What a long strange trip it's been.

I'm going to attempt picking up exactly where I left off a couple of posts ago:

So if I remember correctly I was at a restaurant on the side of a small mountain in Eisenach. After the totally delicious plate of german food we continued hiking for about 2km more until we reached a really really cool castle. I have seen probably 50 or so castles on this trip, but that was the first one that I actually got to go inside and check out. I'm sure that I could write more about the day, but in the interest of covering about 2 weeks of material in one sitting I think that I'm going to have to spare some details.

I stayed with Danny until last wednesday. I have to say that her family is really really cool! I wish I could describe it in the way that I remember it, but I guess that it will have to suffice to say: The Kraters (that's the family name btw) are some of the nicest and most caring people I have ever met. Thank you!

Thinking back on the days that I spent in Mühlhausen, I don't really remember which order anything happened, so I'll list some of the major events:
1: Danny and I visited Erfurt, which is a medium large east german city. I remember whichever day it was being a lot of fun just going around shopping, eating, feeding ducks etc. Cool place though, and well worth the visit.
2: Hanging out with some of Danny's friends. This happened a couple of times. I thought that it was definitely a lot of fun. One of the times I went out for coffe at a local spot with Danny's friend Franci while she was busy at a meeting for the fire department (she voulenteers there in case you didn't already know). That was just a really cool thing to do, we pretty much just sat and talked for 2.5 hours, but it was really fun trying to express more difficult thoughts in German, and I feel like it was exactly the same for her trying to say more difficult things in English. There were also a handful of other times that I got to meet some of Danny's friends, one time we went bowling, and another time we had a picnic, and I have to say that there is something to be said for just having other people around. It's a lot of fun. Franci, Chang, Stephan, Krüger you are all some really cool cool people and I'm glad to have met you.
3: There was also a day in there that Danny and I took a trip to Weimar. That was really cool but at the same time really strange. In case you didn't know Weimar used to be the capital of the Weimar republic AKA East Germany. The city is a cool democratic city today, but it's really strange because a lot of residual buildings and statues are left over from the 40s. For instance I visited the old capital building, with all sorts of plaques on the wall glorifying facism. Cool, but very strange nonetheless.
4: I saw the 6th Harry Potter Movie. I know, I know after having not visited a movie theater in years I've seen 2 movies in the past month. Also a fun event with Danny's gang, and it was hilarious watching Ron dubbed over in German. His voice is just so opposite of the english version.
5: Went on a hike with Danny. It was just a hike but it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was still raining, and the hike was probably the second muddiest experience of my life... slosh slosh slosh!

I'm sure that there are probably 10 or so really cool other things that I am overlooking, but that is the brief recap of my awesome week and a half with Danny. Danny you are what I would consider a very good friend. Thank you.

On wednesday after I left, I had a booking for a hostel in Hamburg, but then realized exactly how dumb it was that I did that. Seriously! Wacken was thursday through saturday, and I booked a room for wednesday night. I realized that I had made this really really stupid booking error, and got onto a computer at an internet cafe in Hamburg to cancel it and got on the next train to Itzehoe. I was just chilling out at the Hauptbahnhof waiting for the train, when I decided to strike up a conversation with a couple or other black clothed Wackeneers. It turned out to be one of the most important and awesome conversations of my entire trip. The travelers were an Australian pair named Mary and Andy and they were just 2 of the coolest people I have ever met. I kind of followed these two along, and they offered to let me camp with them. We ended up chilling out together for the whole festival, and I made some awesome amazing friends.

I think that I will have to describe Wacken in full in another post. I could write pages about it. It was all at the same time one of the best, most fun, dirtiest, most disgusting, smelliest, and just overall amazing and eye opening experiences of my entire life.

And to end this post I just want to give a special shout out to all of the people here in Europe who have gotten me through this trip: Woulter, Marcelle, Oma, Craig, Kristina, Dimitri, Michael, Ewe, Danny, Jörg, Connie, Stephan, Chang, Franci, Mary, Andy, Liz, Oven, and all of the other awesome Norweigans and Aussies! Thank you all for all that you have done.

Catch you guys all back home in a couple of days back in America

Peas