The joys of going to weddings

Last weekend we caught a train to Marburg, because Philipp (Jack's co-worker) was getting married and we got invited. He was getting married on Saturday, so Friday evening we spent with auntie Marlies in the Diakonissenhaus (kind of like a convent for Evangelists) - she's a nun. We even managed to fix some of her computer problems and went for a short walk in the forest.


The next day it was the wedding. And it was wonderful. The church service was nice and the priest was very funny at times. Ourselves - we even discovered that we can sing - well that was mainly Jack. ;-P After the service we got driven in a big bus to a barn where dinner and the rest of celebrations were to take place. It is a custom here in Germany to beep the horn in the wedding procession, so the bus driver was overly excited and must've deafened the local villagers.

The night was heaps of fun and lots of alcohol and yummy food. Also nothing beats dancing to 60s-80s music. Philipp and Li were also kind enough to organise a hotel for us... and this is where the real "fun" began...



As it was after 2:30am we were the only ones going to that hotel, so we caught a cab. As we got there we rang the door bell thinking warm happy thoughts and anticipating a nice warm bed. No-one answered. So we rang again... no-one. After about ten minutes of constant ringing our vision of a warm comfy bed somewhat faded and a new vision of a cold dark German country town approached. After waiting some more we realised that we probably won't find another hotel in that village and decided to catch a cab back to Marburg. As we were waiting for this second cab to arrive, the only seats available were at a nearby bus-stop. So we scored a few weird glances from the passing by cars. Yes - we were waiting for a bus at 3am in the morning - that's probably what they were thinking.

Back in Marburg the only available hotel there had only a suite left, and for 7 hours of sleep paying 148 EURs seemed a bit obscene. The concierge at the hotel suggested the only late night establishment just up the road, but as we approached this pub, the number of drunken bikers stumbling inside made us less keen to spend the night in their company, so we opted for sleeping in the train station and catching the first train back to Berlin. Although here we came accross the highlight of the night - finding a huge string of balloons :)

The station was of course closed but a bar across the street had some tables and chairs outside, which enabled us to play a round or two of cards - attracting the attention of the local youth who were very keen to join us or at least score a ciggy. A couple of hours later the station opened to it's first customers at about 4:50am and we crawled inside from the quickly approaching freezing morning. We decided not to share the only bench with a homeless dude and upon finding and ripping up some train magazines found a more or less warm corner on the stone floor, and spent the rest of the time there.

Finally we got onto our 6:41AM train, which at that time of the day actually came and left on time (unlike most other trains run by Deutsche Bahn - see numerous previous posts of swearing and whinging). Then after an hour of waiting for our connection at Kassel and having a bit of a run-in with a mean black guy (who sat next to us in a cafe and started smoking and initiating rude conversation) we decided not to commit murder and waited the rest of the hour on the platform. At 11:24 on Sunday we arrived in the noble German capital... squinting from the blinding light we dashed for the subway and then into bed. There's truly no place like home!

The Moral of the Story: even tiny German towns need to invest into 24 hour McDonalds damnit!

PS: here's a photo of an altered 'Ford' logo, that the father of the bride proudly altered to spell out his name :)
PPS: the second photo is of a dedicated establishment for smokers - outside the barn where the wedding action took place.