Notions About Starting Oktober

So, we’re a month in! In fear of sounding like a broken record, I won’t say that time flew or anything of the like (even if it did). The last two weeks of August were pretty calm. Learning German is slowly but surely progressing. And, honestly, I wasn’t sure what this blog was going to be about before last weekend. September 30th to October 3rd was the busiest weekend I’ve had in at least a few months. 

It started on Friday night, my host sister and I went to a friend’s birthday party. Despite the slight chill, the party was tons of fun and I got to meet new people, which is always nice. The day after was very low key, I watched a documentary, A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough (10/10, highly recommend), and mostly just relaxed. 

Sunday starts the busy part. I got up bright and early (6 o’clock in the morning!), to get ready before catching a train around 8:30. After successfully navigating the Deutsche Bahn, including catching my connecting train, I got off in Stuttgart, where I met up with 4 other CBYXers. We went to Cannstatter Volksfest, a smaller version of Munich’s Oktoberfest, where we rode rides, listened to music, laughed at the tables where they stood on the benches and danced to the music (although we eventually did too), and just talked, catching up on the first month with our host families. Despite getting caught in the rain at one point, it was tons of fun, even at the beginning when we weren’t sure how to get to the festival from the train station. 

Now, I had another busy day coming on Monday, so I scheduled my train to leave just before 7, meaning I would get home around 8:30. What I forgot about was Deutsche Bahn’s mission to disrupt as many plans as possible. My train leaving Stuttgart was a few minutes late so I was worried that I would miss my connection in Mannheim, luckily, though, my train in Mannheim was delayed half an hour due to train repairs, so there was no way that I’d miss it. When I got to Mannheim, I got some Burger King (which I was extremely grateful for later), and settled myself on a bench at my platform, waiting for the train. After a very confusing half hour, I was made aware that my train would be delayed another half hour. 

Finally, when my train came (an hour later than it was supposed to), I double checked it was the right one before getting on and finding a good place to sit. We didn’t leave Mannheim for another 45 minutes and when we did, stopped halfway between Mannheim and the next station for just over an hour. By this point, I’d already taken down my hair, which I had braided special for the day, and given up trying to look ladylike in the dirndl that I borrowed from my host mom. When we got to the next station, an announcement came on in German and everybody started exiting the train. Luckily, I was able to find someone who spoke English and was able to translate for me. Basically, due to repairs to the train tracks, the train could go no further, so we were to get on buses that would continue the route of the train. 

Between updating my host parents, stressing to my friends, and just overthinking in general, I was a confused, scared mess as I got onto the bus. After 2 stops, however, the bus could also go no further, so we were herded back to the train station (which I also had to ask people around me about). By this time it was nearing 11:30 and all I wanted to do was go to bed. This train was also delayed due to construction, but nearly half an hour later I got on the train. My host dad picked me up at the station and I finally got into bed around 12:30, after spending 6 hours traveling an hour and half journey. 

I wasn’t lying when I said I had another busy day on Monday. In Germany, October 3rd is the Day of German Unity, to commemorate the unification of East and West Germany after World War II. Therefore, we had the day off of school and one of my friends invited me to celebrate her birthday with her and another friend at Phantasialand, an amusement park about 2 hours from Frankfurt. 

We got really lucky that day because most lines were very short, so we got to ride the most popular rides 2 or 3 times in the same amount of time that it would normally take to ride once. We had typical Wursts mit Pommes (sausage with French fries) for lunch, and all in all had a very good day, despite me being tired for parts of it. We even made a counter for how many times I stumbled or almost tripped (7 by end of day). 

Overall, it was a very good weekend, but also a very exhausting one, and I’m looking forward to relaxing this weekend before starting to make more plans. 

Signing off for now, 

Rachel Hesse