They were actually fairly well-written, compared to our hostel directions in other towns. So, when every turn and every block started looking creepier, it was rather discouraging. There were sex toy stores, strip joints, women who must have been professionals, and porn places. It must have been 15.00, 3:00 in the afternoon, and there were already icky men giving us ugly looks. We must have looked like the beginning, fully-dressed stage of some school-girl-fetish act. MG was even wearing her adorable fluffy blue skirt, knee-length, the exact opposite of exposing clothing. I believe I was wearing my loose, knee-length green shorts. We did not blend in.
We found our hostel just across the street and down a little ways from, of all things, a Mexican strip joint. We checked in. Inside, it was alright. The paint was bright, the colors eccentrically charming. The locks were odd, and our roommate had to let us in, even though we had the one key to the room. He was an Italian, working for Nintendo, and trying to find an actual apartment in Frankfurt. He had a good sense of humor. After introductions, he said, “So, you found a really nice neighborhood to stay in. ‘Bitches’ over there, ‘broads’ over there.” We had a good laugh, but I was feeling ill, and went to bed.
Mary Grace, meanwhile, was trying to find a Catholic church with a Saturday night mass. I curled up in bed with a mystery novel, fell asleep, and she was back when I woke up. She had gotten a little lost coming home, but whenever she started to see the sketchy part of town, she walked toward it, and eventually found her way to the hostel.
We both immediately dismissed going outside for a look around. It was probably 7:00, and the creeps had multiplied. We probably could have stood the 7:00 guys for the sake of adventure, but the thought of who would be standing around when we returned was just too much. She curled up in her bottom bunk, me in my top bunk, and we both fell asleep early again. Mostly. The pounding stripper music wouldn’t stop.
We both woke up some time around 5.00. The music was still on. We had a new roommate that had arrive at some point while I was asleep; another short-haired girl took up the fourth bed. Trying not to wake her or the Italian, I tiptoed to the door, but was unable to open it. I’d opened it from the inside the afternoon before. We only had one room key, so as long as I was in, it was my job to open the door. This time, though, it wouldn’t budge. I went back to my bunk, disheartened, and slightly ashamed.
Eventually, I realized MG was as wide awake as I was, and she realized I was awake, so we both compared notes. By that point, we’d each tried the door at least twice. We didn’t just go up and jiggle the handle, we turned, pushed, pulled, played with the bizarre lock in every way possible. And yet, the fact remained, we were inside, and the bathroom was outside. We sat there, mostly in silence. I continued reading Justice Denied. Every twenty minutes or so, one of us would try the door again. The booming stripper music remained. By about 6.30, I was getting strangely paranoid that someone had locked or jammed or superglued the door closed, and we were meant to suffer in cruel bathroomless silence. It was probably lucky at that point that I was so extremely dehydrated, but I can’t imagine it had any good effect on my mood. MG had ventured out to buy döner kebabs before her church trip the night before, but I was just too ill to eat more than a third of mine. Other than that extravagant breakfast, that was what I had that day.
Döner kebabs, by the way, are a ubiquitous Turkish sandwich you can find almost anywhere in Germany. (They were sadly absent in Italy and Switzerland.) They are cheap, and extremely tasty, and it seems like the staff is usually friendly. The meat is a giant chunk of something (maybe lamb?) that rotates on a vertical spit next to a heat source. The purveyor shaves off the toasty warm bits, and they are placed in a toasted sort of flat bread / pita bread. The sauce is either a yogurt sauce or a spicy chili sauce, sometimes garlic. They generally have some sort of lettuce or cabbage with tomato and zucchini slices. They are noticeably different, but they always remind me of the gyros everywhere on The Ave. My sister, Kari, raves about the silly things.
Some time shortly before 7.00, our new female roommate woke up. We explained we’d been having difficulties with our door, though I don’t think it was wise to say exactly how much trouble it was. She got up, fiddled with it, and the door opened easily. MG and I thanked her, and nonchalantly walked out to use the WCs. (They always seem to be called WCs, even in languages where it can’t possibly stand for anything.)
We started talking to the girl. She was from Milwaukee, and hadn’t slept a wink. My bed was decent, though the frame creaked ominously every time I got up or down, and probably if I rolled over very vigorously. She had what appeared to be a fold-up rollaway, but instead of one foldable mattress, it had two small ones. This left the metal bar in the middle completely exposed and manifestly uncomfortable. Additionally, without my extreme exhaustion/sickness/pain, the stripper music made it hard to sleep. They finally cut it out at 7.00. The Italian slept through all of this, and gave us that “Do you really have to be talking? I won’t complain, but do you really have to be talking?” look from his bed, before rolling over.
MG and I went out at that point to find some breakfast. She’d eaten all of her döner, but was also really hungry. We finally found a bakery in the train station (bakeries: another thing everywhere in Germany), and got a little bit of baked stuff. The street was almost bearable at 7.30 in the morning. After that, we sat grimly in our bunks until it was time to go catch the S-Bahn to Hofheim. We stored our luggage in the lockers at the train station, unwilling to go back to that hostel. Even at 10.00 or so, the creeps were back, and the walk to the station was unpleasant.
After catching the S-Bahn, we sat in Hofheim not really sure what to do. MG had directions from das Haus der Andacht’s site, but the bus it recommended didn’t run Sundays. (Nothing is ever open in Germany on Sundays.) There was supposed to be a taxi-shuttle that was cheaper than an actual taxi, but the directions didn’t say when it came. We asked, and we had almost an hour to wait. Eventually, after moving twice, taking pictures of the quaint little town, and reading, we caught the “taxi shuttle,” which just seemed to be a taxi, and went off to Langenheim. The taxi driver was crazy, as usual, so it was a very short trip.
There, we stepped into the visitor’s center, and were promptly offered tea by a very nice staff woman. Even I accepted, and she put everything on a nice little tea tray and led us up to a seat in the bookstore. MG went nuts, I sat and drank my tea (with sugar, sorry Kay). The books looked interesting, but tasted of research and long nights preparing for class. I didn’t buy anything, but MG collected two prayer bead sets, a card with the Arabic for the Baha’i’s major saying on it, and a book of their prayers. I picked up two very basic pamphlets on the Baha’i faith and the construction of the House of Worship.
The Baha’i faith is based on the idea that we are all one, and should probably start acting like it. For different cultures and times, God has revealed Himself in different ways, so during their services they read from the books of other religions. The House of Worship was built as the central one for all of Europe.
We went outside for a walk through the gardens, which were very sad this time of year, took some photos, and sat on some benches with trees around them. The wind was up, and I could probably have sat listening to it for longer, but we were both getting cold, so we went back into the visitors’ center, and had more tea while chatting about high school classes.
Close to 3.00, we walked up the driveway to the main building. The service was a blend of signing and reading. The singing was mindblowing. I don’t really know how to describe it, just, it was astonishing. MG claims there are videos of it on YouTube, so you can probably look that up if you wish. When I get back to regular internet, I will. The prayers were Baha’i, Torah, and New Testament. I hadn’t intended to record the signing, but I wished I’d asked in the visitors’ center if it was appropriate, because I haven’t wanted to record anything else quite that badly this trip.
Half an hour later, MG and I failed to catch a taxi. It still isn’t clear whether we waited in the wrong spot, or if it was late enough that it came after we gave up on it, or if it never came at all. The nice lady at the visitors’ center called the taxi company and gave them some very sharp comments on their service, and was going to call us a taxi when a family from Lichtenstein that was driving through Hofheim offered us a ride. A family, father, mother and teenage daughter, seemed safe enough, so we piled into the minivan. We held up a decent conversation with the mother and somewhat the daughter. The mother’s name was Trudi, and she said it was funny she ran into us because she had been thinking about Seattle just that morning. The daughter’s name was something like Sarah, and was starting on a year of community service. (She wasn’t in trouble; a year of service is a Baha’i thing.)
Click here to see the whole photo album.
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