whirling wind

...and what a crazy 5 days it has been. Today is the first day I'm somewhat back to normal. Normal sleep being the most important.
So, I'm currently on the second and final stop of my whirlwind international adventure. Germany was awesome. From the second I got there I was immediately immersed in a sense of overwhelming culture confusion. It's just different over there. Right down to speeding down the Autobahn at 235km/hr. To me that meant watching the needle stick in the red zone and being thankful for not eating anything on the plane hours earlier. Then we drove up a long, windy, icy mountain road to get to a little town in the Black Forest. Mind you, Germans don't like to drive slow on long, windy, icy mountain roads either. Needless to say, I have counted my blessings.
So I get to Schramberg, a little town deep in the black forest, where my friend and his family live. The weekend was great. They put me up in the guest house. Uh huh, I said guest house. I was as shocked as you may be. I ate great food and even played Risk until 2am with my friend and his dad. It was something else to have this president of a multinational company sitting down with me of all people to play boards games on a Saturday night. He was so genuine and so down-to-earth. Absolutely nothing like what you expect or hear of American big businessmen to be like.
So then Sunday night I get put up in a 4 star hotel in Archern that is run by my friend's sisters. In the morning I get a taxi to the train station so I can catch a train to Frankfurt for my flight to India. Ummm yeah, you try doing all that only knowing about 5 words of German. Not easy. Basically, all I have to say is that Germans on the whole are not the kindest of people. Not unless they have to be, or unless they know you already. I was carrying 3 bags (one of them a large suitcase) totaling probably 90 lbs around the train station, up into the train, through the train cars, and back out again and not once did anyone offer any help. They just watched, most of them stared. One guy wouldn't let me sit next to him and told me to go to the next car. So I got up and moved on, dead weight bags in tow. Oh and I ended up only finding place in the smoking train car. For 1.5 hours. That was awesome.
Well then I get to the airport, check in, loiter around the monstrosity that is Frankfurt International Airport for 3 hours as tired as I have ever felt in my life. I get to the gate, hand over my boarding pass, and the ticket agent pulls me aside and tells me to wait right there. So there I was thinking this was a great way to finish out the day. She'll think I am packing heat or something and this will turn into some huge CNN news headline of some sort. Then....she handed me a seat in Business Class. Niiiiiiice. At that point my idea of Germans had changed once again.


Christmas Market at Gegenbach
Advent Calendar


Narrow residential lanes