well this day has certainly been an adventure.

I am sitting in the lobby of a Darmstadt hotel this evening, exhausted.. homesick... not so much for the US, but jess in particular... she is still in Italy and probably will be until the end of the month.

I flew out of Pisa last night, into Frankfurt Hahn airport in Germany at about midnight. Paid a taxi too much money to bring me to a little hotel sort of near the airport. I picked it because it said it was near a rail station and it only cost 36 euro for the night.

I got there about 12:30, took the room key, washed some of the grime off me and fell into bed.
About7 am I wake up and start worrying because the clock radio they had said it was an hour later than my time. I call the front desk, wake up someone only to find that my time is correct. I wanted to sleep as long as I could before I had to wake up... Sometime later the maid knocks one time on the door, then opens it! I heard her say something in German and back out the door. I didn´t even move my head out from under the covers, I was too tired to worry about it. At 9:45, I get a call from the owner of the hotel asking if I wanted breakfast because they stop serving in 15 minutes. UGH! yes, I say, thanks, not intending to make it down. But guilt gets the best of me, and I don´t even brush my hair, I just stagger down, grab some museli and some bread and ask for coffe. 15 minutes later I am back in my room showering, then checking out by 11.
I ask how to get to the rail station. The owner´s wife, who looks just like a German family hotel owner would look like, gets a quizzical look on her face. OH NO... I think..


AH! you´ll have to take the ferry across the river. She calls to make sure it´s running today!!! AAAAHHHHHH
She says that it´s about 3\4 mile away down the road. Just go to the river and wave him down and he´ll come get you. I ask if it´s a big or small boat. She laughs.. Oh no, no... It only holds about 4 people. I now have this vision of me hanging on to the side of some little dingy, big waves rolling by, and the guy stopping in the middle of the river and demanding all my money. (shades of Brad Johnston)

I head out down the road, and this is a BEAUTIFUL German town. It´s in the wine section of the country, gravevines everywhere! Bavarian style houses, the whole thing.. I will post pictures later.


Cool, I´m thinking, I can do this....

I end up getting lost, going into a local food store and saying loudly. DOES ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH? (I kid you not. I know this is why jess hates me)

They point me in the right direction and I cross a big lot full of campers. I later can tell, when taking the train, the Germans LOVE to camp on the river.

Anyway, the ferry turns out to be a decent sized flat type of barge looking thingy. I wave him down and he comes over, talking to me in German... I try saying something like no sprekken deutsch, but he has no clue. Finally I point to him, to the shore, to me, to the shore, to my suitcases and back to him a couple more times and he gets it. ( I mean, THIS is what the guy does, do we have to have conversation too???)

We head across, it´s a pretty small river, which I later find out is the Mosel(sp)
and sure enough there is a train tracks on the other side. We get to the other side, I pay him 1 euro, and lug my two HEAVY suitcases up about 400 stairs... 2 suitcases, THE dumbest thing I have done since sticking my tongue to the frozen pole in winter when I was little.. (Okay, maybe I have done dumber things since, but we aren´t talking about those today, so just pay attention to the story, will you?)

I get to the top, and there are.... tracks..... no station, nothing. There are houses, businesses, but all closd, not a soul in side.

what the hell do i do?? i sit.... the tracks are rusty and i think, what if this train comes like once a day, and it was at 8 this morning? i mean, if i have to cross a river on a ferry, this is one SMALL town......

So i sit, and i sit.... and suddenly there is a train coming at me!!! I wave and wave, and it passes me by..

OK... now i know I must be doing something wrong here.....

I see a woman coming out of a shop to put out her sign.. i go over... I know NO, NEIN German, and I am saying, excuse me, excuse, me.. Finally I say it loud enough and she spots me... All i can do is show her the map of the Germain rail system i printed out. (SMARTEST thing I have done in years, it saved my butt today more than once today.)

Anyway, i wanted to know which direction to take the train so once again, there was much pointing and german and english spoken that no one understood. Finally she pointed which way to go, then amazingly somehow she communicated something like, hey dummy, the train doesn´t stop here, go down the road some more. WOW!!!

Off i go, dragging the luggage, and sure enough a train station... well, it´s like a plastic bus stop building bu that works for me. Even better is near to it, is one of those fountains like they have all over italy where you can fill up your water bottle with cold water.. there were some german words on the front, i figured it to say something like... drinking water.. I pour out my half bottle of warm water and start filling. an old man appears out of no where! No one else for miles and suddenly he is there yelling something in German.... I heard NEIN, so i figure that he is trying to tell me not to drink the water. oh CRAP.. so that´s what the sign said. and now i´ve dumped my bottle of water out, and no water.

I thank him and go over to the train stop. A schedule!!! I see my town on the list, 15 minutes. YES! I start thinking, should i be buying a ticket somewhere?

Across the tracks I hear rustling and see a woman watering plants. EXCUSE ME! Where do I buy a ticket for the train? I ask, waving a 10 euro note around and pointing at the tracks..

I just want you all to know, I am not even embellishing this a LITTLE, it really happened like this.

She says something in German about floof. OK, no clue... she might have even said buy ticket on floof, i am not sure.. i mean in english... FLOOF? I ask.

FLOOF, she say, then makes the sound of a train, laughing.

AHHH,. Floof means train, though I know it is not spelled that way. Now i know to buy the ticket on the train.. i thank her and sit back t wait for the train, right on time it comes.. YEAH, it even says the next town on the front.. cool. i get on, it is like a the size of a regular train engine with seats... places for bikes in the middle.. oh yes, EVERYONE bikes, there are millions of miles of bike trails along the rivers, and the train accomadates them.

Anyway, I needed to go to a town further than what the train said, so again, more flailing of arms to find out no, it stops at this first town only, i´ll have to change trains..


Next stop, a few bikes get on.. by this time i am wondering about how i buy a ticket..... I see a machine... ok, BUT something about the message worries me. one line message, about 10 buttons on each side.... I take a chance, wave at the ticket machine and ask one of the men who just came on.. ticket???


ENGLISH! THe older man speaks english. I almost fall on my knees to thank god.. (ok, for those of you who wonder why i came so unprepared, YOU try buying a German to English dictionary in Italy. They don´t exist.. only italian to german... and for those of you who have heard my Italian. HA!)

He says the ticket machine is broken.. i ask how we buy tickets? He says, you don´t! Works for me.

THIS gentleman became my first savior of the day...


AND i am going to bed, so you´ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear more... :-p