The flight. On a Lufthansa aicraft, I was situated at the back of the plane in the middle seat with a window to my left and an isle to my right, I was wedged between an extremely tall Canadian (about a head taller than Mikey) and a young Indian girl. It started off poorly with me getting a huge bout of motion sickness that made me retreat to the toilet for a sit down with my head between my knees. Once I’d listened to a Jack Johnson album with my eyes closed and had some food I’d recovered.
As I watched “Finding Dory”, the Canadian worked away on a powerpoint to do with road infrastructure. Probably an engineer, I glanced over from time to time happy that I no longer had to put together presentations. After he was done with work, he understandably needed to stretch his legs and so I did the same. I thought he was going to the bathroom so I just hung out at the kitchen behind our seats doing stretches, waiting for him to return to his seat. When he figured out I was stretching same as him, he came to the back kitchen and we started chatting. He’s a civil engineer that has his own consultancy firm which I was interested to learn about. He said he’d never worked as hard since he was working for himself, but it was his dream to be his own boss and make his own decisions. It also allowed him to support his wife and three kids at home in Winnipeg. I think he thought I was crazy or at least a little spoilt to have given up Tesla, but I couldn’t explain my reasoning well enough.
We got in trouble from the flight attendant for talking too loud so dimmed the volume but after twenty minutes or so she was onto us again so we decided to retreat back to our seats, feeling a little like kids in detention for talking in class. After that it was another movie and a very interrupted sleep, probably about an hour’s worth. To my great annoyance, the girl next to me not only persisted in having her overhead light on to read her book which lit up the whole row, she periodically flicked her long black hair into my face. I don’t like girls. It took everything I had to not say something I was so annoyed.
I was happy when we touched down. I was feeling seedy but manageably tired for 11am Germany time/3am Colorado time. The passport queue was not too bad, despite the unfriendliness of the customs officer and my bag came out on the carousel soon enough. I had time to call Mum and Dad to let them know of my safe arrival, then I was outside, ten minutes before Sabrina and Alex had arrived.
It was a balmy 10oC, tropical weather compared to what I’d been dealing with. When Sabrina and Alex came walking across the tarmac, they looked just as I remembered, I was stoked to see them. Sabrina was armed with salami and cheese sandwiches in a Tupperware container which I dug into as we got going, she hadn’t changed one bit.
Within minutes we were on the autobahn doing 160km/hr in Alex’s Opel van. It was only a short spurt, just to give me the experience. Following that, we slowed to a more reasonably 140 km/hr. We drove through cloudy countryside, catching up on travel stories of mine and events of Sabrina and Alex. Turns out they’d planned a whole itinerary for my stay, which was brilliant.
It was an hour and a half to Cologne where Sabrina lives and it felt like a long drive. I was awake enough but did get droopy at times. We were all glad to get back to Sabrina’s. I marvelled at the narrow European streets lined with tiny hatcbhacks parked for the most part perfectly parallel to the kerb like experts.
Sabrina has a beautiful wooden floor single bedroom apartment, not too different from what I had in Fremont, but slightly bigger. We ate a few cookies, Alex had a much needed shave and I had a refreshing shower before we head out to downtown Koln to see the local Christmas Markets. We found a park by Sabrina’s university for free and walked along the streets towards the shining lights of the markets.
Our first stop was 485o, a fancy pizza place that had nice pizza but as far as I was concerned overpriced. I had my first German beer despite my dry throat. Feeling a little tips from the size of the bottle, A&S gave me shit for drinking it slowly. When I finally finished we ventured back out and walked twenty minutes through the cobblestone streets towards the Christmas markets. I was loving the atmosphere and the tiny cars parked wherever and whenever with only a little order to the chaos.
The markets were gorgeous. The sun was just setting as we got there and after trying out an ATM with success, we were wandering through the throngs of people amongst the more-than-temporary stalls. I had a Gluhwein in my hand within minutes. Sabrina and I had an alcoholic version with Amaretto while Alex had the kiddie version since he was driving. With the alcohol in my body, I was starry-eyed, marvelling at all the pretty lights, my jet lag forgotten.
As we wandered, we got free samples of everything from honey to mustard to nougat, paid for some crepes and towards the end of the markets I had a drink called Feuerzangenbowle. I was drawn over to the stall because of the metal clip attached to the small mugs. When I asked what they were for, the man exuberantly explained the process of making the drink by sitting sugar atop the Gluhwein in the metal clip, soaking the sugar cube in rum (that was very strong), then lighting the whole lot on fire. Yes it tasted as good as it sounds, also as strong as it sounds.
At the end of the markets was a huge gothic cathedral, at least a thousand years old. Alex insisted when we walked to different sides of the building that I didn’t look up until we were in the right position to get the full “wow” factor. He did well as a tour guide. It was only 7:30pm, but it felt much later, as we walked the long way back to the car through central station and along the river that runs through the city. Throughout the afternoon and evening, I was happy to see so many people out on bicycles, some with kids in tow. I’m definitely not in America anymore!
Someone was keen to get our parking spot as we left, the whole place being packed by now. It was only a short drive home, during which I was slurring my words mid-sentence more because of my over-tiredness which resulted in a number of micro-sleeps in the backseat. Sabrina and I bought overly priced ice creams while Alex filled his car up with diesel at $1.09 per litre.
At home, Alex packed for his week back in Tilburg where he works while I sat on the couch enjoying my ice cream. After seeing him for the first time in months I was sad to see him go so soon. I don’t think I even brushed my teeth before going to bed, I just slipped my comfy hoodie on, lay my head down on the air mattress Alex had bought for me and was out like a light as soon as Sabrina retreated to the bathroom for a shower. I wouldn’t hear anything or open my eyes for the next 11 hours.
German fact #1: Toilet paper is rectangular, not square.