Europa

There are so many stories to tell from my recent trip to Europe. Let's call this part one.
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I don’t know about you, but for me the picture I had in my head of my first trip to Europe was something out of the movies. Surreal. It turned out to be a little different than that. A very dear friend of mine got married in Germany, and a few of us went to celebrate with her. And since we were there anyway, we tacked on a couple extra days to travel around a bit.

We flew from Portland to Frankfurt. Our layover (which was literally all of 15 minutes) was in Houston. Luckily our plane was only a couple of gates away or we wouldn’t have made it. The 10 hour flight went better than I expected. My roommate loaned me her travel pillow and with that and earplugs I was able to sleep a lot more than I thought I would.

We arrived in Frankfurt around noon. The airport is HUGE and after going through customs and getting some money, we finally made it to baggage claim only to be greeted by a deserted carousel with one lonely bag. We finally found someone and they let us know that our bags didn’t make it. They blamed security but I think what really happened was that our bags didn’t make the super-tight connection in Houston. So we would be bagless tonight. Luckily I was travelling with friends and was able to borrow most of what I needed until my bag arrived.

Frankfurt as a city was nice. Easy to explore and everyone was very friendly. We had just a couple days there and were blessed with mostly dry weather.


From there we took the train to Altdof, Germany (where the wedding would be). Konstanze’s (the bride) father met us at the train station and took us to their home. We were met by a full house of international travelers. Leandro’s (the groom) family is Spanish and his brother came from England. At this point it was the time in the afternoon when Germans like to have cake. It’s a sort of tea time, but even better than what the British have going because tea plays second fiddle in Germany to the amazing dessert spread they present every afternoon (or maybe we were just being spoiled by our amazing hosts). I knew this was the beginning of something beautiful. After cake, we were taken to the apartment we would be staying in. We settled in and returned to their home for dinner with folks from all over Europe who came in for the wedding. We met a lot of great people that night and enjoyed getting to know them over the coming weekend.

The next day was the wedding day. We spent the morning at Konstanze’s parent’s house hanging out with all the family and friends from out of town. Seriously, a lot of really great people. The wedding was that afternoon at the local church. It was a stunning building and a beautiful ceremony (in three languages - German, Spanish and English). After the ceremony we headed to the reception. Shortly after we arrived we had a champagne toast where Konstanze and Leandro gave thanks for all the important people in their lives who were able to share this day with them. At first I thought they would just introduce their family and a couple others, but they ended up introducing everyone by name and sharing with the group why they are important to them. This made me realize how beautiful a small wedding can be where you know you are surrounded by those closest to you. Next, it was cake time. We walked into a room with a buffet table filled with all different kinds of cakes. Then the reception continued into the wee hours of the morning. German wedding receptions are a little bit different that what I’m used to in that there is a program of events. There were a lot of events throughout the night, from a slideshow explaining the story of Konstanze and Leandro to a song that high school friends prepared for the couple. It was so incredibly meaningful because everything was prepared with love especially for them. It was a great night of celebration that lasted well into the morning. A beautiful way to start the beginning of the rest of their lives. I felt blessed and honor to be there and celebrate with them.