Working for Volkswagen has a lot of benefits, not the least of which is getting to meet amazing people from all over the world. When my German friends Hagen and Sabine along with my Austrian friend Irene invited me to come spend two weeks over Christmas visiting them, how could I turn down such an opportunity?!
Jess, one of the fellow "50 and 50 by 50" club members, wanted to join me so off we went...
We flew into Frankfurt where we met Christian (also a fellow VW friend). He took us back to his apartment in Meinz, a university town that borders Frankfurt. As is usually the case after an international flight, the first thing we wanted to do was shower. Poor Jess was walked in on by one of Christian's roommates! She was not even in the shower yet but had the luck of meeting him face to face butt-naked. Thankfully she is so laid back that she recovered gracefully. It was great to see Christian and Axel and Stefan and of course we spent our first evening in a biergarten even though we were ridiculously exhausted from the jetlag :)
Hagen's parents loaned him the family VW "Caddy" for our roadtrip around Germany and Austria, which was amazing. It was spacious and because it was a diesel, we got great mileage the entire time. Hagen can be a bit particular and spread a blanket on the backseat, theoretically so we would be more comfortable although I think it was more so we wouldn't get it dirty. We felt like we were dogs and kept referring to it as "the dog blanket". Along with Hagen's childhood friend Marcus and Sabine, we loaded up and drove to Alpbach, Austria.
Alpbach is this gorgeous mountain village in the Alps where Irene is from. 
Her parents run a bed and breakfast, and everyone in Alpbach knows everyone. It was not uncommon for Irene to run into everyone from her 5th grade boyfriend to her 8th grade teacher to her aunt's best friend...it's that kind of vibe! We stayed in a flat across from the village cemetary and nearby the village square.
Alpbach has the kind of charm that is almost impossible to find anymore, as the world gets more and more homogenous. There are only 2,500 people who live there, and all new construction has to be built in a certain style, in order to preserve the village.
We spent our days sleeping in and then going to the mountains in order to take in the scenery. The guys went skiiing (along with Jess one day) while the girls opted for drinking beer by the fire in the mountain lodges :)
One night Irene invited us to go sledding. Having grown up in Michigan, sledding to me consists of a ten second ride on a plastic sled down a small hill (usually in someone's backyard). Sledding in the Alps is a different story!
First, we piled into some small European SUV with 4WD that careened up a winding, dark, mountain road. I was thinking, "Where are we sledding?". When we got to the top, we hopped out and each got a small, wooden sled with metal skids. I realized that we were expected to sled on the road (sans guardrail, mind you!) down the mountain! Whole families with kids were hopping on their sleds and whizzing off. We had no chance but to do the same!
You FLY on those things! The hill is impossibly steep! There are no guardrails to keep you from flying off the side of the mountain! Although it was one of the most terrifying things I have done in my life, it was also one of the most exhilarating!
For me, I think one of the best aspects was that along the way, there are pubs on the mountain! It's a pub crawl, but instead of walking bar to bar, the transportation is by sled! So you basically sled pub to pub and with each beer, you feel a little more relaxed about your possible impending death...
From Alpach we took two separate daytrips. The first was to Innsbruck, where Irene works. It is a beautiful town and it was all decorated for the holidays. 
The mountains are in the background and I can see why so many people love the city. My previous experience in Austria was just visiting Vienna, so it was great to see another city. Having Irene with us meant having a local who knew exactly where to take us. We climbed up a tower for fantastic views.
The second trip was to Salzburg, also referred to as "The City of Mozart". It's baroque town center is a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Sight. I have found that I always fall in love with cities with rivers (i.e. Prague). Salzburg was no exception!
We spent the day wandering around the city, poking into various shops and cafes.
We spent New Year's Eve in Alpbach. 
The village square turned into the happening place to be ...there was a bar made of ice, music, tons of people, fire throwers...we ended the night at a local bar and luckily we didn't stay out all night, because the following day we were off to Berlin.
The drive to Berlin took most of the day, because apparently every German was also traveling. I've never seen so much traffic on the Autobahn! We mostly slept upright in the backseat while Hagen drove and Marcus navigated.
Berlin is such an awesome city! We stayed with our friends Florian & Nadine, and we had the chance to see our friends Ralph, Heiko, Sascha. 
We visited Unter der Linden, the boulevard at the heart of the center of historic Berlin. We visited what is left of the Berlin Wall. We went to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum that now stands there, site of the former checkpoint between West and East Berlin. Strangely, although I was only five years old when my family lived in Germany, I can remember the tall towers along the wall between the East and West!
Somehow it was very easy to go out until 6 am in Berlin without realizing how late it was...and somehow the evening generally ended at a currywurst stand...I specifically remember singing Happy Birthday to the currywurst stand man. And there is definitely a picture of us hugging our taxi driver, who was Iranian, because we loved him for some reason!
Hagen had gone to stay with his parents in the village of Gardelegen, partway between Berlin and Wolfsburg, while Jess, Sabine and I partied in Berlin. We took the train to Wolfsburg and toured the Autostadt and then went to Gardelegen for the night.
Although Hagen's parents don't speak English, Jess and I were somehow able to communicate with them! Gardelegen is a really cute town and very much off the beaten track of where most tourists would go!
From Gardelegen we headed north, towards Emden, which is where Sabine is from. En route we stopped in Hamburg for two days, to stay with Sabine's friend Rebecca. 
True to form, I loved it!!! (It is on water). I loved everything about Hamburg...each of the different areas of the city, the architecture, the parks, der Reeperbahn (prostitution/bar/club area)...
Rebecca's apartment was beautiful and spacious and, like everyone else, the hospitality shown to us was out of this world. They toured us around the city and took such good care of us while showing us all the important sites. The nightlife in Hamburg also goes to around 6 am and we took advantage of it!
After leaving Hamburg we stopped in Bremen for dinner. It is another beautiful town! In Emden, we stayed at Sabine's mom's house. I have to be honest...the way people talk about the northern part of Germany, I was not expecting much from Emden. But it's a cute city and people were really friendly and we had a lot of fun going out with Sabine's friends.
We spent a drizzly day shopping in a cute town there.
Everyone we met/stayed with made our trip so amazing, but Sabine and Hagen especially made it what it was! They took two weeks out of their lives to tour us around Austria and Germany. Unfortunately, it was time for them to get back to their normal lives and so Jess and I took a train back to Frankfurt. My friend Simone offered to take us out for our final night before our early morning flights back to the U.S. You know how you know you should be in bed early before a travel day but then around midnight you are having fun out at the bar and you decide, "Who needs sleep?!"?
It was a fitting end to our crazy trip!
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Posted by: blog.virgullu.com | May 28, 2009 at 11:10 AM