Thursday, April 19, 2018

Week...Triberg and the Black Forest


Class ended on Friday and Mitchell, Kate, and I all were packed and ready to go. Our destination, the Black Forest. Well, first we had to get to the bus stop, then to the Köln airport, to the car rental place, and finally pick up Nicky and Ibk at the AiB, and then the Black Forest. We departed and made our way to the Köln airport. Then all of our problems started occurring. We got onto the 61 to Auerberg to stop at Innemenisterium, where the Airport bus picks up. The tram was packed. I mean, filled to the brim with people, so we told Kate the stop. We arrived at the stop and I got off the tram and looked over and saw Mitchell outside as well. I walked over to him to see him looking inside the tram. I follow his gaze and I see a horrified Kate, reaching towards the window, fly past me. She didn’t get off of the tram. It was almost movie like, see her extended hand on the glass, desperately wanting to be outside of the tram. Anyways, she just got off at the next stop and walked back to where we were. We then got on to the airport bus and rode to the airport no problems. We got to the airport and went to the car rental place, and tried to get or rental car. Kate had to pay everything because she was the primary driver, and her first card wasn’t accepted because it was Discover. Then the next one failed. With all hope lost, she tried her last card that she brought with her on a whim, and thank God, it worked. With only a few problems thus far we were about to be on our way… we thought… We get to the garage and find our little Opel, and hop in. Kate started the car before I know it, WHIPLASH! My head almost smacked Kate’s seat and Mitchell, sitting in the front seat, turned around and made eye contact with me. We both suddenly busted into laughter. We look nervously at Kate who assures us that she can drive. Kate gets left on a bus, her cards all almost get rejected, and she almost wrecks the car right as we get it. Nothing else could go wrong, right? Right, well that’s what you hope I was going to say… We drive to the gate to get ourselves out of the garage and it prompts us for a ticket. We scavenge around the car and we can’t find a ticket anywhere. We were stuck inside the garage without a way to open the gate. Then a German voice came over the speaker and Mitchell tried his best to communicate, but nothing was working out. We then called the car rental man and he eventually brought us a key after we have been stuck in this garage for around 20 minutes. Finally, we were able to leave the garage. So, we haven’t left the Bonn/Köln area, and so many things have gone bad. We drive and  pick up Ibk and Nicky and make our way to Triberg. About 15 minutes into the drive, Kate says, “I can’t accelerate past 25 km/h.” Yay. Another. Freaking. Problem. Whoop. De. Freaking. Do. We then scrounge around looking at manuals and smashing random buttons until after 5 minutes of trying, we solved the problem. Now, after what seemed like an eternity, we made our way to Triberg.
 
The drive was fun, with fun people. We jammed, and I mean we were straight rocking out. Old school jams blaring through the speakers and all of us belting out all the words we know and even the words we didn’t know. We sang the entire time all the way down to Triberg. Then we ended up at our Airbnb and fond some “dinner” (it was already almost 23:00) and went to bed.

“Bro, wake up! Look!” Those are the first words I heard, so naturally I responded with, “Shut up Mitchell!” However, his excitement was fair, because during the night, it snowed. And snowed a lot. So much that cars were barely able to make it through the streets. Lucky for us though, we were going to take a bus to our hike. Lucky. Us, lucky? Not quite... We go to the bus and we hop on and we get on our merry way. We then see a Benz stuck in the street due to the snow. He was blocking our way, so we all got out and helped push his car out and we all got on our ways. The next vehicle that we saw stuck unfortunately wasn’t a car. It was a bus. Stuck on a street that couldn’t fit both buses. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Until our bus driver and the other bus driver could get him unstuck, So yeah, we are really lucky. Fast forward to when we get to our destination, which was also a train ride away. We get to our hike and start up it, and keep in mind, the whole time it has been snowing. We are trekking up snow and we are walking around and it is beautiful. Snow everywhere, it seems like a dream. We explored around, and we slide down some sketchy rocks, and built forts, and had a snowball fight. Basically, we did everything that we wanted to do in the snow, which it was awesome. Oh, and Kate also failed at jumping over a log, not once, not twice, but three times. It was absolutely hilarious. We wrapped our hiking day up with really good pasta and headed back to the Airbnb where we played cards and drank mimosas.
 
The next day under the guidance of Mitchell, we planned on going cross country skiing. We drove though some quaint towns and eventually got to a suitable place. We got out, and waited in line for our skis. And waited some more. And then did some more waiting. And a century later, we got our skis! Now, take this into consideration. Only Mitchells skis regularly. We don’t. So naturally, we fell. And fall we did. A lot. But it was still enjoyable, as we glided, or for me, skidded, across the snow, I gained a new appreciation for this sport. It was hard, but seeing things this way is a lot more visually appealing than downhill skiing. We could stop and take pictures, which we did, along the way. After a bit of skiing we turned around and called it for the day. We returned the skis, packed up, and headed back to Bonn. We got back late, and returned the car, took the “free” airport bus back to Bonn and finished our weekends blissfully asleep in our own beds. It was a weekend full of unfortunate events, but everything worked out okay, which was fantastic. Bless up.

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