Baby, Let's Cruise

Wednesday was one of my favorite days of the trip so far :) (Of course, I say that when talking about most days, but that's not the point!) It was full of train rides (7 hours to be exact!), chocolate, weird old men, a river cruise, and lots and lots of laughter.

We had to be at the train station in Verviers pretty early because our train was supposed to leave at 8, and it is always smart to get there early in case there are any changes in the schedule. Well, we got there early and our train ended up being a little bit late. We were all watching Dr. Johnson pace because we were supposed to have exactly 13 minutes to get to our platform once we arrived in Aachen and that is not a lot of time when you are trying to herd a giant pack of 37 Americans all carrying huge backpacks. Our train finally arrived and we got on, all ready to go to the chocolate factory in Cologne and halfway to Aachen the train just stops on the tracks. For a second we thought maybe there was a cow or something that we had tried not to hit, but after sitting there for about 5 minutes we started getting a little concerned. Finally, the conductor came back to our car and said that there was a problem in Germany and that we were going to have to wait a few minutes and then head back to Verviers. As he finishes his sentence, the train starts moving again in the direction of Aachen. At this point, we're all getting a bit more freaked out because we were headed directly toward the "problem." When we got to Aachen, we found out that we were NOT late for our next train, because it had also been delayed, and we found out that the problem had actually just been an electricity problem.

After a few minutes of waiting around at our platform, our train pulled up... and it was NICE. The train is called ICE and it looks like an airplane on the inside. It was the nicest plane that we have been on so far, and we were told that it will not be the nicest that we get to ride on :) We got to Cologne a little later than we were supposed to, so after stopping to get a map of the town, we headed a few blocks down to the chocolate factory. Since we didn’t have much time, we headed immediately for the gift shop, deciding to skip the factory tour. The gift shop was like a chocolate lover’s paradise. It was awesome! I ended up getting a little sampling of something for me, and a little bar for Mom (hopefully it will last 2 more months!).
Finally, it was time to head to the train station to go to Bingen and get on our cruise! The train was crowded and I ended up having to sit next to this old man who spoke English. At first I didn’t mind sitting by him, but then he started getting a little creepy. I think that probably just the culture difference was what was creeping me out (and it didn’t matter too much anyway, because I was still mostly surrounded by people that I knew). He kept asking me things like whether or not all of the guys in our group have a crush on me and everything. It was a little weird. I was pretty glad to get to Bingen. When we got to Bingen we had to wait about an hour before we could catch our boat, so we decided to sit in the shade and wait because it was hot, and most of us has prepared for cooler weather. The cruise was really neat, we got to see the countryside and lots of castle and everything. It was nice to have a day where we were seeing a lot but not walking for 14 hours. On either side of the river, there are hills and on the sides of the hills there are vineyards. It’s really neat to see the vineyards that are on such steep hills that they have to cut out switch-back roads to get to the vineyards. The cruise lasted for about two and a half hours, and it was really a lot of fun (it was especially fun playing on the playground that they had for little kids!). All in all, it was really a wonderful day.
The last couple of days have been class days. Nothing terribly eventful, but still really great days. I am having a wonderful time here, and I cannot even believe how blessed I have been to go on this trip. Today I am going to a music festival that is in town with one of my friends and then I have to work out some of my plans for free travel with the girls. It’s getting real exciting thinking about where we are going. We leave for Germany on Monday! I’m super excited about that. Ok, I think I’ve written enough. Love to all!