Cochem...

     Early Sunday morning, Avery and I left our sketchy Air BnB and headed out to Cochem where we landed an even sketchier Air BnB somehow. I am not exaggerating when I say this room resembled more of a closet with a double bed in it than it did a room. No kitchen, no closet, no furniture, just a bed in a closet of a room with no space to walk around and a shared bathroom on the first floor. This should’ve been my first clue of the day we were in for. Actually. The resemblance of Cochem to O-Chem should have been my first clue.

    Avery and I hiked across vineyards toward a castle at the top of a hill built around the year 1000. It was quite the hike but we made it fun by pretending to take siege of the castle! When we finally got to the top of the castle we came to realize tours were only given in German… but we had already hiked all the way up there so you best believe we paid that 10 euro entrance fee for a German tour. Afterwards we hiked back into town. That morning hike, the tour and the hike back brought us to about 3pm…. And we had not yet eaten. Keep in mind the original intent was to save our money and just eat a big meal for dinner and have that suffice us – boy was that a mistake. We decided to try and find some more resiling like we had at dinner the previous night. Keeping in mind that it is Sunday, and just about everything is closed on a Sunday, this proved to be increasingly difficult.

    After hiking up and down steep cobble stone hills that make up this town we finally found a small wine cellar that was open around 4:30 pm. We walked in… and were ignored. Everyone around was welcomed in and offered a table, and Avery and I were left standing there, as if we were invisible. It was a very odd experience. After some awkward amount of time had passed, Avery and I decided to seat ourselves so at least that way we weren’t just standing there. After an even more awkward amount of time had passed of being ignored and not served we finally got the server’s attention. It was then that we found they served no food, only wine, so, reluctantly we ordered two glasses of wine and got to talking. While we each only had one glass of wine each for very cheap, by the time we left we were really feeling it on account of not having eaten all day and already having walked 30,000+ steps. The hills were much easier to climb at this point ;). We needed food. So we found another place and ordered what the server with the nice Elmo shirt recommended for food and two glasses of a hot mulled wine (our favorite). The wine was incredible… the food on the other hand…. Avery and I were presented with what practically looked like two slices of bread that you would feed to a duck, one babybel cheese wheel and a slim jim… to share. By the time we left it was nearly 8pm and we were done bad. We really really needed food. We walked around endlessly trying to find a place that was 1) open and 2) had an available table (everywhere was booked out for the night). Jokingly, but also in a very real way, we strongly considered using the vending machines we kept passing as dinner for the night.

    It wasn’t until close to 9pm that we stumbled into a pizza place that was open – thank goodness! I got risotto, another glass of wine and some water and Avery had the same but with a pizza. When the bill came, I was charged 7 euros for my water!!!! That was when I vowed it would be the last time I paid for water while in Europe. I would rather be dehydrated than charged that much for water. So much for saving money.

    On the way back to our closet of an Air BnB Avery and I were walking along when we heard a commotion in front of us. Rather than being smart girls with common sense and approaching cautiously we squinted our eyes and leaned forward as we continued to approach. There was a loud bang and bright lights and a series of explosions. And yet, we both kept walking towards this commotion before both of us simultaneously came to our senses and took cover behind the closest wall. Avery looked at me and went “oh my god are we getting shot at!?”. While we knew we weren’t, or at least hoped we weren’t, it certainly made coming out from behind our wall a little daunting as we continued our walk back to the closet Air BnB.