Monday, July 30, 2012 (Frankfurt)

The first problem was Cherisse decided to bring her entire suitcase for the Frankfurt/Paris trip. She couldn't fit enough clothes in her backpack for the whole week (we did Germany Monday through Thursday and Paris Thursday to Saturday), so she brought everything she brought to England on the plane with us to Frankfurt. This irritated me a whole lot, because then we had to stand in line for her to check her luggage when we could've just gone with carry-on. Plus her suitcase weighs thirty pounds and we had to walk to the train station from Catherine's in the morning, because we took a train to London and then flew out of Heathrow. It was kind of far, like probably a fifteen minute walk, and lugging that thing was not easy. Then, when we got to Frankfurt, we had no idea how to get to our hotel and oh yeah, we don't speak German. The directions she had said it was a walkable distance from the airport, but we couldn't even figure out how to really get out of the airport, and we were walking around, dragging her suitcase, for like twenty minutes. She kept wanting to split up, which I kept saying was the stupidest idea on Earth, and we almost had a fistfight in the middle of the street. There was much screaming (both of us), much frustration (both of us), teary eyes (her), and some cursing (me). Finally, we went back in the airport and asked the info desk, who pointed us to a free shuttle from the airport to our hotel. Once we got to the shuttle, the ride was literally a minute. We probably actually could've walked if we could've found it. We were not speaking to each other at this point.

We got up to our room and found it was super super nice, which was a big plus. It's not like we were staying in dumps before—the hotel in Dublin was really nice, too, minus the no wi-fi in the room thing—but this one was probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in, and it was super cheap. We sort of settled in, and I wrote a long, fuming Facebook message to Mom complaining about Cherisse and telling Mom she'd probably only get one daughter back from this trip. I just wanted to scream and cry and go home. I didn't even want to go to Germany in the first place and it was a total disaster. I didn't even really want to go on the trip as a whole, but Mom and Dad didn't want Cherisse to go alone, and they were paying, and it's the kind of trip everyone says is “once in a lifetime” and “a great experience” and I sort of felt obligated to go, so I was super frustrated that I was so miserable. I loved Dublin, and we only got to spend two days there, and we didn't even get to leave the city and see the pretty part of Ireland, so I was mad that we had to go to stupid Germany instead of spending more time in Ireland.

We had calmed down somewhat by this time and needed to get something to eat, so we decided to venture into Frankfurt. The boy at the reception bar thing didn't speak great English, but his broken English and pantomiming told us how to get to the bus stop. We got to the bus stop and realized we had no idea which way town was and no way how to find out because everything was in German. Remember how we don't speak German? Cue more annoyance and frustration. My thoughts were sort of like: THIS IS STUPID. WHY AM I HERE? I DON'T SPEAK THIS EFFING LANGUAGE. I HATE THIS COUNTRY. I may have been overreacting just a tad. We ended up just getting on the first bus that came and riding it until we saw stuff that looked like places to eat. That's probably not the most street-smart way to do things, but we didn't really have much choice. We tried asking the bus driver where we were going, but he either didn't speak English or just didn't want to talk to us, and he charged us 4 euro each for the ticket. We were annoyed because the bus tickets in Dublin were only 2, so we didn't exactly love Germany at that point.

We got off the bus and wandered down the street. There were no food places. We were starting to get very frustrated and annoyed again, but we finally found a square thing with a bunch of shops. But then we couldn't figure out what people were selling because of the whole WE DON'T SPEAK GERMAN thing. I don't remember super clearly, but I'm pretty sure I angrily screamed that at Cherisse at least once every five minutes. We found a Chinese guy who was selling hot dogs (yeah, I don't know either) and bubble tea and both got hot dogs. Cherisse also ordered bubble tea, but when the guy was asking her what kind she wanted, we discovered there was actual tea in this bubble tea, unlike what we were used to. But we couldn't really understand what he was saying (his broken English was split between a German accent and a Chinese accent...it was weird) and ended up just getting the tea anyway, even though we had no idea what was in it. Sorry, word of wisdom. We didn't know what to do! It tasted good, anyway, so hopefully it wasn't too horrible for our bodies. The hot dogs were pretty good—Renae had told me they put mayonnaise on their hot dogs, so I was prepared for that, but it turned out to taste pretty good. Then we went to this organic, all-natural grocery store across the street (we're pretty sure it was organic, anyway...WE DON'T SPEAK GERMAN. But I'm pretty good at spotting hippie food, since I eat that stuff now.) and bought some plums for breakfast in the morning. Then we traversed our way back to the hotel, which included finding a bus stop that said exactly what our earlier ticket said, asking the bus driver if he was going to the airport (he stared blankly for a minute and then nodded yes), getting off at the airport—he literally went to the terminal—and taking the shuttle back to the hotel. While we were waiting for the shuttle, we met a girl from Canada and a girl from Boston who were both staying at our hotel. We talked to them for like five minutes, and they were normal-ish, and Cherisse wanted to give them our room number. Insert me rolling my eyes and sighing and shaking my head. We did not give them our room number. We watched some Olympics, but the commentary was in German, and the only thing on was fencing and weight-lifting, so we weren't super interested and had no idea what was going on.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 (Germany day 2)

We got up in the morning and found our shuttle to Heidelberg with only one minor mishap (we were standing in the wrong spot, but we got to the right spot with plenty of time). But then the shuttle dropped us off at some random hotel in Heidelberg, and we didn't know where we were, and Cherisse's friend Luisa (with whom we were staying), doesn't actually live in Heidelberg, so she didn't know where we were or how to get to us, and we ended up wandering down the street, again, dragging Cherisse's heavy suitcase, again, and yelling at each other a bunch, again. But eventually we found Luisa (more like she found us) and found some lockers in the train station to lock up Cherisse's suitcase, since Luisa's house is an hour train ride and we couldn't exactly drop it off and come back, and went into the heart of Heidelberg.

It's a pretty big tourist spot, so there were tons of shops. We looked at stuff for a little while and then decided to go see this castle at the top of a hill. Literally at the top...and the hill was steep. But luckily it was just a hill and it only took like five minutes to get up there, so it was no big deal. We had to pay like 5 euro to get in, which annoyed me, because it wasn't even a whole castle—it was the ruins of a castle. But whatever. It was cool, but there were no info signs anyway, which was kind of a bummer. I like when they tell me what stuff was used for and stuff like that. I'm a nerd.

After the castle, we shopped for what felt like forever but probably wasn't. I'm not a big shopping person, so anything longer than an hour feels like forever to me. The only shop I chose to go into and got excited about was a running store, where I drooled over the shoes and almost legitimately blew 85 euro for a pair of new shoes. They were pretty fancy, so 85 euro was a good deal! Plus they were yellow—how could I not want them?? But we still had the whole Germany trip, plus Paris, and then all the time left in England and Scotland. And they were Nike—I've never run in Nike, but I've heard they're not great for distance running. They didn't look like they had great shock absorption, and I wasn't so sure they were wide enough for my super fat feet. So I decided to be practical and sadly put them down and left the store. I really only wanted them because they were yellow anyway.

We went back to Luisa's and went to the grocery store, where we stocked up on German chocolate. We spent the night in and watched some slightly strange Alan Rickman movie, because Cherisse is obsessed with him. I fell asleep. We had planned to go to some lake and leave at like 8.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012 (Germany day 3)

Well, we didn't get up until 8. And the lake was 3 hours away. So we decided to go on a hike and see another castle. Honestly, the appeal of castles has pretty much completely worn off for me. (We're stopping at the Harry Potter castle on our way to Scotland, but I'm pretty sure I'll still be excited for that. And we might go to the Downton Abbey castle. I'm down with that, too.) But the hike was awesome. It felt so good to be out of the city! I am not a city person at all, and that's all we've been doing—big cities. So being up in the mountains and smelling the dirt and the forest and feeling the sun and breathing fresh air with no cigarette smoke in it was so wonderful. And it felt nice to stretch my legs. We've done a lot of walking, but just city walking. This was hiking, and it felt so nice, even though I got super super sweaty. It took about an hour and a half to get up to the castle and another hour and a half down. Plus it was an hour bus ride both ways, and we spent time up at the castle, so the excursion took pretty much all day. We got back and ate dinner and cleaned up and then went to a pub for karaoke. I'd gotten used to the English and Irish version of a pub—more of a restaurant, but obviously with alcohol. But this was a bar. I've been in bars a good deal this summer, going to Mark's shows, but they're not exactly my favorite places.

This was super fun, though. Cherisse and I sang “Say My Name” by Destiny's Child and realized while we were up there that we really only know the chorus. Awkward. They had the words, obviously, but the verses have sort of awkward rhythm and we felt silly. It's probably less embarrassing when you're drunk. Luisa's friends were all really nice and her boyfriend and his friend sang like 50 songs. It was kind of hilarious. Cherisse sang another song with one of Luisa's friends, and they ended up getting third place—it turned out to be a competition—and Luisa's boyfriend and his friend won. The prizes were free shots, so Cherisse just gave hers to someone else. We stayed for like three hours. It was really fun, but I wish I would've taken my contacts out or something, because they were so dry I wanted to die. And after 11, they had to shut the doors and windows because of a noise ordinance, so it was SWELTERING. Everyone was sweating and jeez, people do not believe in deodorant. I sure wish they did.