Well, last night I stayed in the Hotel Erika in Zweibrucken. It wasn’t bad, but, it wasn’t good either. The window in the bedroom was directly across from the entryway where the lights blazed all night and lit up my room like a candle. There were curtains, but the didn’t shut out the light nearly enough and there were spots where the light came through the bottom of the curtains and landed right in my eyes. The water was fairly cold for my shower in the morning, the TV didn’t work and the WIFI was free, but required a passcode the system would send to my phone that doesn’t work in Germany. I quickly understood why the room was so cheap.
On the bright side, I have plenty of Tylenol PM. I still slept. The room was clean and the inn keeper, who’s name happened to be Erika was quite friendly and helpful. She used to live in Fremont, CA and was able to speak English quite well.
We talked a little about the history of Zweibrucken air base and she told me about what had happened to it since they closed it down. She talked about going to the ice skating rink when she was young. Apparently, they would open it up to civilian personnel on weekends and she would go ice skating there.
Across the street from the Hotel Erika, was a lovely sight. There’s a canal running through Zweibrucken and with the leaves falling makes for a wonderful picture I think.
Right next to it is a lovely walkway. I took this picture because I just thought the little old lady in her tiny little… uh… car… was cute.
I sort of fell in love with this place.
On to Althornbach. This is the view on the way. Pastoral, yeah?
The view of Althornbach driving in. For those in my family reading this. Nothing’s really changed. The buildings have been updated, some of them. The backerei that used to be there is now a house. A lot of the farm houses have been converted to normal, albeit large, homes.
OK, this just looks like a field to you folks reading this, and it is, just a field I suppose. But, it’s a special place to me. This is the place where I first drove a tractor, or anything for that matter. I drove a tractor before learning how to ride a bicycle. Which, by the way, I learned by borrowing Leah’s bike without telling her and riding down the hill. I tried to find this place the last time I visited here, but failed. This time I happened upon it by pure accident. I remember it so well because it’s the place where I almost killed myself and everyone on the tractor. Herman told me don’t touch that pedal with your foot or the tractor will flip. So, people who know me know that’s an invitation. I touched it, but only “just a little bit”. The tractor popped a wheely and went up quite nicely thank you. Scared me and everyone else to death. After that, they only let me sit on the tractor in the field and keep it straight. I wasn’t allowed to touch any pedals. Herman would jump up on the tractor at the end of a row and turn it. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time.
Just thought this was a cool scene. I was happy to find that the old Germany that I remember still exists. In fact, it hasn’t changed much at all.
Any of my family recognize these signs or street names?
How about the church?
And the thingy next to the church that names the fallen and missing in action from the first and second world war from Althornbach? I walked into the gates and walked around it, reading each name. Each of those named people lived here and died in the wars. Sobering. As I did so, an old man watched me closely. I noticed him after I stepped out and attempted to close the gate. It is badly rusted and the hinges are about to fall apart, so it took some doing it get it back closed again. I said hello to the old man and we started talking. I didn’t understand a word he said and he barely understood my broken German. I managed to get him to understand that I had lived in this little town in the house up the street. I asked him how long he lived here and he said “immer!”, which is forever. OK, I did understand one word. Heck, he’s probably the guy that grabbed me by my ear and pulled me out of the water drainage in his backyard that one time… Maybe he’s the guy who hit me with his car when I was riding Leah’s bike. Did I ever tell you about that Leah? No? Didn’t think so…
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