The city of “Printen”: Aachen

Although my original plan for last weekend was to visit Frankfurt am Main (Germany’s fifth largest city and the nation’s financial hub), train tickets ended up being so expensive that a more nearby city seemed a better choice. (That German Rail Pass was really such a valuable thing to have!) In the end, I think it turned out well, though, because I got to spend Saturday in Aachen, guided around by my own personal tour guide, aka my friend from the Berlin language course who works in Aachen.

When we first pulled into the Aachen Hauptbahnhof, my Jülich friend (who also works in the Forschungszentrum) and I immediately began to “place” the town—meaning, we compare its size/cityness with Jülich. (That seems to be our first task, like a reflex, each time we enter a new city). We decided that the Aachen Hauptbahnhof is somewhere between Düren and Köln in terms of size and appearance (probably a little closer to the Düren side though). When we got outside and met up with our Aachen friend, we discovered that Aachen is a beautiful, quaint town that resembles Bonn but is a bit smaller. While Bonn boasts its Beethoven legacy, Aachen’s claim to fame lies in its excellence in equestrian sports, being one of the only (or the only?) city in Germany to host an international equestrian competition/show. (I don’t know too much about it, but I thought that was neat).

As Germany’s most western city, Aachen offers the visitor an easy path into the Netherlands and even shares an airport with Maastricht, a Dutch city reachable by a short bus trip. Also, there is apparently a spot, called the Dreiländerpunkt, where you can stand on three countries’ soil (Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) at one time. My parents visited this place when they came to visit me, but since my friends and I did not have a car and did not take the open bus tour that my parents did, I unfortunately did not get to see it. It’s still a cool idea though, and there were many other captivating sights in Aachen, like the Dom (a cathedral smaller than the massive Dom in Köln but more cosy-looking), the lovely Rathaus (one of the most beautiful I’ve seen, behind Munich’s), and the famous Universitätsklinikum Aachen (the absolutely most horrifyingly ugly hospital I’ve ever laid eyes on), and a whole bunch of adorable sheep in the “countryside” area of the city, on the way to the hospital. (Recently, inspired by the cute sheep I ride by every day to and from work, I have taken a great liking to sheep. They really are adorable, and actually do make that “maaa-aaaa-aaah” sound that is in all the cartoons and stuff. It’s really cute! And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real live sheep in the States, other than in a petting zoo, so every time I see a sheep here, I’m transfixed.)

For me, Aachen I will remember for its…food. Of course. For lunch we ate pasta, at a restaurant called “Pasta,” a small place near the Hauptbahnhof that serves freshly made pasta. I must say, that was the best lasagna (cheese & spinach) I’ve ever tasted! Not surprising I suppose, since the place was recommended by my friend’s Lonely Planet book (gotta trust Lonely Planet, right?) As an afternoon snack, I sampled Printen, the gingerbread-like cookie that Aachen is famous for. Every bakery (and that is a lot of bakeries) we passed sold Printen, advertised by large signs, and the way the windows were lit up with golden lights reminded me of the Christmas shops in Heidelberg. And then I got excited for Christmas again. =D For dinner, we again followed Lonely Planet’s suggestion and headed to Sausalitos, a Mexican restaurant. Though the food tasted good, I was quite amused by the flavoring; for the first time, I was eating Germanized Mexican food! It’s funny because we’re quite used to Americanized ethnic foods, but I found it quite entertaining how the enchiladas, tacos, and baked potatoes (my dish—are baked potatoes even Mexican?) on the table all seemed very…German…in terms of sauces and seasonings (potatoes in the enchiladas and tacos, I think). Even so, I enjoyed the meal, though it was rather heavy. And finally, my favorite part of my friend’s generous tour of Aachen: the best ice cream parlor ever!! Despite the slightly lengthy trek to find this place, when my friend said that this place “gives a lot,” he was under-exaggerating! (whatever the opposite of exaggerating is…) I have surely never seen “scoops” as large as the ones we had in Aachen. Yummmmmm….

We barely caught the last train from Düren back to Jülich at 10:20pm, and a very odd thing happened. On the way to Düren (en route to Aachen), on the Ruhrtal Bahn, my Jülich friend and I started talking to a couple (who took notice of us because of my friend’s Beatles T-shirt). When we scrambled onto the train to Düren from Aachen that evening, we were shocked to find as we entered the first car, that the same couple was sitting right there! And so we struck up another conversation and chatted for the duration of the ride to Düren (about 30 min). According to the woman, Frankfurt is not as pretty as Aachen, and there’s not much to see there (it probably looks similar it NYC, which is nice but can be seen in the States), so that made me feel better about missing out in Frankfurt. Then she posed a question to us that she said highly trained physicists could not answer satisfactorily. So I will write it here in case anyone reading this has a good idea: What is darkness made of? (and she would not accept “the absence of light” as an answer)

I spent most of Sunday relaxing and practicing my piano. It was unfortunate that I was slightly “crippled” for the day because I had (rather unwisely) worn flip-flops for the duration of my day in Aachen, and the combination of long walking distances, uneven cobblestoned streets, and a strange gait (to prevent blisters from forming on my feet) all contributed to a strain on one of the tendons in my feet (I think), which made my right foot swell up quite painfully. But after a day of rest and ice-treatment, it seems a bit better for work today, fortunately.

One last thing—if anyone has good ideas about shipping large items internationally, I’d greatly appreciate advice. I’m trying to send my digital piano back to the States for when I leave (in less than two weeks), and so far the Deutsche Post (DHL) won’t do it (it’s too big), and it’s been rather impossible to reach UPS and FedEx (either the numbers are wrong when I call, or they are busy). I’ve been surfing the Web trying to find rates, and it’s been something of a headache, but I will do the best I can.

Anyways, hope everyone had a great week!

About the pictures: the quaint-looking Aachen Hauptbahnhof; the gorgeous Dom; the dazzling Rathaus (city hall)–too bad I cut off the right spire–it’s so large it’s hard to get it all; a display of Printen in a shop window; my Sausalitos baked potato, swimming in sour cream, cheese, and spinach–it looks kinda like a rabbit face with the cabbage ears; my massive two scoops of ice cream–organge yogurt and caramel; a cutehorse waiter statue I found quite representative of Aachen’s good food and equestrian reputation; the ugly hospital–it looks like a factory or something; the adorable sheep lounging in the shaded grass.