Trip to Germany

Early in the morning on the 2nd, Erik, Dr. Rust, and I headed out for the train station and thus began our trip to Germany. It was a long trip, but we had no problems along the way. We are really lucky that our train trips both there and back were problem free; the German train system was between strikes at the time. If we had tried to go this weekend, for instance, we wouldn't be going. The trains are pretty much all canceled.

One of our train changes was at Cologne, and Erik and I took the opportunity to go out of the station to see the Cathedral. The Cathedral was badly damaged during the war due to its proximity to the train station (the next picture was taken from the station entrance), but it is in good shape now.

The Cologne cathedral. Huge both inside and out. See me at the bottom of the photo?
Where's Waldo now?

One of the windows.

Just for a sense of scale, me with a piece that came off the roof.

Erik really likes this picture.

After a few minutes in the cathedral, we met back up with Dr. Rust, who had been watching the bags. After a really interesting exchange between Erik and Dr. Rust about the gender of "wurst", I had a hotdog while we waited for the train.

Erik snapped this pic from the train as we passed the station in Solingen. This company made his beloved straight razor, right there in Solingen. A touching scene.

We eventually made our way up to Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, the area of northern Germany where most of Dr. Rust's relatives live. Beate, Dr. Rust's sister-in-law, picked us up from the train station and brought us to the house, where she and her husband, Thomas (Dr. Rust's brother) live with their five kids, dog, birds, Martin from Poland, and a hamster (in no particular order). It's a wild and wonderful place, with all sorts of people, animals, and especially babies walking, scurrying, or crawling through at all hours of the day and night.

Gretel, the fierce attack dog. Erik liked her especially, since she looked like his grandparents' old dog, Buck.