"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." I started this journey to Germany terribly in the first few hours. I experienced the most turbulent flight of my life while flying from Kansas City to Chicago on June 15th. Even with nausea medicine, I still stepped off the plane feeling quite queasy. While many people would find this crazy, I actually had airport sushi (lol) to calm my stomach. There is something about the simplicity of sushi with fresh and simple ingredients that really makes me feel better. (That theme of fresh and real food will come back around this entire trip, so stay tuned for that.) The meal really did help, and then I was elated to find 2/3rds of my travel group -- 20 teachers from all across the US. The excitement and hopefulness of this group definitely helped revive my travel spirits as well. Then, by pure luck (really, no upgrade involved on my part) I landed in Premium seating for our 7-hour flight to Frankfurt. It wasn't even first class, but man, was it so much more luxurious than Economy. So much leg/arm/hip room, better meals, more storage cubbies, no middle seat, etc. The travel gods were paying me back for the terrible flight a few hours earlier. I actually slept a solid four hours on my "overnight" trip, which was critical in my jet lag fight the next day, considering I lost 7 hours in time zone shifts during the flight. I also must admit here that I really had not paid enough attention in geography class because I was surprised to realize, while watching the in-flight map, that Germany is actually the same latitude as the middle of Canada. I had not realized before that moment how much farther north we were traveling.
Upon arriving in Germany, the travel gods smiled on us once again as we had a very easy jaunt through customs and every single person in our group received all their checked luggage! It was then that we met our two-week German tour guide Nic. Little did we know in that moment that he would become the most loved person on our trip. As we spent the next 15 hours trying to stay awake to adjust to German time, here were my initial impressions of Bonn, Germany, which would serve as our home for 10 days: -- Because Germany is the size of many of our states, there aren't really many small towns. Germans consider Bonn, with a population of 300,000, to be a small town. When I told people I was from a town of 10,000, they all seemed shocked and told me I actually lived in a village. When I then explained we are the largest town in a one-hour radius and everyone comes to our town for more options, Germans did not know what to think. -- Bonn is filled with more cyclists than any other town I have ever experienced. This was such a prevalent part of their culture that I will dedicate an entire upcoming post to German bicycle life and how much I grew to love it! -- We were spoiled with a fantastic hotel overlooking the historic Rhine River, which anchored our travels for the first 10 days. (catch a glimpse of it in my lunch picture on the patio above) -- I tried my very first wiener schnitzel and Radler beer the first night at a German bier haus. The meal was fantastic, but the the beer was mediocre. More to come on all the food in a later post. I did learn how to order a proper Radler moving forward at least. -- Germany doesn't really do ice cubes or air conditioning! This will become a very important point in the coming days of my trip. This might not be the most insightful or exciting post of my trip, but let it serve simply as the introduction to my deeply inspiring trip. I hope you will join me for future posts that really contain so much more substance!
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AuthorSophie -- a teacher, mother, wife, traveler, reader, camper, and Mizzou Tiger Archives
July 2022
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