Saarbruecken

My weekend trip to Saarbruecken had a rough start.

At 6:15am I got to my Bahn stop.  Our group's train was scheduled to leave at 6:35am- I thought I had plenty of time. But, in the next 15 minutes not a single train came (normally 4 would of passed by then).  I called my friends waiting at the train station and told them what was happening- it was suggested I should run.

So, at 6:30am I ran in full sprint the 1.3 km to the station. I flew up the stairs 3 steps at a time and ran to the platform, pouring with sweat.  It was then that I noticed the crowd visibly disgruntled people and my group and the lack of trains in the station. It turns out the trains were on a "warning" strike from 6-9am - we were out of luck for the first train we had planned on taking. 

The rest of our train trip went as smoothly as the first half hour.  At our first connection, while still in our first train, we saw a "rapid" train directly to Saarbruecken sitting at a platform across the station.  It was supposed to of left ten minutes ago- so we ran to it thinking we had gotten lucky.  We opened the doors of the train and sat down to catch our breath- and then we realized we were the only ones on the train.  I looked outside and noticed people laughing at us.

We sent a scout outside of the train; he quickly realized that every sign in the area said "Do not board train"- oops!

"Bitte nicht einsteigen"

 We waited on the platform for an hour or two for the strike to end and train business to return to normal.  We were entertained when two other groups of international students made the same mistake as us by running onto the train and sitting down.

River Mosel:

Best 50 Euro cents ever spent (her name is Jewel):

In Saarbruecken we met up with the 15 CBYX students living there. The city is pretty small and looks much older (and prettier) than Cologne.  The streets are very wide and the buildings aren't as tall.  We went to a festival taking place on one of the main streets:

This picture sums up Saarbruecken pretty well (relaxed and pretty):

The Saar cuts the city in two.  The second boat is a rental boat that has a grill in the middle.  I'd like to one day rent one and have a picnic on the river- it looked really fun.

Kevin, Sam and I thought about playing some beach volleyball. And then we found these chairs:

Around 5pm we all met back up again to play cards and cook a huge dinner at someone's host family's home.

observe and report, Jewel

broken camera scare and Macro check.

I like German kitchens more than I should

I like German hinges more than I should

but seriously that is awesome.

Look how then the stove is!!!!!!! The drawer below it is real.

Sunday: 

The Saarbrucken CBYXrs had to participate in LernFest this weekend. Lernfest is a Saarbruecken festival where clubs and orginazations meet in a park to teach visitors about themselves or whatever their passion is. For example, the local Technical school held science experiments for kids, the agriculture club had information on processed food, and CBYXrs had a tent about America.

We decided to walk, in order to see the city:

 After 25 minutes, we started to lose faith in Google.  This wasn't even the weirdest road it had us take:

Random forest road

 But it was awesome when we arrived in the Deutsch-Franzosischer Gardens. The park is about 1 km long and has a miniature train as well as a ski tram to take you across its length.  The festival bordered the main trail for the whole length of the park.

The CBYX booth hosted a Smore sampling station, an area with information about our National Park system, baseball batting practice, and baseball trivia.  People enjoyed it; the Saarland Minister of Education minister came by for a photo-op with the bat.

I used the rest of Sunday afternoon to meet my host brothers for the next year.  On Friday, I received a letter with the family's name and number.  Unfortunately, the parents and daughter were out of town- but the brothers gladly met me in the city.

The family lives 15 mins south of Saarbruecken in Kleinsblittersdorf. It is an awesome location and the village seems quaint.  I will be staying in the grandfathers old apartment, which is the lower floor of the house.  As we were leaving I thought to take a picture (2 mins from house):

The brothers were very nice and great hosts. The 20 year old brother is in medical school in Romania, and the 17 year old is in high school still.  The daughter is around 12, which is why she was with the parents on their out-of-town excursion. I'm very excited to move to Saarbruecken!