Eine Kurze Reise: Erfurt

I said this before, but leaving Cologne was awful. Just as I was starting to feel settled in, it felt like I was ripped from my friends. We all promised to visit each other, so I decided to end my first month in Hamburg with a trip to the capital of Thuringia, called Erfurt, to visit my friend Marissa.

Erfurt is about 6 hours by bus away from Hamburg. It’s located in what once was East Germany, but it’s actually somewhat close to the center of the country. It’s a fairly small capital city—the population is only about 210,000, which is comparable to Birmingham, Alabama. It’s surrounded by a beautiful landscape of low hills, forests, and farms, and a lot of the architecture is old-fashioned and elaborate. Needless to say, it is a far cry from a city like Hamburg, and a very welcome change of pace and scenery for me.

Erfurt on a map of Germany.

I arrived in Erfurt on Friday evening. Marissa was waiting for me with her two tutors and three other PPPler. We went immediately to a little hole-in-the-wall bar called Speicher and spent some about an hour chatting over beers. Her tutors are incredibly nice and a lot of fun, and it was really nice to catch up with the other PPPler since I had only seen one of them since we had parted ways for language school. Since Marissa lives slightly outside the city center, we had to go in order to catch a bus, but not before I was informed that we were going to go to a karaoke bar the next night. Oh boy.

Saturday was a beautiful, albeit chilly, day. Marissa and I, along with two other PPPler, Jesse and Madeline, took the train to Eisenach in order to see Die Drachenschlucht, or the Dragon Gorge. Drachenschlucht is along a beautiful little trail that leads all the way up to Hohe Sonne, or High Sun, which is an old property that sits on top of a hill and offers a nice view of a nearby castle. We hiked the whole trail, and it was wonderful. The gorge itself is really amazing: it was carved by a thin but powerful stream, so it’s very slender. For much of the way through the gorge, you’re walking on a platform built above the stream itself. The mossy rocks combined with the colors of autumn leaves was really stunning, and so was the view from the top at Hohe Sonne.

At the entrance.

Marissa being Marissa.

If I'm being completely honest, I have no idea why this A is there.

Once we reached the top, we immediately looked for food. Luckily, there was an Imbiss (food stand) serving bratwurst and Glühwein, a winter specialty of spiced red wine served hot. I had already had some in Cologne, but it was nice to finally have it outside on a chilly day.

It was so good.

We hiked back down and caught a train back to Erfurt in order to get ready to go out later that night. Along the way, we made plans for brunch the next day and looked at all the dumb pictures we took while on our little excursion. Some of them were hilarious, which meant that I had the privilege of disturbing an entire train with my snort.

As promised, we met up once again with the tutors and the other PPPler, Cody, in an Irish Pub called “The Dubliner” for karaoke. It was interesting—we all decided to sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” together, but we were all unaware that it was the German pop remix, not the version that we all know and love. It was awful, but the Germans were into it. After that experience, we decided to leave and go to another bar. The others went to a club with a cover charge, so Marissa and I went back to Speicher and chatted until we had to catch out train home.

This is what we were forced to sing. I'm so sorry, America.

We started Sunday by hitting the gym, then headed to Jesse’s apartment to make brunch. We made pancakes, eggs, and bacon, and oh my gosh, it was so nice to have an American-style brunch again. We ate so much, so we were pretty much down for the count for the better half of an hour afterwards.

Ignoring the forecast of rain, Marissa and I decided to head out to get some coffee to wake up and then head to the little citadel nearby for a view of the city. We got one, but were smacked with a cold rain pretty much as soon as we took pictures and decided to head back to Marissa’s place. It would’ve been nice to stay out and see more of the city, but it was very cold and very, very windy, so we decided to just turn in for the night. This did mean, however, that we needed something to do, so we watched 80s movies and ate way too much popcorn. It was a high-quality evening.

A small square in the city.

An adorable city street. Most of the inner city streets look like this. 

The view of the Erfurt Cathedral from the citadel.

View from the citadel of the city. Peep that rainbow on the left 👀

Movie night feat. too much popcorn.

It’s now Monday morning as a write this, and I’m on a bus back to Hamburg. We got coffee this morning and said goodbye, returning to real life yet again. Marissa plans to visit in around November, and I hope that works out. Visiting her has made me realize how much I really do miss my friends from Cologne, and how nice it was to have things like a host family or even a pet in the house. I’m trying to enjoy the scenery along the way home, and I hope that I don’t miss these hills and the countryside too much, too. Maybe that means that I should stop listening to the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack.