A couple years after I moved to Germany, my Dad flew out here to visit me, and we traveled around Europe a bit.
The day after my father arrived, we hopped in a plane and went straight to Leipzig. I remember that we disembarked the plane pretty rapidly since it was a small airport, and they just put the stairs up to the plane. After landing, we were within the terminal in no more than a couple minutes. What was surprising was that our baggage was already on the carousel even though we had just landed. Talk about a quick ground crew!
We stayed at a couchsurfer’s house and checked out the city during the day.
We went up the Hochhaus, which is the skyscraper in the middle of the city.
From up there, we could hear some weird chanting. When we got down, we discovered it to be from a PEGIDA demonstration. There was, however, a much larger counter-protest, which was nice, since PEGIDA is not a nice organization.
Monument to the Battle of the Nations
After a few days, we then took the train to Dresden. We stayed with another couchsurfer who was pretty funny. His apartment was built during the communist rule, too, and it had a very outdated electrical system that made quite a bit of noise.
After another couple days in Dresden, we went a little off the beaten path and went to the small town of Lohmen to visit the Saxon Switzerland National Park. The trains in that area had gearboxes that were quite loud and rapidly went through the smaller gears as the trains were starting up. The first couple times my dad and I heard them, we thought some sort of music was playing until we realized where the sound was coming from.
Our couchsurfing host in Lohmen was pretty excited to host us because he didn’t get many guests because there aren’t a lot of tourist attractions in the area.
One thing we did check out was the Bastei Bridge that spans the Bastei rock formations.
My dad is a climber, and he also really wanted to see the Prebischtor Archway, which is the largest natural sandstone archway in Europe and was just over the Czech border.
We went there for the day, and we stopped for a few beers which I already posted about a while back.
Our next stop was to go further into the Czech Republic and go to Prague.
Our couchsurfing host in Prague had a spacious apartment. He had also been to my hometown and was really excited to meet people from Jackson Hole. Beer is really cheap in the Czech Republic. We could buy 6-packs of 2 liter-bottles of beer for only 3 or 4 euros, and we all had a fair amount to drink and partied almost every night.
When we weren’t at the place, we were walking around the city.
What was really interesting about this sculpture was what happened to my dad and me there. Just around the corner, we had both bought a slice of pizza from a vendor. We put on a little chili powder, since we both like spicy food, and we went on our merry way, eating as we walked.
That was one of the spiciest things either of us have ever eaten.
It started off slowly. A gentle coaxing of heat on the back of the tongue. It ramped up, causing us to breathe out in an attempt to cool our mouths down. It didn’t take long before an inferno was raging on our tongues. I don’t know what the hell was in that chili powder, but it is to date, one of the spiciest things I have ever experienced. It hurt so much that we had to sit down, and I couldn’t stop myself from crying yet laughing at the same time from the excruciating pain in my mouth.
The Prague Castle
Apparently, if you get allergen information, you might get “staff”
I recognized this barricade from somewhere. I had to think about it a bit, but this is the ending scene of XXX with Vin Diesel which was next to the bridge in the previous picture.
Cathedral in the Prague Castle
Oldest working astronomical clock in the world
Favorite escalator ever
Most escalators are orientated with gravity, so you would read something normally. In this escalator, the wall lining and the ads were all orientated with the handrails, which gave the odd impression that everyone was standing at a 45-degree angle.
Our couchsurfing host accepted another guest since he had the space, and together we walked around a bit. More notably, we checked out the (partial) solar eclipse. Prague was not the optimal place to see the eclipse, but we could still see it a bit.
2 sunglasses and welder’s glasses, but the sun was still so strong that it hurt to look at
If you wouldn’t have been the wiser, you likely would not have noticed that there was an eclipse going on. Even though maybe 3/4 of the sun was covered, it didn’t get much darker.
Using a trick with binoculars, we could see the crescent of the sun
Taken through the 3 glasses, but it still was too bright for the camera to distinguish the eclipsed part (although you could see it with your eyes)
Almost finishing our orbit through Europe, we then flew to Heidelberg and met up with a friend of mine.
The Great Heidelberg Tun
We then went back to my home in Cologne.
That would have been the last part, but I had to work and my dad was coming with me. My dad and I had planned this trip for quite a while before it happened. However, near the tail-end of our trip, there was a trade fair that my job really wanted me to go to.
The trade fair was held in Europa Park, which is a lot like Six Flags. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I told them that if I was going to go, they would also have to get a ticket for my dad and put us up in a room together. My company agreed.
The trade fair happens before the park is officially opened, and while most rides are still closed, they open up a few of the bigger roller coasters for the attendees. That meant that my dad and I were able to go on quite a few rides with virtually no lines since there weren’t that many attendees that would cause any noticeable waits.
While I did have to work a bit, my company didn’t give me too much to do so I was able to hang out with my dad a bit. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and my dad took the train to the airport and then caught his flight back to the USA. I simply kept working, but it was a lot of fun having my dad visit.