Reunion in Germany

My week in Germany was too short. I arrived on Sunday night. Christoph picked me up at the airport and we went straight to dinner with his dad, brother, and girlfriend. It was nice to be back in Recklinghausen visiting my German brother after 5 years. Monday, we had a late morning followed by a train ride to Essen for the Christmas market. Over the next three hours I’m pretty sure that we tried almost every kind of festival food available there. My favorite thing was the reibekuchen, a potato fritter eaten by hand and dipped in applesauce. We also had various baked goods, German Christmas cookies, and glühwein- a traditional drink. On the following day Christoph and I walked around the city center of Recklinghausen. After a couple hours we drove over to Marl, where his mom lives. After a day full of exploring the towns Christoph grew up in, we went shopping for German beer for a tasting we had planned that night. Later, Wolfgang, Christoph, Stephan, and I tried all 18 different kinds of beer. We compared our notes and generally agreed on what we liked best. Wednesday started off with another late morning. Then Christoph, Stephan, and I went to a day spa. This place is like nothing I’ve ever seen in the States. There are saunas and pools of every temperature. Five years ago when I was visiting, Christoph and I spent a day there and it was such a good experience that I had to go back this time. To keep this PG, I’ll leave out the best details. Feel free to ask me about it in a PM. After spending the day cleansing our bodies we ate currywurst, basically a bratwurst smothered in some kind of curry sauce served with seasoned fries. It was heaven on a plate. That night we took a late train to Münster with two of Christoph’s basketball girls for a night of dancing. Unfortunately it took us two hours to make the 45 minute train ride because somebody got hit by a train at one of the stations. We finally got to the club though and were surprised to find it packed on a Wednesday night. We danced until the club closed until 3 AM, finished our beers, and then walked to a nearby station to get doner kebab. We caught the 4 AM train back to Recklinghausen and called it a night. Thursday was a lazy day for recovery and Friday I flew back to the US.