Holiday, 3 June 2010

Thursday was a holiday and it was well used. I fell asleep for a few minutes on the carried home and by eleven-twenty at night for proof. But, I woke up earlier of my own accord that my alarm was set for. For about thirty minutes I just lay in bed and stared at the wall. I believe I was thinking something, but I can’t remember. So, I got up and helped with breakfast.
Frau Brause was still getting ready for the day, so Herr Brause and I got most of everything ready. Instead of the normal broetchen, there were chiabatta, which were very good. Herr Brause put them and the pretzels in the toaster oven. Frau Brause had also bought some goat cheese; I’m guessing because I told her I liked it. And it was good, especially on a warm pretzel. I also had an entire pot of tea to myself, but that’s normal. Herr Brause also turned on some music (classical).
After breakfast I went and got ready for the day. It had been decided earlier that Frau Reinl would pick us up at noon, and from there we would go on the day’s expedition. Until then, I just sat in the dining room and wrote, making up all the blogging I haven’t done. At five till noon, I quickly put in my contacts, and threw on my sweatshirt and coat (it’d been raining all morning, but that wasn’t stopping us), grabbed my purse, camera, umbrella and rain boots and ran back upstairs. Frau Brause decided not to go with us, because she felt sick and had a throat ache.
Oh we drove through the rain to a small town called Huefingen. Their specialty was that around Easter time, they make a big carpet of flowers along the entire main street. This was gone, since Easter happened a long time ago, but there were smaller ones in front of alters along the street. They were pretty, but there wasn’t much else to see. I didn’t even buy postcards, let’s put it that way.
From that town, we drove a bit and parked along side a field. Gathering the umbrellas and cameras, we walked down a trail into the forest. This was the Orchid Forest. It’s really just a short (maybe a kilometer) trail where you can see flowers, especially orchids. However, there wasn’t much to see, because we’re sort of in between blooming seasons. I did get a very nice picture of an orchid called a “Lady’s Shoe” though. And some of the views from the trail were great, despite the rain. My boots were really a lifesaver yesterday. And Frau Reinl said they were more stylish than the ones they have here.
After the trail, we drove to Schafhausen. I had no former knowledge of these placed until yesterday, so it was a good surprise. Frau Reinl asked if I had some form of identification with me. I said I had a driver’s license. Why would I have brought my passport? It turns out they were taking me into Switzerland to see the Rheine falls. Wow. We decided we’d see what would happen at the border and drove on. It was a bit of a drive from there, and on the way Frau Reinl said we would have to buy some Swiss chocolate because it’s the best.
The Rheine Falls is the largest waterfall in Europe. It’s actually quite small in the scheme of things, but it was still gorgeous and powerful. We parked at the last parking lot and hiked up to the Falls. When I say “hiked up to,” I mean that we walked along the bank of the Rheine and then to various lookout points. I took far too many pictures, I think, and my exposure was probably off, but I did the best I could. We also walked over a bridge that went over the Rheine up to the Schloss (on a cliff above the falls). When I see a castle/schloss I really want to go in, so this was very cool for me.
Schloss Laufen as its called, is really old, but modern. It, like the other schloss from Saturday is a youth hostel, but this one has a restaurant in it, and you can go inside a good amount of the building, which is a weird museum. We had coffee, cappuccino or hot chocolate at the restaurant. This was the first gray scale room I thought was pretty. The hot drink was also welcome since it was a little chilly outside. But, the rain had stopped. After our drinks were gone, we went out to the courtyard and took some pictures. Then we needed to figure out how we would get back.
There were two options, take a boat back across the Rheine or walk back. I was game for either one, but we opted to take the boat; it was faster and we were getting tired. Frau Reinl went to buy the tickets, and then Herr Brause and I wandered off. We thought she went to the ticket kiosk, so we went there. She wasn’t there (or we somehow missed her), but I bought some postcards, and Herr Brause bought two toblerones. Switzerland is expensive. We couldn’t find Frau Reinl, so we kept walking around. I thought this made us more un-findable, but I didn’t want to be left alone.
We ran into Frau Reinl, who was looking for us, and we went down to the boat. On the way, are some really super close lookout points for the water fall. At one of them, we were less than a foot away from the rushing water. And then I almost got splashed on, but jumped back in time. The boat ride back was short and full of Asian tourists. And the man we bought our tickets from almost didn’t give Frau Reinl her change. It fell out of the machine and instead of handing it to her, he put it back in the slots. I assume he didn’t realize what he did, but she insisted that he hadn’t given her the change (he tried to say it fell on the floor), but gave more to her anyway.
We walked back to the car from the dock. I was pretty hungry by this point and it was after five o’clock. I’m not sure why we didn’t get lunch, but oh well. On the way back home, before we crossed the border, we stopped at a gas station and bought some chocolate. I’m not sure if this is for all of Switzerland, but this close to the border at least, they accept Euros. It was hard to pick out which kind of chocolate to buy. There was a lot of Lindt, which I didn’t need to buy (I think it’s overpriced) but I did settle on a dark and milk chocolate to try. I know we’re going to go to the Bodensee sooner or later, so I didn’t worry about buying chocolate for everyone back home. Don’t worry, I will buy some before I leave. Trust me.
The ride back home was a little more than an hour, I think. We got stopped in two traffic jams. One was for construction and the road became a one way street for a bit. I didn’t say much and resisted the urge to open up one of my chocolate bars. I knew I’d eat all of it I was so hungry. And then I started nodding. I closed my eyes for just a few minutes though and opened them again before I really fell asleep. I didn’t want to sleep with my contacts in.
When we got home, Frau Brause convinced Frau Reinl to stay for dinner. Then we’ll go to Frau Reinl’s Friday for dinner. Dinner came in a half hour, which during the waiting time I put all the new pictures on my computer and organized most of them. Frau Reinl really like the ones I took of flowers and Felix. Dinner was steak, peas, and noodles. The steak was kind of hard to chew (I’ll blame it on the cut of meat, whatever it was)…I think I ended up half chewing it and then swallowing. For dessert there was ice cream, which Herr Brause was very happy for. I tried some of the vanilla, but it was the same base as the stracciatella, and so both make me sick. But I had some new chocolate to try, and one of the toblerones Herr Brause bought was given to me, so I had that, too.
After dinner I put my pictures up as a slideshow for Frau Brause to see. I had to excuse myself in the middle of it to take out my contacts. Then I showed them pictures of Darren’s graduation from the Guard. A picture of Andrew’s belated birthday cake was in the mix, and they asked if Lola would come to Germany and bake for them. Frau Reinl left shortly thereafter, and I quickly got online to check things. Luckily there were only a few messages to respond to.
After I was done, I joined my host parents to watch the Friendship game between Germany and Bosnia. When I came in the living room, we were down one-nothing, but ended up winning three-one. It was nice and the team played better the second half. After that, it was about ten-thirty. I showered and went to bed. It was glorious.