Well I got to Trier, booked into a very quaint little hostel run by a lady named Hille. The train trip was quick; Trier is only 50km from Luxembourg, just into Germany. I made my bed (every hostel gives you a set of sheets and you're expected to put them on. For 15 euros, I guess thats not unreasonable!), and headed out to wander.
Trier is apparently Germany's oldest city, claimed by the Romans in the first century BC. It was essentially a capital city of "Gaul" or as we know it, France. There are a few relics of this age, the most famous of which is the Porta Nigra, which was the gate to the city in those ancient times. There are still remnants of the wall that surrounded the place, and walking along the Moselle river was nice.
I made the comment in the last post about the French Luxembourgers not being particularly friendly, however just across the border in Trier, I sat down on a rock near the wall to study my map, and no sooner had I opened it up than a German lady spoke something to me, and after the puzzled expression I must have given, quickly added, "Can I help you?". She showed me where I was on the map, though I'd already worked that part out. Much more importantly she showed me which direction we were facing, which got my orientation in order and I was able to continue on my way. The service in the restaurant where I had a goulash with spatza (a kind of weird noodle) was also great, and generally I found everyone much nicer.
However, the main reason I went to Trier was to revisit the Amphitheater. I got more and more excited as I got closer to the place, and upon entering, the ticket guy directed me up a flight of rocky stairs. I was kind of hoping to enter through the front, and have the majesty of the place opened up to me just as I recall, but I decided to take his advice and headed up. At this point as I got up to the vantage point, my soul was crushed, as the whole place was covered in black tarp and stage, as the roadies were preparing the place for some mammoth concert. My dissapointment was palpable, and I spent about 10 minutes sitting up on the hill pondering my incredibly poor luck, meanwhile a tour of high school kids and very old people also arrived in various places and on top of the disspointment of the place being hardly recognisable, it was now also overrun with tourists. I decided to make the best of a bad situation, and had a look at the places the roadies hadn't sullied with their signs and banners. Thankfully this included the underground area where the gladiators and victims of various sports would prepare, and the dark, wet caverns reignited my imagination somewhat, and being alone I broke a few rules and got some photos in the more interesting areas. All in all I wouldn't describe it as a total failure, but I still have a mind to revisit again sometime and see it without the unholy fixings of touring spectacles.
I left the amphitheater and visited some Roman baths not far off, and this was great. There were some cool old relics here and there, and being alone in the whole place I delighted in playing with the timer on my camera, and running about the place taking photos of myself.
Back at the hostel, I had a drink with the other patrons, an Australian and a Quebecan (dont call them Canadian). The Aussie shared a bottle of white wine he'd been given, but it was warm, and I'm not huge on the white stuff. I had a small glass and headed to the room. In there, a German girl was unpacking her stuff, and she too was doing an internship in Luxembourg. Thats the third person Ive run into, staying in hostels and doing internships in Luxembourg. We chatted for a while, and then I went to get my goulash.
After returning to the hostel, the same group were gathered about the table, with another Quebecan and an American who turned out to be a soldier. Between him talking about the army and describing his friends wiccan religion, which included a story about how he saw some boys spirit in his closet, and the 5 bottles of wine they drank between a couple people, I decided to check a pub next door full of 50 year olds. It was as you would expect, but with a cool darts game, which I dared not disturb the couple of guys playing who were quite accurate throwers. So after a beer I went back to the hostel and seeing that the conversation in the living room wasn't much different, packed it in for the night.
The next morning I high tailed it to the station to get my train to Paris by 10. It was a normal train to a city called Saarbrucken, at which point we boarded a high speed train. However, something was technically wrong with this particular train, and as such it was relegated to the speed of a normal train. This was rectified in Lorenz, where we boarded a French TGV fast train, which didn't have such a fault, and whisked us in to Paris very promptly.
Paris is -huge-. I don't mean kinda big, I mean huge, like kilometers of city. My hostel is in the city, and it's still 5k's to, say, the Eiffel tower. I'm yet to see any of this stuff, as I spent the night with a bunch of people from my hostel. A Canadian guy, and American girl and a bunch of Australians. We went to a couple pubs and eventually I convinced them we should go out and check out some of the music festival that was all over the city. Unfortunately we didn't really move far. There were a couple of street performers we passed, but after talking with people this morning about what they saw, it appears I missed the majority of the good stuff. Pretty dissapointing considering the timing of when I was in Paris to see it, but sometimes things don't go as you expect.
Anyway, Ian and Lisa are supposed to arrive sometime tonight, so I'll probably go for a wander around some areas, but I'm not likely to go into any places until they're here. I'm sure they'll want to see the same things. It will be good to see some familiar faces. Whilst I have met plenty of friendly people (especially last night), it feels like a lot longer than 11 days since I've seen someone I know.
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