Where is all this water coming from?: Reunification and the Middle Rhine

On Friday I arrived by train to Cologne (Köln), Germany where I will be for this next week. The kind/suave ticket agent in Brussels sold me my ticket at a discounted rate and even was so sweet/sleezy as to ask me to marry him. After reflecting on our relationship thus far (15 seconds long), I decided on a “maybe” for the answer… and I asked him how his wife might feel about such things in reference to the ring he wore.

He then mumbled something I did not understand and proceeded to let me know when he would be working again, “just incase” I wanted to come back to the train station. No thanks Sir Brussels, I’m out of here.

I welcomed the high speed train trip as the first time (it felt) that I was just able to sit, observe, and do nothing else. Josef met me at the train station in Cologne and I am staying with him for the week. Josef is a Geography professor here at the University and he is a good friend of my advisor at Cal (which is how I met him). He is incredibly nice and giving, a wealth of historical and current information (it is handy to spend time in Germany with a geographer), my own personal tour guide, and based on his laughing, he apparently thinks I’m funny. So alas, we shall get along quite well this week.

October 3^rd was the German National Holiday celebrating the reunification of the East and West. Most things close this day, so Josef and I decided to take a drive down the part of the Rhine River called MittelRhein (or Middle Rhine). This particular section is notable for its beauty and it too is one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. Pictures below.

We first stopped at Deutsches Eck (German Corner) at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhein Rivers (Mosel on the left and Rhein on the right) in Koblenz.

There is a HUGE statue here (Bear posed for you below) recognizing Kaiser Wilhelm I and respresenting German unity. I mostly nod and smile during these parts of our discussions where I hear about the various Germanic tribes, oh all of the wars, the French, etc etc, to disguise that I feel like a schmuck for opting out of “Modern European History” as a 10^th grader. Hopefully he will not catch on…but I have thus blown my cover with you all.

Then we proceeded further down the river where it narrows and there are only small towns, cliffs, vineyards, and castles.

We went into one of the medi-eval towns named Oberwasel for a walk on the original city walls and stroll through the town. That is the medieval wall on which I'm standing, and the Rhine (Rhein) on my right).

There is a German tradition here that happens every day around 2 or 3pm called Kaffedrinken (coffee drinking)… it is where Germans are “required” to stop what they are doing and have coffee and cake. Being as I didn’t want to blow my cover and reveal that I am a non-German (I swear I’m convincing), I agreed (sigh) to have a piece of chocolate sachre torte and a coffee.