Germany Part One

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Now I'm not the 'solo' traveler type. Never have been and don't really see it in my future. Aside from not feeling safe as a single female traveler in a strange country, I just simply LIKE having a travel companion. Someone to talk to, eat meals with, share experiences with. That being said, when I was chosen to go to Germany for work for the first time, I was hesitant to go. While I was going to be going with 5 other coworkers from around the country, I'd never met any of them. What if they didn't want to travel on the weekends in our spare time? Could I really do it myself? I wasn't willing to just sit around and not see the sights. I realized I couldn't pass up the opportunity and in Jan of 09, I flew to Germany, meeting up with a couple coworkers at the airport for the trip. I was bumped up to business class for the first time - good start to the trip! The first memory I have of Germany is that it is COLD in January. It literally hurt to take a breath outside waiting for our shuttle. I stayed in Ramstein-Miesenbach at the Hotel Circle Inn right outside of Ramstein AFB. As it turned out, I was the youngest of the workers there, but two of the ladies were up for minimal travel with me. While they weren't full of personality and they were pretty uptight, It was better than nothing, so I took advantage of the day trips offered by the base with them. We'd also go to the nearby Kaiserslautern city to shop and eat when not going sightseeing. The saving grace of the business trip as a whole was one older coworker who would have a beer with me at the local pub and tell me stories of his military years.

The ladies and I took a day trip to Rothenberg, Germany - an old medieval city with tons of cute little shops where I was able to pick up a nice beer stein and some other cute souveniers. Then on to Trier to see all of the ruins - and do a ton of walking. I was more interested in traveling to different countries though, and the day trip to Bern, Switzerland got the traveling started. I was soo excited, thinking I would finally see mountains. I'd never seen real mountains before and I'd get to see the Swiss Alps! Bern has a longg shopping promenade and after taking a tour around, we got to a point where the guide said "And over there, you can see the Alps on some days. Today, it's too cloudy." WHAT?! After tons of walking in the chilly weather, all I remember is the Swiss hot chocolate we sat down to enjoy. I'd have to wait for another time to see the mountains. The only other day trip we took was to Paris. We hopped on a bus at 4am and arrived in Paris 4 hours later, staying in the city until 1am before bussing it back to Germany. Since it was a day trip, we didn't get a ton of time in the city after the city tour and the short stops the bus allowed. But it was enough to give me some good tips for future trips and I was glad I'd seen the city, even for a short time. One of the memorable parts of this little trip was trying the macaroons from Laduree on the Champs -Elysees. The big chocolate ones are the best! But the one thing I remember most is staring at the Eiffel Tower as long as I could until it disappeared - just incase I never saw it again.

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