Weekend Train Trips = Good Times

(by Peter Hoskin)

I guess I will just keep going. Brendan has a lack of internet access, and Jae is coming.. I think. 

We are now four work weeks into the term and I can say that I’m starting to get used to it. Work is good, I have some real tasks to do now and not just “Here, read about this.” But work isn't too exciting, so I'll tell about my weekends.

The weekend of January 18^th, Brendan and I went to Nürnberg, about a 40 minute train ride from where I live. On Friday, we planned to go to the see the Nürnberg Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers play. This is the closest pro hockey team to Ansbach, games start at 7:30. Brendan was a bit delayed by the train (what Germany?) so we arrived at the main train station in Nürnberg around 7:20, hoping we could quickly get to the arena and buy some tickets…. It would have helped if I had actually looked up where it was before we left. After a few minutes of wandering, though I was sure we were in the right spot, we learned an important lesson: When asking for directions in a country where you don't speak the language, go to the fanciest hotel you can find. The concierge spoke perfect English, and gave us a map! Turns out we got off at the wrong stop. We then proceeded to get on the right train but going the wrong direction. By the time we figured this out, and got turned back around, we had given up on the hockey game and decided to get some schnitzel! ( insert sad or happy face here) We'll have to catch a game sometime to see how it compares to Canada. (we did just go to a game, see below.. I just wrote this a week before the rest)

On Saturday we went back into Nürnberg, our targets were the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, and the Imperial Castle. Here are pictures of the outside and inside of the building at the rally grounds, it is HUGE!

We took the audio tours, and they were quite fascinating. You could easily spend hours at each of those places listening to and reading about the details of the wars. Then we walked up to the castle, got a sweet panorama:

For supper, we went to this really old restaurant called Zum Gulden Stern and had the famous Nurnberger sausages. This place was opened in 1419 and it grills the sausages over an open fire, really good!

Maybe you can see the open flames behind Brendan in this pic:

Then we came back to Sachsen and stayed up to watch the Leafs game, which started at 1 am. Solid win for the Maple Leafs! But I probably won’t do it again.. I wish they had some afternoon games so it is actually a decent hour here.

The weekend of the 26th, I was flying solo. I decided to make a trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is quite well known for its well-preserved medieval town wall and buildings. Here's one of the entrances to the town:

It was actually the setting for the town in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and it's very German. There is a high wall that surounds the old part of the town and it's popular for tourists to “walk the wall” so that’s what I did! It was actually nice to go in the winter time because it wasn’t crowded with people! And yes I was able to take some shameless self pics without people thinking I was crazy....

It's possible to walk outside the wall, inside the wall and also on top of the wall! Some spots are a little rocky, and there are signs up that say something like "walk at your own risk" but they were in German and I couldn't really read them, so I walked on the wall anyway. The thing is, the walkway on top is very narrow and it's difficult to pass those slow walkers, so I walked on the ground for most of the time :)

Then I had some schnitzel at the Baumeisterhaus, an inn right in the middle of the old town. I really like schnitzel, I've had it a few times now and I like both the pork and the turkey!


So that was a pretty nice weekend too, and then I got word from Jae that he was coming!! I don't really know how he worked things out with his work permit but he arrived on the 30th and then came to Sachsen for the weekend with Brendan!

This time we planned in advance, looked at the map and went on Friday (Feb. 1) to the Nürnberg Ice Tigers hockey game. That was a good time! We actually met some Canadians at the train station, they were from Vancouver and saw my Canada scarf and said hi. They were on their way to the game too, so we hung out with them for a bit. We got to the arena and bought tickets for 11 Euro (so cheap!) and then walked in just in time to see the puck drop and the Ice Tigers score 39 seconds in!! 

Wow, the home team crowd was crazy, there must have been 15 people with big drums, everyone else had these clapping-noise-makers. I wasn't expecting this, I thought Germans were huge football fans, and hockey was an afterthought.. but there were some die hard fans at the game. Everyone knew all of the cheers, and the players names, it was pretty amazing. We have to go back!

On Saturday we went to the city of Bamberg, just north of Nürnberg. It is another popular destination for visitors because of the old churches and buildings. We walked around for a bit and got a taste of the German "half timber" style of housing, and toured some of the churches and then had some schnitzel! So. Good. This was Jae's first real schnitzel.

Here's the three of us on a bridge and then Brendan throwing Jae off the top of a pretty big wall:

Then we spent Sunday planning for the next three months! Good stuff to come: Switzerland, Czeck Republic, and maybe Italy, but definitely more Germany!!

Tonight I made myself a pretty good-sized apple crisp and now I am going to eat it... all. One of the few benefits of living by myself  :)