Day 13: Germany and a Tale of True Love in a Castle

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After we left Dachau concentration camp we made our way up the Rhine Valley towards Bacharach where we would stay in a castle that night. It was pretty quiet on the bus and Kate could sense we were not in a fun mood so she showed us the video of Jordan (Australia) and Darcy (Australia) skydiving. Jordan and Darcy are sisters. I remember Jordan was 18 or 19 and Darcy was the older sister who also served in the Australian military in Afghanistan.

They were brave enough to go skydiving each after the accident. Other people who considered it pulled out before paying the deposit. The skydive was in plane instead of a helicopter and I probably saw the plane in the air because they saw us paragliding. When they went up Jordan actually got sick and threw up in the plane. Thankfully in a barf bag instead of on her tandem partner. Their entire jump was video taped and it was impressive. Their faces were stretched as they free fell and they jerked hard as the chute activated. We all clapped and cheered to see the skydive and it did lift the mood on the bus.

I had a seat to myself for the first part of the drive to the castle but I was joined halfway there by Sherri who was trying to get away from the air conditioning on her side of the bus. I chatted with her and other people nearby about what we did for a living and I told people I work in computers but my dream is to write books. I have written a few books including some short stories and I told people I would read them a story when we got to the castle.

We drove along next to the Rhine river for a few hours and watched numerous castles go by. I read the reviews of the Jungendherbergen Baccharach and they were not good. Everyone was saying the food was bad and the place did not resemble a castle. My expectations were not that high as pulled over on a road leading to some stone steps. We left our luggage on the bus and just took a day pack because of the large number of steps we had to take. I was surprised by the place because it did resemble a castle so I am wondering about the bad reviews. We ate dinner in the basement meatballs, rice, vegetables and we could buy beer. I was in the largest room this time so it was 10 people in the room. Roommates were Ken, Gillon, MJ, David, Stephen, Andrew, Katie, Emileen (Australia), Madelyn (Australia). Katie was mentioned in my last blog entry, Emileen had injured her hand before the tour and I remember Madelyn had a nose ring which I found interesting.

After dinner I went out to the courtyard and watched the sunset. It was a lovely view and I felt at peace. So anyway after that I told everyone my short story which is called "The One" and it is a story of True Love. Basic summary a guy gets his heart broken, runs off to Europe to travel and find his true love and learns a lesson while travelling about love and destiny. People I read it to enjoyed the story and we spent the next few hours debating true love. I will tell you my philosophy on the issue. Everyone has one other person in the world they are meant to be with. Fate and destiny will bring you together and it is up to you to recognize the ONE. My view was a minority one and everyone had a different view on the matter and we talked about our past and current relationships and gave advise on the issue. Ken's view I remember because he believe we had several possible soul mates in our lifetime and Kelly gave us some advice about how to pick up English women. It was an interesting discussion and it was a mark of how close we had gotten on the bus. I also let on that I may use some people from the bus in future stories. Unfortunately people did not want to be the villain in my stories so I will figure that out later.

Went to bed after that and fell asleep in my bunk bed. With 10 people in a room there was a lot of horsing around at night. I thought I heard the camera go off a few times and I would find out later Emileen had been mooning us as we slept and Andrew had taken pictures of it. So that is my tale of True Love in a Castle. Hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow we arrive at Amsterdamage !!

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