Day 230-234 : ONION FEST O8! GERMANY

WARNING THIS IS A LONG ENTRY.



Link to Part 2 of pictures taken by Kat's camera!

Day 1- DIE WARTBURG DIE
Frank took 3 days off from work. He can do that, he's freelance. And I had a feeling Frak was misreading the train tickets. He kept going, "It's ok, the train leaves around 10ish or so" Deep down in my gut I knew something was wrong. I checked, the trian leaves at 7am! So we got up around 6, too the tram to the station, got on the train and took off. We arrived in Frankfurt at 10. So Frank had the right number just wrong time. [Did that make sense?]
Switched trains and got off at Eisenach. Which is about 2 stops early from the closer train station by our friends house. They met up with us there so we could explore a Castle Wartburg. Our friend Kat has been there about 3-5 times I'd say it's the equivalant to Frank taking people to Bruge or the Atonium. Kat describes it best as, "The classic Castle" What do you want from a castle? It's got it! It's actually the more famous of castle, as I like to think, cause it was where Luther himself hid out and stayed undercover. [Bear with me, even though I went there, I'm still horrible with history] It's where Luther translated the Bible and faught the Devil! At least my favorite story walking away from that place is that he was fighting with the devil so he threw his ink well at the Devil and it splattered across the wall leaving a stain. So Tourist can come up to it, and slowly chip away at it and keep it. That part is now roped off and kids have carved their names and gang signs into the wooded walls. So disresepctful.
And a funny story is, the tour guide picked up that we didn't speak German. So he handed us very informative 3-fold panflets on the place. There was an older german couple going "I want a panflet" and the tour guide is going, "you don't get one, you speak German" and they still insisted on having a panflet. Even though they don't read English, they still wanted one. It was like, "how come those people over there get something for free?"
And a warning from Kat and Stefan is that people stair in Germany. That's just what they do. So we did get a lot of stairs. Just for the fact we were walking down the street speaking fluent English, all the way down to, "Hey they got sandwhiches in their bag, I want a sandwhich, What else do they got?" For some reason on the train ride home, as we were showing and sharing our goodies we gave to Kat and Stefan, the people around us practically stuck their head in our section of our seats to see what we had. Very weird, but that's just what they do over there.
So the castle, and then train ride back to the house, followed by beer and diner and pre-onion fest. Just to get a taste of what Weimar is like before the heavy crouds came. And it was really quite. Really nice, but the moment Friday and the weekend hit, it was so crouded.
Day 2,3,4- Zwiebel Mart or Onion Fest [and I was slightly sick the whole time]
We basically walked around and had lots of beer and lots of food and just enjoyed ourselves. We slept in for most of the time. But saturday was the day we got up around 5 to go to the opening ceramony of Onion Fest which is at the center to see the Onion Queen! Something like the Onion Princess is from the closest town which is where most of the onions come from, and the Onion Queen is head of the festival. Silly, but it was fun, the mayor was there and my friend and I walked around with onion necklaces and I tried all this German beer and had Brotworst all the time. It was a lot of fun, but it was more fun just seeing friends.
Most of the nights we went to a local, very close bar called The Falcon, something translated its, Toast to the Falcon. Frank had fun drawing on the walls. They had a crappy pool table. And I got to play Terminator Pinball...classic. And we found ourselves saying "PROST!"[Cheers] Very chill bar and Stefan knows the bar tenders every now and then. So It was a nice way to end the day.
Somehow, due to all this German food, but I blame the saurkraut. We had horrible farts! Like...HORIBLE..farts to the point where we just left the window open. Kat also made chilli, but I don't believe that was the reason we had bad farts, I think it was the sourkraut.
And at the end, due to my sniffing and sneezing and coughing, I know I managed to get Kat sick. Totally unintentional. Totally.
For suvineers Frank walked away with a pelt, which is really warm and soft. And a drinking horn from some African beast. And what was cool, cause we spent a lot of time in the mid-evil section of the fair. We had a leather maker personally make Frank a horn holder for his drinking horn. So it's cool, Frnak can either wear it with the strap over his shoulder or attatch it to his belt. It's pretty bad ass.
There was a lot of good music too. but also we were slightly disappointed. Cause I think in America, when there is a band playing, most of the time it's their own music. But there were a lot of cover bands. And we were soooooo pumped for this one band called THOR. Come on, a name like that, and their description is METAL, ROCK...no...they cover. They started off with Rammstein, which was REALLY GOOD, the guys German just was on the mark. But then it got really pop-musicy, and not Rammstein, not metal, not rock. So we lost intrest. And there was a really good Jazz/blues band. But all their stuff was covered too. But with Jazz and blues, you can cover a song and it'll be different, so I give these guys credit. Playing songs you knew, but still with their own stlye.

Day 5- Water Park!
Somehow, due to kat's amazing abilities. We were able to go to a indoors water park before our train took off. And go shopping! I bought a flat iron, cause for some reason it was cheaper in Germany and they have the same power outlets. We went to the local mall, then drove over to the indoor water park. Which is was 50+ day, so there were a lot of older people, who don't care if they are naked in the showers. I mean. I'm just not used to it, and I don't mind it, but it's still a shock to see other naked women. Other, older...much older, and don't care, naked women. But it was fun. Frnak made the biggest splash coming down all the sllides. They had a lazy river. And some tube tunnels, and a fast tunnele, and a in-the-dark tunnel. It was great and a lot of fun. And I have the worst baiting suit for water parks...my top came off the first go round. Slightly embarassing, but hey, I'm surrounded by old people.
It was a cool set up, you get a coin, that goes into the key, for your locker, then you change, shower, swim, and vis-versa. But it was a cool layout how they did it. And after the water park, we squeezed in McD's and hopped on the train and Frank slept the first train ride. I also taught him how to play Spit. So that occupided most of our train ride. I think in total it's about 6-7 hours by train and transfering to go to and from Brussels to Weimar. Not bad. The trains hit 230 or more kph? Not what we go by mph, the other stuff.
It was very nice of our friends to put us up for the week. We stayed in the guest bedroom of their apartment, which actually is the top half of Stefan's parents. In Germany the houses are big, but tend to be split between 2-4 families. And I'm so proud of our friend Kat who's German has gotten better. She can now watch German tv. That's a lot more then what Frank and I can do in Belgium.
Oh, I'm sure you'll see in the pictures somewhere. But if you can imagine the smallest suitcase that has wheels that you use as a carry on an airplane, that is the suitcase Frank chose to pack with for Germany, but not just his stuff, my stuff, and the wii. And seperately I carried the sandwhiches and Belgium beer and chocolates we gave to our friends. But...just...Oh come on! I don't understand why he gives himself these challenges. Somehow he fit all our cloths, for 5 days, and the wii, into one tiny suitcase. It's just amazing some of the things he does.