Well, we’re about 4-5 days away from beginning the trek back
to the U.S. What can I tell you? My first visit to Germany has in no way
disappointed; then again, I’ve come with hardly any expectations or
preconceived notions save the use of Deutsch in daily interpersonal
interactions and in that case the expectations have been exceeded.
One of the things I have enjoyed most is the driving –
namely, the road trips from one area to the other.
A couple of days ago another fellow and I had to drive from
where we are (Ramsdorf) to the Air Base (Ramstein) and that’s about a three and
a half hour drive. Little did we know,
however, that when you key in Ramstein to the car’s NAV system, the Air Base
does not appear as a destination. Both
of us had been advised to not go to
Ramstein-Miesenbach, which is close to the Air Base. Therefore, prior to the experience, when
“Ramstein” was keyed into the system and we were given two choices of
destination we picked the one that was just “Ramstein” sans the “-Miesenbach.” The estimated travel time was five hours and change, not three and not
the predicted four from another member of our team.
What resulted was a three and a half hour detour to the
Black Forest to a castle or something, which shares the name of the Air Base we
were trying to get to. Of course, that
was a three and a half hour detour one
way; what should have been about 7-8 hours in the car turned into 12 and a
half.
However, it was
still a good experience. The fellow and
I got to have some good conversation and get to know each other well as we work
in the same office and serve in the same branch, we just hadn’t, heretofore,
had the opportunity to spend such time talking to each other.
And we can now boast that we’ve practically driven the
country from tip-to-tip, north to south; and the scenery was wonderful.
Parts of the autobahn reminded me of driving around North
Carolina, especially in the Triangle region.
Smaller towns we drove through, especially as the geography got
increasingly rocky and hilly, reminded me of driving through the Appalachians,
through the western parts of NC as well as the Virginias and even a bit of
Maryland.
The drive back took place after sundown and as we made our
way further north rain started falling.
By that point I was no longer driving but in the unusual position of
riding, instead. The night drive,
through the rain, occasionally hitting 200 km/h was both compelling and
gripping: I was compelled to grip the armrests quite tightly. But we made it in by midnight, having left
about 14 hours prior. The next morning
we set out for our final day’s work and wrapped by lunch.
At this point we have days to fill with report writing; for
myself, photo logging and selecting, and writing.
I’ve actually been catching up on a bit of reading, drawing
and listening to podcasts.
Ah, yes, and I’ve taken the time each evening over the
course of last week to catch up on an American cultural touchstone that members
of the team deemed as a travesty of me having not experienced it before now:
The Rocky Saga.
Two Christmases ago I purchased the Rocky Blu-Ray boxed set
when it was on sale, but I didn’t start at the beginning…for some reason I
started with the sixth film, Rocky Balboa
and I quite enjoyed it, though I knew I was missing a lot of references from
the previous five. A few months later I
finally watched Rocky and quite
enjoyed that.
Now, as of last Friday, I completed the saga by watching Rocky II, III, IV and V and then rewatching Balboa giving a report and critique of
each film to the team each following morning.
I had no idea that my not having seen these movies
previously would cause such a stir. Upon
further questioning I now have the task of catching up with The Delta Force movies, the Rambo films, Bloodsport, Kickboxer and
basically all American movies from the late 70s and early 80s that involve
crazy, non-stop action and were probably rated R.
Well, I do look forward to getting back in about a week and
hopefully getting the news that I made E-5 around Memorial Day. Thank you for reading, and look forward to
perhaps one more update with photos!
Auf wiedersehen!