Germany Trip Part 2, plus more.

Well, actually there's not much left to tell about the trip since I left off last time with Freiburg, and that was the last city we traveled to. But from Freiburg in the Black Forest, or Schwarzwald, we did enjoy a day trip to Triberg, a Black Forest village, and home to Germany's highest waterfall, where I also was once before with my parents.

Unfortunately the weather in Germany went from HOT to cold in rainy in the blink of an eye, and even though I made a big point of instructing Katy to bring at least one pair of jeans and some long-sleeved shirts "because the weather can change drastically in Germany," I, myself, became a victim of the mentality that after sweating day and night through such heat, "how could it ever cool down again?"

Well, it did. And it was accompanied by a cold rain. So after getting off the train in Triberg, where I was dressed in jean capris and a thin long-sleeved shirt, I was kicking myself for not taking my own advice. I even had a jacket back at the apartment, but was convinced it would just be a burden to schlepp around all day. Usually I'm the one who carries a fat-stuffed "purse," or rather shoulder bag, with everything I might or might not use out and about in Berlin for the day. But when I really need it I don't have it. I suppose it's just Murphy's Law.

Anyway, I lucked out: Matthias loaned me his fleece vest (yes, Mom and Dad, the fles veest), and we trudged up the hill to the village downtown on our way to the waterfall, and spent almost 2 hours perusing an amazing souvenir shop boasting 1,000 cuckoo clocks. Katy and Matt ended up with a cuckoo clock, among many other gifts, which they had sent home right from there. After a warm cup of coffee in a neighboring restaurant, we hiked up the trail by the waterfall and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Skip Ahead a Few Weeks:

So since the trip I've kept plenty busy. Jesse came back for a last weekend in Berlin a couple weeks ago before flying back to the States after his math conference. We enjoyed a delicious Turkish meal, actually an appetizer platter of different sauces which you spread onto Turkish flat bread, plus lentil soup. We left feeling sick-full, but it was worth every bite.

The following weekend I took off for Hamburg again to visit Bethany in the hospital. I finally got to the rehabilitation center. Keep in mind - this place is way out in the middle of nowhere - a bus that leaves from a suburb of Hamburg drives 40 min. to the village every couple hours. Upon reaching the village, there's a 20 minute walk past on a curvy street that leads past fields of goats and horses. Finally the rehabilitation hospital appears, beautiful and like out of a picture book. It's a great area, but it's just really annoying to get there.

When I found Bethany sitting and chatting with some fellow patients in the dining hall, that was a good first sign. The last time when Jesse and I visited her over a month ago she was sitting in a wheelchair, back facing the door, and could barely turn her head to say hello. In fact this time when Bethany stood up and walked with me back to her room, if I hadn't known how sick she had been, I wouldn't have thought anything was wrong. She's made great progress in physical therapy and has gained so much strength. She is still stick thin, after dropping so much weight, but she has certainly gained back some muscle.

However, she is still weak, and she is still partly numb, especially in her legs and somewhat in her hands. Though she can eat normally, and walking/taking stairs is much easier, she can only do a limited amount before feeling extremely tired and losing even more feeling in her legs and feet.

As long as she has someone to accompany her, she is allowed to leave for the weekends since she only has therapy during the week. So we packed her stuff and left for 2 days. We made it back to Hamburg fine, but the next day was to be the challenge. Since she was informed in the hospital by her 2 roommates that they had decided to move out, Bethany was forced to have to find a new apartment. So our task for the weekend was to look at as many apartments as possible, and hopefully line something up for her to move straight into upon release from the hospital.

On Saturday we looked at 3 apartments, all of which were strange. The last one was belonged to a little old lady, hoping to rent a room from her apartment. Not only was rent way too high for a room the size of a closet, the little lady was unwilling to share her living room (and t.v.) with Bethany, she had a yippy toy poodle and many squawky birds, and - the real zinger - had a general curfew set for when Bethany should be home, even after orchestra gigs.

So we set out on Sunday, feeling discouraged, but hopeful. Then we found it - the perfect apartment, complete with furnished bedroom, living room (which she would be allowed to use), little balcony, and super nice roommate. She would've signed right then and there, but the roommate still needed to show the apartment to other people during the week. After a week of waiting, she was offered the dream place, and will be able to move in as soon as she's released in mid September.

The rest of the weekend we spent packing her things to get ready for her friends there who will help move her out. After that mega weekend, she was extremely exhausted and could barely walk anymore. Sunday I went with her part of the way to the hospital and she took a cab the rest of the way.

Since I was staying in Hamburg until Tues. morning, I went to visit Bethany one more day in the hospital on Monday. We had a nice time, and as I was checking the bus schedule for the last few busses of the night, I offered one last time to cut her hair. Overdue for a haircut before she was admitted to the hospital the first time, back in June, her hair was crying out for a smart trim.

The summer I worked at Interlochen Center for the Arts after my freshman year of college, I ended up turning into the camp counselor coiffure after one brave counselor let me chop off her hair. She had been so impressed with the new chin-length bob that my new reputation as hair cutter quickly spread. Before I knew it, I was getting asked by counselors and even campers for a cut. I was happy to go along with it (minus the campers which was not allowed) since there wasn't much else to do at camp other than making crafts and controlling how many desserts the girls were trying to sneak in the cafeteria.

At the end of the summer, during counselor awards, I received the "Heidi's House of Hair" award with picture of a large pair of scissors and a bird carrying a tuft of hair away in its beak. This representation is because after every haircut, I'd leave a little pile with the hair outside the door of the counselor cabin in the hopes that the birds would happily carry the strands away to use in their nest-making. After weeks staring at the untouched piles, however, some of the counselors started to get really creeped out by the clumps of human hair, especially when the left the cabin at night and caught a glimpse of them by moonlight.

In any case, Interlochen's snipping adventures were long past and since I'd only cut one person's hair since then a few years ago, I didn't particularily trust myself anymore. And after my long, sharp haircutting scissors were confiscated at the airport that I had so ingeniously packed into my carry-on, I didn't even have any tools. But Bethany was desperate enough to give me a shot, and I was excited to see what I could do. Unfortunately the only scissors we found were dull office scissors.

She and I, and her 2 hospital patient friends who came along for moral support, filed into Bethany's room. After attempting to awkwardly wash her hair with the shower head in the sink, we started the cut. The dull scissors didn't cut very cleanly, but by the time I was done with the trim and then the layers, it had all evened out. I blow dried the new creation, hoping and praying she would not hate me if it turned out poorly.

As the new 'do took shape with the blow dryer, I was relieved and ecstatic; the cut and the layers, especially the ones around her face, looked great. The natural waves at the bottom of her hair hid any of the imperfections, which I'm sure her next hair stylist will comment on, but that's okay - Bethany was very pleased and our audience was complimentary.

But alas, the haircut prevented me from catching my planned bus and I had to wait till the next one, almost 2 hours later after 11pm, but it worked out and I made it back to Bethany's apartment in Hamburg home safe and sound at 12:30am. The next day I took a carpool back to Berlin (there's a website where you can find people who are driving to your city of choice and call for a ride for a portion of the gas costs) and was surprised to see a big 12-passenger van/transporter pull up.

Slowly, one by one, the people trickled in and we set off to Berlin. The driver obviously turned what is usually an innocent way to save money by traveling cheaply into a business and drives from Hamburg to Berlin and back everyday taking people with him. So the entire time we drove, he was answering his cell phone for coming rides. But the good thing was he had a attachable t.v. screen in the van and we watched a movie on the ride. That was a first!

Back in Berlin, there's also a lot to write about, but I'll suffice it for now to say that this is one of my last nights in my apartment. I am moving out on Aug. 31, this Thursday, and will be living with the family I teach English to for the following 2 weeks. I fly back to the States on Sept. 14 for an indefinite amount of time as I wait for the next step of my life to be revealed to me! I found someone to take over my apartment with the furniture, so that's a big load off my shoulders.

And I got a visa to stay in Germany for up to a year looking for a job. However, there is a catch: I'm only allowed to find a job in my field, music, and while I'm looking for a job I'm not allowed to find a temporary job that pays more than 300-400 euros a month. Since I graduated with a degree in Germany, this "limits" what I am allowed to do in Germany. Of course, finding a job in music is the ideal case, in Germany or America, but there is no way I can stay in Germany and wait around for that to happen, while only earning a maximum of 400 euros. I am going to look into this some more, but at the moment, that is how the situation looks.

And in final news, I just finished a 2-day recording session today in another "city tour." I got a call from the guy whom I'd worked with for the first recordings and he asked me to do another project. I naturally jumped at the chance for some cash. This time it was in a real studio. Whereas in the first project I sat in a makeshift box covered with foam and blankets with a little lamp and microphone, this time he and I drove way outside of Berlin to the location of a real studio - where the sound-proof room even had a window to the outside! So sitting there for hours with my headphones on while reading the texts was much more pleasant than the last time.

The next time I write I'll probably be long gone from this apartment, so here's wishing adieu from the little studio apartment that's become home in Berlin. I'll miss it. But I'm looking forward to the next phase of my life, too!

Click here for a listening example of my last recording project about Berlin's historical Gendarmenmarkt! It's available for purchase on Finetunes.com.

Germany Trip Part 1

I'm back from the trip around Germany with Katy and her husband, Matt. They were great travel companions and it was fun to show them around Germany, including some of the places I've lived in. Plus, it was great to spend time with a friend I don't nearly see enough.

We started out in Berlin. I picked the two of them up from the airport and they were understandably totally pooped from 2 days of traveling to get here. They also came during the last leg of Europe's intense heat wave, and got to experience life without air conditioning. But after a cold shower and warm meal, we were off to our first destination: a biergarten. The next couple of days we took in the sights of Berlin and enjoyed the warm evenings outside at cafes and cocktail bars. We were also joined by my friend Jesse, who popped into Berlin from his nearby math conference.

On Sunday we all headed out of Berlin - Jesse back to his conference, and Katy, Matt, and I with the ICE train to Cologne. No trip in Germany is complete without a train ride, and the ICE train is the fastest - and air conditioned. We got great seats - one seat facing forward, two backwards, and a table in between. However, poor Katy gets motion sickness easily, and even a seat facing forward in the relatively smooth ICE train was pushing it. After a nice nap, though, she was feeling fine and I was the one feeling sick to my stomach! So we switched sides so I could ride facing forward and we were all happy again.

We arrived Cologne and found the little hotel they were to stay at and I made my way back on to Bonn, Cologne's sister city, and Matthias' hometown, so I could stay at his family's house for the night. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as it sounds, as his family is going through some hard times; his grandma, 86, was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and is in the hospital, and through the stress, his grandpa, 92, suffered high blood pressure and was admitted to another hospital.

Understandably, the family was very upset over the state of health of the grandparents. However, his visiting melodramatic and hectic aunt was not helping the situation, and was apparently appalled Matthias would even suggest having his gf (of 2.5 yrs. no less) spend the night with the family in such a tizzy.

It had been planned for over a week that I was to come and unfortunately I was informed of the change once I had arrived in Cologne. As much as I would've been fine in finding a different accommodation, I was not happy about having to find a new place to sleep for the night so last minute. Matthias was able to calm them down, however, and it ended up being fine that I stayed. The whole thing made me feel kind of weird being there, like maybe they thought I was a difficult girlfriend making a scene about having to stay there.

Of course that is the last thing I wanted, and I never expect special treatment. But as a result I decided to make myself scarce once I got to their house. Instead of going into the the living room to say hi where they were all discussing the situation, I went straight downstairs so they wouldn't feel like they had inquire how I was or do anything for me. Matthias also didn't go into talk to them (he was also tired of all the stress).

It ended up working out fine and I didn't see them at all. The next morning they were gone by the time Matthias and I left to drive to Koblenz, a neighboring Rhine River city, where we were meeting up with Katy and Matt. From there the three of us were going to continue south by taking a Rhine River cruise and stopping in the Rhine Village, Bacharach, for the night.

After a slight scare that we'd miss the only ship going to Bacharach that day because Katy and Matt were M.I.A., they showed up in the last minute after having train delay. We rushed off to the ticket stand down by the Rhine and ended up having to run about 20 minutes to the dock where the ship was about to leave. We made it just in time, and found great seats on the deck in the shade. It was perfect weather for a Rhine cruise - sunny with a slight breeze. However, what I thought was a 2 hour ride turned into 4 1/2 hrs. upon closer inspection of the brochure schedule. Luckily it was a very pleasant day and we just sat back and relaxed as we passed castle after castle.

Once we arrived in Bacharach, we started out probably the least pleasant part of the trip - the hike up the mountain to the old castle turned youth hostel - complete with all our luggage. Katy and Matt had travel backpacks, and though strenuous, made it up pretty well. I had a medium-sized suitcase and it was a little harder to drag it up the mountain, up the millions of wood/dirt stairs, but we made it finally, albeit very sweaty.

But the view from the top of the mountain was again worth it (I'd been up there 2x before), and we had an amazing panoramic from our room overlooking the Rhine and village of Bacharach below. After some picture taking and a quick refreshing, we were ready to make our way back down the mountain into the village for dinner.

The way down was great and Katy and Matt were blown away (as I also am every time) by the adorable, fairy-tale-like village of Bacharach. We found a great 'home-cooking' place, with schnitzel and spaetzle and enjoyed the perfect evening outside at our table with a nice view of the old, colorful buildings, some dating back to the 1500s. We decided to top the evening off by getting dessert in another locale, where Katy ordered her first coffee ever to go with the cake, and she liked it!

Back up the mountain, we slept like rocks in our hostel, but were rudely awakened by the alarm reminding me that we had to be checked out by 9am (oops..forgot to mention that to them earlier!). We scrambled to get ready but then sat down for the hostel breakfast before one last trip down the mountain and through the village for some pictures. Then it was on to Freiburg in the Black Forest.

After several train rides and waiting for train connections, we finally made it to Freiburg in the evening. To be continued....(I need a break!)