Month: June 2024

We started the day with hotel breakfast. I had scrambled eggs, a couple slices of bagon, a weisswurst, some hash rounds, and 2 little miniature pancakes with nothing on them. Also some sauteed mushrooms. I learned later you’re not supposed to eat the casing on the weisswurst, but it was good. They also had a cappuccino machine.

At 9 AM we were on the bus and headed to Speyer, which was not on the original itinerary, but was added after the Rhine river cruise in Mainz became impossible due to the flooding. The ride up to Speyer took probably a little over an hour.

This entire region is the Rhineland, and it looks exactly the Missouri Rhineland, which was named for the original Rhineland. Oak trees, rolling hills, bluffs, and vineyards all around. Verges and sidewalk areas, and the center strip splitting roads are not mowed. That may be due to wanting to leave those natural for pollinators like bees this time of year. We’ve seen a lot of un-mowed areas already.

In Speyer, we walked through the cathedral gardens to get up to the Speyer Dom cathedral. This cathedral, and apparently the other Doms in this region as well, were specifically “for the emperors” or something to that effect. The Speyer Dom had crypts with at least 4 emperors buried there, from the same family line. This cathedral was also beautiful.

After that, we walked past an area that was historically Jewish, then visited a Prussian Union church, which was much newer. The Union church had balconies all around, lots of wood, and is rather ornate for a protestant church. There was a German lady present who told us about how they were proud of the democratic decision where 99% of people (excluding women) voted to become a Union church. We were probably not the right group to tell that detail to! The origin of the LCMS is Lutherans leaving Germany to avoid being put into the Union.

From there we went up to the main market area over to a Biergarten for lunch. Apparently this wasn’t a “real” Biergarten per our guide because you weren’t allowed to bring your own food. Shannon and I split the Brewer’s Plate, which consisted of a small steak, 2 small pork chunks, fried potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and green beans with a white sauce. I enjoyed everything but the green beans, which I declined to try. I got a small Radler and Shannon had an Apfelschorle, which is a German apple juice soda type drink. We liked the Radler so much we ordered a second larger one.

After lunch we walked back to the bus, and then rode down to Worms. Speyer is a city of approximately 50,000 people, Worms seemed much larger at 80,000 people. We de-boarded the bus and walked to a monument of Reformation figures, of whom Luther was at the Center. But Zwingli and Calvin were also represented among others. From there we went to the Worms Dom cathedral, rounding out the 3 Doms in the Rhineland region.

Luther also appeared in the stained glass at the Worms Dom, which was interesting. I think this is because in Germany, Luther is a national figure as much or even more so than a religious figure. We returned to the bus which took us back to our hotel in Mainz.

Shannon and I walked to a restaurant called Cubo Negro for dinner. We split a bruschetta, a cheddar burger, and some fries. For dessert Shannon had a Caramel Macchiato ice cream cone and I had a lemon ice cream. It may have been gelato. Shannon drank a Rose wine with dinner and I had an Old Fashioned. The Old Fashioned was quite good. The entire meal was somewhat expensive, over 50 EUR. Water is not included for free at restaurants. Other than at the trip-provided meals, we’re kind of taking half rations, which is probably good for us, and as much as we actually need anyway.

I called my mom to check in when we got back to the hotel, took a shower, and went to bed.

I got up around 6:30 and went down to the Pear Tree’s continental breakfast. It was decent all things considered. I had a couple biscuits, some sausage patties, and scrambled eggs. I went back down later to get Shannon a cream cheese bagle and some sausage patties because she was busy preparing to leave.

We checked out around 10:50, then boarded the hotel’s airport shuttle at 11. Apparently the shuttle will be available to pick us back up from the airport when we return on 6/16. We checked in at the United counter and turned over our checked luggage, both of which were below the 50 pound weight limit.

Some other members of our Luther Tours group were checking in at the same time, and we ended up sitting by them over at the gate as well, and chatting a bit. Nice folks from St. Joseph.

Other tour members showed up bit by bit, including LCMS Missouri District President Pr. Lee Hagen and his wife, the tour’s hosts. The first flight from St. Louis to Chicago was quick and uneventful. The second flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was brutal. We were in a 787, and the seats are only 17.3 inches wide. Also, during an 8 hour flight, your legs fill up with blood. A tip we should remember is to take compression socks for a long flight. Halfway through it felt like pure torture.

When we got to Frankfurt, we were happy to deboard the plane. Then we had to walk for ages within the airport to get to the customs. They pretty much waived me right through, but Shannon got interrogated for a bit. After that we reclaimed our bags, then went out of the baggage area towards the exit and encountered the rest of our group that had gone on ahead in the airport, as well as our tour guide for the week, Thomas.

We then took another quite extensive walk out to the bus, loaded up our luggage, and made for Mainz. Our first destination in Mainz was St. Stephan’s church. It was smaller compared to the next few we viewed, but very nice. Still a basilica-style building. We had to walk to it from the bus for probably 8-10 minutes. This would become a theme for the rest of the trip. The bus can only get so close to the old centers of cities built long before the development of the automobile.

After returning to the bus, we drove down to the Mainz market place, which we had to walk to, and then went on a tour of the Gutenberg museum. We had an hour long tour given by one of the museum docents who is also apparently a police officer. This tour was interesting, but would’ve been much better if we had not been awake for 24 straight hours by the point.

After the Gutenberg Museum tour, Shannon bought some post cards in the gift shop, and then the group took a break in the market plaza for lunch. We were trend setters by going off this way on our own before anyone gave permission. Actually now that I think about it, lunch was before the museum trip. We got fried cod fish with potato salad. The potato salad had ham in it, but not much. The fish was good, the potato salad was OK. It cost us 15 EUR.

After the museum, we walked over to the Mainz Dom cathedral, which was probably the most impressive of the cathedrals we have seen so far on the trip. Both St. Stephan’s and The Mainz Dom are Catholic churches. Evidently they’re lucky to get 30-40 people in attendance for services on any given Sunday.

As I understood it from our tour guide, the churches here are supported by taxes, and anyone who is a member of a church has to pay an 8% income tax in support of the church. This is apparently part of the reason why people don’t attend church much, not wanting to pay the tax to support the church, which is required by law.

Finally we walked from the Mainz Dom to the hotel, passing along the Rhine river. The Rhine is flooded right now, which prevented us from taking the Rhine River Cruise on Day 2. After checking into the hotel around 4:30, I took a shower and we went down to the group dinner at 6 at the hotel restaurant. They had buffet style food for us. I had a sour lemonade to drink which was good. On the buffet, I had some stuffed beef, roasted potatoes, salmon, and shrimp. I also had some bread with pesto, and for dessert a piece of lemon pie and tiramisu. The potatoes were nothing special but the rest of it, especially the beef, was very good.

We retired to the room and were asleep by probably 8 PM, maybe earlier, after having been awake for 36 or so hours.

Shannon’s mom drove us down to the Union Station in Kansas City. Shannon got us lattes from Parisi and we waited for time to board the train. The lattes were very good. Nearly as good as Friendly Bean. When the time came to board the train, we walked out and there was a long walkway that lead to stairs, which most people took. We and some others took the elevator down to the platform because of our baggage.

We boarded the last car of the train. There was a luggage area to put the bags, and then we selected some seats. Shannon had been worried about the train trip since she had taken the train to Chicago a few years ago and had a poor experience. Thankfully the fears were quickly alleviated, because the train ride was great. The last car must have been fairly new. Everything was clean and well-put-together. There was free wifi on the train, and we were able to work on personal projects during the trip. I spent time reading the DAMA-DMBOK2 in preparation for the test I hope to take when I get back. Shannon also put together some good notes on how we might drive volunteerism at church.

The train ride takes nearly 6 hours compared to the 4 hours driving, because there are numerous stops where the train waits 5-10 minutes. There was a dining car available as well, and Shannon bought us some drinks. The biggest mistake we made for the train was not having our water bottles filled ahead of time, which made for a thirsty ride until she bought a diet Coke and a water bottle for us to share.

My sister picked us up at the Gateway Travel Center in St. Louis. I had designed the trip so we could have ridden the MetroLink from the train station to where our hotel was, the Pear Tree right across from the airport. However, with all our baggage, and bad experiences the last time we rode the MetroLink related to safety, we were glad to have her get us. She drove us to the hotel where we checked in, then we went over to her place.

We visited with her, her husband, and our niece for a couple hours, and eventually walked down the street to a local pizza place. Shannon and I split a medium which had pepperoni, salami, capicola, and possibly other meats. It was salty, but good. A medium was definitely enough, especially with a walk on both ends of the experience.

After dinner, it was getting to be Sunday evening and they had to prepare for the week, so my sister took us back to the hotel, where we relaxed for the remainder of the evening.