Here I sit in our EXTREMELY comfortable hotel in Strasbourg, France, looking back on what an amazing week I've just had. But really, to have had an amazing week is just in keeping with the overall pattern of our tour so far: we seem to go from one phenomenal stop to another--finding it impossible all the while to determine what our favorite stop has been.
After our super fun day at the Stowe School in England, we relaxed at a hotel nearby--where the School treated each Din to his own room for the night! Incredible. Needless to say, that generous rooming situation gave all of us a well-needed comfortable night of sleep...which it turned out we would need if we were to have any chance to weather the next day. Read Lee's post for the details, but all I can say is that if easyJet were to cease to exist, I'd feel not very poorly at all. Forcing the Dins to separate into two groups of six, the airline inadvertently created an adventurous two-day journey for each group. While those who stayed at the airport bought their tickets to Amsterdam, the six of us who made it onto the easyJet plane--Rashid, Galler, Lee, Kirk, Dave, and myself--flew to Dusseldorf.
(Here, I'm looking very upset next to
easyJet's false claim of "Speedy Boarding.)
After eating there and checking out the city, we took a train to Luxembourg. The train ride was awesome. The Dins have first class tickets for our EuroRail trips, so the six of us cosily packed into a first class train suite (which I had never experienced in real life--only seen on the Hogwarts Express in Harry Potter). It was a blast to travel with these five very chill Dins and to watch the beautiful scenery pass by.
It was pretty late by the time we got to Luxembourg, so while Dave, Rashid, and Galler went to their homestays, Lee, Kirk, and I settled into our youth hostel. It was a very nice place, complete with a great cafeteria and lobby area to watch soccer--an asset we took advantage of several times over the next few days.
The next day, the six of us stuck together and went out exploring the city--which was fantastic. We listened to some early morning
live jazz at a cozy little club (after we took pictures of the ridiculously beautiful landscape that surrounded our hostel). Then we got some food at a music festival in the central square, then headed to the Luxembourg City History Museum. The Museum was great, but was, at least in my opinion, far overshadowed by what we did next--which was borderline life-changing. We found a place called CHCO, which specialized in all things chocolate. Their most popular item: individually wrapped wooden spoons with chocolate on the end, which you could dip into steamed milk and make your own AMAZING hot chocolate. The spoons came in a plethora of different flavors--ranging from mundane to really unsual. The six of us each picked the spoon that most attracted us, ordered a glass of steamed milk, and sat upstairs in anticipation. What ensued was no short of chocolate bliss. It was so good that we ended up coming back with most
of the Amsterdam Dins two days later. Alright, chocolate
spoons may not actually
be life changing, but what an amazing idea. I'm sure we have it somewhere in America, but none of the Dins had heard of it, which was enough to pretty much freak out over it.
Afterwards, our mini-group of Dins went out an amazing Italian dinner. It was not light on the old wallet, but it was certainly worth it. We knew that this was the last big thing we'd be able to do as the six of us--the Dusseldorf crew, so to speak--so this dinner was especially fun. Late that night, the Amsterdam crew of Dins arrived in Luxembourg, and it was very good to see them and exchange stories.
The next day, a group of five Dins (Kirk, Lee, Schoenberg, Dave, and I) decided to head to Trier--the oldest city in Germany for a daytrip. We saw ruins from the Roman Empire which probably constituted some of the oldest buildings I've ever seen in person. After hitting up most of the other big sightseeing hotspots, including a very impressive Amphitheater from the days of the Roman Empire, we decided to visit the house where Karl Marx was born. The house served as a museum of his life and legacy, and served an extremely interesting museum on a man that I had previously known little about. All in all, the Trier trip was really fun and well worth the visit, considering it's only a cheap 45 minute train ride away from Luxembourg.
The next day, after taking a bigger group of Dins to CHCO, the five babies had a rehearsal to learn new music that the rest of the Dins already know. The five of us call ourselves Tonix (not really sure where that came from, apart from a shortening of Din & Tonics), and it's always a pleasure to sing as a baby quintet. We quickly got "I've Got My Fingers Crossed" and "Georgia On My Mind" to a gig-able state, which is great (always refreshing to be able to add new songs to our repertoire). After that, the Dins had our first and only performance in Luxembourg, at an upscale restaurant that fed us an incredible meal. We sang throughout the night, and ended up doing quite a few additional songs as a private encore for a group that especially liked us. After finally leaving the restaurant, we went back and prepared for National Day--the event we plan our Luxembourg dates around. National Day in Luxembourg is an amazing holiday and quite a spectacle--the population of the city triples for the festivities, which include fireworks, live music all over the streets, and general celebration. It takes a pretty involved effort just to walk a short distance, since every street is absolutely packed with people. I stuck with Galler, Rashid, Lee, and Brett, and we had a great time walking all over the city, dancing, and enjoying the music. It turned out to be an amazing night, and I loved hearing about the adventures of the Dins I split up from once we got back.
(Galler and I loved National Day.)
The next morning, we boarded a train for Saarbrucken. It was sad to leave such an amazing stop, but I knew from experience that the next stop would probably be equally incredible, albeit in a different way. And I was right. For the Saarland stop, we stayed in a different city each night (never actually Saarbrucken, ironically. We just call the stop that since it's the biggest city in Saarland). Each city consisted of a two-hour performance at night and a dinner given to us by our hosts for that city. We were in St. Wendel on the first day, Beckingen on the second day, and finally in Saarlouis--which was particularly awesome because we were split up into homestays with great hosts. I was with Lee, and we absolutely adored our host. Her meals for us for delicious, her house and garden were beautiful, and she even left us with goody bags full of food and chocolate for after we left. That reminds me, I really need to go devour the rest of my goody bag. Right now. Moral of the story: tour is ridiculous and awesome. And DST, somehow.
(Lee and I at our homestay. It had one of the most
amazing gardens we had ever seen. We were sad to
leave!)
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