, and this woman turns out to be the person who was going to show me the apt. For some odd reason she said she had been waiting in the underground parking for me. Here Englis is prety dang good, but this is just the first of MANY misunderstanding we have.

She tells me that the taxi driver had called her and told her to rent out the apartment to me, that I was a VERY nice woman and should have the apartment. Along the way he also told her I was scared of terrorists showing me the apartment, and that I was a man from Iran. LOLOLOLOLOL Ok then!

The woman wants to know if I want to go see the apt now. Again, I am amazed. I mean she sat there waiting for me for like an hour, and after a crzy Iranian taxi driver calls and chews her out for her behavior, she gets in the car and comes over to see if I still want to look at the apartment! Life is weird.

OK, getting tired of typing again, so I am going to stop for the day, and you will have to wait to hear MORE of the great, ongoing adventure. Trust me, I can pretty much going over the entire day, every minute somethign seemed to be going on!!!!

Will stop back in tomorrow if this place is open. If not, then Monday. Guten tag