So this week we have spent more time in transit than anything else. Whether that be on a plane, a train, an automobile, or just our own two feet- we have have the privilege of enjoying many memories with many people whom we could only meet if caught in the circumstances we have been in.
Germany has a little system they like to call 'mitfahrgelegenheit,' meaning- the opportunity to ride 'with' someone else. It is a more organized way of hitchhiking to put it simply. We pitched in a very reasonable price to ride with a van full of the most collectic group of people you could imagine, for 5 straight hours. In the US we are afraid of getting a gun pulled, while to Germans- well this is just simply- a cheaper way to go, no worries about it.
Then we, by mishap of a wrong way ticket by one I wont name, (thought not myself:), we had to rent a car to leave Berlin- of which ended up bumping us to a C class Mercedes which Rich took the liberty of 'flying' us in, to Frankfurt just an hour short of our destined time:)
And last but not least, as the infamous Volcano blew, we were stranded one extra day in Vienna with friends for an enjoyable longer weekend than originally planned as well.
We then proceeded to spend 9 hours traveling shoulder to shoulder with foreigners from all over the EU, interspursed with a few hours of sitting. We met marathoners from the day before in Vienna, missionary anthropologists to Holland, a really tall law student from Lithuania (who informed me a bit on their ever shrinking population), and last but not least, a lady who literally talked our ears off for almost two hours straight! It's one thing to listen to German- another to engage in a conversation in German, and a whole other thing to engage in German with an 80 year old woman with a dialect from who knows where, and who humored not just us, but herself quite as well.
Needless to say, our long and stuffy journey ended up being a great experience that will, for our memorable circumstances, go down in history for life:)
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