Once we stepped off the train, we were reminded of one very important fact: kein deutsch (I don’t speak German). After finding our way to the ausgang (exit) we spent about fifteen minutes looking for the right bus stop. The bus took us to Hahn Airport, and was supposed to take 1h45m, but our driver managed t in 1h15m. Oh boy. Let me tell you all, I thought I was going to have to cash in my repatriation. He was an absolutely crazy driver, and we were the only ones on the bus. Later on we found out that all Germans are fucking insane on the road. Once at Hahn we had to wait or Dee’s aunt Edie to pick us up. By the time we finally got back to her place it was about 11pm so we just got settled in and went to bed. But guess what folks, we had real beds! At home our beds are just pieces of foam, and at the hostel in Amsterdam they were closer to stone, but these… She also had nice sheets and big thick comforters; it reminded me of my gramma’s house.
Wednesday (31 octobre), well actually every day we were there, we didn’t have to worry about finding something to do. Dee’s grandmother is from Germany and a lot of her family lives in one town, and they all wanted to see her and take us places. So Wednesday after breakfast we headed off to Idar-Oberstein with her aunt Edie. For those of you who, like me, don’t know a thing about stones and jewelry, this is a small German town that is world renown for jewelry-making and dealing stones (like diamonds, lapis lazuli, etc). She took us to the gemstone museum, which I thought would be slightly boring but turned out not to be. People have made some amazing things with stone, examples of which you can find on photobucket.
After this we had lunch and walked around the town a little bit. Also in this town is a church that was built into the rock face of a mountain/hill. There are stairs to get up to it, and also the mountain is sort of tiered with lanes and houses on each one. It was a really beautiful thing to see. The drive to and from this town was also beautiful thanks to the German countryside.
A little while after we got back we took a very short drive to where more of Dee’s family lives, and we a met a bunch of them because a little cousin was having a birthday party. Now the Germans have it right in this respect. At this party, there was no pizza, no snacks, and no finger foods. There were two different things on the tables: coffee and cakes. There were three tables, and each one had two different types of cake. I had a piece of mostly chocolate marble cake with glaze, and two amazing pieces of German chocolate cake with frosting that had the consistency of a light mousse, but tasted like hot fudge and made me want to eat myself sick (but I didn’t). Eventually we escaped the cakes and made it back to aunt Edie’s. We relaxed for a while and had dinner there.
Around 10pm, Dee did my face and we joined her cousin Hannah on a trip to a nearby town. In case anyone didn’t catch the date, it was Halloween and we were going to a party. It was in an old airplane hangar, and there was a band, Paddy Goes to Holyhead (we later learned they’re quite popular). Her cousin apologized because the drinks were expensive at 2-3€, and was astounded when we told her how much we pay: 5-8€. But it was a fun time, and the band was good. We ended up buying two of their cds and got free lighters. They’re German but have Irish sounding music and Irish accents when speaking English, they also sing in English. Since neither one of use spoke German, we thought it would be fun (and it was) to say our few random phrases to people as they passed us. These phrases are: kein deutsch (no German), wilkomenn (welcome), and salzt und pfeffre bitte (salt and pepper please). We also shook the people’s hands while saying this to them. Most people just laughed and brushed it off, but one guy actually started talking to us because he knew both English and French. We ended up jigging (not a real jig though) to a couple of songs. After the band was done Dee and I took over the stage, and I even got to dance with their electric fiddle player! All in all it was a really fun night and we didn’t get to bed until 4am.
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