Currency: Euro (1 Euro=$1.5 USD)

Cities Visited: Frankfurt, Heidlberg, Stuttgart

To take the subway or train, you must buy a ticket in a machine that’s a bit hard to figure out.  Oddly enough, there is no turn stile you are required to pass through, only ticket validation machines.  We were never checked for tickets, but have heard that there is a hefty fine if you are caught riding the subway or train without one.

If you cross the street before the light turns green, you may get the stink eye from the other waiting pedestrians.

Frankfurt is the financial center of Germany and home of the European Central Bank.

In Frankfurt and Stuttgart, we saw square gold plaques on the ground in front of different buildings throughout these cities.  The plaques contain the names of people who were taken from these buildings during World War II, their birth date, the date they were taken, the concentration camp they were taken to, and the year they perished.

Buildings that served as bomb shelters during World War II can still be seen in Frankfurt.  They serve now as housing or apartment complexes.

Apfelwein (apple wine) is produced in Frankfurt and is served in a blue pitcher.  In restaurants, orders are made by the size of the pitcher and how many glasses you can pour from it.

To visit the Heidlberg Castle, you will pay a price to enter the ground, then an additional price to tour the inside of the castle and finally more to use the bathroom.  The pharmacy museum is included in the ground’s entrance fee and it is well worth a visit.

In Stuttgart, reserve a whole day to visit the Mercedez-Benz museum as there will be tons of ground to cover and lots of cool things to see.  Don’t be surprised if you leave convinced that a Mercedes-Benz is the next car you’ll own.

Deenaree´s list…

• Food: Pretzels
• Experience: Eating a true German meal and drinking apple wine in this old pub in Frankfurt with our host, Oliver
• Something to remember: Visit Berlin!

Ben´s list…

• Food: Sausages, yum!
• Experience: The Mercedes Benz museum has to be one of the greatest museums in the world!
• Something to remember: There seems to be no reason to ever pay to board a German train…

The night before we left Reims, our couchsurfing host, Germain, was quite helpful.  He found us a nice piece of cardboard from a shot glass set and a good, blue marker for us to write our sign.  Unsure of where would be easiest to hitchhike to from Reims, we created a two-sided sign; one to Frankfurt and the other to Saarbrucken, the first major German city across the border along the main highway.  I did the block lettering and Deenaree added some flair with cute, feminine decorations.  As a final touch, she wrote “S.V.P” on both sides of the sign for “s’il vous plait”.  Finally, we checked on a few websites to find good places to hitchhike around Reims.  It is well known in the hitchhiking world that big cities are a horrible place to try to hitchhike and gas stations and toll booths on major highways are great.  It turns out Reims is not that big of a city and also happens to have a toll booth on a major east-west highway just outside of town!

We were prepared to take a bus to the outskirts of town the next morning and walk the final mile to the toll booth to get to our chosen toll booth, but our couchsurfing host went even further out of his way and offered to drive us out to the spot in the morning.  He was able to get us within 50 feet of the toll booth which was fantastic, except that we were on the wrong side of the road.  I had my first panic attack and wondered if he should take us somewhere where we didn’t have to cross.  Finally, Deenaree talked some sense into me and we managed to say goodbye and cross the toll-booth-stopping-traffic without any trouble at all.

Once reasonably in place on the proper side of the road we settled in for the long wait.  The first problem we noticed was that it wasn’t a normal toll booth.  It was only the place where the drivers pick up tickets at the start of a toll road.  The lines were shorter and the windows were not down as long.  We watched many cars pass and were fascinated by the reactions.  Some people ignored, others shook their heads in disgust and others gave a knowing, apologetic smile, acknowledged that they couldn’t help us.  Either way, the cars kept going past.  There was a small rest area just past the toll booth that we thought of switching to if we waited for too long.  We started questioning our decision especially since it was a bit chilly outside and our feet were getting cold.

Luckily, we were picked up after only 30 short minutes.   When it happened, it was hard to see the face at first before he actually pulled over.  It was a nice car and it looked legit.  We pointed at ourselves to make sure he was looking at us, amazed by the first time we had been offered a ride by a perfect stranger.  We threw our bags in the back and hopped in for the ride.

It turned out that our ride was Mori from West Africa (Guinea to be specific).  His parents had immigrated to Germany before he was born.  They now live in Paris and he was living with his wife and two children in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.  He was on his way back from Paris after visiting his parents for the long weekend.  He offered to take us all the way to his hometown, where we could easily catch a train for the last hour to get to Frankfurt.  He turned out to be a very pleasant fellow, discussing life in Germany and Guinea.  As we were already considering a trip to West Africa, we were filled with questions and he gladly answered.  His goal in life was to retire to his land on an island just off the coast of Guinea where he would open a small bed and breakfast.  He was incredibly helpful, stopped for bathroom breaks and even offered us some of his stockpile of Aldi orange juice.

The five hour drive went quickly and we felt we had a new friend by the time he dropped us off at the train station in Bad Kreuznach.  He told us of his friend in Mali, who could help us if we decided to travel there.  We exchanged information and he walked us into the train station and helped us buy the ticket we needed to get to Frankfurt.  We said our farewells and were sad that our first wonderful experience with hitchhiking was over.