Nach Deutschland

Today began at 2:30 am after 3 hours of sleep. I was not looking forward to the long day of travels ahead of me. My uncle, Jenifer, and nick had a flight leaving one hour after mine so we all went to the Almaty Airport together. My cousin Gene and my Aunt Leah came to the airport to see us off. I had to spend more time at the customs agent just like when I came into the country. I got a new passport before leaving and when they put the pages together it came out a bit sloppy. The agent left his booth for several minutes, and came back with another agent. They poked and prodded the little blue booklet and asked a few more questions before allowing me to go through to the gate.

 It was a cloudy morning and we took off near dusk. The heavy clouds lay low and some of them had begun to dump their load onto the ground below. The mountaintops were right outside my window, but lay hidden somewhere in the heavy clouds. I will come back I am sure of this. The time spent there wasn’t as adventurous as it could have been but I was glad I spent the time I did catching up and getting to know my family. I was also excited about what the next visit will bring with the new friends I had made in these short couple of days. A good foundation was laid for a future visit.

I flew to Kiev Ukraine and spent several hours there and connected to Frankfurt. I made it to Frankfurt at 1 pm and my cousins met me at the airport. From their home Frankfurt was along the way to our destination so they scooped me up and we headed off to Erfurt. I immediately took a liking to Germany. All the roads were clean. Everything seemed to be built right and to last. The roads were high quality concrete and asphalt, the guardrails laser straight, and the semi-truck trailers had perfect welds where no one would ever care to look, except apparently me. Everything was neat and orderly. From what my cousins told me it comes at a price, lots and lots of rules.

We drove to my Aunt’s Sister’s town Erfurt. They had a small flat and a large warehouse from which they ran a massive photo studio. We had our diner and went off to explore the city. 

The narrow cobblestone streets were like a fairytale. The tall 4-5 story houses bunched together and lined the streets. I am completely head over heals at the age of the buildings here. They are built from stone and brick, well taken care of, renovated and continue their happy little lives unlike the stick frame homes of the States. I took note of several architectural details for possible use in the states.  WE made our way to a cathedral that was built in the 8^th century in which my hosts had their wedding. It was massive. The cathedral had been closed off but for good reason. There was a stage built on the massive staircase and courtyard and there was live opera. The performers were just a little over 100 yards from us but the position of the stage and acoustics were perfect and I am certain we heard it with as much quality sound as those sitting in the stands. It was beautiful. The sound raced through the square and some of it slammed into the buildings while some of it continued on through the narrow streets. I hoped that everyone else that heard it would have felt as I did. I was eager to se what was next and we made our way up a hill to a castle. It sat atop a hill proud of the rest of the city. The 40-50 ft walls took it even higher and we had to take stairs to the main gate. The main gate was comprised of 3 gates, all with its own line of defenses. I am sure it was nearly impenetrable as it still stands today. I imagined the sound of neighing horses and the clip-clap of hooves echoing in the narrow passages as knights would make their way back to the castle from a campaign. We made our way to the wall facing the cathedral and stood there for 15 minutes until the finale of the opera. From here it sounded like there had been to performances as the reflection of the sound delayed a bit from the actual performers. This did not bother me, it was beautiful on both accounts. The audience couldn’t stop clapping when the performance was over.

There was 8 of us and the flat was not large enough for us to stay in. We pulled out mattresses and our sleeping bags and camped out in the photo studio. I am sure I fell asleep before I landed on mine. It had been over 24 hours that I did not sleep with all the traveling and my body gave up.