amy+brian+europe » train

Story: The St. Goar Tschu Tschu

Brian — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:43:18 +0000

Amy calling number listed in Rick Steves’ for the Lusty Music playing Tourist Tschu Tschu train up to St. Goar’s Castle:
Hello? Sprechen Sie English?
Man: Yes.
Amy: Are you the train that goes up to St. Goar’s Castle?
Man: Yes.
Amy: Are you running today?
Man: Yes.
Amy: Where are you? And when do you leave?
Man: Where are you right now?
Amy: In front of the train station
Man: Oh, just come, I am right here. You see the church?
Amy: The red one?
Man: The red and white one.
Amy: Oh, okay, where are you?
Man: Just walk past it.
Amy: When do you leave?
Man: Just come down here and we’ll talk.

We walk down, past the church, and we are very confused, doesn’t a train need train tracks? But no, not this one. This one is a Mercedes Benz Tractor pulled train. Oh yes. With Lusty Music.
We walk up to the front,
Amy: Hello? This is the train up to St. Goar’s castle?
Man: Maybe?
Amy: ????
Man: How did you get my number?
Brian (lifts up his Rick Steves’ Book): Rick Steves’
Man: That book is great, It’s like the bible. He has my number in there??
Brian: (flips through pages) Here!
Man: (takes the book) Yep, that’s my number. (admires the tabs (Brian added these and he is constantly saying how they’re awesome) Man gives it back to Brian)
We get on the Tschu Tschu Train and have the ride of our lives through the tiny streets of St. Goar, in full view of all the locals. If you think seeing people on a carriage ride is ridiculous, imagine seeing two people on a two car Tschu Tschu train going through a pedestrian zone. Yeah. That was us.

St. Goar and the River Rhine

Brian — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:41:47 +0000

+ Ate a free hearty breakfast at the hostel. We had our own reserved table, no one else was in the room so we had a private room too. Brian had a name card because he reserved for the hostel. It said, “This table is reserved for: Brain von Osdol.” They made him German. + It was a very cloudy and dreary day. + Caught a boat to cruise down the River Rhine. It was the only one with people waiting. All the other boat docks were empty. + We read Ricky Steves’ River Rhine tour guide. Learned all the crazy legends that exist in the area. We also learned why there was a naked river nymph painted on the wall of our hostel. It’s the Loreley! + Another fun activity was watching for the ridiculously large kilometer markes along the river. Ricky apparently erected these several years ago to help people with this tour. Amy also noticed another tour company using them. How do you just put up huge signs along a scenic river?! + Got off at Rudeshiem after a three hour cruise. + Rudeshiem was very touristy, and on the opposite side of the river. Looked at coo-coo clocks, carved figurines, and Christmas ornaments. + Failed at finding a quick bite to eat. Ate bread we pilfered from the hostel breakfast. + Took the train back even though we had round trip tickets for the boat. + Back at St. Goar on the opposite side of the river, Brian followed an Italian school tour group to find the ferry. + Caught the tschu-tschu train up to St. Goar castle. (see story in seperate post) + Used Ricky’s St. Goar tour guide for the castle. It was cold and drizzling. Brian’s hands turned into ice cubes from holding the book. + Cut through a vineyard to get from the castle to our hostel. + Defrosted Brian’s hands back in hotel room. + Ate dinner and the goofy receptionist helped us find the train schedule to get to Berlin. + Reverse engineered a German crazy window. (video coming soon) + Organized photos and wrote these blog posts. (Will we ever find internet? If we do our blog will suffer an explosion of posts! Woot!) + A student drumming group arrived at hostel. We heard them practicing. But they weren’t as loud as the noisy kids acorss the hall. + sleep zzz +

[Show as slideshow]

Train trip from Fussen to St. Goar

Brian — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:39:35 +0000

+ We could have left on the train early, but we decided to wait for the hotel’s really good breakfast. + Amy is sleepy. + Took train from Fussen to Munich. + High speed train from Munich to Mannheim. + Semi-highspeed past Mainz to Bingen along the Rhine River. + A Local train from Bingen to St. Goar. + Checked into the St. Goar Hostel. Lady at front desk was uber energetic and friendly. She had a goofy laugh. + Ate a cheap dinner in the hostel. + Walked down to the town. It was along the Rhine. The town seemed deserted except for the yelling kids in the playground. + Before going to bed, Amy tried to go to the restroom down the hall. She claimed it was locked, but didn’t think anyone was in there. Brian went after her, and the bathroom door was open and unoccupied. We figured out Amy was shaking on someone’s bedroom door. Oh Amy… so silly. Good thing she didn’t knock. + Planned the touristing for the next day, and organized photos. We’re already up to around 4 gigs of photos! Amy is winning by a little. +

[Show as slideshow]

Elaborated Bathroom Story with Mimi
me: I went out once to go push the door and then looked under and I didn’t see a light and I was really confused so i went back into the room and then I said “the bathroom is being used” and then I waited for like five minutes and went back out and I tried again, this time, more forcefully (I’ve had an experience when I just didn’t push the door hard enough and I was waiting outside, thinking it was a one stall bathroom… but it was really a multiple stall… and I just couldn’t open the door. I must have looked really ridiculous just standing out there waiting) but anyway, it didn’t open and I went back to the room and Brian was like “is the light on?”
“I dunno… I couldn’t’ see anything…”
“did you try knocking?”
“No… I didn’t want to rush them…”
and then he goes and tries
and he comes back and he says “I don’t know what you’re talking about Amy… the door was wide open”
“oh……. OH NO!! I think I was pushing on the wrong door!!!”
“oh man, some little kid in there must be so scared…”

there you have it, the full details