I'll trink to that!

As this be a travelin' blog, Heidi suggested we set the stage with some tales of travels past. I like this idea, so here is the exciting story of my one real excursion out of the country, to the mystical faraway lands of Germany.

(I did walk across the border to Mexico once, but I don't think that really counts.)

Once upon a time I was 15. I was in high school, with all the angsty-yet-meaningless high school problems you might expect. I played violin in my school orchestra as well as Symphonettes, one of Arizona's young-folks orchestras, and I had a healthy and bizarre father-crush on the man who conducted both.

That year, the powers-that-be at Phoenix Symphony Guild decided to take us Symphonette players and our bow ties to Germany. We would go for a week, stay with host families, play a few concerts, tour some interesting stuff, and head back home. My parents sweetly decided to cough up the however-many thousand bucks it would take to send me over there. I know it must have been difficult though I'm sure I didn't appreciate it enough at the time; now that I'm older and wiser I'm all the more grateful to make up for being a bitchy teenager back then.

You can't really take in a foreign country in a week, of course. But my host family was delightful, the food was amazing, and it was very, very cold. Today I couldn't tell you what pieces we played for our concert, but I remember clearly the halting and dictionary-laden conversations with my host family, the crazy windy roads, the delicious cheese-and-butter sandwiches my host-sister? made for me to take to rehearsals.

Other things I remember clearly:
~There was a kitchen both upstairs and downstairs in the place where I stayed. This often led to my complete confusion as to which level I was actually on.
~Seriously, the simplest meals were fucking amazing.
~Coke was everywhere. There were giant advertisements telling me to "Trink Coke." My host family, assuming that since I was American I loved the stuff, gave it to me with pretty much every meal. I hated Coke.
~Teenagers should never be allowed to have amazing world adventures. They're just too bitchy to appreciate it. We went on a double-decker bus tour of several chateaus, and the bus driver told us about each castle as we passed it. Of course, most every kid just wanted to gab with their friends, play video games, make out in the back seat, etc. So every time this poor man spoke again the groans got louder and louder, until he finally came back on the intercom and said haughtily, "I think I just won't talk anymore." A few, including the girl sitting next to me, cheered. We got into trouble. ... Looking back, I feel pretty bad for that guy, even though I wasn't a cheer-er. Teenagers are assholes.
~Germans apparently don't pull their punches when it comes to journalism. We received a review in a local paper after playing a concert; they described our skills and our screwups with equal page-time. I think it was embarassing at the time but now I think it's funny. ;-)

Germany at 15 was fun and interesting. But I really didn't appreciate it the way it needed to be appreciated. Which is why I want to travel now at the ripe old age of late-twenties, where I won't have the layer of hormonal angst to obscure the wonder of going somewhere radically new. This time I'll cheer the bus driver on. ;-)