travel log III: Germany (pt I)

It was on the bus from Paris to Lourdes (France), and from there to Bohn (Germany) that the annoying nature of the group we were travelling with became revealed (they were a youth group from the East Coast, with most of the group leaders in some way affiliated with Regnum Christi). The tour bus had a microphone, you see; and the group leaders co-opted the mike in order to lead the entire group in song after song (of the Christian or quasi-Christian variety), or, worse still, enforce MANDATORY SHARING TIME, where members of the group would step up to the mike and share long, rambling monologues about "their Lourdes experience," or what have you. The lack of sleep and cramped bus conditions, combined with the malodorous fumes from the broken bus toilet, really strained my good humor on this occasion. If EVERYONE shares, it JUST ISN'T SPECIAL ANYMORE.

They tried to make me sing during mandatory karaoke time (this was, oh, about seven hours into the bus ride). I was about to step up and sing a little dittie by the Frogs called "Love Me Or Die, Bitch," but there were children aboard.

In Germany, we stayed in a small village outside of Bohn. The WYD participants in Germany were housed in hotels, hostels, gymnasiums, schools, and, in our case, in private homes; several families in the parish opened up their homes to tired, grubby Americans, Italians, and Africans from Seychelles. I had never even heard of Seychelles before this point, but apparently it's a series of islands near Madagascar with a primarily Catholic population. Who knew?

Anyway, I was lodged with a German couple in their seventies; they were very hospitable. I cannot say enough in praise of the beds we slept on---they were made of some sort of magical comfort producing foam. For breakfast, we were fed rolls, croissants, jam, cheese, ham, nutella, butter, and so forth, in prodigious quantities. I was pleased with the "everything should be eaten with butter" concept. There's a philosophy I can get behind. We couldn't really communicate with our hosts, since we spoke no German, and they spoke no English. Whenever we tried to speak German out of our handy internet-printed list of German/English phrases, they just looked at us funny. I suppose our pronunciation was off, and we were actually saying "Damn the goat," instead of "laundry room." Occasionally, certain cultural differences came to light. They were very concerned when we wore only flip flops to go outside. Apparently this is not a normal thing, outside of California. They began laughing at us, and kicking off their shoes, I imagine to indicate that we might as well go bare foot. Also, the German matriarch refused to let me leave the house with wet hair. I tried, but she physically propelled me into a small side room, handed me a hair dryer, and closed the door. So I dried my hair.