Germany or Bust

Let's see, how much do I love my boyfriend?

So much that I spent over 12 hours traveling across Germany to see him with 25 members of his family.  

Vince invited me to come visit him in Germany for the weekend for his father's 50th birthday.  Only days before did I find out that this would be a test of sorts to see if his family approved of me.  Most of this approval came in the form of a test of my alcohol tolerance.

I spent over 10 hours riding the ICE (InterCity Express) from Paris to Frankfurt to Dresden.  In Frankfurt, I discovered that my limited knowledge of German is well, very limited.  Little did I know, the words I know in German (including gift, Christmas, love, like, lame, bossy, and all the curse words) is not practical...AT ALL.  So there I am, about 7 minutes to switch trains, and I don't know how to say train in German!  So I keep saying Vo ist mein TRAIN (Note: in German train is not train) to this man and he's looking at me like I am crazy.  Finally I say I speak english and french and he speaks in French to me.  And he's like you better run it's 14 tracks away.  I finally get there and as soon as I am on the train pulls off the tracks and I'm on the way to Dresden.

About 7 hours pass and it's 4:00 and I am in Dresden.  Vince and his sister, Josie, pick me up from the train station and we take an hour drive into the countryside of Germany to a little village called Sayda, where his family has rented a King's old hunting lodge to house the party.  

I absolutely loved the party, the food was wonderful.  

I tried a couple of different German foods (including schnitzel and weiners)  and everything was wonderful.  And they made me a barmaid... well not made, but all the children (Vince and me included) were responsible for tending bar.  The only problem was that every time I tried to get some dunkel out, in came out all foam, what we call the head and Germans call the blumen (flower).   There was like a whole little comedy performance in honor of Wolfgang (Vince's dad) then he also did a bit of a speech.  For the most part, the party was just being in each other's presence and drinking a lot.  It was really fun and his family and I really got along.  Around 2 or 3, I think we eventually called it a night, we were the last ones up with Vince's cousin Pierre.

The next day we went for a lovely hike for about an hour and a half with 10 people.  It was nice to view the countryside.  Breathtakingly beautiful and it felt very untouched almost like the woods of Little Red Riding Hood.  

We left the Forsthaus around 3 and by then of my less than 24 hours with the Buerger family, I had been invited to Leipzig to stay with Vince's grandparents, to Munich for Oktoberfest to stay with Vince's family friends (Susan and Ralf), to Hamburg to visit his cousin Romy, and to somewhere where his cousin Pierre lives.  His family was very kind to me and I really appreciate it.

Sunday was spent either asleep in the car or wandering around the lovely village of Erlangen, where Vince is currently in Grad School (an Elite Program).  After almost 2 years of dating, I consider Vince and I quite lucky to have found eachother.  We both really know the other person and despite our distance neither of us wants to be with anyone else.  For the most part, I think an understanding exists between the two of us that we should do what's best for ourselves and then the relationship.  Luckily, nothing we've done has really effected the relationship.

Eventually I left Erlangen and my weekend with Vince.  Stupidly, I thought my plane left at 9:30 and discovered at 8:30 when I arrived at the airport that it was leaving at 9:05.  Dumb luck, I made it on the plane and home to Paris....

MOre pictures to come...