Heidelberg, Germany 9/30/07

Heidelberg, Germany 9/30/07

It’s getting late in the afternoon and the sun is starting to set on a gorgeous day here. I just walked along the river Neckar into the heart of the altstadt (old town) and have finally picked a spot on hauptstrasse to have an afternoon cappuccino, which was the reason I set out on this walk probably 2 hours ago. The riverside walk was so pretty though I just kept walking and I was distracted by a few dozen great photo stops too.

It was a bittersweet walk. I was passed by many runners, rollerbladers, and cyclists. On the other side of the river I could see even more of them. God I want to go for a run here!!! The scenery and weather are perfect for it!

My foot is doing much better but of course I’m nowhere near running condition. I ditched the crutches completely today and will get by on just a cane and a limp, hopefully for just a few more weeks. I think I’ll be fine like that. Each morning my foot feels great. However by night I’ve always overdone it and when I peal off my make shift brace, my toes are very swollen and I can’t wait to lie down so the throbbing will stop. It soon does though and, like I said, it feels fine by morning…so I strap the brace back on and head out for another fun day of international adventure as if I wasn't walking on a broken foot.

And what an adventure it has been! I really want to go for a run here not only for the views but also because my body desperately needs it! My 12 days here in Germany have been a blur of beer tents with pit stops for sausage and cheese. I wouldn’t change a thing but I’m ready to replace the liters of beer with liters of water and eat a few salads. I think my companions over these many days would agree with me, especially Jillian who is currently laid up in the hotel feeling miserable. The lack of sleep, traveling from town to town, and liters of beer practically each day, finally took her down this morning.

We will now skip Frankfurt tonight and instead just get up very early, 3 a.m. kind of early, to catch a shuttle from here to the Frankfurt Airport and our 6 a.m. flight back to the U.S. The end to another amazing trip!

Usually when I wrap up a trip like this it is bitter sweet; obviously a feeling I apparently have often these days. I’m never ready to “stop” but I’m usually traveling alone so I’m always excited to get home to friends and family. This trip is ending more on the bitter side though because for the last 10 days I have had old friends with me; I don’t want to go back. I just want us all to continue!

It’s unfortunate that Jillian’s sick because now we won’t get to meet up with my backpacking buddy Manuel, and his girlfriend Diana, who live in Frankfurt. Jillian has hung with the guys though for most of this trip so I don’t feel too bad missing just one last dinner.

“The Guys” in this instance covers some great old college friends of mine and consist of Ryan “Flick” Flickinger, Mike Niesel, Jason Richardson, and Mark Holley. Flick and Mark arrived on the 22nd where they met up in Frankfurt with Chris McMahon and his crew (Joe, Dave, and Chris’s brother Brendan). They immediately made their way to Munich by train to meet up with me and Jillian. Jason and Mike were hanging in Amsterdam for a few days and eventually made it down to Munich on the night of the 23rd.
Munich became the focal point for me to meet up with Jillian, and this group of college buddies, thanks to Chris McMahon. Actually to be more specific it is probably thanks to the US Army. They are the ones that stationed Heather in Germany that eventually led to Chris and Heather being married here in Heidelberg 2 days ago, at the Heidelberg Castle.
The Castle was a beautiful setting and the wedding was a beautiful day. Fall is in full force here and all the leaves are in shades of red, brown, orange, and gold that matched the sky and architecture as the sun set at the end of their wedding.

McMahon has been a good friend of mine since my later years at SIU. He’s one of those great friends that would be there whenever you need him but luckily has probably done more to push me up rather than catch me. I was happy to be with him on his wedding day but even happier to see him marrying Heather. I have only met her a couple times now but I’m a quick study and I really like her. It’s a sappy thing to say, an emotion I like to avoid, but I really do love it when I see my good friends find equally great people to spend their lives with. In my humble opinion Chris has done that.
So if I’m thanking the Army for the location I don’t know who I need to thank for the date of their wedding because it was just as important to the AMAZING experiences I have recently had. When Chris told me last year that he was going to get married on September 28, 2007 in Heidelberg I think before I even said congrats I said “That’s right in the middle of Oktoberfest!”

Chris said happily, “I know!”
It was a bonus from the start, not a conflict.

So add it to my Life Resume...........
Oktoberfest 2007; Munich Germany
September 22 (opening day), 23, & 26, 2007
- Developed, participated, and excelled at revelry and merriment.

- Initiated cultural exchange with the local market.
- Expanded social network and potential sites for further networking.


- Stimulated the local economy.

- Surpassed previous physical benchmarks for consumption of the finest international meats, cheeses, and beers.


- Sang loudly and badly!

References available upon request including photos and, unfortunately, video.

I’m running out of pages in this book and could easily fill half of another book with Oktoberfest play by play. Even if I had the space though I think I’ll skip it. It doesn’t really matter who was there on each day or what tents we visited. I’ll just let those facts all melt together. It will be more fun trying to figure it all out with everyone years from now. Instead I’ll just remember that I was there with great friends, I met fun Germans, drank delicious beers, ate the occasional giant pretzel, chicken, and Mega Schnitzel, and sang “Ein Prosit” probably a hundred times. Ahhh, good days!

Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit,
der gemiitlichkeit
- Repeat-
Eins, zwer, Dreif…g'suffa!

Translation provided in the field on a Post It note by Hans

Cheers, Cheers,

Due to the harmony

- Repeat -

1, 2, 3…We drink it!

A little video snap shot of an Oktoberfest tent....

As if 3 days at Oktoberfest wasn’t enough we also hit the Stuttgart Beer Fest the day after McMahon’s wedding. The Beer Fest is basically the same kind of experience as Oktoberfest but not quite as traditional. While many things were similar to Munich, the Stuttgart day will always be set apart in my mind because it ended with me trying to find a way to get back, 120 km, to Heidelberg at 1 a.m. with the McMahon’s (Dad, Mom, Sister, Brother, & even Grandma), Jillian, and one of Chris’s co-workers, Pia. It was hard, late, tired, crowded traveling and we didn’t all make it. We lost Dad and Brother before we even left Stuttgart. How and when they made it back I still don’t know.

We made it by train about half way and then Jillian stopped a cab, literally stopped it. She jumped right in front of it as it was pulling into a parking lot. Then she walked around to the side and got in without saying a word. Classic move! As the rest of the caravan piled into the taxi-van they left me to negotiate a fare for the 70 km ride to Heidelberg which I did for 120 Euros. It’s a good thing counting is probably the best thing I can do in German because the driver didn’t speak any English. It was a temporary miserable evening that will result in lots of laughs over the years when we all look back so I’m not complaining.
I ran into Flick and Mark this morning and they both had equally memorable evenings trying to make it back from the Beer Fest. Mark especially had a crazy night that found him in random small towns in the German countryside and had to rely on a host of international good samaritans to find his way back to Heidelberg. (So much for all of us “taking it easy” that day.) It seems Mike and Jason’s choice to sit this one out was a wise decision for them. I might be the one using a cane to get around but I think we all will be limping our way out of Germany.
So there it is. Another trip wrapped up and only one page left in this journal. Kind of spooky because I remember it was time to start a new book almost exactly a year ago when I was leaving San Fran for Japan; the first trip on my full year of wandering. Wow this year flew by!

I get back to WPB tomorrow, head to Virginia for some Pike meetings next weekend, and start my new job and career on Monday, October 8. I’ll put the backpack in a closet and drag out the “work” clothes from storage. I hope there isn't much dust on the clothes and I hope the pack doesn’t collect too much dust before I get a chance to use it again.

I feel like I have learned a lot in this past year. The world is definitely smaller then when I started and yet the list of places I want to go is longer than it was a year ago. I think there is a law of nature in there, well at least for my nature that is.

There’s a quote from Ralph (Emerson) that jumps to mind:
“I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”
Now I chose this last year not as a means of getting away from myself but as an evolutionary step for me. I just hope I don’t forget what I loved the most about being out here when I get back into the routine of a standard job and permanent residency. I’ve never agreed with Lennon’s definition that “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” That’s not what I call living and is therefore not life.

I want to remember that the passage of time should be marked by experiences and events; not by numbers on a calendar or days of the week. A Tuesday is the same as a Saturday. It’s time in life that should never be wasted.

So I’ll see you on the next page, in the next book....in the next destination.
MJF