My last days in Kirchberg were pretty uneventful. I spent most of the time in my room trying not to move a whole lot. I went up to the kitchen twice a day to eat (they were still letting me eat for free!) and outside for a bit to get some fresh air. I took care of some things I needed to do before I left, like mailing my skis to Germany, where I am now. I also did a lot of research for my trip, set to begin in just over a week! That's right, I decided not to postpone the travels because I seem to be recovering very well. Before anyone says anything: yes, I will be very careful the first few weeks. No, I will not be rock climbing or playing rugby. At this point, I am able to walk on my own just fine, even for some distances, with just a bit of a limp. Every day I seem to improve. I am hardly using my crutches anymore, except for longer walks. I am not sure yet if I will take them with me on the trip.
In total, I worked at Hotel Willms for exactly 12 weeks, averaged 33 hours per week, and made just about 4000 euros, which works out to slightly over 10 euros per hour. And given my living situation there, I was able to save quite a bit. Most of my expenses were only at the beginning of the season, before I moved into the staff accommodation. All in all, right now I still have more than 3200 euros in my pocket! It will hopefully be enough to travel with, though I will be on a tight budget.
I left Kirchberg on the 1st of April, exactly 4 months after I arrived on the 1st of December. Packing my bag to leave was a difficult process. It was incredibly full due to all my winter ski gear, including some things I picked up during the season. Last year, my pack usually weighed about 14 kilos, but I think it was pushing 20 kilos last week once I clipped on my ski boots. However, taking the train with that weight in my condition wasn't as difficult as I expected. I had to make 5 different changes to get to Frankfurt, but I just took it very slowly. I met Maren's brother, Marius, at the train station in the evening. He lives in Frankfurt, and we took the U-bahn a few stops to his car, then drove to his flat. I met his roommates and we hung out with some of his friends. We both had to wake up very early the next morning, then drove out to the airport. The drive should have taken 20 minutes, but for some inexplicable reason, Marius didn't have any idea where the airport was, so we were about an hour late. We arrived and picked up Maren, her friend Inga, and Inga's mother, all having just flown in from Johannesburg, South Africa. The 5 of us drove to Maren's hometown in the Harz Mountains. It is a cute little town and popular during the winter, though most of the snow had melted when we got there. We dropped off Inga and her mother, picked up Marius' girlfriend, Marie, and headed north. We arrived in the evening at the big house I had been to before in Marx (the middle of nowhere, 40 km north of Oldenburg).
There were already quite a few people here when we arrived, and more kept coming over the Easter weekend. In addition to Marius and his girlfriend, Maren has two older sisters, who both brought their boyfriends. All 4 grandparents were there, along with a collection of aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. There were between 20 and 40 people at the house the whole weekend. We all ate huge meals and played games together. I attempted to speak German to as many people as I could, which was pretty funny. Especially with Maren's grandparents, who don't speak a word of English.
Most of the people left on Sunday. The siblings and their partners, as well as Maren's mother stayed. We all spent the next few days working on a massive clean-up of the house. Cleaning the Easter mess was no problem, but the real work was the incredible collection of stuff in the gigantic garage. Maren's father (who has been working and couldn't make it home for Easter) is a major packrat. It took days to sort through the boxes and boxes of stuff. The garage (3 interconnected garages, really) was filled with cars, bikes, games, sports stuff, books, furniture, just going on for eternity. I was not really able, or allowed, to help too much because of my hip. Maren and I drove down to Oldenburg one day with her younger sister, Johanna, because she had to go back to school. The clean-up just ended yesterday, and now everyone is leaving the house except for Maren and I. It has been really fun getting to know Maren's siblings. We have all been having a lot of fun together. I am learning a lot of German as well.
Our trip is coming together pretty well. Maren and I will spend the next week doing some more planning, booking some airline tickets, and picking up a few things we will need. We also need to arrange visas for some of the countries we plan on visiting. Maren also just finished cutting my hair. It was my first haircut since Halloween! Think it was about the longest it had ever been in my life... Now I am ready for the hot weather this summer. I will try to post one more blog before our adventure begins!
