Holy smokes, time seems to be flying by faster and faster as the year goes on. Since my last blog post I’ve visited over a dozen German cities and made lots of progress with my internship at the Red Cross. I’ll do my best to fill you in…
At the end of February I completed my EMT training with a ‘1’ (an A in American terms) The test consisted of a written section, a few oral/practical questions, and a hypothetical 112 (911 in America) call, where a partner and I responded to a patient with a heart attack. I really enjoyed this course at the GSG Rettungsdienstschule Hanau and, in case anyone there is reading this, I’d like to thank them for their hospitality and everything I learned from the course. After the test I started interning at the local hospital’s emergency room. I really enjoyed learning how an ER works and how nurses and doctors work together to treat patients, but my experience there wasn’t the absolute greatest. The person assigned to give me an orientation was always either too busy or not there at all so it took a lot of time to figure out my role there; in the first week lots of my time was spent shadowing doctors or doing little jobs as opposed to contributing to the hospital’s effort to care for patients, like I managed to do during the second week of the internship. After the ER internship I moved back to the Red Cross and since then it’s been nothing but fantastic. I really enjoy the role of an EMT assistant more than that of an ER assistant. Whether it’s a busy or a calm day, the time seems to fly by and my shift partners are great and teach me tons every day. I often work day-night-free-free shift, meaning I work from 7am to 7pm one day, 7pm to 7am the next, then I have two days off and the cycle repeats. The staff at the Red Cross is really fun to be around and I’m really glad that I’ll be spending the rest of my time in Germany interning for them.
As a Christmas gift from my host family we all got tickets to see the Lion King musical in Hamburg. The morning of Saturday, March 20th we took the bullet train to Hamburg and spent the day getting to know the city. That night I went to Birdland jazz club and saw the Vana Gierig trio from New York. The next morning we visted the fish market then took the ferry to the theater and saw the show, which it was out of this world. Growing up with the Disney movie, I knew the story and all the songs and I was blown away with the quality of the acting, staging, and music (even though it was in German—remarkably well translated) The weekend was a great one; I got to spend quality time with my host family while seeing a cool city and experiencing a Broadway-quality musical.
My pal Chris, a fellow participant in the CBYX exhange, was translating for an American saxophone mouthpiece company at the Frankfurt International Music Fair so I visited him and checked out the hundreds of companies and thousands of instruments and products. I actually left my trumpet mouthpiece on a trumpet but I remembered where I left it and Chris was able to get it the next day. Thanks Chris!
Easter weekend was really nice with my host family. On Saturday Grandma Liane visited from Oberfranken and my sisters and I took her to Frankfurt to see the city and do some shopping. Easter Sunday was church, relaxing and eating. On Easter Monday we visited Grandma Anna in Frankfurt for brunch.
A few days later I rode my bike to Offenbach (20 km away) to see the Body Worlds exhibit. It was really amazing and informative; there were full body as well as organ plastinates with lots of information about the human body and how one should take care of it. The coolest thing, however, was an enormous wall with about 100 thin transversal slices of the human body from head to toe. After my EMT course I was able to identify many organs and see their relative position to one another in the cross-sections. Very cool, in my opinion.
And now, the highlight of the year and what many of you are eager to hear about—my family’s visit from the US!
On Sunday the 10th my parents and brothers arrived at Frankfurt airport. When I was there at the gate to meet them, Jack waved from a long way down the hall but I didn’t even recognize him; he’s grown almost a foot since I left! It was a really special moment, having my whole family there again to hug and catch up with. We didn’t want to waste any time so that very day we checked off Frankfurt from our list of places to see. We saw the Römer city square, the Kleinmarkthalle, and a view of the skyine from atop the Zeilgallerie. Then we went over to the Sachsenhausen side of the Main River and got lunch at a traditional applewine cellar called Gemahltes Haus. We had applewine, „Ebbelwoi“ as it’s known in the Frankfurter dialect, with traditional Hessisch foods; Sauerkraut, Grune Sosse, Frankfurter sausages, and tongue :P
The next day my hostfamily and real family visited a local castle and then they all came to see my performance in a community production of „Fiddler on the Roof“ in which I play the trumpet.
Then on Monday we hit the road and made our way to Dresden, the „Venice on the Elbe“. Dresden is an absolutely gorgeous city and, although many of its historical buildings were destroyed in World War II, the black sandstone architecture is something that takes your breath away. On Monday we explored the Old Town and experienced a prayer service with organ at the Church of Our Lady. The next morning Sam and I climbed to the top of the Church and then we all rented bikes and took the bike path along the Elbe river to the Pilnitz Palace. The weather was great and we had an awesome time.
The next stop was Berlin, where we spent just two days; needless to say we had to fit a lot into a short time but we covered the must-sees. We saw the Memorial Church, the Bundestag Building, Brandenburg Gate, Jewish Holocaust Memorial, German History Museum, DDR Museum, the Alexanderplatz TV tower, and the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp. We then drove all the way up to Odense, Denmark for my Dad to visit a business partner.
My mom and brothers and I slept in during my dad’s meeting and visited the home and museum of Hans Christian Andersen, author of many fairytales and poems including the Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, and the Little Mermaid. After jumping through hoops to get some ice cream (Denmark’s currency is Krones instead of Euros) we drove to Hamburg for a fish dinner and a quick walk along the harbor.
Then we drove to Cologne to spend the night and see the cathedral in the morning.The rest of that day was spent on the Mosel River in a tiny town called Beilstein. The Mosel is a beautiful, winding river that is known for its vineyards and castles. We explored the Roman ruins, visited the Burg Eltz castle, went to Church, and enjoyed a stroll through the tiny town before driving back to Frankfurt. We met my hostfamily at the soccer stadium in Frankfurt to see the Frankurt vs. Berlin game together. I picked out this game because Berlin is the absolute worst team in the league and I thought it was a sure W (or S in German terms) for Frankfurt. I was mistaken; Frankfurt played sloppy and tied Berlin 2:2 but we still enjoyed experiencing the European soccer game atmosphere.
The day after the game we drove to the Rhein for a day trip on the river. We started in Bacharach and explored the city until the ferry came to take us to St. Goar. The ride lasted about an hour we got to see the Loreley as well as all sorts of castles beautiful landscapes along the way. We got a drink at a café in St. Goar and ferried back to Bacharach where my brothers and I had an awesome time climbing the cliffs and walls at the Stahleck castle.
On Tuesday we drove down to southern Bavaria, stopping at Rothenburg on the way for a picnic. Our destination was the youth hostel at the foot of the alps in Schliersee, where we stayed with Herr Pfefferle during our class trip in 2007; thanks for the idea, Herr! After arriving in Schliersee, we spent a morning doing a long hike in the alps along a river with beautiful waterfalls. That afternoon we took a train to Munich to see Marienplatz, Petersplatz, and the Frauenkirche, followed by dinner at the Hofbräuhaus. After dinner we got back to the central station (in under 15 minutes, thank you very much) and watched FC Bayern Munich beat Lyon in the Champions league semis. The next day was filled with visiting the Wieskirche, a summer bob track, the Neuschwanstein castle, and a monastery brewery town called Ettal.
The next day we checked out of our youth hostel and spent another morning hiking and climbing in the alps. My little brother Jack and I actually climbed into a waterfall. I’m shivering thinking back on it; the cold and pressure of the water literally took our breath away. After we changed out of our wet clothes we drove back to the Frankfurt area, stopping at Nuremburg for a picnic.
The next day was my family’s last day in Germany and we spent the day packing and relaxing before the Harmonic Brass concert in my town. Harmonic Brass is an internationally renowned professional brass quintet from Munich with not only an amazing repertoire but also a remarkable live performance style, with insightful moderation and hilarious jokes between songs in multiple languages. The members of Harmonic Brass are friends with the director of the orchestra I have been playing with since I got here, so after the intermission our band played two song with Harmonic Brass with a little solo from yours truly. The concert was phantasmagorical (that’s what the German-English dictionary gave me for the word I was looking for :P ) They played basically all my favorite songs (Tocatta & Fugue, Carnival of Venice, etc) and the fact that I got to play with them really made it special. After the concert Harmonic Brass, our community band, and my family and I met at our band’s house and ate and partied. The members of Harmonic Brass are real cool guys; they’ve been all over the world and they have awesome stories about their experiences. Partying with a world-class band after a once-in-a-lifetime concert; what a great way to send off the family after a trip we’ll never forget, am I right? The next morning I took my family to the airport and we bid one another a sad farewell. Luckily it’s only a few weeks until we’ll see each other again.
This past weekend I visited my good buddy Jake in the Freiburg area to celebrate the first of May. May 1st is practically Labor Day but celebrated very big because of Germany’s history and value in the worker. After a grillout on Friday night we woke up early to start our bike tour to Ottenheim where everyone in the area meets to party on the lakeshore. We rode our bikes with a trailer full of food, drink, and music blasting, stopping where we please for a dance & drink. The ride there was, in itself, awesome but the party at the lake was really something. Thousands of people were there to simply celebrate the day.
Jake, some of his buddies, and I ended up swimming in the lake even though it was still really cold and cloudy. We had an awesome time until it started raining, at which point we went to a buddy’s house for a while before heading home for dinner. After dinner we went to a club in Lahr from midnight to 6am, then Jake and I walked home. We got home shortly before 8 so we figured we’d stay up and go to bed early. Ummmm not so much. After this period of almost 20 hours of partying we were falling asleep spontaneously, so we ended up taking a nap before riding our bikes around his village. We played mini-golf (I won in a tiebreaker) and explored the church. We got a backstage pass to this really neat church in this town; underneath it are ruins of the church and monastery that Napoleon’s army destroyed and we climbed to the tippy top of its steeple, a journey that led us up rickety wooden ladders in dark lofts. After that we wanted to see Freiburg but it rained again so we headed home and watched some movies. Awesome weekend. Period. I left this morning and have more or less been writing this update ever since!
By the way, I've finally decided on a college... I'll be going to Marquette University this fall, participating in the Burke and Honors programs. I'm definitely looking forward to it!
Thanks for reading, everyone. Sorry again about the huge spans of time between posts, hopefully you enjoy reading them as much as I like writing them. If you would like to receive updates (or stop receiving updates) about new posts please let me know at ryannot9691@aol.com Lots of photos from my adventures are on my facebook profile, so feel free to find me and add me if you haven’t already. I’m off to Berlin for a seminar with my host parents to visit my German Parliamentarian representative so I’m going to go pack and get some shut-eye. Take care everyone!
