The return train journey to Saarbruecken
Saturday 2nd January 2010
Well, as regular readers of this blog will know, I'm not very good at updating punctually! So here, albeit a week late, is the story of my journey back to Saarbruecken. The good news is that it wasn't quite as eventful as the homeward journey. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride...
First off, I should make a mention to my sister whose birthday it was on the 2nd - annoying though it was to travel back on this date - it was better than travelling on Sunday where certain places' public transport is somewhat lacking on the day of rest! My train was due to leave Chippenham at 07.55, but because, as I found out later, the driver couldn't release the brakes at Bristol, the train left Chippenham at 08.12. This wasn't a problem in itself because I had 2 and a half hours in London to get from Paddington to St. Pancras International. The journey to London was relatively painless - we stayed about 15 minutes late, which was about as much as I'd hoped for!
Now it's worth pointing out that Transport for London (TfL) had decided that this weekend would be a good weekend to undertake some engineering works on some of the lines - i.e. the Circle Line and Hammersmith & City Lines in particular; which as Londoners will know are the two direct lines between the termini I wanted. Thus, I had to catch the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus, and come back up to Kings Cross/St. Pancras on the Victoria line. This part of the journey was actually problem-free; although I did feel like I'd walked most of the way by the time I got out of the Tube station at St. Pancras.
Seeing as I like to turn up at somewhere in plenty of time; I made my first port of call the check-in hall for Eurostar; which was substantially easier to find than its Parisian counterpart. The first thing that struck me was how busy it was! There were hundreds of people in the check-in hall, and no real sense of what one was supposed to do. It turned out that check-in opened an hour before the train left, so seeing as I was there 90 minutes before my train left, I hid at the back of the hall and read my book, and then joined a queue exactly an hour before my train left - i.e. 10.32. The check-in seemed slightly chaotic, to be honest; everyone was queued up together irrespective of what train they were catching, and the people on earlier trains were then being lassooed out of the queue by Eurostar staff and ushered to the front. I did eventually get to the head of the queue where once you have put your ticket in the machine, you find you find yourself immediately thrown into the security zone. The first thing you have to do is take off coats, fleeces, scarves, gloves, hats. All these, along with your luggage, go through the X-Ray machine, while you walk through the Metal Detector. Now, despite wearing almost the same clothes back to Germany as I wore home, I didn't buzz as I went through! The next stage is the PAF (see last entry for explanation) who had a cursory glance at my passport. There were also UKBA officers loitering with intent around the terminal area. Once I'd got through all those I found a seat and waited for embarkation to commence at 11.12 (20 minutes before scheduled departure time) - however, embarkation was to be delayed because the train had arrived late. We were only delayed by about 12 minutes in actuality and left St. Pancras at 11.45.
The journey to Paris was OK, I read my book, ate my lunch, looked out the window, changed my watch and phone times. Some 2 hours 45 minutes later we pulled into Paris Gare du Nord. Prior to coming back, we'd arranged that we would meet up in Paris. Esther was on an earlier Eurostar than me, so met me at Gare du Nord, from where we walked to Paris Est and used the left luggage facility there, so as not to have to carry our suitcases all around Paris. Then we purchased a carnet of tickets for the public transport network in Paris. From Paris Est, we took the Metro to Louvre, which I'd only seen in Tricolore (for the young'uns reading this - it was the book that we used before Metro!) beforehand. From there we walked in a random direction across the Seine, from where we walked through the cultural heart of Paris - Saint Germain des Pres. Then we walked over to Notre Dame, and looked at it; we didn't go in because the queue was quite long. We then ambled past the Hotel de Ville (where the Mayor of Paris works - somewhat more architecturally pleasing than the Ghurkin in my opinion), before catching the Metro back to Paris Est where we waited and met up with Claire and Harriet who had flown into Charles de Gaulle.
After we'd met up, and Esther and I had retrieved our luggage, we headed off to board the train to Saarbruecken (or Sarrebruck as the French call it). The train left promptly but then because of the snow, the line through Lorraine (or Lothringen as the Germans call it) had had its speed reduced meaning that we would be about 15 minutes late into Saarbruecken. This would make the connection to the bus very tight, and indeed when we arrived into the Hauptbahnhof we had 3 or 4 minutes to get to the bus stop. Luckily the bus hadn't arrived when we got there, and we managed to get on the faithful 121 home. I eventually got in about 22.00 before realising that I also needed to make my bed and unpack quite a lot of stuff before I could go to bed!
So, in the next installment I'll be talking about the first week back in Germany...
Showing posts with label Train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Train. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Chapter 13 - A Christmas Adventure
The Christmas Adventure to Nuremberg
(Week: Monday 30th November - Sunday 6th December)
So, this was the week of our adventure to Nuremberg for the Christmas Market. But, before that, let me just consider if anything as exciting happened before that....err.....not really! The week was made up of school (obviously), talking German, watching TV, going out with friends and having a few drinks...what could be better!?!
So, to the weekend then. We'd originally planned to leave about 6.50 on Friday morning on a cheap group ticket that Deutsche Bahn offer; but there was a slight hitch with this cunning plan! We hadn't realised that the tickets weren't valid until after 9am...but being resourceful and quick-thinking we managed to re-jig it so we could catch the 08.52 train. How could you do this, I hear you ask...well, if you've been reading throroughly (and I hope you have, there'll be a quiz at the end of the year!), you'll know that I signed up to the University of Saarland in order to gain free travel within our little Bundesland...so, even though Saarland is small, it's not quite possible to leave it in less than 8 minutes, so until 9 we travelled on our uni cards!
So, we all met at about 8.30 at the train station and bought the tickets, and got on our means of transport for the next few hours! The train wasn't overly busy, so we had seats for the whole journey to Frankfurt without any problems. What's more, the train was punctual, which I know you think is normal in Germany, but by the end of this blog entry, I'm sure I'll be able to persuade you that it's not too different to how it is at home!
We arrived in Frankfurt at about 11.45. We'd planned to have a bit of time wandering round Frankfurt, seeing what it had to offer. According to Wikipedia, which means it is definitely right, Frankfurt is the only city in Germany to have a significant number of Skyscrapers. It currently has 10, and has two more under construction. It is also Germany's fifth biggest city, and was not chosen as the capital of the FRG (former West Germany) because the officials feared that it would be too difficult to move it back to Berlin if they put it in such a big and important city...so Bonn got it.
In Frankfurt, we walked down to the river, surprisingly called the Main (given that the full name for Frankfurt, is Frankfurt am Main), which was very nice and quite picturesque. Frankfurt, is definitely a financial town, and it is in the financial district (or in German, the Bankenviertel) where you'll find the majority of the skyscrapers. Now, being as I'm a rural country bumpkin from the Westcoun'ry, I've not seen many skyscrapers in my life...so, they were pretty impressive, and it really brings home the scale of devastation that was inflicted on New York City on that fateful Tuesday 8 years ago. We also had a look in the Cathedral in Frankfurt, which had, almost certainly, been rebuilt after the War. The Cathedral was smaller than I imagined it would be, but was pleasant and quite pretty inside.
There was, of course, a Christmas Market in Frankfurt, but we decided to largely ignore it because we were travelling on to the home of the biggest Christmas Market in Germany, so it would have been a little bit of a disappointment. On a more pragmatic note, the stuff we bought, we would have had to carry for the next two days, this seemed a little silly; our bags were quite heavy enough as it was!
So, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof for our train at 13.30. A brief note about the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, it's pretty big, as we found out on Saturday (more about that later, if you've not got too bored and gone to read e-mails or watch TV). It's huge, with over 20 platforms, all of which are covered over by a massive arched roof. (Think Paddington, or Temple Meads...and then enlarge it!)
We got on our train, which went direct to Nuremberg, and would get in about 17.20, so just under 4 hours later. But I found out some of the timetables I'd printed prior to departure, and realised if we changed this train at Wuerzburg, we could catch another train and get there about 50 minutes earlier! So, obviously, this is what we did. The train from Wuerzburg left about 10 minutes later, but went a different way, so we arrived at the town where our hotel was about 16.20.
Fuerth is a lot bigger than it appeared on GoogleMaps; it's more like a town than a suburb (which is what we originally thought it was!) - it's got it's own Registration Plate code - so it must be a town! We checked into the hotel, which was very impressive, the rooms were more than just rooms! They had a sitting room area, including a sofa, which, if we'd realised, someone could have slept on and saved us the cost of a room! Nevertheless, it was a very nice place to stay. We decided that, it would be worth going into Nuremberg in the evening, so that we could go the Tourist Information and get a map, and have a look at the Christmas Market. So, we trotted off to the Bahnhof in Fuerth, and caught a train to Nuremberg - a journey of a whole 6 minutes!
When we arrived in Nuremberg, the first challenge, which wouldn't have seemed out of place in the Krypton Factor, or the Crystal Maze, was trying to get out of the station. It seemed to me a maze of passageways and shopping areas, with so many different signs. To give you some sort of idea of size of Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof; it has 25 platforms, two underground stations, trams from outside it, as long as buses too! It's truly impressive, and makes Saarbruecken look more like Chippenham!
But, we did eventually manage to get out of the station, and emerged into a random street in Nuremberg, just in the old town, which, by pure fluke, was right opposite the Tourist Information Centre. Now, seeing as it was only about 5ish, the office was still open, so we went in there and got a free map of the city, and headed on down to the Christmas Market.
"WOW!" is the only word that I feel can accurately sum up the Christmas Market in Nuremberg. As you walk down the main street into the old town, everything looks so Christmassy (for the benefit of my sister, Christmassy is a word....because I said so), but not plastic and garishly Christmassy like it is usually in the UK, but more plain, yet classy than at home. To borrow the advert of a well-known retailer, "This isn't just Christmas, this is a German Christmas" (My apologies if this isn't the advert anymore...it damned well was in August, and they've got no right changing it!). There are very few coloured Christmas lights, and even fewer illuminated pictures; everything is just plain white lights, some flashing, but not normally, and it just sort of works...it is, for me, pretty much exactly how I imagine Christmas should be done! You can see some photos of it on the link at the end of the entry. (Don't scroll there now...read through the rest of this first, otherwise the pictures won't mean as much to you!)
We walked round the Christmas Market, which was much nicer than the others I've visited; I'm not entirely sure I can explain why, but it just was! We learnt, eventually, the reason there were some queues at some stalls...these stalls were sellign Gluehwein (Mulled Wine), or food (most commonly sausages - we are in Germany, after all!). So, we spent a couple of hours wandering round the stalls, deciding what we wanted to buy. We didn't buy much on Friday, for much the same reason as we didn't buy anything in Frankfurt, we would have to carry it for the whole day on Saturday! After going round the main Christmas Market, we had a look at the stalls selling stuff from Nuremberg's Twin Towns and Sister Cities (I've just noticed how much unintentional alliteration and assonance was used in that sentence!)...now when we consider that Nuremberg's British sister city is Glasgow; what do we think they were selling...whisky (obviously), hot toddies, shortbread along with lots and lots of tartan!
After that part of the market, we headed over to the Children's Christmas Market, as, let's face it, we're pretty much all children at heart! We had a look around the things there; mainly serving food, and offering the chance to get your photo taken with a slightly annoyed looking Santa Clause. Oh, and on top of that, you could ride on a carousel too...which we did...it was a slight squeeze...I'm not sure the cup we were in was designed for three 20 year olds!
After the slightly tight ride, we headed back towards Nuremberg station, and then tried to find our platform. Once we'd managed that little challenge, we went back to our hotel, and set about planning what we wanted to see in Nuremberg on Saturday. Once we'd sorted out a plan, we all retired to bed and prepared is for the long, but exciting day to come!
So, after meeting at 8, we checked out of our hotel and headed off to the station to go back to Nuremberg for our day of sightseeing. Once we got to Nuremberg, I resumed my function as Mapman and handled the navigation side of things, and we started our walking tour of Bavaria's second city. The first thing we came across was the Opera House, situated in Richard Wagner Place. From there we headed back towards the Old Town area in Nuremberg, including looking at the Holy Spirit Hospital (Heilig Geist Spital), which was all but destroyed, along with a large number of other buildings in the city, by the allies during World War Two. We walked on, up the hill, to the Imperial Castle, from where the view across the skyline of Nuremberg was very nice. We then walked down towards the centre of the city, coming across Albrecht Durer's House. At the time, none of us had absolutely any idea who this bloke was; since returning though, it turns out he was a medieval philospher, artist, and general thinker.
After a short detour, we found ourselves coming back towards St. Sebaldus Church, inside which there was a display about the effect that the War had on the church; and how it was rebuilt and renovated since 1945. From there, we went in search of heat, in the form of a hot drink. In a rather untypically English manner, I have failed to mention the weather in Nuremberg on Saturday. It was very cold, and there was a bitter wind too, which didn't help, but it didn't rain, so I was thankful for that! After our hot drinks, we headed over to Frauenkirche (The Church of Our Lady), which finds itself in the centre of the Old City, at the head of the Market Square. This church was less impressive, and was being used by the organist for her practice, which I would say she needs quite a bit more of, using my rather (i.e. very) limited knowledge of playing the organ. On the way back to the Bahnhof to do the other places we wanted to visit, we went into Lorenzkirche, which was an unusual combination of a church that was originally built as a Catholic church, and then after the Lutherian period, became a Protestant church, and the inside of the church has this unusual combination throughout.
Now, you may think that I've forgotten about Nuremberg's slightly darker history...quite the contrary, the Third Reich period in German history genuinely fascinates me, and has done for about the last 10 years! We were all agreed, that it would be a complete waste of a trip, if we didn't go out to the Nazi Party Rally Area, which, luckily, was available using the normal railway (and as such free!). We walked out to the Kongresshalle (Congress Hall), which was started but never finished, because the Nazi's stopped holding rallies in 1938. In fact, they were due to hold a Party Rally in Nuremberg on the 2nd September 1939, the day after the invasion of Poland, and before Britain declared war. This Rally was, ironically, to be called the Congress for Peace.
The first thing that struck me about the Congress Hall, was, simply, it's size...it's huge and very imposing (there are quite a few pictures of it on the link at the end of the entry). There's an exhibition in the Documentation Centre (€2,50 for students...bargain) explaining the rise and fall of the Nazis, and the role Nuremberg played in it. It was done in a very honest, and frank manner, not shying away from any areas of the Third Reich or what went on under that regime. When we left, our mood had changed slightly, we were much more reflective for a while, we had a discussion about the Nazis, and how they were able to come to power, and get away with the things they did.
After walking over to the rally square, where the parades were held (Zeppelinfeld), we headed back into Nuremberg to buy the things we wanted from the Christmas Market. Now, when we visited the night before, it was busy, but absolutely nothing compared to how it was about 2 o'clock on a Saturday. Now, I've never been shopping in London, but to put it into some sort of context, we came to the conclusion that it was like trying to walk down Oxford Street on Christmas Eve....i.e. nigh on impossible! It was stressful, and certainly not as much fun, or as Christmassy as the night before! But, despite these challenges, we got the things we wanted to get and headed back to the nearest underground station.
We decided that we ought to deal with Nuremberg's dark history in chronological order, so after seeing the Nazi monuments and displays, we headed out to the Justizpalast (Courthouse), which is the one used during the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials were the trials of Nazis who were accused of various war crimes; including leading Nazis such as Hermann Goering, and Karl Doenitz, and were presided over by 4 judges, one from each of the occupying powers (USA, UK, USSR, and France - in case you were struggling!). Unfortunately up until last year the Courthouse used to provide tours about the Nuremberg Trials, and from next year there will be a museum about it...this year, though, there was nothing. So, we took some photos from outside and headed back to the main train station.
The train journey back should have been fine. The plan was to leave Nuremberg at 16.04, and have a 15 minute changeover in Wuerzburg, before heading to Frankfurt, where we had a one hour connection to make (not planned to be so long, but it would be long enough to have a nice sit-down meal, so it worked out quite well), and then we'd head back to Saarbruecken, arriving back at 23.11. That was the plan...it would appear, we were not going to be lucky. The train arrived into Wuerzburg about 5 minutes late, which wasn't a major issue because we had 10 minutes to walk across a platform to the other side...we could have hopped it in that time! As it happens though our train coming in was delayed by about 5 minutes, again not a problem, we had plenty of time in Frankfurt. As it happens, our train arrived into Wuerzburg about 15 minutes late, and left about 20 minutes late...still plenty of time. But somehow during this 1 hour and 49 minute journey, we managed to get later and later, until we arrived in Frankfurt a total of 55 minutes late! Now, if you remember, we had a one hour connection in Frankfurt, with this delay, we now had 5 minutes, yes 5 minutes. We also needed to buy some food, as we hadn't eaten since about 3, and were getting in at 11. We decided that as there was a later, although less direct, train we could catch if necessary, we would buy food there and then run for the train - there was no point in dawdling. Hmm...we did run...we got some odd looks, and nearly had a couple of collisions with innocent people. But we managed to buy sandwiches, and get to our train (which was 17 platforms away!) before it left. I'm not sure how we managed this in 5 minutes, and I would strongly advise against it...especially as the station was full of Polizei cuddling riot helmets for the arrival of some football fans! But nevertheless, we made it...and then we were on our way back. The train journey back was also running late, somehow it had accrued a 7 minute delay, thus meaning I had to run again in order to catch the bus home!
Still, it was truly an adventure, and a fantastic couple of days; we had a lot of fun, felt more Christmassy, saw a different area of Germany, which was substiantially more Germanic than my little corner of the Federal Republic, we even did some strenuous exercise in the station.
Now, as I promised: Here is the link for the photos!
(Week: Monday 30th November - Sunday 6th December)
So, this was the week of our adventure to Nuremberg for the Christmas Market. But, before that, let me just consider if anything as exciting happened before that....err.....not really! The week was made up of school (obviously), talking German, watching TV, going out with friends and having a few drinks...what could be better!?!
So, to the weekend then. We'd originally planned to leave about 6.50 on Friday morning on a cheap group ticket that Deutsche Bahn offer; but there was a slight hitch with this cunning plan! We hadn't realised that the tickets weren't valid until after 9am...but being resourceful and quick-thinking we managed to re-jig it so we could catch the 08.52 train. How could you do this, I hear you ask...well, if you've been reading throroughly (and I hope you have, there'll be a quiz at the end of the year!), you'll know that I signed up to the University of Saarland in order to gain free travel within our little Bundesland...so, even though Saarland is small, it's not quite possible to leave it in less than 8 minutes, so until 9 we travelled on our uni cards!
So, we all met at about 8.30 at the train station and bought the tickets, and got on our means of transport for the next few hours! The train wasn't overly busy, so we had seats for the whole journey to Frankfurt without any problems. What's more, the train was punctual, which I know you think is normal in Germany, but by the end of this blog entry, I'm sure I'll be able to persuade you that it's not too different to how it is at home!
We arrived in Frankfurt at about 11.45. We'd planned to have a bit of time wandering round Frankfurt, seeing what it had to offer. According to Wikipedia, which means it is definitely right, Frankfurt is the only city in Germany to have a significant number of Skyscrapers. It currently has 10, and has two more under construction. It is also Germany's fifth biggest city, and was not chosen as the capital of the FRG (former West Germany) because the officials feared that it would be too difficult to move it back to Berlin if they put it in such a big and important city...so Bonn got it.
In Frankfurt, we walked down to the river, surprisingly called the Main (given that the full name for Frankfurt, is Frankfurt am Main), which was very nice and quite picturesque. Frankfurt, is definitely a financial town, and it is in the financial district (or in German, the Bankenviertel) where you'll find the majority of the skyscrapers. Now, being as I'm a rural country bumpkin from the Westcoun'ry, I've not seen many skyscrapers in my life...so, they were pretty impressive, and it really brings home the scale of devastation that was inflicted on New York City on that fateful Tuesday 8 years ago. We also had a look in the Cathedral in Frankfurt, which had, almost certainly, been rebuilt after the War. The Cathedral was smaller than I imagined it would be, but was pleasant and quite pretty inside.
There was, of course, a Christmas Market in Frankfurt, but we decided to largely ignore it because we were travelling on to the home of the biggest Christmas Market in Germany, so it would have been a little bit of a disappointment. On a more pragmatic note, the stuff we bought, we would have had to carry for the next two days, this seemed a little silly; our bags were quite heavy enough as it was!
So, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof for our train at 13.30. A brief note about the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, it's pretty big, as we found out on Saturday (more about that later, if you've not got too bored and gone to read e-mails or watch TV). It's huge, with over 20 platforms, all of which are covered over by a massive arched roof. (Think Paddington, or Temple Meads...and then enlarge it!)
We got on our train, which went direct to Nuremberg, and would get in about 17.20, so just under 4 hours later. But I found out some of the timetables I'd printed prior to departure, and realised if we changed this train at Wuerzburg, we could catch another train and get there about 50 minutes earlier! So, obviously, this is what we did. The train from Wuerzburg left about 10 minutes later, but went a different way, so we arrived at the town where our hotel was about 16.20.
Fuerth is a lot bigger than it appeared on GoogleMaps; it's more like a town than a suburb (which is what we originally thought it was!) - it's got it's own Registration Plate code - so it must be a town! We checked into the hotel, which was very impressive, the rooms were more than just rooms! They had a sitting room area, including a sofa, which, if we'd realised, someone could have slept on and saved us the cost of a room! Nevertheless, it was a very nice place to stay. We decided that, it would be worth going into Nuremberg in the evening, so that we could go the Tourist Information and get a map, and have a look at the Christmas Market. So, we trotted off to the Bahnhof in Fuerth, and caught a train to Nuremberg - a journey of a whole 6 minutes!
When we arrived in Nuremberg, the first challenge, which wouldn't have seemed out of place in the Krypton Factor, or the Crystal Maze, was trying to get out of the station. It seemed to me a maze of passageways and shopping areas, with so many different signs. To give you some sort of idea of size of Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof; it has 25 platforms, two underground stations, trams from outside it, as long as buses too! It's truly impressive, and makes Saarbruecken look more like Chippenham!
But, we did eventually manage to get out of the station, and emerged into a random street in Nuremberg, just in the old town, which, by pure fluke, was right opposite the Tourist Information Centre. Now, seeing as it was only about 5ish, the office was still open, so we went in there and got a free map of the city, and headed on down to the Christmas Market.
"WOW!" is the only word that I feel can accurately sum up the Christmas Market in Nuremberg. As you walk down the main street into the old town, everything looks so Christmassy (for the benefit of my sister, Christmassy is a word....because I said so), but not plastic and garishly Christmassy like it is usually in the UK, but more plain, yet classy than at home. To borrow the advert of a well-known retailer, "This isn't just Christmas, this is a German Christmas" (My apologies if this isn't the advert anymore...it damned well was in August, and they've got no right changing it!). There are very few coloured Christmas lights, and even fewer illuminated pictures; everything is just plain white lights, some flashing, but not normally, and it just sort of works...it is, for me, pretty much exactly how I imagine Christmas should be done! You can see some photos of it on the link at the end of the entry. (Don't scroll there now...read through the rest of this first, otherwise the pictures won't mean as much to you!)
We walked round the Christmas Market, which was much nicer than the others I've visited; I'm not entirely sure I can explain why, but it just was! We learnt, eventually, the reason there were some queues at some stalls...these stalls were sellign Gluehwein (Mulled Wine), or food (most commonly sausages - we are in Germany, after all!). So, we spent a couple of hours wandering round the stalls, deciding what we wanted to buy. We didn't buy much on Friday, for much the same reason as we didn't buy anything in Frankfurt, we would have to carry it for the whole day on Saturday! After going round the main Christmas Market, we had a look at the stalls selling stuff from Nuremberg's Twin Towns and Sister Cities (I've just noticed how much unintentional alliteration and assonance was used in that sentence!)...now when we consider that Nuremberg's British sister city is Glasgow; what do we think they were selling...whisky (obviously), hot toddies, shortbread along with lots and lots of tartan!
After that part of the market, we headed over to the Children's Christmas Market, as, let's face it, we're pretty much all children at heart! We had a look around the things there; mainly serving food, and offering the chance to get your photo taken with a slightly annoyed looking Santa Clause. Oh, and on top of that, you could ride on a carousel too...which we did...it was a slight squeeze...I'm not sure the cup we were in was designed for three 20 year olds!
After the slightly tight ride, we headed back towards Nuremberg station, and then tried to find our platform. Once we'd managed that little challenge, we went back to our hotel, and set about planning what we wanted to see in Nuremberg on Saturday. Once we'd sorted out a plan, we all retired to bed and prepared is for the long, but exciting day to come!
So, after meeting at 8, we checked out of our hotel and headed off to the station to go back to Nuremberg for our day of sightseeing. Once we got to Nuremberg, I resumed my function as Mapman and handled the navigation side of things, and we started our walking tour of Bavaria's second city. The first thing we came across was the Opera House, situated in Richard Wagner Place. From there we headed back towards the Old Town area in Nuremberg, including looking at the Holy Spirit Hospital (Heilig Geist Spital), which was all but destroyed, along with a large number of other buildings in the city, by the allies during World War Two. We walked on, up the hill, to the Imperial Castle, from where the view across the skyline of Nuremberg was very nice. We then walked down towards the centre of the city, coming across Albrecht Durer's House. At the time, none of us had absolutely any idea who this bloke was; since returning though, it turns out he was a medieval philospher, artist, and general thinker.
After a short detour, we found ourselves coming back towards St. Sebaldus Church, inside which there was a display about the effect that the War had on the church; and how it was rebuilt and renovated since 1945. From there, we went in search of heat, in the form of a hot drink. In a rather untypically English manner, I have failed to mention the weather in Nuremberg on Saturday. It was very cold, and there was a bitter wind too, which didn't help, but it didn't rain, so I was thankful for that! After our hot drinks, we headed over to Frauenkirche (The Church of Our Lady), which finds itself in the centre of the Old City, at the head of the Market Square. This church was less impressive, and was being used by the organist for her practice, which I would say she needs quite a bit more of, using my rather (i.e. very) limited knowledge of playing the organ. On the way back to the Bahnhof to do the other places we wanted to visit, we went into Lorenzkirche, which was an unusual combination of a church that was originally built as a Catholic church, and then after the Lutherian period, became a Protestant church, and the inside of the church has this unusual combination throughout.
Now, you may think that I've forgotten about Nuremberg's slightly darker history...quite the contrary, the Third Reich period in German history genuinely fascinates me, and has done for about the last 10 years! We were all agreed, that it would be a complete waste of a trip, if we didn't go out to the Nazi Party Rally Area, which, luckily, was available using the normal railway (and as such free!). We walked out to the Kongresshalle (Congress Hall), which was started but never finished, because the Nazi's stopped holding rallies in 1938. In fact, they were due to hold a Party Rally in Nuremberg on the 2nd September 1939, the day after the invasion of Poland, and before Britain declared war. This Rally was, ironically, to be called the Congress for Peace.
The first thing that struck me about the Congress Hall, was, simply, it's size...it's huge and very imposing (there are quite a few pictures of it on the link at the end of the entry). There's an exhibition in the Documentation Centre (€2,50 for students...bargain) explaining the rise and fall of the Nazis, and the role Nuremberg played in it. It was done in a very honest, and frank manner, not shying away from any areas of the Third Reich or what went on under that regime. When we left, our mood had changed slightly, we were much more reflective for a while, we had a discussion about the Nazis, and how they were able to come to power, and get away with the things they did.
After walking over to the rally square, where the parades were held (Zeppelinfeld), we headed back into Nuremberg to buy the things we wanted from the Christmas Market. Now, when we visited the night before, it was busy, but absolutely nothing compared to how it was about 2 o'clock on a Saturday. Now, I've never been shopping in London, but to put it into some sort of context, we came to the conclusion that it was like trying to walk down Oxford Street on Christmas Eve....i.e. nigh on impossible! It was stressful, and certainly not as much fun, or as Christmassy as the night before! But, despite these challenges, we got the things we wanted to get and headed back to the nearest underground station.
We decided that we ought to deal with Nuremberg's dark history in chronological order, so after seeing the Nazi monuments and displays, we headed out to the Justizpalast (Courthouse), which is the one used during the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials were the trials of Nazis who were accused of various war crimes; including leading Nazis such as Hermann Goering, and Karl Doenitz, and were presided over by 4 judges, one from each of the occupying powers (USA, UK, USSR, and France - in case you were struggling!). Unfortunately up until last year the Courthouse used to provide tours about the Nuremberg Trials, and from next year there will be a museum about it...this year, though, there was nothing. So, we took some photos from outside and headed back to the main train station.
The train journey back should have been fine. The plan was to leave Nuremberg at 16.04, and have a 15 minute changeover in Wuerzburg, before heading to Frankfurt, where we had a one hour connection to make (not planned to be so long, but it would be long enough to have a nice sit-down meal, so it worked out quite well), and then we'd head back to Saarbruecken, arriving back at 23.11. That was the plan...it would appear, we were not going to be lucky. The train arrived into Wuerzburg about 5 minutes late, which wasn't a major issue because we had 10 minutes to walk across a platform to the other side...we could have hopped it in that time! As it happens though our train coming in was delayed by about 5 minutes, again not a problem, we had plenty of time in Frankfurt. As it happens, our train arrived into Wuerzburg about 15 minutes late, and left about 20 minutes late...still plenty of time. But somehow during this 1 hour and 49 minute journey, we managed to get later and later, until we arrived in Frankfurt a total of 55 minutes late! Now, if you remember, we had a one hour connection in Frankfurt, with this delay, we now had 5 minutes, yes 5 minutes. We also needed to buy some food, as we hadn't eaten since about 3, and were getting in at 11. We decided that as there was a later, although less direct, train we could catch if necessary, we would buy food there and then run for the train - there was no point in dawdling. Hmm...we did run...we got some odd looks, and nearly had a couple of collisions with innocent people. But we managed to buy sandwiches, and get to our train (which was 17 platforms away!) before it left. I'm not sure how we managed this in 5 minutes, and I would strongly advise against it...especially as the station was full of Polizei cuddling riot helmets for the arrival of some football fans! But nevertheless, we made it...and then we were on our way back. The train journey back was also running late, somehow it had accrued a 7 minute delay, thus meaning I had to run again in order to catch the bus home!
Still, it was truly an adventure, and a fantastic couple of days; we had a lot of fun, felt more Christmassy, saw a different area of Germany, which was substiantially more Germanic than my little corner of the Federal Republic, we even did some strenuous exercise in the station.
Now, as I promised: Here is the link for the photos!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Chapter Twelve - the beginning of Christmas...
Week 12 (Monday 23rd - Sunday 29th November)
So, another week of school, which was just as exciting as ever, just with quite a few more teachers off sick. The flu bug is still going round my colleagues, and for this reason I had quite a bit more free time this week, about which I can't really complain!
"So, what did you do in your free time?" is the question I can tell you're all begging to have answered. (and if you're not, then you probably ended up on this page by accident...)
Well, as the title suggests, it's the beginning of the Christmas season in Germany...in the shops it's been Christmas for quite a while, but the Christmas lights and decorations have only recently been put up, and illuminated. On top of that, the Christmas Markets are starting to begin (if you can say that...and if you can't, well tough, I did!). So, a few of us assistants have been out to see the Christmas Markets nearby.
On Thursday evening I met up with one of the assistants in Saarbruecken city centre and we had a look around the Christkindlmarkt in the main street in Saarbruecken, and in the main square. It was a nice little Christmas Market full of various Christmassy things...as well as food, mulled wine, schnapps and some music too! All in all, a nice Christmas Market, despite not being particularly expansive.
Friday wasn't particularly exciting, I went to Sarreguemines and had a short wander...nothing particularly interesting undertaken there, but, a day out, nevertheless.
Saturday was slightly more interesting...albeit substantially wetter (which curiously is the German word for weather). A group of us went to Trier for the Christmas Market there, as well as a general day out. The market was quite a bit bigger than the one in Saarbruecken, and it was primarily made up of stalls selling Christmas related, err, gifts. It was a nice day out; on top of the market, we had a look at the Cathedral and a few of the other sites in Trier. As I said, it was a smidge damp...by that I mean, my trainers took a day or so to dry completely.
After our trip to the Trier Christmas Market, we organised our little trip to Germany's most famous Christmas market next weekend. It'll be a true adventure, so keep an eye out for it!
Sunday was set to be a nice day, the assistants had arranged to meet up in the morning, because this weekend in Saarbruecken there was a second Christmas Market (we're not really greedy, but when you've got space, you might as well make use of it!). This "one weekend only" market was to be found in front of the Castle (in the logically named: Schlossplatz) and was actually, in my opinion, quite disappointing because it had relatively little Christmas related stuff there, and the majority of the stallholders weren't from Saarland at all!
The afternoon, though, was right up my street (not literally...that would be silly as I live in a one-way, narrow, access-only road!). In the afternoon I headed out to Merzig to visit an Eisenbahnmuseum (preserved railway). For those of you who don't know this about me...I'm an anorak (I like trains). So, the opportunity to travel on a German preserved railway was far too strong for me to resist going...so I gave into temptation, and went!
The railway is 16km (10 miles) long and is situated on the east side of Merzig (about 20 minutes from the main DB train station). Merzig Ost station is just a platform, with a car park and a seat...there is nothing else there! I got there in plenty of time and waited for the train, which was very likely to be steam-hauled. It was steam-hauled, not only that but it was top-and-tailed (for those of you who are a bit lost: steam-hauled means pulled by a steam locomotive, and top-and-tailed means that it had a locomotive at each end!) Another good thing about the railway was the type of old carriages they used...they had an area at each end of the carriages where you could stand outside. This was, despite the persistant rain and slightly cold wind (by which I mean to replace the word slightly with bloody) , fantastic. I couldn't see very much, but you could hear and smell it...which as any anorak will tell you is half the attraction! So, all in all a fantastic afternoon out, and one which has reminded me to look out for other Railway Museums and Preserved Railways to visit during my time here.
So, what does next week's installment contain? Probably not a huge amount about school, as that's pretty standard at the moment, but it does contain a pretty impressive adventure. A few of us are going to Nuremberg early on Friday morning (i.e. about 6.40 - that's 5.40 for those of you at home in the UK), staying in a hotel just outside Nuremberg and then returning late on Saturday night (early Sunday morning is possible). Sunday's entry, can almost be predicted now...I slept...
So, another week of school, which was just as exciting as ever, just with quite a few more teachers off sick. The flu bug is still going round my colleagues, and for this reason I had quite a bit more free time this week, about which I can't really complain!
"So, what did you do in your free time?" is the question I can tell you're all begging to have answered. (and if you're not, then you probably ended up on this page by accident...)
Well, as the title suggests, it's the beginning of the Christmas season in Germany...in the shops it's been Christmas for quite a while, but the Christmas lights and decorations have only recently been put up, and illuminated. On top of that, the Christmas Markets are starting to begin (if you can say that...and if you can't, well tough, I did!). So, a few of us assistants have been out to see the Christmas Markets nearby.
On Thursday evening I met up with one of the assistants in Saarbruecken city centre and we had a look around the Christkindlmarkt in the main street in Saarbruecken, and in the main square. It was a nice little Christmas Market full of various Christmassy things...as well as food, mulled wine, schnapps and some music too! All in all, a nice Christmas Market, despite not being particularly expansive.
Friday wasn't particularly exciting, I went to Sarreguemines and had a short wander...nothing particularly interesting undertaken there, but, a day out, nevertheless.
Saturday was slightly more interesting...albeit substantially wetter (which curiously is the German word for weather). A group of us went to Trier for the Christmas Market there, as well as a general day out. The market was quite a bit bigger than the one in Saarbruecken, and it was primarily made up of stalls selling Christmas related, err, gifts. It was a nice day out; on top of the market, we had a look at the Cathedral and a few of the other sites in Trier. As I said, it was a smidge damp...by that I mean, my trainers took a day or so to dry completely.
After our trip to the Trier Christmas Market, we organised our little trip to Germany's most famous Christmas market next weekend. It'll be a true adventure, so keep an eye out for it!
Sunday was set to be a nice day, the assistants had arranged to meet up in the morning, because this weekend in Saarbruecken there was a second Christmas Market (we're not really greedy, but when you've got space, you might as well make use of it!). This "one weekend only" market was to be found in front of the Castle (in the logically named: Schlossplatz) and was actually, in my opinion, quite disappointing because it had relatively little Christmas related stuff there, and the majority of the stallholders weren't from Saarland at all!
The afternoon, though, was right up my street (not literally...that would be silly as I live in a one-way, narrow, access-only road!). In the afternoon I headed out to Merzig to visit an Eisenbahnmuseum (preserved railway). For those of you who don't know this about me...I'm an anorak (I like trains). So, the opportunity to travel on a German preserved railway was far too strong for me to resist going...so I gave into temptation, and went!
The railway is 16km (10 miles) long and is situated on the east side of Merzig (about 20 minutes from the main DB train station). Merzig Ost station is just a platform, with a car park and a seat...there is nothing else there! I got there in plenty of time and waited for the train, which was very likely to be steam-hauled. It was steam-hauled, not only that but it was top-and-tailed (for those of you who are a bit lost: steam-hauled means pulled by a steam locomotive, and top-and-tailed means that it had a locomotive at each end!) Another good thing about the railway was the type of old carriages they used...they had an area at each end of the carriages where you could stand outside. This was, despite the persistant rain and slightly cold wind (by which I mean to replace the word slightly with bloody) , fantastic. I couldn't see very much, but you could hear and smell it...which as any anorak will tell you is half the attraction! So, all in all a fantastic afternoon out, and one which has reminded me to look out for other Railway Museums and Preserved Railways to visit during my time here.
So, what does next week's installment contain? Probably not a huge amount about school, as that's pretty standard at the moment, but it does contain a pretty impressive adventure. A few of us are going to Nuremberg early on Friday morning (i.e. about 6.40 - that's 5.40 for those of you at home in the UK), staying in a hotel just outside Nuremberg and then returning late on Saturday night (early Sunday morning is possible). Sunday's entry, can almost be predicted now...I slept...
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Chapter Eleven - Eleven Weeks in!
Week 11 (16th November - 22nd November)
So, completely exhausted from my European weekend, last weekend, I returned to school. School has been a bit funny this week...not in the hilarious Jack Dee style, more in a peculiar , unusual way! Swine Flu is a word you hear a lot working in a German school (well, obviously you hear Schweinegrippe, but you get the idea)...and it's playing havoc with teachers and students' ability to turn up to school!
That said...on Tuesday, I came down with one of the worst colds I've had in a long time...it was lucky my colleague text me to say her lesson was cancelled because she was ill...I could barely get out of bed, I had a sore throat, an horrendous cough, I was lathargic (although this has been happening a lot recently - I put it down to old age). Still, I was feeling slightly better the next day, and not wanting to have jokes about ManFlu made in German about me...I went back to work...which wasn't much fun!
Still, I made gradual improvements over the week - and a week later I'm almost completely over it...just a slightly tickly cough every now and again, so nothing too terrible.
The weekend wasn't overly exciting...partly because I still wasn't feeling grrrrrrrrreat (in the words of Tony off of the Frosties advert), and partly because I'd been putting off doing my room for the last couple of weeks...and anyone that knows me will know that I'm not the tidiest of people...so I was living in a bit of a bombsite (yet another allied bombsite in Germany). Still, I did go out...we went to Metz on the train on Friday and had a very pleasant day there, doing random walks around Metz and seeing bits I'd not seen before (hard to imagine, as this was my third visit there!).
Saturday was dedicated to tidying my room...which didn't take as long as I thought it would, so I watched some DVDs as well!
Sunday was dedicated to the trains again...off to a village called Saarhoelzbach, which is the furthest point north in Saarland from Saarbruecken reachable by train! There is nothing there...so I came back and did some more work!
So, completely exhausted from my European weekend, last weekend, I returned to school. School has been a bit funny this week...not in the hilarious Jack Dee style, more in a peculiar , unusual way! Swine Flu is a word you hear a lot working in a German school (well, obviously you hear Schweinegrippe, but you get the idea)...and it's playing havoc with teachers and students' ability to turn up to school!
That said...on Tuesday, I came down with one of the worst colds I've had in a long time...it was lucky my colleague text me to say her lesson was cancelled because she was ill...I could barely get out of bed, I had a sore throat, an horrendous cough, I was lathargic (although this has been happening a lot recently - I put it down to old age). Still, I was feeling slightly better the next day, and not wanting to have jokes about ManFlu made in German about me...I went back to work...which wasn't much fun!
Still, I made gradual improvements over the week - and a week later I'm almost completely over it...just a slightly tickly cough every now and again, so nothing too terrible.
The weekend wasn't overly exciting...partly because I still wasn't feeling grrrrrrrrreat (in the words of Tony off of the Frosties advert), and partly because I'd been putting off doing my room for the last couple of weeks...and anyone that knows me will know that I'm not the tidiest of people...so I was living in a bit of a bombsite (yet another allied bombsite in Germany). Still, I did go out...we went to Metz on the train on Friday and had a very pleasant day there, doing random walks around Metz and seeing bits I'd not seen before (hard to imagine, as this was my third visit there!).
Saturday was dedicated to tidying my room...which didn't take as long as I thought it would, so I watched some DVDs as well!
Sunday was dedicated to the trains again...off to a village called Saarhoelzbach, which is the furthest point north in Saarland from Saarbruecken reachable by train! There is nothing there...so I came back and did some more work!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chapter Eight - the Eighth Week
Monday 26th October
So, this is the first full week of my parents' visit to Germany. So what did we decide to do to celebrate the fact that they will be enjoying the full German Experience...we went to France (again). I like Germany, really I do, but I genuinely feel it would be negligent to allow myself not to take advantage of the proximity of the borders with the former Saar protecting power.
Today we took the car to Metz. (Those of you astute readers who have been paying attention to my blog entries will know I've already been there once before with the staff of my Gesamtschule). Now, as I've mentioned previously the French Customs Officers (Douanes) are a little seen species of French officials...but not at the border crossing of the motorway between Saarbruecken and France. These seem to be the less shy type of Douanes. Why do I say this? Well, for the second time in as many visits to Metz I was stopped by the Douanes and asked some questions!
I semi-expected it this time, I saw the look in her eyes when she saw a British car driving towards her...she wanted some English practice, which being the Europhile I was, I declined to give her and answered her in French. This seemed to surprise her, and we were allowed on our way with little fuss this time. I'm beginning to think I may simply have one of those faces, which the French dislike!
So, on arrival in Metz, we encountered the first hurdle, which we'd not had with the coach trip...parking! There was parking available, and finding a space was a little challenging, but not too stressful...the problem was once we'd found the space, it was remembering where we'd left the car! To solve this problem we took the GPS out of the car, saved its location, and planned to use that to get us back!
After leaving the car where it was we headed for a coffee, and then we walked around the cathedral. I still found it as awe-inspiring as the last time I went there. (You can read more about it in the Thursday part of this entry)
After visiting the Cathedral again, we headed into the tourist information office, where they gave us a town map, on which, using the GPS, we marked the location of the car! Following this little breakthrough, we decided to embark on a walking tour of the town, for which I was the guide! (I had, unfortunately, forgotten my red umbrella and bad dress sense, but apart from that I was like any other town guide!) . We had a look at some gardens in front of the barracks, then we walked down by the canalised part of the Moselle (Mosel for the Germanists!) and across the little Paris-esque island in the middle of the River, before heading back up to the Cathedral square, and in turn the car.
We thought it might be nice to have lunch in the botanical gardens in Metz, which shouldn't have been a problem; we knew where they were, we knew where we were and we've got a pretty reliable GPS system...hmm, no quite as easy as it first seemed. Why so? Well, Metz is quite a small city, with quite a lot of people living there, so the buildings are quite tall - the GPS struggles to get a signal surrounded by tall inanimate objects (remember it was originally US Defence technology, if that helps explain it!), but nevertheless, with a certain amount of what I would call intuition and logical thinking (others would probably call it guesswork) we made it to the gardens, where we had lunch and wandered round, before heading home via the E. Leclerc over the border from Saarbruecken to do some shopping for the week.
After dinner, we wandered down into town again for a couple of drinks before enjoying the bus ride home! Long Live Saarbahn!
As a fore-warning, we did do quite a lot this week, so there's a chance this could become a long blog entry...so get yourself sitting comfortably!
Tuesday 27th October
This morning we did my favourite thing in the whole world. (As with the bit from last week, that would also have been written in the sarcasm font if I had one). We went shopping in Saarbruecken. Now, I, being a bloke, am not a fan of shopping, I go shopping when I need stuff - like food for example...I don't traipse around the supermarkets because it's fun, rather because I need something! But anyway, that's what we did...we went round some of the smaller shops, had a look around Saturn, then Dad wanted to rekindle his younger years (so, we tried to go somewhere that was Sepia coloured) so we went to C&A, which he was disappointed with, so we didn't stay too long!
After our morning of fun and games, we headed over to a small town called Voelklingen. At Voelklingen, there is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city of Bath is a World Heritage Site, the Cathedral in Cologne is also a World Heritage Site, as is Stonehenge...so what delights awaited us in Voelklingen - an old steelworks!
The main reason for going this afternoon was that it's free on a Tuesday afternoon - instead of €10 each...this struck me as quite a good deal! It was quite an interesting afternoon - it was interesting seeing how much it had both deteriorated (i.e. become very rusty, and in some places rotted through), and in other places it had flourished - there is a part of the works, which the owners have left as a wilderness to see what develops. It was a throughly enjoyable afternoon - perhaps if I'd understood the steel making process in a little more detail (i.e. if I'd listened a bit more to the details explained to me at GCSE science), I would have got even more from it.
That was about it for Tuesday, with another European journey planned for the Wednesday!
Wednesday 28th October
So, today we were off to Luxembourg (or as us Germanists spell it - Luxemburg). We decided it would be easier to take the bus from Saarbruecken to Luxembourg - that we wouldn't have to find somewhere to park there, which I had heard was truly an horrendous experience bound to cause stress to even the most placid people! At €14 each, it wasn't too unreasonable either! The coach took about an hour and a quarter to get there, and was driven by someone who looked like he was on his holidays from school. (Maybe I am getting old after all!).
The journey was pleasant enough (most of it was on motorway, so there wasn't a huge amount of interesting things to report from the journey itself!). We alighted from the bus in the heart of the old town, as this was where I'd been told it was nicest in Luxembourg. The first thing we did was get coffee...well it seemed to make sense! After that, we headed down to one of the bridges over the gorge between the new and old town. We took some photos from there, and then we headed over to the Cathedral to have a look inside. On the way to the Cathedral we passed the CitySightseeing booth, and we thought it would be worthwhile having a tour to make sure that if we hadn't the opportunity walk around everything, we should probably have seen it from the tour. We opted for the Noddy Train tour, because it was cheaper, and less likely to get caught up in the traffic jams, which seemed so prevalent in Luxembourg.
The Noddy Train ride was as uncomfortable as ever, and my spine is still recovering (everytime I sit down it sounds like someone playing a xylophone down my back!). It took us down into the gorge, from where you could see the old fortifications clearly and it told us a little of the history of the city, sorry Duchy. The only problem was that the majority of the roads were cobbled, and my teeth were chattering as we were going along!
We also looked at the Cathedral, which was nice...still not as nice as Metz, in my opinion, but nice nevertheless. We then did another unofficial walking tour of Luxembourg (i.e. I held the map and chose where we went!). We saw quite a lot there, which I shall attempt to list now! We saw: the Finance Ministry, the Royal Palace, the Parliament Building, the Red Bridge (originally called because it's a bridge, and it's red...I don't know how they do it!), the Municipal (or should I say National, because in Luxembourg they're pretty much the same thing!) Library, the National Bank, the Municipal Park, and Old People's Home (that looked more like a palace to me!), and the Town Hall amongst other things.
Then we caught the bus back to Saarbruecken, before having a meal out in the pub, which I have come to call my 'local'; despite it being nearly 800 miles from my actual home! The food there reminds me of good quality, cheap, pub grub - which I'm a big fan of!
Thursday 29th October
Another day out on public transport today. But, today, at least, we stayed in Germany! We went to Trier on the train. We visited many of the same places as we visited last time I went there with some of the other assistants. You can read about those experiences here if you haven't already! Basically, to summarise, we visited the following places there: The Porta Nigra, the Cathedral, the Electoral Palace (Trier's answer to Versailles), Woolworth (I know, I know, but it was for old times sake!), down by the Mosel(le), then back up past some churches before catching the train back to Saarbruecken. Again, it was a pleasant day, and the weather seemed to hold out, which was nice too!
After dinner, we headed down into town for a couple of drinks at my 'local', before heading back and preparing for a nice day in and around Saarbruecken!
Friday 30th October
Today, we stayed in the environs of Saarbruecken; in the morning we walked out to the pub at Guedingen and had a coffee or two before walking back to Brebach, from where we caught the tram back to town. We did a little more shopping (can you imagine the amount of joy I felt at that prospect?) in Saarbruecken, and I got the new edition of the bus timetable, to find that in fact my local bus service is staying the same as it has been since I've been - still it might work out to be worth it in the long run!
For lunch, I took the old folks out to what we in Saarbruecken affectionately know as the DFG. (Deutsch-Franzoesischer Garten (German-French Garden), which, funnily enough, lies on the border of France & Germany. (Some more outside of the box thinking going on there!) We had lunch there, and had a wander round; it was nice, but with it being the end of autumn, the majority of the plants have gone over, and it was looking slightly folorn. I'm sure it'll look fantastic in the spring/summer though! So, I'll definitely be heading back there! The garden itself came about, basically, because after the war, the people on either side of the border (who had for the last 5 years or so been bitter enemies) decided that they would plant a garden together, and as such the garden is managed by both the Saarbruecken municipal works and the Lorraine authorities.
After lunch, we took another exciting trip out to E.Leclerc supermarket over the border, which was OK. I realise I may be appearing as a little contradictory over my opinion on shopping, so let me briefly clarify; I dislike "going shopping" for the sake of having something to do - I think there are better ways to fill your time like redecorating and then watching it dry, but I don't mind shopping when I need to get something - like food!
Tonight, after dinner, I had my hair cut, and then we had a relatively early night, because we were up early the next morning to head to Koblenz.
Saturday 31st October
For our Hallowe'en day out we decided to travel to Koblenz on the train. The journey itself takes just a little over two and a half hours, but it's worth it. Between Trier and Koblenz the views over the river are very nice - rather like a picture postcard of how I imagine Germany to be! It features the railway running directly next to the river, with steep hills on both sides, completely full of vines - exactly how they harvest them I'm not sure! Oh, I forgot to mention that we took a double decker train, and because the novelty will never wear off, we sat upstairs.
When we got to Koblenz, we had a coffee...this, I ought to add, is pretty standard procedure for us - when we arrive somewhere, it's nice to sit down and decide what we want to see over a coffee! We then headed to the Toursit Information Centre; conveniently hidden next to a Sparkasse. I also checked the T&Cs of the ticket, which meant we could use buses to get around the city - so rather than walk to the Old Town, and the confluence (join) of the Rhein and Mosel, we took the bus, which saved us about 30 minutes or so!
The joining of the two rivers is marked by a statue of a bloke on his horse; not John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but Kaiser Wilhelm I. The statue is huge, and looks out over what is known as Deutsches Eck (German Corner). From there we did the usual...I took the map, and we had a nose around the city. It was a nice city, with many very nice buildings in the old town, and it was obviously a town where a lot has historically taken place, but the tourist map didn't really provide much information. Luckily, I had consulted Wikipedia the night before, so I was up on some of the details! So, after much walking, much photography, and much coffee, it was time to return to Saarbruecken.
The train I'd planned to take should have been straight through, however because of some sort of engineering works, the train we were on was terminated at a town called Merzig, from where we had to change to the stopping service, running about half an hour later. So, that was just enough time to head to the station bar, and have a glass of the local beer.
To illustrate the difference between the RE (Regional Express) trains, and the RB (Regional Bahn - stopping) services one only needs to look at the number of stops they make between Merzig and Saarbruecken. The RE has 3 stops until Saarbruecken, and the RB has about 10. However, because the German railways are run in a more efficient way, the trains stopped, normally, for less than 45 seconds at each of the stations - none of this doors will be locked 40 seconds before departure rubbish over here!
So, after returning to Saarbruecken about 30 minutes later than originally planned, we headed to the usual place and had a nice dinner out.
Sunday 1st November
Today is the last day of my parent's visit here. I'd left today pretty much blank in the itinerary to go to a few places I thought were worth a look, but not worth a whole day! So, to start the day we headed up to the University's Botanical Garden, which was nice, but quite disappointing - less of a botanical garden as one might imagine it to be (a smaller version of Kew), more an open space with some trees dotted around!
So, not to be put off, we headed off to Ottweiler, again a place I'd been before, where not a huge amount goes on; especially on a Sunday! Still, it was a nice stroll, and we had lunch there before heading off to St. Wendel, which is a slightly bigger town, but still as busy as Ottweiler! There's a nice church there, but that's about it really! After St. Wendel we took to Illingen, which is the only place I can honestly say I've seen chalk for sale! We had a coffee here, and a quick stroll around what is pretty much a ghost town on Sunday!
We then came home, relatively early, so that Mum & Dad could pack and load the car for their departure in the morning. Additionally, my landlady had invited us out for dinner at a restaurant just over the border in France, which is like the Ritz of Saarbruecken; not as posh, and more rurally French, not even the best food in the area, but it is the place to be seen if you weild power or money, or want to climb the greasy pole of influence. Another pleasant evening was had by all, with me acting as an interpreter between my landlady and my parents, after having consumed a couple of alcoholic beverages!
So, in summary, a very interesting week, albeit slightly tiring. It was, obviously, lovely to see Mum & Dad again, and to be able to take them around the place where I've found myself!
So, this is the first full week of my parents' visit to Germany. So what did we decide to do to celebrate the fact that they will be enjoying the full German Experience...we went to France (again). I like Germany, really I do, but I genuinely feel it would be negligent to allow myself not to take advantage of the proximity of the borders with the former Saar protecting power.
Today we took the car to Metz. (Those of you astute readers who have been paying attention to my blog entries will know I've already been there once before with the staff of my Gesamtschule). Now, as I've mentioned previously the French Customs Officers (Douanes) are a little seen species of French officials...but not at the border crossing of the motorway between Saarbruecken and France. These seem to be the less shy type of Douanes. Why do I say this? Well, for the second time in as many visits to Metz I was stopped by the Douanes and asked some questions!
I semi-expected it this time, I saw the look in her eyes when she saw a British car driving towards her...she wanted some English practice, which being the Europhile I was, I declined to give her and answered her in French. This seemed to surprise her, and we were allowed on our way with little fuss this time. I'm beginning to think I may simply have one of those faces, which the French dislike!
So, on arrival in Metz, we encountered the first hurdle, which we'd not had with the coach trip...parking! There was parking available, and finding a space was a little challenging, but not too stressful...the problem was once we'd found the space, it was remembering where we'd left the car! To solve this problem we took the GPS out of the car, saved its location, and planned to use that to get us back!
After leaving the car where it was we headed for a coffee, and then we walked around the cathedral. I still found it as awe-inspiring as the last time I went there. (You can read more about it in the Thursday part of this entry)
After visiting the Cathedral again, we headed into the tourist information office, where they gave us a town map, on which, using the GPS, we marked the location of the car! Following this little breakthrough, we decided to embark on a walking tour of the town, for which I was the guide! (I had, unfortunately, forgotten my red umbrella and bad dress sense, but apart from that I was like any other town guide!) . We had a look at some gardens in front of the barracks, then we walked down by the canalised part of the Moselle (Mosel for the Germanists!) and across the little Paris-esque island in the middle of the River, before heading back up to the Cathedral square, and in turn the car.
We thought it might be nice to have lunch in the botanical gardens in Metz, which shouldn't have been a problem; we knew where they were, we knew where we were and we've got a pretty reliable GPS system...hmm, no quite as easy as it first seemed. Why so? Well, Metz is quite a small city, with quite a lot of people living there, so the buildings are quite tall - the GPS struggles to get a signal surrounded by tall inanimate objects (remember it was originally US Defence technology, if that helps explain it!), but nevertheless, with a certain amount of what I would call intuition and logical thinking (others would probably call it guesswork) we made it to the gardens, where we had lunch and wandered round, before heading home via the E. Leclerc over the border from Saarbruecken to do some shopping for the week.
After dinner, we wandered down into town again for a couple of drinks before enjoying the bus ride home! Long Live Saarbahn!
As a fore-warning, we did do quite a lot this week, so there's a chance this could become a long blog entry...so get yourself sitting comfortably!
Tuesday 27th October
This morning we did my favourite thing in the whole world. (As with the bit from last week, that would also have been written in the sarcasm font if I had one). We went shopping in Saarbruecken. Now, I, being a bloke, am not a fan of shopping, I go shopping when I need stuff - like food for example...I don't traipse around the supermarkets because it's fun, rather because I need something! But anyway, that's what we did...we went round some of the smaller shops, had a look around Saturn, then Dad wanted to rekindle his younger years (so, we tried to go somewhere that was Sepia coloured) so we went to C&A, which he was disappointed with, so we didn't stay too long!
After our morning of fun and games, we headed over to a small town called Voelklingen. At Voelklingen, there is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city of Bath is a World Heritage Site, the Cathedral in Cologne is also a World Heritage Site, as is Stonehenge...so what delights awaited us in Voelklingen - an old steelworks!
The main reason for going this afternoon was that it's free on a Tuesday afternoon - instead of €10 each...this struck me as quite a good deal! It was quite an interesting afternoon - it was interesting seeing how much it had both deteriorated (i.e. become very rusty, and in some places rotted through), and in other places it had flourished - there is a part of the works, which the owners have left as a wilderness to see what develops. It was a throughly enjoyable afternoon - perhaps if I'd understood the steel making process in a little more detail (i.e. if I'd listened a bit more to the details explained to me at GCSE science), I would have got even more from it.
That was about it for Tuesday, with another European journey planned for the Wednesday!
Wednesday 28th October
So, today we were off to Luxembourg (or as us Germanists spell it - Luxemburg). We decided it would be easier to take the bus from Saarbruecken to Luxembourg - that we wouldn't have to find somewhere to park there, which I had heard was truly an horrendous experience bound to cause stress to even the most placid people! At €14 each, it wasn't too unreasonable either! The coach took about an hour and a quarter to get there, and was driven by someone who looked like he was on his holidays from school. (Maybe I am getting old after all!).
The journey was pleasant enough (most of it was on motorway, so there wasn't a huge amount of interesting things to report from the journey itself!). We alighted from the bus in the heart of the old town, as this was where I'd been told it was nicest in Luxembourg. The first thing we did was get coffee...well it seemed to make sense! After that, we headed down to one of the bridges over the gorge between the new and old town. We took some photos from there, and then we headed over to the Cathedral to have a look inside. On the way to the Cathedral we passed the CitySightseeing booth, and we thought it would be worthwhile having a tour to make sure that if we hadn't the opportunity walk around everything, we should probably have seen it from the tour. We opted for the Noddy Train tour, because it was cheaper, and less likely to get caught up in the traffic jams, which seemed so prevalent in Luxembourg.
The Noddy Train ride was as uncomfortable as ever, and my spine is still recovering (everytime I sit down it sounds like someone playing a xylophone down my back!). It took us down into the gorge, from where you could see the old fortifications clearly and it told us a little of the history of the city, sorry Duchy. The only problem was that the majority of the roads were cobbled, and my teeth were chattering as we were going along!
We also looked at the Cathedral, which was nice...still not as nice as Metz, in my opinion, but nice nevertheless. We then did another unofficial walking tour of Luxembourg (i.e. I held the map and chose where we went!). We saw quite a lot there, which I shall attempt to list now! We saw: the Finance Ministry, the Royal Palace, the Parliament Building, the Red Bridge (originally called because it's a bridge, and it's red...I don't know how they do it!), the Municipal (or should I say National, because in Luxembourg they're pretty much the same thing!) Library, the National Bank, the Municipal Park, and Old People's Home (that looked more like a palace to me!), and the Town Hall amongst other things.
Then we caught the bus back to Saarbruecken, before having a meal out in the pub, which I have come to call my 'local'; despite it being nearly 800 miles from my actual home! The food there reminds me of good quality, cheap, pub grub - which I'm a big fan of!
Thursday 29th October
Another day out on public transport today. But, today, at least, we stayed in Germany! We went to Trier on the train. We visited many of the same places as we visited last time I went there with some of the other assistants. You can read about those experiences here if you haven't already! Basically, to summarise, we visited the following places there: The Porta Nigra, the Cathedral, the Electoral Palace (Trier's answer to Versailles), Woolworth (I know, I know, but it was for old times sake!), down by the Mosel(le), then back up past some churches before catching the train back to Saarbruecken. Again, it was a pleasant day, and the weather seemed to hold out, which was nice too!
After dinner, we headed down into town for a couple of drinks at my 'local', before heading back and preparing for a nice day in and around Saarbruecken!
Friday 30th October
Today, we stayed in the environs of Saarbruecken; in the morning we walked out to the pub at Guedingen and had a coffee or two before walking back to Brebach, from where we caught the tram back to town. We did a little more shopping (can you imagine the amount of joy I felt at that prospect?) in Saarbruecken, and I got the new edition of the bus timetable, to find that in fact my local bus service is staying the same as it has been since I've been - still it might work out to be worth it in the long run!
For lunch, I took the old folks out to what we in Saarbruecken affectionately know as the DFG. (Deutsch-Franzoesischer Garten (German-French Garden), which, funnily enough, lies on the border of France & Germany. (Some more outside of the box thinking going on there!) We had lunch there, and had a wander round; it was nice, but with it being the end of autumn, the majority of the plants have gone over, and it was looking slightly folorn. I'm sure it'll look fantastic in the spring/summer though! So, I'll definitely be heading back there! The garden itself came about, basically, because after the war, the people on either side of the border (who had for the last 5 years or so been bitter enemies) decided that they would plant a garden together, and as such the garden is managed by both the Saarbruecken municipal works and the Lorraine authorities.
After lunch, we took another exciting trip out to E.Leclerc supermarket over the border, which was OK. I realise I may be appearing as a little contradictory over my opinion on shopping, so let me briefly clarify; I dislike "going shopping" for the sake of having something to do - I think there are better ways to fill your time like redecorating and then watching it dry, but I don't mind shopping when I need to get something - like food!
Tonight, after dinner, I had my hair cut, and then we had a relatively early night, because we were up early the next morning to head to Koblenz.
Saturday 31st October
For our Hallowe'en day out we decided to travel to Koblenz on the train. The journey itself takes just a little over two and a half hours, but it's worth it. Between Trier and Koblenz the views over the river are very nice - rather like a picture postcard of how I imagine Germany to be! It features the railway running directly next to the river, with steep hills on both sides, completely full of vines - exactly how they harvest them I'm not sure! Oh, I forgot to mention that we took a double decker train, and because the novelty will never wear off, we sat upstairs.
When we got to Koblenz, we had a coffee...this, I ought to add, is pretty standard procedure for us - when we arrive somewhere, it's nice to sit down and decide what we want to see over a coffee! We then headed to the Toursit Information Centre; conveniently hidden next to a Sparkasse. I also checked the T&Cs of the ticket, which meant we could use buses to get around the city - so rather than walk to the Old Town, and the confluence (join) of the Rhein and Mosel, we took the bus, which saved us about 30 minutes or so!
The joining of the two rivers is marked by a statue of a bloke on his horse; not John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but Kaiser Wilhelm I. The statue is huge, and looks out over what is known as Deutsches Eck (German Corner). From there we did the usual...I took the map, and we had a nose around the city. It was a nice city, with many very nice buildings in the old town, and it was obviously a town where a lot has historically taken place, but the tourist map didn't really provide much information. Luckily, I had consulted Wikipedia the night before, so I was up on some of the details! So, after much walking, much photography, and much coffee, it was time to return to Saarbruecken.
The train I'd planned to take should have been straight through, however because of some sort of engineering works, the train we were on was terminated at a town called Merzig, from where we had to change to the stopping service, running about half an hour later. So, that was just enough time to head to the station bar, and have a glass of the local beer.
To illustrate the difference between the RE (Regional Express) trains, and the RB (Regional Bahn - stopping) services one only needs to look at the number of stops they make between Merzig and Saarbruecken. The RE has 3 stops until Saarbruecken, and the RB has about 10. However, because the German railways are run in a more efficient way, the trains stopped, normally, for less than 45 seconds at each of the stations - none of this doors will be locked 40 seconds before departure rubbish over here!
So, after returning to Saarbruecken about 30 minutes later than originally planned, we headed to the usual place and had a nice dinner out.
Sunday 1st November
Today is the last day of my parent's visit here. I'd left today pretty much blank in the itinerary to go to a few places I thought were worth a look, but not worth a whole day! So, to start the day we headed up to the University's Botanical Garden, which was nice, but quite disappointing - less of a botanical garden as one might imagine it to be (a smaller version of Kew), more an open space with some trees dotted around!
So, not to be put off, we headed off to Ottweiler, again a place I'd been before, where not a huge amount goes on; especially on a Sunday! Still, it was a nice stroll, and we had lunch there before heading off to St. Wendel, which is a slightly bigger town, but still as busy as Ottweiler! There's a nice church there, but that's about it really! After St. Wendel we took to Illingen, which is the only place I can honestly say I've seen chalk for sale! We had a coffee here, and a quick stroll around what is pretty much a ghost town on Sunday!
We then came home, relatively early, so that Mum & Dad could pack and load the car for their departure in the morning. Additionally, my landlady had invited us out for dinner at a restaurant just over the border in France, which is like the Ritz of Saarbruecken; not as posh, and more rurally French, not even the best food in the area, but it is the place to be seen if you weild power or money, or want to climb the greasy pole of influence. Another pleasant evening was had by all, with me acting as an interpreter between my landlady and my parents, after having consumed a couple of alcoholic beverages!
So, in summary, a very interesting week, albeit slightly tiring. It was, obviously, lovely to see Mum & Dad again, and to be able to take them around the place where I've found myself!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Chapter Five - The fifth week
Monday 5th October
Off to Altenberg today! Shock horror, the train was late - I blame this on the fact that it was a TGV, which came from Paris this morning! There were also a surprising number of people trying t board the train at Saarbruecken considering it left at just before 11am. A seat reservation would have set me back a couple of euros, and I decided I probably wouldn't need one. I still stand by this decision, because the train was so busy, I think it would have been too difficult to get through to my reserved seat! So for the first part of the journey to I travelled in the buffet carriage of the TGV. No proper seats, but somewhere to lean and not very busy either. It was only for about 75 minutes anyway!
So, on arrival in Mannheim, which is apparently in Baden-Wurttenburg (that may be a slightly tenuous claim in my opinion!), we waited for our train to Koeln. The train was 2 ICEs joined together. Yet again, we had a mad search for a seat, and I was successful...momentarily. After about 3 minutes, I was evicted again - so off to the vestibule I trotted and sat there! (It's like being at home again!). I was sat there for about an hour or so, until Frankfurt Airport, where quite a few people got off. Back in the carriage, there were seats free - so down I sat. To be turfed out again moments later - never mind, I like the vestibule anyway! There's a clever screen there, that tells you how fast the train goes - we were generally travelling about 290-300 km/h. After a bit in the vestibule, the train manager came down, and told me there were seats towards the back of the train. So, off I trotted, and I sat down, only to have to get off the train at Koeln 30 minutes later.
We got to Koeln really quite early (14.05 for a 15.30 Meeting) so we set off in search of a toilet. The ones at Saarbruecken Hbf. cost 50cents, in Koeln €1 (which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase to spend a penny). So, in the end, we waited in a cafe until the allotted meeting time.
After seeing the huge group of assistants in the station foyer, we knew we were in the right place, so we, like sheep, joined the flock and waited patiently. Going to this Altenberg were assistants from Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg West Pommerania), Schleswig-Holstein, Baden-Wurttenburg, and, of course, Saarland.
We had to wait at the station for a second double decker coach to collect all the people. And when it did finally turn up, we were still waiting around for another 40 minutes or so, for some people whose trains from North Germany were late!
On arrival at Altenberg, in the rain, we did the usual things: Rules and Regulations, Introduced ourselves (although, this wasn't much of a challenge for the Saarlaender!). Our tutor was a teacher cum civil servant in the Saarland Ministry for Education. We then paid our €30 towards the cost of the course!
Tuesday 6th October
Today was the first day of proper teaching at Altenberg, but before we get to that I feel it would be a good time to mention something about Altenberg itself.
Altenberg is a cathedral (albeit in the middle of literally nowhere), which is still in service (possibly not the right word, but it'll do here!). This means that people still pray here, and that they are stilled called to prayer. But, I want to tell you a story about a man at Altenberg, let's call him Quasimodo. Now, Quasimodo has decided that the local people, who are all aware of the Cathedral's presence, need a reminder about attending church. But because Quasimodo's a conscientious bell ringer, he knows people like to get to church punctually (we're still in Germany, don't forget!). Moreover, Quasimodo's a little bit old, so he can't quite master the phones, so he decides to ring the church bells. He first does this at 5 am (until about 5.30), then, almost as if you pressed snooze, he starts again at 6 am (for about half an hour again), and then once more about 7 am (when the service itself begins). My room at Altenberg was about 50 m from the bell tower - and, as I'm sure you can imagine, it's very loud, and annoying - especially at 5 am! But all things considered, you've got to feel a little sorry for Quasimodo, he always looks quite upset whenever you see him - it's been said he's got the hump! (sorry, I couldn't not put one in!)
So, having eaten breakfast, we started the proper course today! But before the proper teaching, we were given €100 travel expenses (as we'd already travelled to Germany, and had to travel again across Germany to get to Altenberg). So, just to break this down:
I paid €68 for my train fare
I paid €30 for the course
I received €100 allowance.
So, I've therefore gained €2 by turning up at the course. What was more impressive was that the money was paid in the form of a €100 note. (they are green, and it was the first time I'd ever seen one, let alone had one in my possession).
The day itself was basically taught in Bundeslaender, which for us was a massive qadvantage! We started after breakfast, with a 1 3/4 hour session on the school system in Germany, and more specifically Saarland. We also covered the rules and regulations of what you can and can't do as a Language Assistant.
We then watched a video of a couple of assistants teaching classes, and went back into our groups to discuss them.
Following lunch, which was reputedly fish (although I'm not quite convinced!), we started discussing our lesson plans and looking at the materials for the simulated lessons tomorrow.
After dinner I decided that instead of going to the bar tonight (although at 1€50 a bottle of beer - it's very cheap here). I watched "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" (The Edukators) again and very pleasant it was too!
Wednesday 7th September
So, today we had to teach our prepared lessons to the other assistants in our group. This went OK, but as a group we'd decided to make it more interesting by behaving like pupils of the age we were supposed to be. This meant, pronouncing words wrong, reading badly, talking in German, passing notes around the classroom, asking to go to the loo, chatting amongst ourselves, and even throwing things across the room. Needless to say everyone was absolutley shattered by the end of the day, but it had been generally fun and had passed the time quickly!
After dinner, there was a pub quiz, in which I learnt that Saarland is the smallest Bundesland (this is rubbish, there are 3 city Bundeslaender, which are all smaller than Saarland). Then back to the bar, for a couple of beers and a wake-up time of 6 the next morning!
Thursday 8th October
So, that was that! Altenberg's over! We got up at 6, packed our stuff away, put our linen outside the door, and went down to breakfast for 6.30. Coffee was definitely necessary at breakfast! The coaches left promptly at 7.30 for the journey back to Koeln station, where, as I had a fair amount of time before my train journey, I went to the Cathedral. It's height is impressive, but it was very dark and dingy inside! Metz was much nicer! The train back was scheduled to take about 3 1/2 hours. First we travelled to Koblenz on an Intercity train (not an ICE, but the next one down). We got into Koblenz 6 minutes late, and our connection time should have been 7 minutes. So, we had 1 minute to get off the train and run, yes, run, to the correct platform! It was slightly Top Gear-esque, and probably looked rather amusing! The train we got on was going to take us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Saarbruecken - quite a long time. The journey itself though is wonderful, for the most part the railway runs directly alongside the Mosel, and if you were to picture a German river scene, it would be a replica of the view from the train. It was truly fantastic! So, I'll be going back there soon!
Friday 9th October
I had quite a bit on the administrative front to do today! I had to go the bank to collect the relevant stuff so that I could do Internet banking with them. This was a painless process, which took 5 minutes, which was much less than I expected! I also had to go the Hauptbahnhof because I have decided to indulge in a Bahncard 25 for those journeys I'll be making outside of the Saarland, which entitles me to 25% off fares for 4 months. I also went into the Tourist Information Centre to try and find information about B&Bs or Guest Houses in Saarbruecken. This turned out to be the most challenging thing I had to do, as they weren't able to help me, other than to direct me to the stand with the hotels' leaflets on them!
I was planning to go to Neunkirchen (Saarland's second biggest town) today, but instead met up with one of the other assistants, where we had a couple of drinks in town, and had a nosey around, followed by a nice meal out (Moules Frites), which was very nice indeed! Whilst we were sat down after eating, the other assistant's flatmate saw her and came over to chat, along with a couple of his friends, one of whom is the girl who lives in the flat with me! It's a small world here in Saarbruecken!
Saturday 10th October
Today it rained! This is the first day of proper rain I've experienced in Saarbruecken since I arrived over a month ago! This meant our planned trip to Saarguemines was called off, so instead we went around my friend's and watched Harry Potter, after making Pancakes! Following the film, we tried to work towards solving the problem my friend has with a lost passport. The first stage of this is to go to the Polizei and report it as missing, which we did. Then we ambled up to the Train Station, on the off chance it had been handed in - but the office is closed until Monday now! If it hasn't been handed in, it will mean a trip to Frankfurt for my friend to the British Consulate there to work on getting a new one!
Sunday 11th October
Today I'd planned to visit Homburg by train. And technically I did visit Homburg. I had a very quick look round, but it's very difficult to appreciate places like that properly when you go round on your own, so my visit was rather short. So I returned to Homburg Hbf, from where I planned to return to Saarbruecken, using an indirect route. I caught a train to Neunkirchen (12 minutes away) and then had to wait for a Schienenersatzverkehr (bus replacement service), which in atypical German fashion left late. Now, I would have thought that as the train and the bus were both run by Deutsche Bahn, it would have been possible to hold the train to meet the connection. Err...no....it's not the train driver's fault the bus was running late, and just as the bus pulled into the train station, I could see the train screeching round the corner on its way to Saarbruecken. So, here I was in Illingen, a town I'd not even heard of before, so I ambled down into the town - into the middle of their town festival. As you'd expect, there were plenty of sausages and beer around, with some music too! It was a nice amble round the town; there was also a car boot sale (consisting of about 12 cars) in the town. The most exciting there, though, was a shop that sells chalk! I don't need any at the moment, but I had been looking for somewhere in Saarbruecken for weeks that sells it, without success!
After wandering round the town, I went back to the station, and caught the train to Saarbruecken, then I travelled ut to Merzig and back on another train; just because I could really!
Two things struck me today - one is that the Semester Ticket is really good value for money, as the tickets today would have cost me about 20€, instead I travelled free! Second was that there is a much less stringent, yet more sensible, approach to Health & Safety on the railway here; the railways are seldom separated by big fences to stop people walking on them, and the trains don't have yellow ends either (to make them more visisble). Maybe it's because the Germans are intelligent enough to realise that walking on a railway line is not a clever (klever in German) thing to do, because it'll hurt if you time it wrong.
Back to school tomorrow, for one week, and then it's the Autumn half term!
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