Eifel National Park

After working tirelessly for over a week on challenging engineering assignments and staying home the previous weekend, Corey and I were ready to get out of the house and explore a new part of Europe.  After hanging out with a bunch of fellow schoolmates for Alwin´s birthday (it was sort of a joint birthday celebration for me as well since I was sick for mine a couple of weeks before), Corey and I woke up early to go hiking in Eifel National Park. Getting there took a little longer than expected, however.  The 61 (einundsechzig) decided to not show up on time this morning, so we had to take the bus, which took much longer to get to the central train station. When we finally arrived at the central station, we hopped off the bus just in time to watch our connecting train leave the station.  Thus, we had wait another 15 minutes to catch the next train to the Siegburg train station, and then another 45 minutes to catch the train to the national park. When we finally got on the train from Siegburg towards the national park, I decided to take a quick nap, but after what seemed like a few minutes, Corey woke me up abruptly to tell me that we were at our stop and needed to get off. Confused, I hopped off and looked at the station.  We were in the middle of nowhere and the train sign read `Bruin´- we were supposed to get off at Düren. As the train doors were closing, I told Corey to hop back on cause we were at the wrong station. However, still in the sleepy state that I was in, he convinced me yet again to get off. This process happened twice before I decided that this was definitely not the right stop.  I´m sure the other passengers thought we were absolutely crazy, but at least we didn´t stay at the wrong station because we would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere for the next two hours. Once we finally made it to Duren, we had to take one more small train into the heart of the national park. The train sounded like it was going to careen off the tracks at any minute, but it was an absolutely gorgeous ride. It had snowed the night before, and while much of it was melting down in the gorge, it added to the ambience of the setting.

Once in the park, we embarked on an 8 mile hike along a lake, and then up into the mountains. Down by the lake, all the snow had melted (it was bordering on hot), but as soon as we went up in elevation, we reached thick snow. While it was gorgeous, it was extremely hard to hike on as the ice and snow covering the trails gave us very little traction. In addition to being a beautiful trail, it took us past many historical landmarks, such as an old monastery and a 12th century castle. After keeping ourselves hydrated with fresh snow since we stupidly forgot our water-bottles, we made it back to the trailhead before sundown. To finish off a good day of hiking, we stopped at a local bar/restaurant and got a full course meal with a soup, salad, Pommes Frites (French fries), and a delicious Jägerschnitzel. Among other things, one thing I love about Germany is how reasonable the price of food is. Satisfied and fighting our food comas, we hopped on the train and headed back to Bonn.  I made it home at 11:28, just in time for me to finish my last engineering hw problem and submit it.

The next day turned out to also be a beautiful day, so Corey and I went for a casual run down the Rhein river, starting in the Rheingauer Freizeit Park. Well, I guess I should say that it was supposed to be casual, but we ended up running a little over 10 miles. Normally this wouldn´t have been too much of a deal, but lets just say that I have not been staying in my utmost shape this semester, so I was pretty sore the next day. I really need to start training for this Bonn marathon on April 15th...  Tomorrow starts the first day of our 2 week spring break, so I am extremely excited for what has yet to come!