Nights 3 & 4: Bad Neuenahr

From Köln I traveled just under an hour south to the old spa town of Bad Neuenahr. It was at one time a very popular resort area due to its thermal springs, but the interest and most of the tourists have now gone elsewhere. It also has a casino and one of the most expensive secret bunkers in the history of the Germany military which was supposed to house the government members from Bonn in case of a Russian atomic attack. It was never used.


I was met at the little train station by the mother of my next host family, Susanne, and her youngest son of three, Claudius, who just turned three last week. He charmed me immediately with his sweet cheeks and adorable German child voice and waving to the train as it went away. We drove for only a couple minutes through the town and up up up a hill or two to their big, beautiful house where I met her husband and two other sons, ages 7 and 8. I was also immediately charmed by the 7 year old, who appeared at the top of the stairs dressed as Robin Hood/a hunter in the full green lederhosen outfit complete with velvety cape and hat. It was amazing. As it turns out, her husband, Dominik, is also a professional photographer. There were beautiful child and family photos all over the house.

My bed was in their pretty empty living room that Dominik uses for photo shoots. It was very clean and spacious and had a beautiful view overlooking the village (see top photo). There was a very nice welcome note around a bottle of the town's special mineral water on the bedside table and my towels were folded elegantly around a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg. It was too cute.

My enchantment with the adorable German children was over by lunch, that is to say, maybe 20 minutes after my arrival. Screaming and hitting each other and grabbing and being generally loud and terrible. This continued throughout my visit and Susanne and Dominik were shocked and said they'd never seen them behave this way. They're wonderful parents, so I don't doubt them. I guess I just came at the wrong time.

That afternoon Susanne took me on a lovely walk through their town and along the roaring Ahr River to a medieval sister town not far away. I got to drink the mineral water right out of their thermal spring. Apparently it's very high in iron. I still don't know if it had anything to do with the terrible nosebleed that fell upon me shortly afterward.

I was also a bit tickled to walk down the street and see this sign for a fancy schmancy restaurant. Part of me really wanted to go in and ask for a family discount, but I don't think it would have worked out. I guess there are lots of Metzlers in this part of the world.



Dominik's father owns a bakery in one of these old, old houses. We got to go in and choose whatever delicious things we wanted to eat and drink and had a nice hot chocolate party in the apartment over the shop. Then we poked around a little more, including inside one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen.

It was dark inside and thus hard to capture in a photograph. The acoustics were incredible and I was surprised when Susanne, a music teacher, asked me to sing something. I always want to sing in big beautiful churches, but never do, so was happy to have been given permission. I sang part of the Exsultet, then she sang something, then we sang Dona Nobis Pacem and Amazing Grace together. We were both a little surprised to hear a man's voice join in with us on the latter, someone else visiting the church at the same time. It made me happy.


The next morning I got up suuuper early and went into school with Susanne to observe her music classes. I was also able to sit in on a French class taught by one of her friends. It was an 8th grade French class and I was very impressed by how well they already spoke. (SEE, AMERICA? SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TEACH FOREIGN LANGUAGES BEFORE HIGH SCHOOL? No more bad reputation when it comes to knowing other languages!) The younger kids were pretty awed to be in the same room with a real live American, which was amusing. And look, the German method of raising hands is actually raising a finger.

That afternoon I went on a great little hike with Robin Hood, who is actually named Julius, up to a tower on top of a huge huge hill in the forest to have a look around. He was particularly cute because he recently lost both his front teeth, tho he sthpoke in high child voith with a little lithp. He was also a whistler, so we whistled a lot back and forth to each other.





The tower was still decked out in its Christmas outfit. The view from the top was amazing. I could even see the tiny little cathedral in Köln, wayyy way off in the distance.

That evening after the kids were finally in bed, Susanne asked me if I'd like to sing some more songs with her. She whipped out a song book she'd put together years ago which had many songs I knew. It felt both good and strange to be singing Peter, Paul, & Mary and Simon & Garfunkel tunes late at night in this strange home with a woman I'd only just met. But wonderful. Then I showed her pictures of my home and played her some of the songs that mom and I had recorded and we talked about life. She really opened up to me, which made me feel special. Maybe she just needed some female company after being cooped up in a house full of males for so many years.

The next morning, I wandered around the town a little more before Susanne kindly saw me off at the train station. I then decided to take advantage of my free day of travel on my German Rail Pass and spent a couple hours wandering around the over 2000 year old town of Koblenz on my almost 5-hour journey from Bad Neuenahr to Tübingen. I'd remembered reading neat things about it in one of my Germany guidebooks while planning out my trip and was a little disappointed when it wasn't as amazing as I'd imagined it to have been. Maybe it was the fact that it rained on my the whole time. Maybe it was the overly chintzy way they'd touristed up the old buildings. Maybe it was all the construction. Maybe it was the somewhat bloody, mostly dead body being pulled out of a house on a stretcher in front of me all of a sudden as I walked down the sidewalk. Who knows.

However, they did have some really amazing churches. I went and sat in several of them on my self-guided tour and was particularly pleased when there was an organ lesson being taught in one.

I was a little weirded out by something in the scene below. See if you can find it.

There was a giiiiant statue/monument of Kaiser Wilhelm I (on a horse, of course) at what's called the "Deutsches Eck," which is where the Rhine river meets the Moselle. It was so giant that you could climb the steps up and walk around underneath him to have a look around outside.

I was very surprised while walking amongst these flags further to the left to look up and see the stars and stripes of my homeland waving somewhat timidly in front of this old German city. It felt very strange and looked even stranger.


One cool thing that did happen was that two cute old ladies asked me for directions to the central station about 20 minutes after my arrival in the town and I was able to direct them there like a native. Bwahaha.

But anyway, I was happy to get back on the train and travel south. The stretch along the Rhine between Koblenz and Mainz was incredibly, incredibly gorgeous and fairytale-esque. Little church-centered villages popped up every now and then, backed by huge hills and cliffs covered in vineyards. The best part was that almost every town, no matter the size, all had some sort of castle or fortress perched on it's highest peak. Little old towers like the one in this picture, remains of old city walls, or huge famous castles perched on cliffs or even on their own islands in the middle of the river that I clearly recognized from my guidebooks. I wish I'd taken pictures earlier, but my camera was packed up and I was tired and sitting in a crowded compartment with a dirty window and rain to fight through.

I also had a short pause in Stuttgart as I had to transfer there to get to Tübingen, during which I peeked out the various exits from the station to see if there was anything exciting. More rain and shopping district. I arrived in Tübingen an hour later and found my way to my next hosts' apartment without difficulty. Now sleep.