I wish I could say that I'm expecting to arrive well-prepared to fit right into the local culture but -- well, I'm doing my best, which I hope counts for something. I'm studying the language with a book called "Learning German in 15 Minutes a Day", but each chapter is taking me over half an hour, so either I'm an idiot or the author is just being snarky.
My friend Carolyn bought me a copy of Rick Steve's book on Germany as a "Gute Reise" gift. It's a terrific book, full of information about traveling by train and bus, ordering in restaurants, etc. But, ironically, it includes only one direct reference to the city of Wiesbaden:
"Mains, Wiesbaden and Rudesheim -- These towns are all too big or too infamous. They're not worth your time."
Fortunately, I've found other reference material that speaks glowingly of the city -- like this weekly publication by the local US Army base: http://www.wiesbaden.army.mil/sites/about/ttd/ttd.pdf
Meantime, Betina's mother met Charlotte recently and fell in love with the little pup. She's invited Charlotte and me to grab a train to Mannheim and stay with her for a few days. Now THAT would be a really excited adventure! (Particularly since Elfriede speaks virtually no English.) But I think I may wait until I'm actually in the country and see how comfortable I am in the town before I get out and make a real effort to get lost.
Still, that image of me and that sweet puppy riding a train across the beautiful German countryside is almost too cool to resist.
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