Willkommen in Deutschland

My first time in a new country always makes me a little nervous. Germany was no exception. It was an unnecessary feeling though; Germany is really easy and the people have been friendly so far. I was very excited to pass through the FRAport, one of the busiest airports in the world. These birds abound:

Deplaning on the tarmac certainly lowered my expectations a bit, but that notwithstanding I generally approve of the mega-port. Especially since our intercity express train (ICE) pulled right up to terminal 1 in a surprisingly seamless, albeit not so straightforward, connection.

Our train, and every other train we have seen pass, is late! So much for German efficiency. Cool train station though. 

Cool trains, too:

For your viewing pleasure: 

We had quite an unpleasant experience getting from the airport to Schwelm. The blazing heat made everything we did very uncomfortable. Apparently the German ICE trains weren't designed I handle the heat so half of them were not running, and the other half did not have air conditioning. 

The train was crowded to the brim, which didn't help the temperature or general comfort. The boy in the seat behind us was using a newspaper to fan himself - a common practice on the train. 

After arriving in Köln and missing our connection, we spent an hour and a half on the platform observing Germans and their trains. 

Once on our train to Schwelm we finally found weak air conditioning and some comfort. We were able to relax enough that I fell asleep and we missed our train stop in Schwelm! Carsten, our groom friend, graciously came to the next station to pick us up even though they were in the midst of wedding prep. We are in your debt, Carsten! 

Kathy was kind enough to arrange a hotel for us in Schwelm for the weekend. The place is quite charming, as is the town (more on Schwelm in another post). Apparently Germany is in a massive heat waves with record breaking temperatures, so our experience has not been typical so far. This unfortunately means our hotel does not come standard with air conditioning. In fact, none of the Schwelm hotels have it. This made for a sweaty evening! 

My time in Germany has only reaffirmed my general experience that in Europe it is nearly impossible to ever be in complete comfort. Par for the course I guess! Maybe our American standards are too high. Anyway, we had to adapt and come up with creative solutions for cooling off in bed. Ladies and gents, I introduce the minibar AC!:

The big day for Kathy unt Carsten is tomorrow and despite my whining about temperature, we could not  be more excited or happy to be here!