Okay... Sorry I haven't posted this sooner. I've had it written out for a little while, I just haven't posted it. I'm not going to promise that I'll post again. I'm really not dependable! Anyway, I'll post what I had written down already. Enjoy!
The next few days were not quite so eventful as the first. We were staying in an American lodge, so it made things a little bit less interesting, but a lot less complicated and confusing.
We went skiing for about 2 days. It was a lot different from skiing around here. It wasn't that the slopes were particularly difficult, but around here you learn to ski on ice. I had no idea what to do in that powder stuff. I hadn't learned how to balance on my skis to keep my tips above the powder. After about the fourth wipe out I was thinking, "Get me out of this stuff! Let's find some ice!" The upside to wiping out in powder is that it doesn't hurt very much. Embarrassing, but painful to my dignity alone.
Learning the lifts was a challenge. Instead of having a chair that is attatched to a cable, they have these bars that are shaped like an upside-down T. You grab the bar and place it under your... er.. bum, and then you let it pull you up the slope. DO NOT SIT DOWN ON IT! I learned this on my way up the bunny slope. Unfortunately, Josh and I were going up together, so yeah. We beefed it. Big time. I just knew that all those little German kids who have been skiing since they were 9 months old were going to point and laugh. I don't know if they did. I avoided all eye contact.
After our second day of skiing we packed up our stuff, checked out of the lodge and hopped a train, Italy bound. I must add that I was beginning to feel really bad. I felt similar to an old, wilty, slimy piece of lettuce, only my throat hurt and my lungs were really tight.
We rode the train straight through Austria. Neither of us really had much desire to stop there, so we didn't. This was the glory of taking a self-guided tour.
Once we had crossed the Italian border, the police hopped on the train. Those guys were really scary. I'm not sure if they were trying to look really intimidating, but they did. They were just fine with my passport, but they weren't sure what to do with Josh's military ID. Now, Josh and I were a little freaked out, because we had heard rumors before we left that the Italians can be a little... difficult. Some people said you couldn't get in the country with a military ID, some said you could get in but you couldn't get out. Since we were a little disturbed about this we asked the lady who sold us the Eurail passes. She had done some research and told us that we should be good to go with the military ID. Here with the Gestapo... I mean the Italian police, we weren't so sure. They looked at it, grunted, then asked Josh if he had a passport. Josh replied that this was a military ID and is acceptable as a passport. They asked what his occupation was, so he told them he was in the U.S. Army.
"But what is your job now?"
"That is my job. My profession is being a soldier in the U.S. military."
They said a few things to each other in whispered tones, looked at us through squinted eyes, wrote something on their clipboard and then told us we were okay. This was met by a flood of relief on our parts.
This relief was, however, short lived. Not 5 minutes later a train attendant came through the cars. After about the third language he said in English,
"Tickets please."
Josh found the Eurail passes and handed them to him.
"Where are your global passes?"
Josh looked at me, I looked at him...
"Global passes?"
"Yes. You must have a global pass to be on this train."
"I don't understand. The person who sold us these tickets told us that we could ride any train with this."
"Yes, but you must have a global pass."
"Why?"
"You must have the Eurail pass, and you must have a global pass to ride this train."
After a lot of confusion we figured out that in order to ride a train legally across a border, you had to have a global pass. The guy told us they cost about 5 Euro. Then he looked around, looked over his shoulder and told us, (this is paraphrase)
"You know what? I'm going to let you skate. You're cool with me, but I get off the train at Bolzano. There is going to be a different attendant checking passes, so he might get you. The worst that can happen is that he'll make you buy them and then charge you a fee."
Okay. That's cool. Well, when they new guy hopped on the train he came through, checking everyone's tickets. When he came to us and asked to see our tickets, Josh looked at me and then started digging in his pockets to find the Eurail passes. We were kind of sweating bullets. After a couple of seconds the guy said,
"Wait a minute... how long have you been on this train?"
"Since Germany," we replied.
"Oh. Never mind then."
Whew! And so God spared us from the fee.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
My First Day in Germany
I recently returned from a 2 week vacation to Europe, which was awesome! I promised to post some stories from my trip, so I think I'll basically just start at the beginning and tell ya what stands out.
The thing that stands out in my mind most of all are the people that God sent to make sure were safely on the right path. Or train.
Okay, first of all, getting to know the train system is difficult. It probably wouldn't be quite so difficult if I had been around trains more often, but come on! I was born in Texas! We don't use a train system there. Because Texas is awesome. And waaaay too big. Anyway, we had no clue what we were doing.
We decided to do what all ignorant tourists should do and headed to information. Behind the information desk was a young man. He was about 23 or so, (the work force over there seems a lot younger. I don't know if it's true, but it definitely seems that way,) and had blue eyes and blonde hair. He was wearing a faux-hawk, an earring and a very bored expression.
Josh asked the guy if he spoke English, to which he replied that he did. Josh told him that we needed to get to Garmisch, so he printed a piece of paper, handed it to us and waved us away. Okay... The piece of paper was a train schedule, so that was cool, but we didn't know where to get tickets.
Josh decided to hail a person about our age since most of them speak English. He found a guy and asked if he could help us. The guy took the paper, looked at it and said, "Hmmm..." and started walking toward a gate. He found the gate, looked at the paper, shook his head, walked to another gate, shook his head, walked back to the first gate... After a little bit of fiddling with a machine and a lot of head shaking he pointed us back to information. We told him thank you for trying and got back in line.
At this point I must add that in front of us this time there was a man with... um... a rather large hole in the seat of his trousers. It was kind of hard not to laugh. Surely he knew it was there... It was quite cold and drafty. Why didn't he go home and change? Or buy a different pair of pants? I'm not sure.
Anyway, back in line we were kind of hoping for a different information guy this time. No such luck. We came back up to the counter and he rolled his eyes. We told him that we didn't quite understand and tried to explain exactly what we needed. He sighed, took the train schedule, scribbled a 9 in a blank spot and handed it back to us. Yeah. Thanks, guy.
We went back out to look for the gate that we needed. While we were searching we overheard some people speaking good English. Josh went up to a lady and asked her if she could help us. She was so helpful! First, she took us to information again and explained in German that we were trying to get Eurail passes. The apathetic young man looked at us like we were stupid and told us to go to a different place.
The lady took us to the new place, where there was a lady who spoke pretty good English as well. After making sure that we were in good hands she went her own way. The lady that she left us with was extremely helpful and resourceful. She answered all our questions and told us a whole bunch of stuff we needed to know. She sold us Eurail passes, (expensive, but invaluable if you don't know what you're doing) gave us a map, gave us a timetable of the European train system and wished us luck. What a nice lady!
After we finally had our tickets we hopped on a train. (I guess that 9 helped after all!) Once we got on the train the attendant came and asked us for our tickets. We showed him our Eurail passes and he took them, nodded his head, smiled and handed them back to us.
We traveled on that train for quite a while before we got to our stop. Every time we would stop the train guy would come through the car, ask the new boarders for their tickets, serve some people some tea, and eye us carefully as we walked by. This unnerved me at first, but I got used to it.
When we got to the stop marked on our train schedule we got off the train. Before the train pulled away the train guy hopped off and called us back. I was thinking, "Uh oh... did we forget something? Were we supposed to do something?" He said, "Are you sure this is your stop?" We showed him our schedule. He looked at it and nodded, made sure we knew exactly where we were going and where the correct platform was, hopped on the train and rode away. Once again God was watching us, using the careful eyes of a kind and helpful train attendant.
The next train that we got on was... not so nice. Actually, it was kind of ghetto. You're not allowed to smoke on trains, but on this train everyone was smoking in the gaps between cars. This is kind of dumb, because all of the smoke comes in the car anyway. I'm sure all of you know my opinion this, but I think that having a "smoking section" is kind of like having a peeing section in a pool. Sounds nasty, but it's true.
So here we are in our smoky, smoky little train when this guy boards. He kind of looked like a homeless guy. He was smoking a hand rolled cigarette and carrying this huge backpack. He was talking to himself. I thought this was kind of weird, but Josh looked at me with this knowing grin and said, "I'd bet he's listening to an MP3." He was right. It was kind of funny because the guy would all the sudden break out in song while dramatically pumping his arm, rocking out on his air guitar.
All of a sudden he notices us staring at him. It wasn't the fact that we were staring that caught his attention because everyone was doing that. It was Josh's fatigues. The guy had apparently been in the German military and recognized Josh's duffel and jacket as American.
He immediately asked about it and launched his story. And goodness me, this guy was a total nut case! He told Josh that he had been in the special forces for 13 years. Yeah right. He was probably in the service, but 13 years, but SF? Probably not. Josh later said that perhaps the guy had some serious post traumatic stress issues. Maybe that was it. I don't know. Anyway, he was very apologetic that Josh had to be in Iraq. He was convinced that President Bush is evil. He would solemnly shake his head and tell us how sorry he is that we have to put up with the guy. I refrained from telling him that he could keep his apologies and I'll keep President Bush. Thanks very much.
He also had this thing with the word, "Loco." For example:
"Have you ever heard of ______?" (some little German band)
No, we haven't.
"Oh, well, if you like metal you'll love them. They are really great." *starts dramatically playing air guitar again* "Oh, man. It's loco."
He repeated this routine several times.
I'm not sure if it was his really strange behavior or his empty bottle, but something gave me the impression that the strange man on the train was intoxicated.
When we finally arrived at Garmisch, we were still pretty confused. The guys at the USO had given us directions from the train station to Edelwiess, but after one attempt we gave up. The directions were just not clear enough.
We walked over to a group of guys standing around and asked if they spoke English. "Yes, we do." Uh oh... This guys English is a little too good. "Do know where Edelweiss is?" He grinned smugly and said, "It's too far to walk." Oops. Next thing we knew we were in his cab, racing to our destination. Lesson learned. Never ask a cab driver for directions unless you are willing to pay his fee.
The thing that stands out in my mind most of all are the people that God sent to make sure were safely on the right path. Or train.
Okay, first of all, getting to know the train system is difficult. It probably wouldn't be quite so difficult if I had been around trains more often, but come on! I was born in Texas! We don't use a train system there. Because Texas is awesome. And waaaay too big. Anyway, we had no clue what we were doing.
We decided to do what all ignorant tourists should do and headed to information. Behind the information desk was a young man. He was about 23 or so, (the work force over there seems a lot younger. I don't know if it's true, but it definitely seems that way,) and had blue eyes and blonde hair. He was wearing a faux-hawk, an earring and a very bored expression.
Josh asked the guy if he spoke English, to which he replied that he did. Josh told him that we needed to get to Garmisch, so he printed a piece of paper, handed it to us and waved us away. Okay... The piece of paper was a train schedule, so that was cool, but we didn't know where to get tickets.
Josh decided to hail a person about our age since most of them speak English. He found a guy and asked if he could help us. The guy took the paper, looked at it and said, "Hmmm..." and started walking toward a gate. He found the gate, looked at the paper, shook his head, walked to another gate, shook his head, walked back to the first gate... After a little bit of fiddling with a machine and a lot of head shaking he pointed us back to information. We told him thank you for trying and got back in line.
At this point I must add that in front of us this time there was a man with... um... a rather large hole in the seat of his trousers. It was kind of hard not to laugh. Surely he knew it was there... It was quite cold and drafty. Why didn't he go home and change? Or buy a different pair of pants? I'm not sure.
Anyway, back in line we were kind of hoping for a different information guy this time. No such luck. We came back up to the counter and he rolled his eyes. We told him that we didn't quite understand and tried to explain exactly what we needed. He sighed, took the train schedule, scribbled a 9 in a blank spot and handed it back to us. Yeah. Thanks, guy.
We went back out to look for the gate that we needed. While we were searching we overheard some people speaking good English. Josh went up to a lady and asked her if she could help us. She was so helpful! First, she took us to information again and explained in German that we were trying to get Eurail passes. The apathetic young man looked at us like we were stupid and told us to go to a different place.
The lady took us to the new place, where there was a lady who spoke pretty good English as well. After making sure that we were in good hands she went her own way. The lady that she left us with was extremely helpful and resourceful. She answered all our questions and told us a whole bunch of stuff we needed to know. She sold us Eurail passes, (expensive, but invaluable if you don't know what you're doing) gave us a map, gave us a timetable of the European train system and wished us luck. What a nice lady!
After we finally had our tickets we hopped on a train. (I guess that 9 helped after all!) Once we got on the train the attendant came and asked us for our tickets. We showed him our Eurail passes and he took them, nodded his head, smiled and handed them back to us.
We traveled on that train for quite a while before we got to our stop. Every time we would stop the train guy would come through the car, ask the new boarders for their tickets, serve some people some tea, and eye us carefully as we walked by. This unnerved me at first, but I got used to it.
When we got to the stop marked on our train schedule we got off the train. Before the train pulled away the train guy hopped off and called us back. I was thinking, "Uh oh... did we forget something? Were we supposed to do something?" He said, "Are you sure this is your stop?" We showed him our schedule. He looked at it and nodded, made sure we knew exactly where we were going and where the correct platform was, hopped on the train and rode away. Once again God was watching us, using the careful eyes of a kind and helpful train attendant.
The next train that we got on was... not so nice. Actually, it was kind of ghetto. You're not allowed to smoke on trains, but on this train everyone was smoking in the gaps between cars. This is kind of dumb, because all of the smoke comes in the car anyway. I'm sure all of you know my opinion this, but I think that having a "smoking section" is kind of like having a peeing section in a pool. Sounds nasty, but it's true.
So here we are in our smoky, smoky little train when this guy boards. He kind of looked like a homeless guy. He was smoking a hand rolled cigarette and carrying this huge backpack. He was talking to himself. I thought this was kind of weird, but Josh looked at me with this knowing grin and said, "I'd bet he's listening to an MP3." He was right. It was kind of funny because the guy would all the sudden break out in song while dramatically pumping his arm, rocking out on his air guitar.
All of a sudden he notices us staring at him. It wasn't the fact that we were staring that caught his attention because everyone was doing that. It was Josh's fatigues. The guy had apparently been in the German military and recognized Josh's duffel and jacket as American.
He immediately asked about it and launched his story. And goodness me, this guy was a total nut case! He told Josh that he had been in the special forces for 13 years. Yeah right. He was probably in the service, but 13 years, but SF? Probably not. Josh later said that perhaps the guy had some serious post traumatic stress issues. Maybe that was it. I don't know. Anyway, he was very apologetic that Josh had to be in Iraq. He was convinced that President Bush is evil. He would solemnly shake his head and tell us how sorry he is that we have to put up with the guy. I refrained from telling him that he could keep his apologies and I'll keep President Bush. Thanks very much.
He also had this thing with the word, "Loco." For example:
"Have you ever heard of ______?" (some little German band)
No, we haven't.
"Oh, well, if you like metal you'll love them. They are really great." *starts dramatically playing air guitar again* "Oh, man. It's loco."
He repeated this routine several times.
I'm not sure if it was his really strange behavior or his empty bottle, but something gave me the impression that the strange man on the train was intoxicated.
When we finally arrived at Garmisch, we were still pretty confused. The guys at the USO had given us directions from the train station to Edelwiess, but after one attempt we gave up. The directions were just not clear enough.
We walked over to a group of guys standing around and asked if they spoke English. "Yes, we do." Uh oh... This guys English is a little too good. "Do know where Edelweiss is?" He grinned smugly and said, "It's too far to walk." Oops. Next thing we knew we were in his cab, racing to our destination. Lesson learned. Never ask a cab driver for directions unless you are willing to pay his fee.
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