I spent a full week in Germany! After finally getting through everything with the delays from Canada, I arrived in Frankfurt Germany – only to find that I left my water bottle on the plane. And of course I realized that only after I had already gotten off the plane, went through customs, and was out the other side. I made a claim for it, but unfortunately it couldn’t be found (In reality – they either didn’t understand where I stated that it was, or someone decided it was a great water bottle and took it – could go either way).

Great start to this adventure! And I’m not even being sarcastic, it really is, I’m honestly glad that I’ve had so many things happen on the trip so far – it’s like I’m getting a crash course in keeping my cool. I haven’t done this type of travel in a while so I’m definitely appreciating it happening now when I have the time, money, and energy to remember how to handle these situations. And none of it has been very difficult in the grand scheme of things anyway.

Leipzig

So I started my trip out in Leipzig. I spent two days exploring and familiarizing myself with Europe again. While I hadn’t been to Leipzig before, I have been to Germany – so it was a great refresher! I didn’t do much besides just wander around town, relax, and just take in the sights. I was pretty jetlagged and so I spent time catching up on sleep – and of course finally getting the last of this blog ready to be posted. It was good. The best part was probably just grabbing some food from the store and eating in a park. Picnics are the best – and they’re cheap.

Könnern

Most of my time in Germany was spent visiting Ronja! Like Tiffany, I met Ronja when we were both living in London going to the University of East London. We’ve been friends for 12 years now – which is crazy! I last saw Ronja, and her now husband Kay, in 2018 when I visited them at their old place (also in Germany). It was great to see them both, to catch up on everything, and meet all their new Furbabies. Like me, they lost their cat Dipper – who I met the last time I saw them – but Poppy, Daisy, and Milo were great company! They loved to cuddle, and I spent quite a lot of time there with at least one (if not more) of them proving to me that they can be furnaces.

An interesting thing, one of the nearby villages has miniature towns and castles and such spattered about. They’re all replicas of places that you can find elsewhere and were cool to see. There were even miniature people in many of them! Our best guess was that they’re all part of some type of community art project, so that was fun!

One night while Ronja had a parent night at the school she works at, Kay took me on a bike ride around their village and the neighboring one – Milo got to come with too. I got to see the castle that a German country singer bought – its a mansion style castle, but still very cool! What’s not cool? The fact that I completely bruised my butt. I borrowed Ronja’s bike, and even lowering the seat, it was too tall for me. Did not make for a comfy ride. On top of that – I had never used an eBike before! I figured it was straight forward and Kay told me they mainly used Eco mode. Know what I didn’t confirm? When I should switch it to another mode, like Sports mode (for the uphill off roading parts for instance). So that was fun! And in showing me how to do that after a break and it became apparent that I wasn’t using the bike as it should be (haha) he also discovered that I wasn’t in the right gear. Honestly? I didn’t even realize the bike had gears! My bikes growing up didn’t, and the last bike I rode was in Vietnam and those didn’t have gears either. Changing all of that made so much sense and made my life about a million times easier for the rest of the ride. Oh well – live and learn.

Cologne/Köln

After 5 amazing days with Ronja and Kay – I decided to split up the trip to Tilburg with a stay in Cologne so that I wasn’t spending quite as much time traveling (it didn’t fully help – but more on that in a later post I think). So I got to Cologne Germany around 3pm and after walking 30 minutes to my hostel (because I’m stubborn and at that point I’d been sitting for most of the 5 hour train ride and wanted to stretch my legs) I went out to explore. I actually hit the cathedral that it’s known for before I even went to the hostel since it was literally right outside the train station. I didn’t go inside since I had all of my bags with me, but the outside is amazing enough! After checking in, I went to dinner with one of the guys in my dorm room and then we split up to do our own things. I explored a bit more before heading back to the hostel to wind down and get an early night since my train to Tilburg was leaving at 7am and I was determined to walk it again. (I succeeded!)

Overall – Cologne was pretty nice! I didn’t get much time there, so I’m sure there’s a lot more to see, but it was a good resting point on my way to Tilburg.

As always – I really enjoyed my time in Germany and I can’t wait to figure out when I can come back and visit Ronja and Kay again!