Eins, Zwei, FLY: Week in Review

View from my hotel room.

Now that I am sitting in my PJs on my couch at home with Bones running in the background, I feel like I finally have time to sit down and tell you all about how my week went. Whenever I'm traveling, especially in another country, I feel like I'm wasting my time there if I'm just sitting around in my hotel room. Even if I'm not doing anything ground breaking, I feel like just walking around and breathing in the new place makes my time worth while.

Blame my mom. She does the same thing.

So now that I am home, I don't feel guilty spending time on my computer telling you all about the quaint little town I spent a week in.

I touched down in Germany and was immediately attached to my phone. Yes mom, I'm fine. No, the plane didn't blow up. Yes, I'm on my way to pick up bags. No, I don't need anything. Yes, I do love you and will call you soon.

In other news, no one from my work gave me any sort of directions for how to find the bus to Seeheim. I found an information booth and (all in German, might I add) asked about where the bus was and when it was going to leave. When I stepped outside I could just feel it. I was in Germany. The brisk humid air. The smell of the bus station. The soaring buildings covered in Lufthansa gold. No matter what the reason, I knew where I was and I felt like I was home.

After some carousing in the underground mall beneath the airport, and generally enjoying the German all around me, I was on the bus heading to Seeheim. At this point the jetlag was kicking in and I could barely keep my eyes open on the bus ride home, but I knew I had to stay awake until at least after dinner. I decided, once I was settled into my hotel room, to take a walk around town and see what there was to see.

The Lufthansa Training Center

On the right is the path up the hill to the Lufthansa Center,
the left is the alley into town.

Fall was in full bloom!

There is nothing too special about this street except for the
fact that it is INCREDIBLY German.

Beautiful graves, as per the norm in Germany.

This looks like my kind of bar!!

Perfect place to sit and read!

This beautiful house was up on the hill. I bet the view
from the top balcony is simply beautiful!

This is just to show how far away/high the Lufthansa
Center is from the actual town.

Seeheim is a small town. A Dorf, if you will. It has one train that goes through it and maybe a grand total of three stops. It's nestled up against the hill on which the Lufthansa center is placed (as seen in the above picture). Nearly no one there spoke English, as is normal in the smaller towns. In bigger cities, it's hard to find someone who will speak German with you, but here I had to use German every day. Yeah. Twist my arm!

The Lufthansa Center itself was hyper modern, new, and large. Everything was white, silver, and gold. Everything. Every glass, napkin, paper....was marked with the Lufthansa symbol. It's almost like they went out of their way to be obnoxious about it. But I had free room and board so I'm not going to complain too much. I'm just going to post a picture here showing how insane it looked.

In the days following my arrival the weather turned more into fall than I've seen here in Colorado yet. It was misty, wet, and rather chilly. This made for some beautiful photos of fog in the forest. During the week, I stopped by Darmstadt, the next biggest city nearby, and rented a bike to cruise through the forest. At the end of the week I didn't feel like I accomplished much (outside of learning how to handle lost baggage at the airport), but it was a beautiful time.

On my way out to Frankfurt, one of my co-workers mentioned that I could have taken a plus one with me. Of course, they tell me this as I am checking in. So next time I get sent to training (which might be next year because they are getting a new system soon) I should be bringing John with me. Having an adventure together is always better than having an adventure alone. I think you'll be seeing a lot more of him on this blog. Until then however, enjoy some beautiful pictures from this tiny town!

Found part of my last name on a street sign! Huzzah!

Trying to drink away the jet lag. At least there was a beautiful
view, even if it didn't actually wake me up....

Lufthansa Center had these pieces of art all over the place.
The artist has little plaques next to the art saying that he picked
random phrases and put them together much like a hikau. I feel
Lufthansa just put these on the wall for the sake of having English.