With the cancellation of my flight, my weekend got off to a bit of a rocky start. I’d had to get up at four in order to get to the airport on time, and was a little annoyed that my taxi had set me back a whopping twenty five quid Admittedly my mother had warned me about this, explaining that a new change in legislation meant taxis were charging substantially more for fares at antisocial hours, but even so I felt faintly outraged. Nowhere near as outraged, of course, as I felt when I got to check in and became aware of the debacle with my flight. Despite the fact that it wasn’t quite six am, I was so frustrated that I had to go to Costa’s for an iced latte (any excuse), and spent the rest of the time wandering around the poor selection of shops in Birmingham airport’s grubby little terminal two. I was tempted to buy my boyfriend a handheld fan which squirts water on the grounds that he constantly experiences menopausal hot flushes, but in the end I didn’t because I figured he was probably too macho to want to use it in public

When we boarded the flight, there were a few minutes of utter chaos. The reality of the situation was that the Stuttgart passengers were gatecrashing the Hamburg flight, but no one had taken this into consideration when allocating the seat numbers. Consequently, my seat was double booked and I had to wander aimlessly down the plane until I found another one which looked randomly free. It was one of those tiny little Embraer aircraft which only have one seat on the left hand side of the aisle, and so I was able to sit in antisocial peace on my own

The captain was a very nice man, and apologired profusely for the confusion. Methinks he was pretty hacked off himself as nobody had properly explained to him or the air crew what was going on. I later found out from the air hostess that the first she’d heard of it was when she got on the plane. To be honest, they all sounded as fed up with their employer as I was.

Anyway, the plan was to head to Hamburg first and then sit and wait on the tarmac for a bit before flying on to Stuttgart. The pilot seemed a bit worried about this as it would normally be illegal for him to fly internally between German airports; the company only has a licence for certain routes. The air hostesses were also a bit worried about the legality of it, something to do with the number of hours they were supposed to stay in the air…

In a bizarre twist of fate, I suddenly realised that I knew one of the air hostesses! That is to say, I didn’t recognise her in the slightest, and was beginning to get annoyed when she came round with the drinks trolley and was doggedly pushing me to have a cup of coffee, despite my protestations that I didn’t want one. It’s a good job I don’t have a temper, otherwise I might have told her where to stick her overpriced filth. As it is, I’m a timid weak-willed sort of person and I eventually agreed to buy one on the grounds that refusal was becoming embarrassing. It was only when I reached for my purse and she whispered that no, it was on the house, that I saw her name badge and realised I went to school with her. Actually, I sat next to her in A Level Geography for two years and used to lend her my notes But to be fair, that does make it six years since I last saw her and in the intervening period she had grown a fringe.

At any rate, I had a free cup of coffee and later got passed a free bottle of water prominently labelled “crew only” which was very kind of her and caused the couple on the other side of the aisle to glare at me viciously I take back some of what I said about Flybe, because she and the rest of the crew were all very nice, and whoever’s fault it was, it wasn’t theirs.

It being a bright sunny day, the flight was pretty nice. As we took off I had a great view of Birmingham city centre and could even make out the tower of Old Joe, the university clock in the distance. The approach to Hamburg was also very enjoyable as we came in low over a massive river which I assume was the Elbe. We sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes while the baggage of the Hamburg passengers was unloaded, and we also acquired a new load of passengers whom the aircraft was supposed to be taking back to Birmingham but who were due the surprise of a little detour via Stuttgart. Meanwhile I was feeling awake enough to read, and skimmed through one of the pile of Esperanto magazines which flood through my door ever since I joined TEJO. This one was a little surprising. An article about a group of Japanese people who find cleaning toilets a semi-religious experience, and another about a town in Poland where some school children had beaten up their English teacher. I was surprised to find a very nice gentleman whom I had met in Southport not falling far short of praising this as a victory over linguistic imperialism. After that I decided a bit more normality was in order and went back to Engleby, which is good but potentially very dark.

Anyhow eventually we took off, eventually we got to Stuttgart where it was a horrible cloudy day, and here there was a further commotion because the German authorities boarded the plane and requested everyone get off, even those who were intending to stay on for Birmingham. Everyone was most put out by this, including the cabin crew. Stuttgart is only a small airport though and by the time all this had been resolved and I had got through passport control, I was pretty chuffed to find my bag had already been offloaded and was sitting all on its own on the baggage carousel

Sadly I’d just missed the hourly bus to Tuebingen but there was the advantage that this gave me time to search out something to eat. I ended up with a Pizzabroetchen and a Vanilleschnecke from the airport bakery, and headed outside to get some much needed air whilst I waited for the bus. There is an excellent bus service which ferries people between Tuebingen and the airport in less than an hour, which is quicker than the same journey by train. The road journey is significantly prettier and more exciting too, although I was worried that even armed with a timetable and an email of instructions, I might fail to stand up on time to get off at the correct stop for my sister’s suburb. I sat right by the door just in case.

I needn’t have worried though because everything went according to plan, and having got up at the hideous hour at 4am I finally arrived at my sister’s flat at half past one. By this time I was in a tired sort of daze and had I not been so pleased to see her, I would certainly have fallen asleep. As it was we had some bread and cheese with coffee, and I started to feel a bit better I was disconcerted when sitting in her kitchen to look out the window and see a cow walking past But there is a sort of farm behind the accommodation block and now the warm weather is here they have released the cattle to graze

We headed into town on the bus in order to do some shopping. It’s Fathers’ Day next weekend and so I thought maybe we should take the opportunity of being together in the same country to get a joint present. This was a bit of a race against time, because no shops open at all on Sundays and they mostly close at five on Saturdays. Also, there aren’t really many shops in Tuebingen at all. In the end we went to the famous Gummi Bear shop, which sells gummi sweets in every shape and colour you could possibly imagine. I wanted to buy myself a bag of gummi cocks but in the presence of my sister didn’t dare In the end we settled for a box of sweets for my dad in the shape of a car, which looks quite cute That mission accomplished, our next task was to buy some peppermint flavoured Rittersport for my mom.

Rittersport is the only famous brand of German chocolate of which I am aware, and they make it in a factory about twenty miles from where my sister lives. Its uniqueness consists of the fact that the bars are always completely square, which is apparently because they were initially designed as bars which would fit into a sportsman’s pocket (hence the name). It now comes in a variety of different flavours, all with a different colour packaging, and is quite delicious. I wouldn’t choose it over Cadbury, but as far as I am concerned Cadbury is sacred, and I would choose it over Lindt, which I really don’t think is that nice despite how much people always go on about it and how much it costs. The nicest flavour of Rittersport is the mint, and until very recently it used to be obtainable from the foreign section of the posh food hall of Rackham’s in Birmingham. Recently, however, they appear to have run out, hence my mother’s request that we bring her some back. This should have been a simple request to fulfil, but was complicated by the fact that because there are so many different flavours of the chocolate, the first three shops we went to didn’t have the mint We obtained it in the end though in a little chemist where there was a big poster over the display saying, “Ich treibe Rittersport”. I thought that was quite witty

By this point the shops were closed anyway, so we decided to go for a bit of a walk. We climbed a hill which lies just behind the city centre and on which the poshest and most expensive houses are built. The majority of the most imposing houses belong to the Burschenschaft but please don’t ask me to explain who they are, because I scarcely understand it myself. They are slightly frightening anyway, and there was one particularly intimidating house we went past which had a red carpet leading up the steps to the door whilst either side of the path was lit with flaming torches Trying not to catch anybody’s attention, we progressed up the hill and after climbing through a small wood we emerged into a large clearing with a tower. The tower looked rather like it might once have been used as a prison, on account of the narrow barred windows. My sister said she thought it had been built by Kaiser Wilhelm, but when she said that I don’t think she meant one of the German rulers but rather one of the local kings who continued in existence here long after the country was allegedly united.

The tower was locked up and so we couldn’t climb it for a better view. Instead, we headed back down the other side of the hill, through some fields of peculiar German sheep and alongside a little river into the town centre. I had already arranged with my sister in advance that for dinner we were going to go to Neckarmueller, an historic brewery on the banks of the Neckar and my favourite restaurant in Tuebingen.

The Schnitzel there is really very good, and they serve Apfelschorle in big tall glasses as if it were beer One of my sister’s flatmates has just started working there and I feel sorry for her because she’s allowed to carry people’s food but not to bring them their bills, and so she misses out on all the tips Anyhow, after that we felt like pudding so wandered round Tuebingen in the twilight for a bit until we found a place that was selling the most delicious icecream I’ve had in ages. That was followed by a Latte Machiatto in a nearby bar. I don’t know why none of the coffee houses in England serve Latte Machiatto, but in Germany it appears to be everywhere. It’s a strange sort of concept, being essentially indistinguishable from a normal latte but served in a glass beaker with no handle and a straw to drink it with. It takes a bit of getting used to, drinking hot coffee with a straw, but it’s actually rather fun

I was fairly exhausted after all my travelling, and retired to my hotel before eleven. The hotel, being honest, leaves a lot to be desired. I had a bad impression of it the first time I ever saw it with the word “Fremdenzimmer” stencilled on the side in huge letters. Fremdenzimmer, it just sounds a trifle unwelcoming The girl who checked me in was unwelcoming to say the least and refused to accept that I was correctly pronouncing my own name. One of life’s phenomena which I have never understood is the peculiar perception the Germans have of English vowels. It matters not which part of Germany you visit: uniformly across the whole country, Germans are convinced that the English pronounce u as a and a as e. Hence the German word Handy, their mistaken impression of what the English call mobile phones, is actually pronounced Hendy, which they fondly imagine is excellent British pronunciation. Similarly when speaking English they talk about “a cap of tea”. What you and I might imagine was a cap, that is to say something you might wear on your head, they would call a “kep”. The Queen is not affluent, but effluent, and so on.

That aside, the main objection I have to the hotel is how incredibly dark it is. The corridors have no windows and are lit by the sort of lights which only come on when you are standing underneath them, with the result that you have to walk through a darkened passage which becomes illuminated just five seconds too late. The rooms themselves are also incredibly dark, being lit by one solitary sixty watt bulb on the far wall. I was enjoying reading Engleby so much that I wanted to get through another chapter before I went to bed, but the light was so poor that I event admitted defeat and went to sleep.

The breakfast buffet in this establishment is also not going to win any prizes. The orange juice is watered down so much that it more accurately resembles squash and there is no cereal, the choice being between muesli and muesl. I am also slightly disconcerted by the fact that I have never stayed there and not been the only person eating breakfast. It was, however, only forty euros a night, and so it’s not fair to complain

Having packed my walking boots, for Sunday we had planned a more ambitious walk. My sister had obtained some walk leaflets from the local tourist information office and we decided to combine two of their suggestions to make a longer walk of just over fifteen miles. Having finally succeeded in convincing my sister it didn’t make sense to attend Mass, we made an early start, and after the thirty minute walk from where my sister lives to the town centre, began to walk through the western outskirts of Tuebingen and ascend a hill known as the Kreuzberg. It was a baking hot day, but the walk was very pleasant and the exertion of walking uphill was relieved by the frequent patches of wooded shade. When we temporarily emerged from the trees there were some beautiful views back towards Tuebingen and the Wurmingen Kapelle, and thanks to the excellent written directions we soon arrived at a picturesque little village called Hageloch

Hageloch appears to boast only one eating establishment, which was nevertheless absolutely lovely and the woman there presented me with the biggest and most refreshing Apfelschorle which I have ever drunk in my life. We were tempted to stay and eat there, but eventually decided that we didn’t have time and needed to press on if we were going to stand any chance of making the necessary bus back into town.

Now, the second walk we were trying to complete started at one end of Hageloch, and we were quite definitely at the other, so my sister had a clever brainwave that we could climb up a hill through some apple orchards and eventually intercept the woodland path we were aiming for. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and we quickly climbed up through the beautiful orchards and reached the woods. The problem was that once in the woods there weren’t any helpful footpath signs, and we weren’t entirely sure where we had come in. We had a look at the map over lunch and were confident we had it sorted, so strode out at a brisk pace for half an hour or so, making the features on the ground fit with those on our walk instructions. After a while, however, we were faced with incontrovertable evidence that we weren’t actually where we thought we were, and were faced to retrace our steps in the hope of finding some sort of landmark which might correspond with the map.

Things were rather fraught for a while. I was rather panicked that we would be stuck in a wood forever and I would miss my flight back home. We walked for twenty minutes down one path only to find it come to an abrupt end at a precipice, and we had to walk all the way back again. At one point I caught a glimpse of a huge brown beast running through the forest towards us and screamed rather loudly on the grounds that it looked suspiciously like a wolf. Closer inspection, however, revealed that it was just a deer

My sister has her gold Duke of Edinburgh Award and is actually pretty good at map reading, so before long she managed to get us back on track, and we eventually arrived at a pretty place called Schloss Hohenentringen. The castle was very attractive indeed and probably worth seeing, but it was so incredibly busy on a sunny Sunday afternoon that I just wanted to get away from it as quickly as possible. We proceeded to climb down a narrow valley and into the village of Entringen proper. As we walked down the main road towards it we began to hear ominous rumbling noises behind us, and it soon became apparent that a particularly vicious thunderstorm was hot on our heels. We just made the village as the first drops started to fall and sought refuge under the porch of the Rathaus until it calmed down enough for us to find the busstop. There was rather a long weight for the bus, with the result that we didn’t get into town until half four, barely giving me time to get back to my sister’s, grab my stuff and make my connection to the airport.

I managed it somehow though and the goodbye was mercifully short, although I did as ever end up crying slightly. The journey back to the airport gave me time to reflect. Sometimes I wonder what we’re doing, tying ourselves down to a long term residence in England by talking about grown up things like buying a house. The quality of life seems so much better on the continent in so many ways that it is difficult to come up with justifications for wanting to live in Britain. Life in Britain always seems rather like a grey existence, making the most of the moments which fall between the general unpleasantness. I think I might rather live abroad and have a dead end job and struggle for cash than stay in England with a career and a mortgage. But I am probably romanticising it out of proportion, and of course life can be crap everywhere. I just know that if I ever end up single, I won’t be hanging around.

The journey home was totally uneventful, despite the fact that I was put sitting in row 13 I arrived home after 11, utterly exhausted, and not looking forward to my six am start for Bolton

Tags: Germany, holidays, Tuebingen

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 9:07 am and is filed under Germany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.