germany is a nice place, parts 10-27

And so we arrived in Trier, ready to finish the last days of our Germany vacation admiring the two-thousand-year-old detritus of an extinct empire.

You see, Trier (founded as early as 16 BC) was a pretty important Roman city back in the day -- important enough that, in the hundred years leading up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Trier served as the empire's administrative capital.  That means the emperor lived there a lot of the time!  Constantine himself had a big ol' imperial palace and throne room there.  It's pretty significant, and in fact holds the records for a lot of "oldest [thing] in Europe north of the Alps."

Trier wasn't originally on our itinerary -- we didn't actually bother planning the last two days of our trip, deciding to wait and see what we felt like doing after the wedding.  We thought about going into France, and in fact several people suggested Strasbourg and Metz, but we decided that we didn't feel like figuring out the French rail system after spending so much time getting comfortable with the German one.  And Trier was right there, and right awesome.

However, since we hadn't planned it ahead, we didn't actually have a place to stay in Trier once we rolled up.  We tried booking a room through the hostel agency, but their official hostel was closed down.  Luckily, we were able to look up another quite nice hostel in the center of town that worked out really well.  Plus, we got BUNK BEDS!

I called the top.

Then we hit up Trier proper.  Trier isn't that big, but because of its historical significance, it sees tons of tourism.  There's a lot to see and do!

The main square in the center of town.  Tons of fresh fruit!

A church seen through some two-thousand-year-old windows.

I think you can see a road that goes to Cologne in this picture.  Trier is pretty proud of that, for some reason.

The engravings aren't original to the Romans -- they were added later.

I love the contrast between millenia-old architecture and the modern urban accoutrements.

My Roman Empress.

We also ate some döner kebab!  Yum yum yum.  Then we started exploring even more Roman stuff...like the hot baths!

Twenty centuries ago, servants scampered about down here, seeing to the whims of the Imperial Elite.

And a real Roman Amphitheater!

There'd been a concert the night before.  These guys were breaking it down hilariously slowly.

And what lies beneath the amphitheater??

Imagine the gladiators resting in the cool dark, waiting the chance to fight...and to live!

We also went to a church (surprise), but not just any church; this church claimed to hold the Holy Shroud, the robe you might recognize from Station X.

Way in the back there.  Can you see it?

Here, look closer.  That big gold thing?  That's not it.  It's shut in a box under that.  They take it out every fifty years.

SKULLS, YOU SEE?

This is what the church looks like from the other side.

Then we went to a pleasure palace!  ROCOCO!!!!

These statues represented German virtues, or something.  Standing very still is a big one, apparently.

The Secret Garden?!  Nah, it was pretty easy to find.

We also saw the Trier Toy Museum...which was just nuts.

EVERY ONE OF THESE THINGS WAS MOVING.  IT WAS SCARY.

I can't explain this.  Good luck.

The sign says his mouth is open, but it didn't stay that way.

Then we walked all over the city, exploring its every nook and cranny.  We bought some bread and ate it by the riverside!  We looked at a bridge the Romans built!  We took a bus!  We looked at some other Roman ruins that were closed down!  And we just chilled out and enjoyed our last day in Germany.

Then, we had Chinese food for dinner.

Finally, it was time to go to bed.  We had to slip out really early, and we knew we wouldn't get to take any more cool pictures.  I made sure that my last touristy picture of Germany would be a special one.

Trier, you were awesome.

So we bid Germany a fond farewell, somehow negotiated the trains, and made it onto our plane home.

Goodbye, Germany.  You were great.

Thanks for reading.

germany is a nice place, parts 6-9

We arrived in Saarbrücken to little fanfare, and jetted straight into a German wedding barbeque!

The guy in red is the groom.  The girl in blue is the wife.  Um, my wife.  Not the bride.  I...you get it.

We had to walk up a bit of a mountain to get there, but it was so worth it.

This is a Schwenker, a name which refers to the style of cooking, the contraption, and the food itself.

These are a paltry selection of the true magnificence of German condiments.

This is the meat itself!  SCHWENKER!!!!!!

After eating, we went on a quiet walk down a forest path...and came across thousands of tiny frogs, apparently migrating.

The bad news:  I'm sure I stepped on a few by mistake.  There's no good news.  A bunch of little froglings died.

After the super tasty barbeque, we smashed a couple plates.  POLTERABEND.  I really mean a couple.  There were so few fragments, they didn't appear on camera.  Then we missed the last bus and had to walk back into the city.

Saarbrücken...how to describe it?  It's like if Pittsburgh was full of casinos, basically.  To the extent that, if a foreigner tells you they're coming to visit the U.S., and you ask where they're going, and they say Pittsburgh...well, imagine your reaction.  It was a cute city in its own way, but it wasn't really aimed at tourists.  Luckily, the bride and groom had a ton of awesome events planned for us!

But let's talk about what really important.  Breakfast:

Apparently, Philadelphia cream cheese is considered pretty swanky in Germany.

Important Note:  Cookie Cat was not part of the breakfast buffet.

The bride and groom provided breakfast for all the guests who wanted it every morning at their apartment, and it was super delicious!  We also had homemade crepes, tons of different jams and juices, dozens of kinds of tasty bread, and all the cream and sugar we could stuff in our pockets (not really.  that was a simpsons reference).

We spent a day doing our laundry, which was very important at this point:

It didn't really take a whole day.  The wife just fell asleep in a park while some guy practiced classical guitar nearby.

The wedding happened sometime after that...I didn't really get any good pictures.  You'll have to take my word for it.

The next day, we went to an IRONWORKS!!!

This was the only picture I was allowed to take.

There was an art display at the iron works, and some of the pieces really moved me.  I found the works of El Bocho especially striking.  We spent some time being art critics with our new friends Jan-Oliver and Andrea, and had an amazing time, until the rest of the group got bored and decided we must have fallen into a smelter.

We also saw a waitress laughing as she was abducted by a burly man!  Good for them.

Oh, and the actual iron works themselves were pretty cool.  Giant machines that made me feel good to be a human being.

The next day, we went on a super bus tour!  We went to a castle first.

I don't know who those people are, or what that town is.  Look, castle wall!

Cannons, only ever fired in defense.  (Think about that)

What a view!  You could easily hit any of those houses with a cannonball.

A real life wino...I mean, wine press.

Favorite German game fowl:  Pheasant, mallard, peacock, quail, roadrunner.

The wife was thrilled to find a door that was sized for her.

Then we climbed a mountain...lured by the sweet song of the Lorelei.

Could you steer around this without crashing?

The wife, wistful for her long lost love, gone away to the Crusades.

Just another few inches....then to the CONVENT WITH YOU!

Then we went to a town that had a TORTURE MUSEUM.  But we didn't go in it.  Instead, we went on a cable car.  Remember?

Only vineyards (and their products) can make her so happy.

And at the top, we found the monument to German Unification, built in 1873.

Du Rhein bleibst deutsch wie meine Brust!

There was an awesome poem written across it:  Die Wacht am Rhein (The Watch on the Rhine).  Read the wikipedia page, there's a translation!

It's super-duper patriotic, which makes sense for the time period, but it really weirded out our German friends.  Believe it or not, in the latter half of the twentieth century, patriotism because something that just wasn't done in Germany.  Even now, Germans are much quicker to celebrate individual states than to say anything good about Germany overall.  Hmm..Germany over all...sounds familiar...

So when they read the nationalistic sentiments on the monument, it disturbed them a great deal.  They translated the whole poem for us, and then we said "hmm, that sounds like every American monument ever."  The moral of the story is that Americans are pretty darn patriotic.

This one's for the wife.

After that, we headed back to Saarbrücken, ate dinner, and said our farewells.  We made some super amazing friends, and had great times with the people we already knew.  It was wonderful.  But something was still waiting for us...something ancient...something Roman...something irrepressible...Trier.

germany is a nice place, parts 4 and 5

In which we went to Cologne and Aachen.

We slipped out of Bochum like thieves in the early morning, boarding our train bound for Cologne with a certain mad excitement.  I had been informed, you see, that Cologne is the number one tourist destination in Germany for Germans.  That's the kind of cultural intimacy I was looking for!  If I'm going to be a tourist in Germany, at least let me act like a German tourist.

Still, I think I gave it away when I stepped out of the train station and was confronted with the most awe-inspiring sight of my life.

This was a different time of day, hence the new color.

These pictures doesn't really do the cathedral justice.  When you leave the train station, it takes up your entire view, and it holds your attention like nothing else.  The sense of scale is just awesome -- it may be a lot shorter than a skyscraper, but no highrise has ever made me feel insignificantly tiny like the Cologne Cathedral did.  The reason for that is how incredibly detailed it is.  Every square inch of this cathedral is covered in some sort of engraving, gilding, carving, or other magnificent decoration.  Your eyes can't just sweep over it quickly; there's always another subtle detail to arrest your gaze.  I think that's why it impresses me so much more than any 100-story building could.  There's no uniformity, or even continuity, to the architecture.  It just goes, and goes, and goes, taking up your entire world.

The inside is pretty spectacular as well:

You go, St. George!

Skulls:  a popular motif

That's right.  It was so awesome that I don't even have any stupid jokes to tell.

After (reluctantly) leaving the cathedral, we took a walk across the city to the LINDT CHOCOLATE MUSEUM!

Which was closed.

Then we took another long walk and made our way to the Hohenzollern Bridge.  This bridge is a place where people leave locks on stuff to show that they're in love.  There are a lot of locks.

No, I mean A LOT.

They stretch the entire length of the bridge, and some on the other side.

 Apparently, the train company that operates the bridge grew concerned that the weight of the locks was causing structural instability.  They tried to remove some of them, but the public outcry was too great, and they were forced to relent.  So...we didn't stay on the bridge too long.

After that, we took a trip out to the Cologne Zoo!...but it was too expensive for us to be willing to go in.  However, right next door was the absolutely free Cologne Botanical Gardens!!!

You know, Germany has a lot of cranes

We saw an honest-to-goodness frog on a lily pad!

Greetings, feral cat!

After that, we went back to the hostel and just chillaxed.  I did notice the hostel's board game collection, however!

The next day, we frittered away our time, stared at the cathedral, then headed out for AACHEN!

Aachen, to those of you who are putzes, is where Charlemagne came from.  They are pretty proud of that.  The second coolest thing I saw there was this dog:

Aachen has a cathedral of its own, but it's a lot less impressive.  It's just where Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, critically altering the future of European and world history.  No big deal.

We also saw Charlemagne's bones, so that was cool.

Would you believe that we also ate ice cream in Aachen?

Focus deliberate.  I have my priorities in order.

Oh, and we had currywurst.  That...that was the best.

PANORAMA OF AACHEN TOWN SQUARE

Can you see the most beautiful flower?  Yes, that's my wife.

The town hall, pictured in the last shot above, was really the best part of Aachen; it had an original meeting hall with a lot of Charlemagne stuff, and it was just really, really cool.  OK, it was still the second best part, actually.  The best part was this crazy German guy who lived in our hostel and told us about his time in the RAF flying F-16s around Lake Tahoe, and how his job know is making LASER TANKS (no kidding!).  He was awesome, and told us tons of jokes about how Germans have no sense of humor.

Then we left Aachen for good, heading to our true destination...a WEDDING at SAARBRÜCKEN!