Final Trip

I finally did it: I visited all 16 German Bundesländer in one year. The last one got checked off the list last weekend, as I took a quick two-day trip down to Saarland to visit Saarbrücken.
Saarland is actually smaller than the state of Rhode Island and barely twice the size of Berlin, with less than half the population of Berlin. So it's tiny.

Near the city hall

Saarbrücken, the capital city, sits right on and over the Saar River. There are a few bridges that cross over it, which is actually kind of nice. It's a relatively small river compared to the Rhein, but with the Autobahn situated on one bank of the river the divide between city halves is still sizeable.

The bummer was that I came in on a Sunday and left on a Tuesday. That meant my full day was a Monday, and pretty much every museum takes Monday off, so I missed out on visiting a couple of galleries and historical museums I thought looked interesting. Instead I just walked around the outside of them and did a lot of strolling through the city.

However, it was still a busy weekend in the city. The Euro 2012 soccer final was playing the first night I was there, and I found a plaza that had a big screen up and lots of people watching. It was pretty fun to see everybody wrapped in flags or scarves, carrying an assortment of noisemakers and snacks. Whenever something exciting happened, half of the crowd would stand up and shout and wave their flags around.
There was also an "Altstadtfest," or some sort of street fair in the old town, complete with live music and the German equivalent of fair food, so that was nice. I kinda sorta stole/didn't return a beer glass to keep as a souvenir.

City hall.

My poor shoes after a year's use.

Actually pulled a muscle on this one. Embarrassing, but
my excuse is that I had really pulled it just a couple of
weeks ago.

Part of an early development project by a famous
architect, I think in the 1800s.

On the Saar

I'm now in the last stages of packing for home. I just put two boxes in the mail full of stuff I won't really need for the next month, but I'm hoping they'll actually show up at home before I move to Spokane for the year. We'll have to see... I've also got two large bags to check, a carry-on rolling suitcase and my daypack. These four things have to be transported by me to Düsseldorf on Sunday. That'll be somewhere around 150 lbs of luggage to schlepp on three separate trains and who knows how far around the city. I'm also planning to spend the night at the airport since I have to check in around 5am. All this trouble just to get back to the US for the first time in 10 months.