German Get-away Weekend

Gutentag! I have just returned from a great weekend in Germany! The description:

It started off at 5pm when I got out of class and rushed home to pack for Oktoberfest! A large group of us were planning to go – catching a train at whatever time the ringleader figured out. That ended up falling through (trains too expensive, people old enough to rent a car didn’t have licenses, people with licenses not old enough to rent the car…) so Gul, Nickoletta and I headed to Rotterdam for the evening. I came back early to catch the Presidential Debate from 3 – 5am at a party hosted by Leiden University Students for Obama. I was impressed – there must have been 50 people there watching! And not just 50 people around, but actually watching the debates, occasionally throwing in their own editorial comments (moreso to McCain than Obama). I’d say no more than 15 of the people there were American. It continues to amaze me how engaged Europeans are in American politics. We had food and drinks and couches and there may have even been good conversation afterwards, but I headed home before I could find out – it was about a 20 – 25 min bike ride back to my room and I had a train to catch in the morning!

Saturday morning I awoke having missed my train, but feeling kind of rested at least. I had planned to get in to Essen, Germany around 1pm, but ended up not leaving until nearly 2pm. I texted Katharina on the way saying it was an easy journey. Then she called to say that there was an accident on the rail and that none of the trains were going to Essen. Unfortunately, my phone ran out of credit after that and I was left in Germany to find my way to Essen. I wasn’t too far away and found a girl who spoke great English and was also going to Essen. We got on the train and she guided me through the subway system until we arrived at the main station in Essen. I found a pay phone, called Katharina, and she and her father picked me up shortly after that. It was only a bit of an adventure and not too bad at all, other than the stress on the Jenni family as they worried about the American lost in Germany!

We got back to the house and I met the whole family. K’s parents were so warm and welcoming and I finally got to meet her brother Alex – he was nice enough to share his hair straightener with me all weekend! K’s mom made amazing dinners all weekend. As we sat down together on Saturday night, I folded my hands to pray and Katharina caught me – it’s just so natural to me when sitting down to family supper – and asked that I lead the family in prayer. She remembered it after I started it and I promised to say it more slowly next time so the rest of the family could follow the English. Dessert was an apple cake that was, of course, fantastic.

That evening K and I met up with two of her friends (the ones who would be willing to speak English, she said it would be weird for her other friends to come because they would speak German the whole time) for cocktails at Salsarita’s – they swore it was the best place in town. Afterwards, we called it a night – I was tired and we had some exploring to do in the morning!

Sunday morning Katharina and I went to Dusseldorf. We saw the Benrath Palace which is, as a friend described, very pink. Pink is the color of happiness, so all of the exterior of the building are pink. The interior had themes of hunting, the sun, and the seasons. There were also doors to nowhere – they didn’t actually function – but were placed in the location to give the appearance that the house was larger than reality. The entire palace was architecturally symmetrical – his and hers sides since they didn’t like each other that much anyway. Their marriage had been arranged when they were 9 by their families – back in the days when marrying cousins was the thing to do.

After touring the palace (K translated for me), we walked back to the train station and took it into the center of Dusseldorf to see the shops on the “Ko.” The street has all the high end stores: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It also had a Starbucks, so we got coffee and lemoncake to keep us going for the rest of the tour. The sugar helped wake me up enough to believe that there was actually a dress with a E2,500 price tag and a ring priced at E16,999. As we drank our coffee, it was fun just to people watch and see how dressed up they were on an unusually warm September day. Of course, no one was shopping since the stores were closed on Sunday, but they certainly matched the street they were on (and we did not!). We finished the Tour d’ Dusseldorf with a stroll down the Rhine, making our way through crowds of people out for a stroll on a nice day and jealously watching the jet skiers race by.

Sunday night brought more wonderful cooking and mousse du chocolat. K and I were pretty tired so we had snacks, watched a movie, and conked out early in preparation for the next day.

Monday morning, I enjoyed Cinnamon Toast Cruch for breakfast (the cereal I get here in the Netherlands just cannot compare to the taste or breadth of selection in the US). K’s mom drove us to Cologne to see the sights and I took my first trip via the Autobahn. We toured the Dom Cathedral – a church that has been standing for over 1,000 years – an impressive building by any standards, likely difficult to construct even with today’s technological advances! It has beautiful stained glass windows inside and provides a home to the remains of the Three Wise Men. We also walked through St. Andreas across the street, home of the skulls of the biblical Maccabee brothers as well as the crypt of Albertus Magus (St. Albert the Great). I love seeing how old Europe is and how much history there is to experience, especially compared to life in America where my aunt and uncle’s 100+ year old house is an anomaly.

The three of us enjoyed lunch on the Rhine in between the sites and drank the Koelsch that Cologne is known for brewing. I shared lunch with K’s mom – a pretzel and sausage for me (a Bavarian specialty), and some sort of meat and potato and cabbage meal for her, more typical of Cologne. As we made our way through the city, we did a

bit of shopping for me (only 6 weeks in and I’m already tired of wearing the few clothing items I brought) and purchased some Berliners (jelly doughnuts) for the ride home. We also visited the 4711 Store, the famous location where American soldiers bought perfume to take home to their wives during WWII. It was a fun day, but a bit exhausting and I slept the whole way home.

Monday evening we enjoyed another amazing dinner – some sort of meat and sauerkraut and

mashed potatoes – and then K and I got started on dessert! We whipped up some American-style chocolate chip cookies using the English-system measuring cups my grandma had given her before K returned to Germany – a great idea! The first batch was regular chocolate chip cookies, but for the second round, we took some of the baked cookies and broke them up into the cookie dough and baked them again. The result: cookies that were partly crunchy, partly chewy, and entirely amazing! It was an idea from my roommate back home (her aunt makes them that way) and it’s brilliant. K’s friend came over and we ate the cookies and the dough and watched an American movie for my last night in Germany.

Monday morning, I got up, packed, and jumped on a train back to Leiden and reality. But only for a few days. Thursday is the start of the Leiden’s biggest festival of the year, celebrating the Liberation of Leiden from the Spanish several hundred years ago and Philip arrives on Friday from Spain to join in the celebrations! So today is for grocery shopping (the stores will likely close from Thurs – Sat, and are never open Sunday anyway) and studying before the weekend starts all over again!