Germany - Part 1

I had two nights to kill before I needed to be in Berlin to meet up with my dad. I spent them in Frankfurt-Am-Main. There are two cities named Frankfurt in Germany, so since this one is on the Main (pronounced mine) River, that is how it gets it´s name. My hostel was situated right in the middle of the Red Light District, which made for some very interesting people watching from our windows! One time while we were sitting in the main room, a guy knocked on the window and tried to sell a girl some drugs! Don´t worry, it was really safe. The hostel was also really nice because they let us "rent" laptops, with only our passport as a deposit! They also offered free walking tours and did things like free pasta night and movie night. The first night, I joined the free walking tour, which ended along the river, where there was a free music concert going on, and where I had my first German beer, a pear-flavored wheat beer. Frankfurt was unlike any other European city I had been in due to the skyscrapers that punctuate the skyline. It seems pretty appropriate that it sometimes has the nickname of ´Mainhattan´ but even more appropriate is the nickname of ´Bankfurt´ since it is the financial center of Germany. The next day, I went to some other areas of town - the main square and the Frankfurter Dom. The 15th-century Gothic tower of the cathedral is one of the few structures left standing after about 80% of the old city was wiped out by two Allied bombing raids in March 1944. That night, I had fun chatting with some new friends over free pasta. We also tried a pitcher of the famous Ebbelwoi, and alcoholic apple cider, which was awful!
The next day, I boarded the train for Berlin, which took about 4 or 5 hours. That night, I got some sleep, and then got up early to head to Tegel airport because my dad was due to arrive around 8 a.m. His flight came in on time, and it was really awesome to see him after being away from home for so many months! Of course, my dad wouldn´t be my dad unless he made an exaggerated entrance! He exited the baggage claim area with a cheesehead on! He had squished and rolled it into a small ball for the trip so that it would fit into his bag. Needless to say, he got a lot of strange looks, and a few smiles. That cheesehead became our traveling mascot for the next few days until he gave it to Pastor Ash in Frankfurt. From the airport, we headed back to the hostel so that he could get settled in. He brought me several things from WI that I loved - most awesomely, cheese curds!! I wasn´t expecting them, much less that they would be so fresh - they were squeaky for a couple of days still! He also brought me a towel, which was much needed because I had lost the small travel towel my sister had given me in Switzerland, and had been using my sarong since. Even more awesome was the fact that it was from home and reminded me of home:) He brought me a small sewing kit - very necessary due to the tailor-made pants I had bought in Vietnam not being of high quality workmanship. I had already sewn them once in Madrid, but by Germany the problem had gotten much worse. He also brought me my favorite hair product, Be Curly, which I had been without for awhile. I had looked for it when I was in Amsterdam, and had been shocked to find out that it was more than double the price there! The best thing he brought me though was a gift from him and my siblings - an iTouch! I had been dealing too long with not having a wifi device by then - it was really hard to know that there was free wifi almost everywhere, and I had to pay to use computers at hostels or internet cafes. So needless to say, I was thrilled to finally have a way to check email and communicate with people back home, mostly for free!
I was really happy to have my dad there, and we headed out to walk around near the hostel to see a bit of Berlin. The hostel was in Mitte, basically the center of Berlin, so we were close to a lot of attractions. We had good weather that day, and a great time seeing the Fernsehturm (TV tower, Berlin´s best-known landmark), Marienkirche, and the Berliner Dom - a neo-Renaissance dome of 1904. We also walked down the famous street Unter Den Linden, and around the neighborhood closer to the hostel. I was super impressed with his stamina - he had only slept for an hour the night before his flight left Wisconsin, and not at all on the planes, and he managed to stay awake without problems until almost midnight! By the time he went to bed, he had been awake for almost 60 hours straight! The next morning, he woke up rested and ready to go - if only I could handle jet lag the way he did! We had the included breakfast, and then got on his first train, heading towards the small towns of Lutherstadt-Wittenberg and Lutherstadt-Eisleben. While we were on the train to Eisleben, we were looking at the schedule and realized that Wittenberg was going to be the next stop - we hadn´t been sure because both towns are small and not on every map. So, we quickly changed plans and got off there, and walked towards the center of town and the hostel. As we neared the hostel, dad recognized the word zimmer on a sign, so we went in to ask about a room. We ended up getting a really nice private room for probably less than the hostel dorm was going to cost! We basically checked in and then headed back to the train station to catch a train to Eisleben. We got there in the late afternoon, and didn´t have a chance to go into the main attractions, which were Martin Luther´s birth house, and his death house. We did get to take pictures of the outsides of the buildings though, as well as the church where he preached his last sermon. We got back to Wittenberg pretty late, and since it is a small town, most of the restaurants were closed for dining. We managed to find the only one that was open, and sat outside and had a really nice meal - thanks, Dad! I actually got to eat a big and delicious salad in a restaurant! I was not used to that at all, as I had been back home, so it was a really nice treat.
After a good night´s sleep in our private room, we got up and had the really good breakfast that was included in the price of the room. Then we set out to see the Wittenberg sites. We had a beautiful day, which was more rare on the trip than we realized it would be, especially since it was summer. The main thing to see was the Schlosskirche, where Luther and his sidekick Philipp Melanchthon are buried. The door of the church is where he nailed his 95 theses in 1517. It was fun to climb up the tower and get some good pictures from up there. While I was waiting for dad one time near the church, I thought I heard organ music coming from inside, so we went back in and were treated to some nice organ music for about half an hour - this was especially amazing for dad since he really wanted to go to an organ concert at some point, and we never did make it to one. We also enjoyed some eis (ice cream) in memory of mom, since she loved it so much. Just walking around Wittenberg was really nice - it is such a cute town.
Then it was time to catch our train to Frankfurt. We stayed in the same hostel that I had stayed in, but had private rooms, which was nice. The main reason we went back there was to go to a mission church service on Sunday morning. So we took the train out of Frankfurt to the suburb of Florsheim and waited to be picked up by Pastor Ash, who is temporarily serving there and who happens to be the father of one of my high school classmates. It was a nice service, and we were two of only about 10 people there. At the end of bible class, Pastor Ash surprised me by saying a prayer for me and my safety as I head on this trip around the world. I was touched, and surprised by my reaction of tears! It is just really nice to know that people are thinking about and praying for me:) The next morning, we went in search of an Apple store to see if they could activate my iTouch for me. When we finally found it, the guy spent a lot of time with us activating it and then trying to help us change it to English as opposed to German. It was really exciting for me to be able to start using my gift! Then we quickly went to the main square so that dad could see it, and the still-standing cathedral tower. Then it was back to the train station again, where we headed south to the small town of Bacharach in the Rhine River Valley. When we arrived, we were greeted by the very pleasant owner of our guesthouse, Lettie. She is Filipino and used to work for the US Army and so had very good English. We basically dropped off our things and went back to the train station to head to Koln (Cologne) to see the cathedral. What an amazing and impressive building! It is literally right outside of the train station, so we were able to go right in. It was probably the biggest church I have seen on my whole trip, and I have seen a lot of them! We just sat in a pew and marveled at the beauty and massiveness of it for awhile. Then we went outside to try to see if we could climb the tower, as my dad and mom did almost 40 years ago, but it was just past closing time. Then we had fun trying to do some creative shots, at least one of which turned out pretty good!
The next day was once again beautiful, and we took full advantage of it by renting bikes and riding them for about 6 miles along the river, stopping frequently to admire and photograph the many castles that sat in and above the river, as well as the vineyards and towns. We eventually made it to the town of St. Goar, where we went to a small store and got food for a picnic lunch along the river, which was really nice and relaxing. Then we hiked up to the town´s castle - Rheinfels - and started doing the walking tour of it. Unfortunately, we didn´t have enough time to really go through the tunnels, which is what we were most looking forward to, because we had to make it back in time to catch the last boat back up the river to Bacharach. We did go through a few, so we got to use our headlamps just a little bit, but it would have been nice to explore further. We rushed back down to get the tickets for the boat, and made it just in time. While we were on the boat, it got cold and windy, and started to rain, which forced us all off the deck and inside. At that point, we were really glad to have had such good weather the rest of the day! That night, we had another great dinner of local food, and beer of course. We had decided to stay another night in Bacharach since we hadn´t actually seen any of the city. That day it rained off and on, but we were able to do some of Rick Steve´s walking tour (my dad brought Rick´s guide book along and we did a lot of things he recommended) when it was fairly dry. We hiked up through a vineyard to a tower where we had a nice view of the castle above and the town and river below. That evening, we went to a restaurant that Rick recommended for tasting the famous Rhine wines. We got the tasting platter, which had 15 different wines! All except two of them were white, the other two were rosé. We looked at all of that wine and thought we would never finish it, or that if we did, we would be drunk! Well, we certainly had no problem finishing all of them, and although we did end up ordering some soup for a bit of substance, we weren´t drunk afterwards...at least I wasn´t! Doing this tasting with dad was especially fun because reisling wine, and really german white wine in general, is his favorite.