Kölle Alaaf!

It is a statistical certainty¹ that when a person falls asleep on public transportation, the moment they awaken, they assume RIGHT NOW is the time to get off the train/bus/tram. In reality, this is rarely the case. Keep this little bit of knowledge. It'll be useful in a few paragraphs.

Last weekend I went to Cologne for Karneval! If you're unfamiliar, Cologne is in western Germany and is the place people go to celebrate Karneval. Karneval itself is essentially the same thing as Mardi Gras. I say “essentially” because I'm not religious, and I wanna hedge my bets in case there really is a difference. A few of us PPP'lers who are stranded in the GDR², decided to meet up in Berlin, rent a car, and drive to Karneval. We stayed with another American girl's host family near Düsseldorf, which is close enough to the revelry.

This of course means that we got to drive on the autobahn, which has been on my bucket list since the first time I was in Germany. The car we rented was a stick-shift, but luckily my mom insisted that I at least learn how to drive stick. I won't lie, I was rusty as hell when I started off, but I drove a stretch that was almost all autobahn, so it was only rough until I got on the on ramp. The German autobahn gods must have been watching me, because right as I got on the autobahn, we hit a section that actually does have a speed limit. After about 30 minutes of that garbage, we finally made it to an unrestricted section. I can't properly describe the feeling of piloting a vehicle at 130 miles per hour. Pure speed. (Mom, if you're reading this, 130 was a typo, I mean 75. Yeah, slow, safe, reasonable 75 mph). Another cool thing about Germany is that there is no open container law, which means that we enjoyed our autobahn trip with some nice East German beers in the car. Of course the driver can't drink, but someone has to take one for the team.

Andrea and Jen packing our car

I do find it odd, that a country that has laws for everything doesn't have a speed limit and allows alcohol consumption (starting at 16) while driving. It took me some thinking, but when I consider that two of Germany's most popular (and politically powerful) industries are beer brewing and automobile manufacture, it makes sense that they would have the political clout to keep away restrictive laws.

I am what you call a "young ambassador"

But eventually, we get to Cologne. A few of us had decided to make a group costume, something which in my opinion never ends up happening in the end. Big plans are made “The Seven Dwarves, but Sexy” or “All the Presidential Candidates” and then in the end everyone shows up as something boring like a cheerleader.. Somehow though this time it actually worked, and damned well too! We all dressed up as characters from Super Mario. I almost ended up going as Princess Peach since Ive got the best legs of the group, but I dressed up as Luigi instead. Of course there was partying and revelry, so I'll skip the stories about that, and jump to my public transit story from the beginning of the post.

On Saturday night, I got separated from my group. In truth, I probably just walked away as I'm prone to do when there is a lull in activity. It's a great way to meet new people in my opinion. Regardless, I get separated from my group. I text to see where they are, and they are heading back to the tiny town we are sleeping in. (Incidentally the path from the train station to our house is a concrete jungle, I'd only walked it one time at 7am on Saturday morning. So it is advantageous to meet up with my friends and navigate it together.) Ok, cool, they're heading back, I will too. I get on the train and promptly fall asleep. When I wake up, that statistical certainty I mentioned earlier comes into play and I get off the train. I get off the train in the middle of nowhere. So I go to the ticket machine and check when the next train comes. The next train comes at 5 after the hour, so I wait. Five after comes....and goes. So I go back to the machine, and I realize that the next train comes at five after 5am, which is 3 hours from now. It's freezing, and I'm still dressed as Luigi. So I curl up in a ball next to the machine and, shivering, I fall into a very light (but not light enough sleep). I am awoken by the sound of the 5:05 train as it leaves the station. “Well fuck,” I said aloud to no one in particular. I'm just gonna call a cab, I can't be that far from home, I think. My phone however is dead, so I go around the neighborhood knocking on doors of houses and businesses alike to find a phone. I eventually find a casino, and the owner asks where I am heading. He then informs me that the ride will probably cost 70€, but the next train comes in an hour. “Well fuck,” I say quietly and mostly to myself. He then offers to let me sleep in the casino for the next hour. This man is a saint. I eventually catch the train back home, and don't make any mistakes this time.

Wario and I.

One of the things I pride myself on is my good memory. It's how I made it through college, it's how I've learned German as quickly as I have, its how I remember funny jokes and turns of phrase. Thanks to this wonderful memory, I was able to successfully navigate my way back to the house from the train station without getting lost. I arrived at 7:30am, again still dressed as Luigi, and have to wake the host parents up to be let in. A total trip time of just over 5 hours.

I crash cold and weary into bed next to Andrea (nothing happened!) and awoke the next morning to play with the children and have a barbeque. All in all a successful weekend of revelry, boozing, costuming, speeding, and “living of the land”.

Oh and before I forget, today's word is a Narrenruf (Fool's Cry) from Cologne, and means Cologne Alive!

1. Not Really.

2. There is no GDR anymore, despite what many old people say.

der Ausflug

der Ausflug is one of German’s many words for vacation related travelling. By definition, an Ausflug takes place in one day or less and is generally to a place you can reach fairly easily. For instance, if I lived in New York, LA would not qualify as an Ausflug. Newark would be an acceptable Ausflug.

Before I get much further, I have to first say that Radolfzell, which by the way, is pronounced RAHD-olf-TSELL, is very charming. My language school is right by the city garden, which my host Oma explained used to be the city cemetery. It’s sort of an eerie thought, but the garden being a former cemetery is the least of my concerns. I said earlier that my host Oma has had 200 students here. She has one spare bed. Ergo, I’m sleeping in the same bed as 199 other people. Somehow the garden looks prettier now.

But as pretty as Radolfzell may be, the grass is always greener on the other side of the Bodensee. The Language School planned a trip to Zürich for a day and anyone in the school could go. Our tour guide would be a teacher at the school who lived in Zürich for a year after high school. Good enough for me.

We left in the morning and were in Zürich before noon. We had to change our euros to francs, because the Swiss can’t stand to be the same as anyone else. Never mind that Italy, Germany, Austria, and France all use euros, the Swiss Franc will never die. In addition, the franc looks hilarious, like a colorblindness test.

There are so many things to say about Zürich. Zürich is rich, there is a main drag of stores there and its got everything from a flea market to an Armani store with a guard. A friend of mine considered fake puking outside the Louis Vitton store just for the irony, but he didn’t, and that self discipline is why we were chosen for this trip. I did get some chocolate for my host Oma from the most expensive (and ostensible best) chocolate store in the world. I don’t know if I should brag about paying more than is reasonable for chocolate, but Sprüngli is fantastic chocolate. Even though Zürich is rich, it doesn’t seem large like DC, New York, Chicago. It is very much a European city with winding streets connecting unexpected open areas. Another cool thing about Zürich is that all of the city’s fountains are filled with potable water. We didn’t believe it at first. Actually that’s a lie, when out guide told us this, we trusted him like sheep. But eventually we did see other people drinking from the fountains too. I also saw a pigeon stick its head in the fountain, so potable water or not, the water can’t be that clean.

After a few more sights we climbed back onto our train. But our trip had one last surprise in store for us. On the return trip, we passed the Rhine river, which is no different from any other river, except that it has a gorgeous waterfall on it. I had my camera (sort of) ready.

We arrived in Radolfzell just in time to grab dinner and hang out on the beach.