Weekend Wrap-Up (MLK 4-Day) - (Germany) Days 387 - 390

The front of the Cologne Cathedral

Friday: My wife had to work today, so I took her to her office and dropped her off. I stayed home and took a nap first and foremost. I then basically just hung out watching TV and doing a little schoolwork until I could go pick her up from work. We spent the evening going to the theatre on post and watched "Gangster Squad", which was just up my alley…lots of action and violence.

Saturday: In an effort to get out and about again, we decided to take a road trip to Köln (Cologne) Germany. We have heard from others that they enjoyed this city and we have yet to visit. The drive is a little over two hours and for whatever reason it seemed that I had to go pee the entire time! I went before we took off, then we also made a pit stop at a rest area along the autobahn. The rules at these rest areas are quite a bit different than ones back in the states. A bus was unloading as we pulled in and what seemed like the entire busload of guys was lined up outside and relieving themselves. There was a line of guys making yellow snow! This is just something you wouldn't see in the states, but things are different here. They did have bathrooms, but it seemed nobody wanted to wait and nobody really cared if they just had to go pee. It wasn't just the guys in the bus either, cars were pulling up and people were getting out and going pee in the snow. One of the other things you have to get used to about relieving yourself in Europe is the fact that a lot of the bathrooms cost money to use. It can be as little as 20 cents to a Euro.

We finally made it to the city and found a parking garage in the city center next to the main cathedral. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we headed to the church to check it out. The building itself was pretty impressive, with two large towers looming high above the rest of the neighboring buildings. There were statues around the entrance and once inside we were amazed at how huge the place was…and also how cold it was inside. I could still see my breath as we were walking around. There was a worker making sure everyone took off their hats once inside. We took our time admiring the various sculptures and stained glass, then headed off down a shopping street filled with a ton of people. We took a few breaks inside some various shops just to warm up a bit before moving on.

We then visited the National Socialism Documentation Center, this was the headquarters of the Gestapo in Köln and has now been turned into a Nazi museum. It was pretty interesting checking out all the pictures, but the most interesting part was the basement. This was used as a jail by the Nazis and is still very well preserved. There are a lot of inscriptions from various prisoners. A chilling reminder of what life was like for the unfortunate that had to spend time there.

With the weather being so cold and my wife not feeling a 100% we decided to call it a day, but we do have plans to come back and see some more of the town.

Sunday: Today we pretty much just chilled together, we did a little cleaning and a little laundry…typical Sunday stuff. We then headed over to our CAM's house and met up with my boss and another NCO from the maintenance side of the ComSec office. We had a bunch of food and drink while we watched the NFL conference championship games. It was nice to see everyone again and just hang out and have some fun together. My boss told me that I will be going to Wiesbaden after Heidelberg. This is good news, but I can't pin all my hopes on it until I actually see some orders. Things change so much, it's hard to plan too early for anything.

Monday: A pretty laid back day. I was going to meet up with a high school acquaintance that lives here in Heidelberg, but the snow caused some problems with the train schedule and he was unable to make it. So instead my wife and I just hung out together all day…we didn't do a whole lot except TV and some schoolwork.

I've been thinking quite a bit today about my future in the army and here in Germany. I'm hoping that Wiesbaden will turn out to be a lot better than my time in the army here in Heidelberg. There are still a ton of places that I want to visit while I'm here in Europe. I would also like to have a good experience with a job in the army, I would like to learn something new, I would like to feel that I'm advancing in my career field. I also want to finish school while I'm here in Germany using tuition assistance. It seems that tuition assistance is always in a position to be cut when budget talks are going on. I have 7 more classes to complete in order to get my degree. The downfall is that I do have health issues that I'm dealing with. I know I could just deal with the pain and go on, but I don't want to end up even more injured once I get out of the army in a couple years. I guess I'll just take it one step at a time as I have been…but the sound of moving to Wiesbaden makes me feel a little optimistic.

Photos from our day trip to Cologne in the slideshow below:
Edit: Flickr ended up deleting the slide show I made, so I grabbed this one:

  The Nazi basement jail cells

Adventures with the UMT - (Germany) Day 360

Inside the Church of the Holy Ghost

This morning I met up with the chaplain before his formation at 0750 in civilian clothes. Yup…you heard that right…civilian clothes! Today we are having an event called "Adventures with the UMT" (Unit Ministry Team). It's basically a way to get out of the office and hang out with the chaplain and do something different. It's a great way to see people outside of work, in a different light and also meet their family as well.

There wasn't a lot of people who signed up, which I was surprised. In total there were 12 people, but it also made for a little more intimate setting. People could actually talk and get to know each other a little better. We walked from Campbell Barracks to a street train that took us into the heart of old town Heidelberg. From there we visited a statue of the bunson burner man (Robert Bunsen) who lived here in Heidelberg. We also talked about Heidelberg University (considered one of the best in all of Europe). We then headed to the church of the holy ghost. We had planned to climb up the bell tower and get some views of the city, but it was closed for some reason. Instead we stayed in the congregation area and listed to stories of daring escapes from communist east Berlin into west Berlin back when the wall was up. The theme of this event was personal courage.

We then all headed to a restaurant and ate lunch and then finally headed to the Christmas Market ice skating rink. Only three people participated in the ice skating, but that was fine…they had fun. On the way back to the street train we made a number of pitstops for folks to do a little shopping. I was able to talk quite a bit with a sergeant from our company who works in Mannheim. He had heard about the way I have been treated by the company and was pretty pissed. He has a lot of the same views I do and is upset by a lot of things here. It was good chatting with him and hearing his point of view on a variety of subjects.

We finally got back to Campbell Barracks at about 1600 and were released for the day by the chaplain. I headed home and hung out with my wife for a bit, then got a surprise call from our CAM saying we should all go out tonight. We ended up going to a karaoke bar downtown and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We had 3 other NCOs from the ComSec vault go and one NCO from S-1 show up. They all ended up buying me and my wife a lot of drinks. It was nice to hang out with everyone, we all ended up having a great time. We were responsible and caught a cab back to the base…after grabbing a bite to eat, and then turned in for the night. I can say for the first time in a while I actually enjoyed my entire day and just didn't feel numb while going through the motions throughout the day.

Weekend Wrap-Up - (Germany) Day 208 & 209

A view down the street of the Speyer Cathedral

Saturday: Today we decided to check out the city of Speyer. SPC Mac recommended it to me and after a little research we were ready to go. Speyer is about 40 minutes from our house via car. We headed out and once there found a parking lot downtown. We walked down the main pedestrian area of Maximilianstrasse. There were a number of vendors and of course some great architecture to look at. The street ends at the Speyer Cathedral, which we checked out. We then walked down to the other end of the street to find the Altportal (old gate) which is actually one of the tallest and most important town gates in Germany (according to the literature). What we liked was the ability to climb the stair to the top to get a great view of the city.

We then headed to the Technik Museum which is housed in a former aircraft hanger. It is full of everything from cars, trains, motorcycles, and of course planes. Outside of the hanger you can go inside the planes, helicopters, boats, and even a submarine. It's a great hands on museum, which the entire family enjoyed.

Inside the Technik Museum

Outside the Technik Museum

Sunday: Today we headed to the Ramstein air base to let the girls do a little shopping at their large PX. We then were finally able to watch "The Avengers". Even after being out for a while the theatre was packed. I'm glad we purchased tickets early and arrived early as well to make sure we got 5 seats together. Everyone enjoyed the flick and then we headed to a place called Big Emma's not too far from the base. It serves outlandishly large portioned dishes. My kids had hamburgers bigger than their heads. It was pretty funny to see the looks on their faces when they brought them out.

My daughter with a piece of her hamburger at Big Emma's

Weekend Wrap Up - (Germany) Days 145 & 146

Me and my wife in front of the Worms Cathedral

Saturday: Ahhh…so nice to sleep in! After waking up and getting ready at a leisurely pace, my wife and I headed off to the Rhein-Neckar Harley Davidson store. I needed to purchase a battery for my motorcycle because mine was totally dead. My bike has been in storage since basic training and found out the battery would not even take a charge. The store is about 20 to 25 minutes away in a town called Ludwigshafen. Once there I asked if the lady at the parts department spoke English and she said only a little. I was able to tell her what I needed in German and it all worked out. Luckily we also had an extra VAT form. This is a form US folks can use when buying something on the German economy and they take off the tax which is 19%…so with any big purchases it's really worth it. We ended up getting a couple t-shirts and headed off with a new battery. Now once I take the motorcycle safety course, I'll be able to ride my bike here in Germany.

By this time we were getting a little hungry and wanted to grab a bite to eat while we were out. We punched in what we thought was a place to eat in our GPS, but ended up in a town called Worms. It wasn't where we were expecting to be going, but we made the most of it. We parked the car downtown and headed to the city center. We ate at a bakery and then had some ice cream at one of the vendors. The town had a huge cathedral which we decided to explore. The cathedral was pretty cool. We walked around inside checking out the various sculptures and then around outside admiring the architecture of this ancient building. It's awesome to be able to just stumble upon something so grand.

We headed home and spent the night watching TV shows and relaxing.

Sunday: This morning we went to church for the first time here in Germany. One of my co-workers was having his son baptized. His wife is a local national, so the church was of course a German church. It was an interesting experience attending church in an entirely different language. I would catch about every 4th or 5th word, but that was about it. We watched the baptism and then we headed back to Patrick Henry Village for a barbecue that my co-worker was throwing. Most of our office showed up, as well as my co-worker's wife and her family. Good food…good people…good times.

After feeding our faces and visiting for a while we headed back home and video chatted with family for a bit before relaxing and watching some TV shows…..a good weekend.

You can check out more photos from our accidental trip to the city of Worms:

Created with flickr slideshow.