Why a Vacation in Germany?

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

For someone who doesn’t go on vacations much and so far the only two countries I’ve been in are the Philippines and USA, other than layovers in South Korea, China, and Canada, how on earth did I end up taking a vacation in Germany? Well, that took more than a year in the making. Early in 2016, my friend Emy who lives in Germany was planning on having a grand 60^th birthday party, inviting friends near and far. The party’s theme was supposed to be the hippie culture of the 1960’s, so I started checking out costumes on the internet, you know: bell bottoms, flower power, long hair, LSD, and the like. Well, OK, not LSD. I also started looking into airline flights, but the websites were unable to show me anything more than a year in advance. When that cutoff time finally came, I immediately booked a flight on Air France from Los Angeles to Bremen (the closest airport to where Emy lives), with a connecting flight in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Having had a bad experience with very long layovers during last year’s trip to the Philippines (8 hours in Guangzhou!), I found a flight with the least amount of layover time. Little did I know that it would end up biting me in the butt later. Another lesson learned with that one: book a flight with a layover time that accommodates for delays.

Well, about two months before my trip, and after the invitation arrived, Emy calls me tearfully saying that the birthday party is cancelled due to a drastic change in her life. She had to find a job, sell her house in the suburbs, separate from her husband, and find a new place to move in. Additionally, she had to sell her excess but valuable items and find storage space for all her possessions. Since I hadn’t seen her since 1992 when she stopped by briefly in my home, I told her that I wasn’t going to Germany for the party, but rather to visit her after all these years. Prior to 1992, the last time I saw her was in 1979 when we worked together as physical fitness instructors in a gym called The Sweat Shop in Makati, Philippines. I suggested that I could make other plans for my vacation, but she said it was ok for me to come to Germany anyway.

Luggage packing test before trip

As the day of my flight approached, I did several suitcase packing trials taking into account that the July weather in Germany was similar to winter weather in California. I tried packing 6 microfleece long sleeved shirts and 3 pairs of jeans along with my packable North Face jacket which I bought specifically for this trip. I ended up packing 3 microfleece shirts and a couple of thinner shirts and had to ditch the jeans for regular slacks because they wouldn’t fit in my carry on suitcase. Having done that, my other checked luggage was for presents. I also bought some Euro currency from Travelex and with that, I was good to go other than not knowing the language. So I downloaded a German/English translation app, as well as Google Translate, none of which I ended up using, or barely anyway.

The rest of the trip to follow.

Germany – The Adventure of the Last Two Days (Part 1) Kassel to Bremen

View from Kassel's Hercules monument

Did you know that it costs a Euro to use the WC/toilette/bathroom in a train station? Well, anyway…

My last couple of days in Germany was quite an adventure due to unforeseen circumstances. What should have been an uneventful train ride from Kassel to Bremen turned out to be otherwise. Taking the taxi from my friend Bernadette’s house, it was easy enough to find the correct platform from the eingang (entrance), the correct train number, and the correct seat (platz) reservation on the Deutch Bahn ICE train (an express train) because the bahnhof (train station) in Kassel was small enough. Hauptbahnhofs or Grand Central Stations were more confusing for me because of numerous platforms and floors. Next, the train was delayed and instead of arriving at the original platform in front of me, it arrived at the one behind me. Fortunately I had been talking to a woman minutes before, who happened to work for Deutsch Bahn, who told me about the change. When we got going, sometime in the middle of the trip, there was an announcement that we would be getting off at Hannover Hauptbahnhof to transfer to a regional train which has more stops. Initially, we were informed that it would be the regional train on track 11, but as we were about to get off, another announcement in German said we would be taking the train from track 12 instead. Fortunately, some Germans nearby translated to announcement for me, and I told one of them that I would be following her and her kids. However, they stopped by a snack shop to buy some food. Being in unfamiliar situations and the thought of being lost especially in a foreign country gives me high anxiety. I told my friend Emy about that before I left for Germany and that my life was in her hands when I got there.

Beer tasting near Kassel

I then proceeded to track 12, looked at the posted schedule, and it turned out that the train that was waiting at the track was the one I was supposed to take. I entered it and asked a gentleman if I was on the right train and he said that I was. However, I didn’t have a seat reservation on this one even though I had a reservation on the original train. The same gentleman told me that reserved seats were indicated by an LED sign just above the seat. Fortunately, the immediate area I was in had a vacant one.

When we arrived in Bremen Hauptbahnhof, I looked for the ausgang (exit) towards the front of the building and started looking for the taxi stand. I found a taxi easily and told the driver I wanted to go to the Holiday Inn Express near Bremen Flughafen (airport). He said “no problem”. A few short miles later, I arrived at my destination for the day. I checked in and explored the area so I could easily find my way to the airport the next day. It was only about a block away by U.S. standards. I found a Chinese food restaurant, ate a light dinner, then found myself buying an apple strudel in McDonalds which I took back to the hotel and ate it in my room with yet another mug of beer which the bartender downstairs allowed me to take. And thus ended the first day.