A Leisurely Weekend?

I think some of the best weekend adventures are unplanned until the very last minute and even the mostly spontaneous. My friend Ryan came down to visit for a few days, and at first I didn’t know what we were going to do because honestly Kaiserslautern is cute but not filled with much to do. On top of that, it was supposed to storm the entire weekend.

Saturday we were up pretty early and checked the weather- most of the rain was pushed off for later, so we decided to go on a hike. It was about an hour train ride to get to Annweiler, but worth every minute. The trail started in a small town at the base of a mountain with an old castle ruins overlooking from above.

At first I thought we were hiking up to the castle, but that didn’t turn out to be the route. I will now point out that I am directionally challenged (even with google maps and all), and can therefore make no guarantee I actually brought us to the place I meant to. Nonetheless it was a great hike. We started by climbing a mountain. I was really surprised how quickly we climbed elevation- I think around 30 minutes in we were almost at the top. It was a tough climb but the view made it better. Close to the top we found a lumbar yard with a giant bee farm, so we enjoyed a nice snack watching the bees work.

At the very top of the mountain was an old watch tower that we got to climb. I had thought the view from the mountaintop was great, but the view from the tower was something else entirely. We had such a perfect view of the surrounding villages. It was really cool because we could see some areas were shaded by clouds and others got the direct sunlight. It was really easy to imagine where the old beliefs about a king’s power might come from.

The hike was supposed to be 5-6 hours, but we finished in right around 4 hours, do either I got us lost and we took a different trail, or we hiked very quickly and took much less time than expected. I prefer to believe we’re just that good, especially because right after we finished our hike, it started to pour. The timing was perfect.

And after a long day of hiking, some Döner was in order. If you’re not familiar with Döner, it’s a German food created by Turkish immigrants that is basically finely shaved meat with some sauce and vegetables. It also might be my favorite German food, only time will tell.

Then on Sunday we started the morning with coffee and a discussion about electronics. Now is a critical time to point out that I converted my windows into a dry erase board for such instances. When I say I converted the windows to a dry erase board, I want to clarify that I just got dry erase markers. The only trick is using the right color marker for the right time of day to be able to properly read it. Oh, and it's actually impossible to capture the contents of the window on camera. Built-in security :D

Once again the day was too beautiful to stay indoors, though, so like reasonable people we went to a Bier Garten to continue the conversation. Pretty much everything in Germany closes on Sundays, but the Bier Garten seemed to be the place to be. I loved how many people brought their dogs and just hung around. One group even came via horseback, and shared a snack with their horses and a very happy pup. I also had the best Käsespätzle, which is more or less German macaroni and cheese. What a beautiful meal to round out a wonderful weekend.

Traveling and meeting new people is really quite nice, but it’s also great to run into familiar faces while far far from home. Especially as an American in a sea of Europeans and an engineer among computer scientists.

I was really pleased with the wonderful weekend. Almost on cue, the sky opened up on Monday and it started to storm. We had some minor flooding, but nothing too severe. Hopefully the rest of the week looks better, but a little rain never hurt anyone. Until next time!