Spring Break/Travels

I’ll start by saying there is no way to summarize my mom’s trip over here.  We hit Berlin, Prague, Bamberg and Detmold in just under two weeks, and I’m pretty sure it snowed nearly every day.  The horrible cold aside, we (or at least I!) had a great time, and happily, my language skills never failed me in an embarrassing way…so, I think I’ve successfully proved to the family I’m learning something over here!

While summarizing the trip is absolutely impossible, here are a few funny notes:

My mom and her friend couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of drinking in public – when our train tickets were checked on the way from Berlin to Prague, she and her friend had a mild freak-out and (awkwardly and not very subtly) tried to hide the bottle of wine we were drinking.

I was forced to take about a billion sidewalk pictures in Prague, making each and every turn down a new street a small photo op – look out for some extremely cool “sidewalk pictures” hanging somewhere in the house at some point in the next…ten years???

I was able to introduce my mom to cinnamon-orange-tequila shots…great success!

I was almost murdered by my mother when we arrived at the platform for the train to Prague only six minutes before the train was set to leave – after that, we usually got to each train station about a half hour early.

Strangely, the Lenon Wall was my favorite Prague attraction – I recommend it highly! It’s something totally different to look at in the city.

And finally, I essentially totally fell in love with Berlin when we were there.  I’d been twice before, and always found the city too big, confusing, and lacking a “feel” – people often say Berlin doesn’t really know what it wants to be, and this is in some ways very true.  While it used to bother me, I’ve recently been able to embrace Berlin in all it’s many-sided-madness, and I can’t wait to get back there someday.

Then, after a couple of weeks at home, the travelling continued with a trip to Trier (Germany’s oldest city) and Luxembourg.  While we endured our fair share of mishaps, including hiking all the way to a winery just to realize we needed a reservation, and some Luxembourgisch hostel-roommates who came back to the room drunk and loud at 3am, the trip was overall not only amazingly interesting and enjoyable, but quite relaxing, and started and ended with absolutely beautiful train rides along the Rhine.  We spent most of our time just walking around both cities, seeing Roman baths and beautiful vineyards in Trier and Luxembourg’s impressive former city defenses (think lots and lots of really cool looking walls and towers), and were able to hit two free museums in Luxembourg.  Overall, it was one of the most fun trips I’ve taken this year.

However, the single most interesting experience I had was attending Mass in Luxembourg.  Luxembourg officially rocks a few languages – French, German, and Luxembourgish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg#Language.  Mass started with the sign of the cross in French, progressed to Latin for the Kyrie and Gloria, readings were done in French and German, the homily started in French and at some point switched to Luxembourgish, most of the Liturgy of the Eucharist was in German, with some Luxembourgish sprinkled in.  Divya and my heads were absolutely spinning the entire time!  We also realized we can somewhat understand Luxembourgish; it’s a very strange but cool sounding language. 

Finally, I’ve been really trying to put my semester-train ticket to use recently – a few weeks ago we picnicked in a beautiful park in Oelde, I’ve been in Bielefeld a bit more than usual, and yesterday, I went down to Köln to spend the day with Rebecca and a friend she has visiting from home.  Trains are still one of my favorite things about this country!