Home is Where my Feet Stand: May 2009

So I went to Germany the other day. My mom and I went mostly just to visit our family friends, the Kitchens, and to sight see. However, it turns out I ended up learning many things in addition to my beginning goals. Some of these new findings were actually quite shocking. The first thing to hit me occurred as soon as our plane landed in the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. I looked out of the airplane window in hopes of seeing a real live German on German soil. To my great surprise, the first German I laid eyes on looked like a normal human being; maybe even an American! I really don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a lederhosen wearing man with a beer mug in one hand and a large bratwurst in the other would have been closer to my expectations. I just don't even know. And then, as that wasn't a big enough shock, when we walked into the airport and I heard a German baby crying. Guess what!! It sounded just like an American baby. Don't tell me that THAT wasn't unexpected! The next thing I learned is that Europeans are generally not a very friendly bunch. This was a continuous learning process that began at the Frankfurt airport when I ran over a large German man's foot with my little rolling suitcase. As I looked up at him to apologize, all apologies were lost in my throat as I saw his great stature and the angry look upon his face.

Soooo, after finally leaving the Frankfurt airport, many great adventures occurred. The Kitchens accompanied my mom and I to see many a castle and other lovely things. My favorite castle was most definitely Neuschwanstein, otherwise known as the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang castle!! Yay!!!What a weird and creepy, but somehow great, movie.

Let's see... the next great learning experience occurred when I lived the hobo life for a night. The hobo story begins with my mother and Richard and Stephenie Kitchen forcing the group to go to the concentration camp in Dachau. (This was done against my advice.) We soon found that we had missed our train which put us behind to miss our next train. After taking a later train, we arrived at the bus station around 12:30 AM to find that the next train to our ultimate destination would leave at 9:00 AM. So we all settled down on some dirty stairs for the night. I awoke around 2:00 AM to find a towel and a strange sweatshirt wrapped around me as well as to find Jared Kitchen curled up under a sign, just sleeping away, like an old hobo pro. It was also at this time that Kristen Kitchen spotted our neighbor,the Asian hobo, clipping his toenails on a near by bench. Eeeeee. It was quite the experience.

Also during the journey, I found that the first German I saw was definitely an exception to the German population. I learned that Germans LOVE mullets, dreadlocks, and European man pants (please see photos below). They also have a very distinct smell that is suspiciously similar to body odor. Hmmm..

In conclusion, the German trip was an overall success. My favorite part was probably most likely definitely the food. The icecream contained more flavor than all icecream that I have devoured in the past year of my life and the crepes that were filled with nutella were most excellent. I learned that Salami on little bread loaves is just scrumdidliumpcious and, my most favorite thing of all, was called a Doener Kebap and it is a type of bread (kind of like pita, but good) containing lamb meat, mozzerella, tomatoes, and other delicacies. Anyways, that is all I wish to say about that.Until next time...