Carnaval.It's this big fun festival before Lent. Yeah, Mardi Gras is just Tuesday, and this is a full weekend. So most of my friends here went to islands and places where it was warm. I ended up going to Marburg, Germany to visit the one and only Stephanie Tesch. I say it was a fair choice. And as any travel story on this blog goes, it's not without travel issues. Ready for this?!
So I leave Friday during the day- as in... I skip classes. Whatever, so I get on my bus. No big deal. Haven't traveled to Madrid before... let alone by myself, but it was fine. I get to the airport, ask someone where to go for Ryanair and I'm on my way. I'm there MUCH too early. My flight isn't even up on the screen, so I buy a Cosmo to kill some time. I got bored of killing time. That really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. My boredom led to wandering around and stumbling across my gate! What luck. I decide to pop a squat and attack Harry Potter y la Cámara de Secretos. I'm there for a long time, and I mean a LONG time. The flight before mine had been boarding for what seemed like hours, so I decided to go check the big screen again, look for my flight and.... it's been moved. Okay, I say to myself, I have plenty of time. I did, too. I walk down there. The screen says Frankfurt, all is well. I get up to get in line to start boarding and the screen changes to Santiago! Not cool, Ryanair, not cool. So I go back to the big screens, and it says that Frankfurt is leaving from the gate where I just was. Determined to find out the truth, I return to ask the employee who has no idea what is going on. Typical. Back to the screen for me, to find out that my flight has been moved back to the gate where I was. Everyone dashes there like crazy and lo and behold, the flight from before is still boarding. Little weird, but we all wait while across the room a sign shows up with Frankfurt on it. There is a mad dash to be first in line. I'm thinking, FINALLY. Then an employee comes up to tell us that our flight isn't leaving from that gate. We're leaving from the original one. Yes, of course we are. Another stampede ensues and then we can finally start boarding. By this time, however, I have made a friend from Madrid... originally from the States. She was studying there, and now living there. Whatever. We were flight buddies up to the airport- we even got some beer together while we waited for our buses to bring us to the train station. Which is another little fiasco in itself.
Inside, the schedule told me that my bus would leave promptly at 6 pm. So my new friend and I are drinking our aforementioned beer whilst waiting until about 5:30. I've already bought my ticket, but I decide to head on outside to wait. There are a smattering of people, and new friend and I part ways. Unfortunately for me, I find out that the bus doesn't leave at 6.... it left at 5:30, a mere few moments before I leave. This is already really crappy because our flight got us there a little after the 4 something bus left, so now I have to wait again.... until 7 to leave. Can you believe it? It was horrible. On the plus side, I made another friend. This one was from Cataluña, a region in Spain. She's learning English and we talked until the next bus came while we got some food. It was a little hectic, but finally we got on our bus and made our way to the train station where my dearest Steph was waiting for me. From that point there was still more transportation to get from Frankfurt to Marburg in which we caught up a little on each others' lives and I recounted my lovely little airport tale.
If you couldn't already guess, we got in a little late, so my first night in Germany was pretty chill. Steph brought me over to one of the many Doner restaurants (which we also have in Spain, but with much fewer selection) to grab some real food to bring back to her apartment. I was pretty wiped since I had to get up before the buttcrack of dawn. (I forgot to mention that, but my bus to get to Madrid left at 6 am.... what crap). We basically ate our food and chatted before turning in a little early, but it was fine. After all that transportation drama I needed a little break.
The next day was our explore Marburg day. We went into town to check out some of the shops. The street looked like Diagon Alley, and I pretty much adored it. Yes, Harry Potter truly is everywhere. Anyway, the little street adventure was fun. There were tons of little shops with just random and cute things. There was also a comic book store with Spiderman in front hanging from a wire. (Fun fact! Spiderman in Spanish is still Spiderman; however it is pronounced Spee-derman.) Oh, and a gummy shop! Seriously, nothing but gummies in it. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't purchase any. What on earth was I thinking? Our wanderings then brought us to the grocery store to get some toilet paper. Exciting stuff, I know. Although, I did buy some very good chocolate. Then it was back to chill at the apartment a little bit before our excursions for the night.
After some viewing of 500 Days of Summer and Cosmo reading, we went back out on the town. This time we were meeting up with two of Steph's friends: Carissa and Christina. We were going to out go to eat with them, but Steph said I needed some Auuflauf (which I can't spell, and that was my poor attempt), and I agreed. They went to a salad place and I got some yummy baked pasta dish with some German beer. SUCCESS! Then once our nice little dinner was done, we went back to the dorms in order to make our masks for Carnaval the next day. It resulted in massive amounts of glitter everywhere. I feel a little bad for Christina. She probably has some in her lungs now. It was a lot of fun, though, and I got to meet a couple more of Steph's German friends before we went out for the night. We didn't stay out too long because unbeknownst to us, the club was Raggae dance hall. Needless to say, we could only watch the potheads dance so long before we decided it best to head on home. After all, we did have to get up kind of early in order to make our way out to Cologne for the Carnaval festivities.
This day is a blur in my memory, plus I didn't take many pictures, so I really have no idea what happened in what order. I remember a long train ride with beautiful German country side and a silly porter man that was really friendly. In Cologne, there were lots of crazies everywhere. People were dressed up as almost anything imaginable, and most of the men were dressed like women, Cologne being the gay capitol of Germany and all. Anyway, we watched the parade for a while before meeting up with Christina's friend who is studying there. He's a real German, and he showed us around all day. It was a big wander-fest that led to some McDonald's and a completely packed metro. Good times over all. We were really only there a few hours before we had to get back on the train to Marburg, but whatever. It happens. I honestly felt like I used the trip to really get down all modes of transportation- especially in Germany. Coming back was also more fun, because this time everyone was drunk. They weren't even that young, either. It was like my parents and their friends after a few too many drinks on Halloween. I loved it.
The next day was me getting up obscenely early to get back to Valladolid. More transportation and some of it on my own- well, most of it. Steph got me to the train station and then I was on my own from there. No difficulties this time. I slept a lot more once I was on the plane, too. I was wiped! Finally got back to home sweet away from home only to find out that my mother had been freaking out for an entire day about my whereabouts. I didn't die, obviously, but she's silly. And that was my Carnaval/German experience.
i love you
ReplyDelete