Koblenz and Kinder Masse!

Hello loved ones young and old!

Sorry that I didn't update this weekend as I promised, however, in my defense, I must say that every day has been very tiring and at the time sleep usually won out!

5-31-08

Koblenz!

Matthew and I both woke up later today. I spent the morning updating the blog on Heidelberg, and around 10:30 Matt showed up.

We planned out our trip with the train into Koblenz. After blog updating and making käsespatzel for Matt and I, we set out. ( p.s. I am pretty sure that I am going through a käsespatzel phase right now. lol.) However, we ended up going back to teh house several times before even getting to the train station because of the things that we had forgotten along the way. Umbrella, watch, etc. lol.

Out train rides to Koblenz were short and uneventful. When we got to Koblenz, we got a city map, was helped by a nice German man as to which buy to take into the older part of Koblenz, and rode around for a while.

Now I was in Koblenz a lot last summer, so I know some parts of it fairly well. However, I only know them by sight and not by name at all. So as we were riding on the bus, I finally saw something that was familiar and we hopped out! We saw a huge fountain, went into a book store where we proceeded to look at the childrens book. I found "Where the Wild Things are" in german! I was so tempted to buy it, you have no idea how much, but Matthew talked me out of it since it was almost €8.

We also found by sight, all the bars my friends and I had frequented the summer before, as well as eating ice cream from the best ice cream shop in Germany!

Matt and I walked to the bridge and saw the Deutsches Eck (the German Corner) which is basically this. Koblenz is built along the Mosel river, but at one point, the Mosel and the Rhine river intersect. It is at this place, where there is a huge statue and platform that one may climb up into. This corner where the two rivers meet is called the Deutsches Eck!

The bridge across the Mosel and the distance to the Deutsches Eck were a good deal apart from one another, but from the bridge, we could see an awful lot of people at the Eck. So we decided to go and check it out!

Oh my! Let me tell you what we found. There was a Children's Marathaon Fest going on there. The place was packed with children of all ages, shapes, and sizes, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, family pets, etc. There were vendors, security police, barriers, paramedics, etc. It was a zoo I tell you, a complete zoo!

It was so fantastic, we watched one marathon. The kids were hilarious, some of them you felt like had professionally running for 20 years or more, and then there were others whose legs and arms flapped about like they were the running insane!

We watched for a while, but then I pushed up through the crowd so Matt could see the actual statue and climb into the platform. We were only able to climb one layer, because the tower was locked off because of the Marathon. We then headed out back towards the bridge.

I'll tell you one thing. I had better be more fit when I return home, because I have been doing so much walking.

When we arrived at the old part again, we went into 3 churches, which were all interesting in their own ways, however, I think Matthew and I both liked the second church the best.

After all this walking, we decided it was time for lunch, so we found a sushi bar, and each had the 18 piece sushi with a bowl of miso soup for €7, and then we each had a glass of Resiling 2000 wine for €2 a glass. Not bad huh?

The food was delicious and after finding ourselves fed and rested we decided to make our return journey to the train station.

The search to find a bus took longer than we had anticipated, but we found one alright.

Afterhaving reached the trainstation, we heard very loud singing. After having taken a look, we saw that it was a huge group of around 300-400 middle school through high school age kids who were being very rowdy, disruptive, and singing. The riot police made an appearance folks. Matt and I couldn't help but watch the spectacle in front of us. The kids kept trying to leave the trainstation, but the riot police made sure that they all got onto trains. But the kids were all singing in the policemen's faces, holding up their arms in crys of victory, etc. We had no clue what was going on. Finally the police got all the kids onto a train together (we watched this scene as it moved along from outside the bus station, to the train station (they are not far from oen another) inside the train station and from two platforms away. After the kids were all loaded onto the same train, the riot police got on and went with them the whole ride, to keep order on the train.

As this was happening, I asked a man on our platform, who was also watching, what was going on. Apparently Germany had won their match that day in pursuit of the Euro Soccor cup. He said, When Germany wins, they always have to call out the riot police to controll them. Lol. He said when they lose, the kids go hoem mopey, but when they win, well, hell basically breaks lose!

Our train rides back were uneventful and it was an early night in bed again.

6-1-08

Today was an earlier day. I woke up at 7:45, showered, ate breakfast and was ready to go at 9!

Today, Marianna (our host mother) invited us to go hiking to a childrens mass. So Paula, Laura, and I went with Marianna to pick up her father and we meet up with several young families in Kottenheim a neighboring town.

We walked for what seemed like ages, through Kottenheim, Thür, neidermendig, etc. until we finally reached this tiny church in the middle of a huge field. While walking, we talked and made fast friends with the parents and children of these young families and I am sure our German was all the better for it!

We attended the mass, which was very short, and hilarious. There were many, many songs sung, I tried my best to sing well while at the same time reading new music in German. Only the first verse of every hymn was written along with the music, the rest were underneath. It was a bit of a challenge. But the hilarious thing was, there was this one father with two sons among our group. The one son was very young, I want to say around one year old. He was so unruely. He would talk loudly to his papa, he was stomp around, at one poitn in time he walked up to the altar, all with his father trying to keep him quiet. When his father would go after him, he would squeal, lol! Finally the pastor just said, "just let him go, I don't mind, let him wander, its ok." lol, so the little boy spent the rest of the service doing as he pleased all under the happy grin of the pastor and the other people in church. lol.

After the mass, we all ate, drank, talked, and got seriously glorious sunburns. : 3

It was so nice to us our German in such a casual setting and I could tell that the families were impressed with us for how much we tried.

Eventually, we decided to head back to kottenheim. The walk was again, long, hot, but terribly fun!

When we reached a small fountain, Marianna and a friend of hers, a young father to who I had spoke nearly the whole walk back with got into a water fight, and I somehow got caught in teh cross fire. lol. It was refreshing I will say that.

When we made it back to the car, it was sad to part from our new friends, but we have high hopes of seeing them all again.

It was 3:20 pm. by the time we got back and we hadn't even made it to the water mills yet. All the girls declined in going, so Marianna and Ecky went by themselves. but I think this was good for them since they hardly ever get to see each other anymore since they are so busy.

Matthew came over and we watch a movie on his computer "the One" with Jet Lee. It was very good. Afterwards the girls and I made ravilo with bologense sauce and chatted about how our schools were set up, dorms. credits, etc. It was at some tiems a heated discussion and in the end all of the pasta was gone.

Matthew then returned from dinner at his house, he had had some sort of pot roast with sauce I believe.

We then spent some time debating over what to do next, when my mother called me! yay mommy, it was so nice to talk to her, I caught her up one our weekend adventures and then we said goodbye. I went up stairs to put the phone back on the charger and I was asked to translate a shirt that Marianna was wearing. It said " Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall inherit the Earth." I got such a great kick out of it, that I had to have Matt come up and see it and then we had to try to explain it to them. We stayed there for a while, sitting, talking, watching American films on tv that wwere dubbed in German. It was a good time and eventually, Matthew needed to got home. It was quite late bythe time he left and I slept likea rock until my alarm clock went off monday morning at 10 am.

So that was Sat. and Sun. for you guys, sorry no pictures. I decided not to take my camera with my Sat. because I knew our group would be making a day trip there on Tuesday so I will just take pictures then.

We hope you are all doing well and we miss you!

Take care and I will update again tomorrow with today's borning adventures I am sure. lol.

Biss Dann