I flew into Frankfurt on Thursday afternoon, and Jon met me at the airport. We took the train to his place and his host family had Doner Kebabs ready for dinner (chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber and garlic sauce on a pita). After dinner Jon and I sat on the patio for most of the evening catching up on each others' experiences abroad and such.
On Friday morning we took the train to Speyer for the day. First we walked through town past the Kaiserdom (large cathedral in the center of town) on the way to the Speyer Technical Museum. This is a large museum with all sorts of exhibits from old cars to fire engines to space vehicles to trains to (most importantly) airplanes. For two pilots, it was the perfect place to spend a day. The feature was a Boeing 747 that was mounted high above the rest of the planes on stilts, and had stairs that took you up so you could go into the plane and explore, then a giant slide to get back onto the ground. We also enjoyed the space exhibit which featured a Russian space shuttle, and the rest of the airplanes that they had.
For lunch we went to a small pub and I had a traditional German meal of sausage, sauerkraut, and rye bread. Then we wandered around town for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to the vineyard for the night.
On Saturday morning Jon took me on a tour of the wine-making process there at the vineyard, then we went on a drive through the Germany wine country, then Jon and I took the train to Worms. We wandered through an old Jewish cemetery on the way to the downtown area. It was beautiful with all of the very old headstones, most of which were in Hebrew, surrounded by all the changing leaves of fall. Then we went downtown and found the statue of Martin Luther. After this, we went to a mall which was right by the church where they held the Diet of Worms in 1521. The church itself wasnt much to see because it was surrounded by a carnival and food and wine festival. We did some shopping in the mall, then wandered our way back to the train station.
That night Jon and I were invited to participate in the wine and cheese party that the vineyard was hosting. About 35 guests attended the party, and it was a very elegant affair. We sat at a table with two couples--one from Austria and one from Holland. Lukcy for us, they spoke good English and were more than happy to guide us through the ettiquete and intricacies of a wine and cheese tasting. We were served 10 different wines to try (5 white and 5 red) and each set of a red and a white wine was paired with a particular gourmet cheese selected just for those wines. I am not a wine conossieur myself, and most of the cheeses were ones I had never and likely will never have again, but I did enjoy the experience a lot.
Sunday morning, Jon and I got up and headed to the train station after lunch. We meant to arrive in time for a 2pm train, but nobody had told us about the time change that night, so we were an hour early for the train. It worked out fine though, because we had plenty of time in the airport in Frankfurt. We went out to the observation terrace and watched planes take off and land for about two hours then I checked in to fly home to Barcelona.
It was a great trip. Everything we had wanted to do we did, and all the travelling worked seamlessly. Kudos to Jon for making the entire trip work so well.
Click here to see my photos of Germany:
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| Germany Oct. 23-26 |
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