I've been in Germany for the past five days, with a family of four in a town called Hennef, thirty minutes outside of Cologne. After an anticlimactic Brussels trip, I gladly hopped on the train to take refuge in this warm household. All went well until I found myself in rural Germany where a much lesser percentage of people speak fluent English and an American with a huge backpack is probably very seldom seen.
A hefty amount of my time is spent figuring out where I am, where I'm going, and how to get to where I want to go. So all in all I spent an hour at this train station trying to understand which number bus to take, how to get a ticket, how much a ticket would be, and how to make sure the driver knew where I wanted to get off, all in a different language. Okay the confusion is hard to explain if you were not there with me.
Steff and Mike both speak English and have two adorable boys, Elliot (3) and Theodore (6). German is much easier to understand than Danish, so I can follow most of what the kids say and some of what the parents say to each other (trust me, that is a step up from Denmark). I guess I should have better anticipated all the language barriers in Europe, because with such a mix of languages in a smaller space than the United States, one can never really be sure in any major town or city of the native language of a person walking down the street. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about each language (since I'm not exercising my brain with classes and such) and have learned twice as much German in one week as I did Danish in two.
The mix of staying in the country and also visiting big cities is also a great balance for me. Running and biking around on empty, smooth paved roads through picturesque towns never gets old, and with lots of rolling hills around here there are many spots to pause and take in the view. The other day I biked to a beautiful, secluded old quarry lake. The forest had taken over the terrestrial walls surrounding the lake (those walls probably remnants of the mining operation), creating an almost noiseless ecosystem besides birds, scuttling creatures, and fish rippling the water. I've never been let down by nature's restorative qualities; however common that knowledge is, the fact that nature heals will always stand true.
Yesterday I went into Cologne, visiting the impressive cathedral, chocolate museum, and roaming the streets. Steff told me I had to try curryworst, a traditional street food, and I had two of those as well as one too many cheap-chain-café pastries.... I'm not sure how they do it: Europeans staying skinny while having virtually ten cafés on every street. I'm not complaining :)
I am feeling good going into Amsterdam, staying with not a complete stranger definitely helps. You'll soon hear about the training weekend with 350 coming up!
