Rothaus Death Excursion

Having one beer does not make you an alcoholic but if you risked your life for that one beer, then does that make you an alcoholic? You will soon learn the reasoning behind this question. Read on. So me and my friend continued our Christmas break trip through Germany. After we left Freiburg we decided to go to Radolfzell am Bodensee. You should remember this place since that is where I lived for my first 2 months in Germany. It is my first German home and a place surrounded by breath-taking natural beauty. Adam's old host mom their offered to put us up for free for a couple of nights so there was no way we could say no. Since Freiburg was so close, we had to visit. On the way to Radolfzell me and my friend wanted to visit the Rothaus brewery. Rothaus is a very Baden-Württemburg beer. It is brewed in the Black Forest and it is served everywhere in Baden-Württemburg. I really wanted to visit the brewery and take a tour. We called ahead to make sure they were giving tours. They guy said there would be no tours that day since no one had called earlier to have one. This should have been our first sign that this was an ill-fated trip. We decided we would go to the brewery anyway since we could still look around the shop and watch a 30 minute video on the brewery. Since this brewery is somewhat secluded in the Black Forest, we had to use a train and two different buses to get there. That already made me nervous since it was already around 2pm by the time we started our trip to Rothaus. I was nervous because I did not like relying on so many links in a chain. What I mean by that is we had to count on not one but two buses and a train in order to get us to the Rothaus brewery and then repeat the entire thing again to get out of the brewery and to Radolfzell. I told my nerves to shut up because I have a history of worrying too much and being nervous about things that I shouldn't be nervous about. So we hop on our first train that is heading in the direction of Radolfzell but goes through the Black Forest. 20 minutes into this train ride we sit on the tracks and don't move for almost 30 minutes because a tree or something fell onto the tracks. It was starting to get windy. By the time we started moving again it was full on raining. This was January rain...very cold rain that really should have been snow. We were unable to get all the way to Seebrugg (our last stop on the train) because the wind had gotten so bad that it blew trees onto the tracks further up the tracks. So we have to get off the train in a different city. We then had to wait another 30 minutes for a bus that would take us in the right direction and to Seebrugg which also happened to be the major stop for all the buses in the area and is situated right on the beautiful Schluchsee (although it wasn't too beautiful when snow and wind are blowing in your face) . By now, my nerves were telling me to just get on another train and go straight to Radolfzell. "Forget about the Rothaus brewery Clayton. It is getting late and the trains are already messed up because of the weather." Once again I told my nerves to shut up and that I was nervous for no reason. So we hop on this first bus and it takes us to this little tiny train station called Seebrugg. Halfway there the rain turns to snow  because our elevation increased so much. We hop on another bus and it takes us all the way to the Rothaus brewery. I did not have boots with me. When I packed for Germany I figured I would use them so seldom that they were not worth it. I was right since it really didn't snow very much at all in Germany this year. On this particular trip, however, it would have been nice to have them because I took one step out of that bus and my feet were soaked. The rain/snow mixture made it so that all the sidewalks basically had a thick layer of slush that was too thick to run off the pavement but fluid enough to soak your feet. me and my friend ran to the Rothaus brewery as fast as we could because now the snow had turned back into really cold rain. We run through the doors and we are basically the only people there. We were greeted by looks from the employees that seemed to say "Why on earth would you go through all that trouble to get here in this horrible weather?" We put our stuff down and took our jackets off. We walked around the shop a little and watched the informational video in the viewing room. Every brewery in Germany has an educational video and they are all pretty similar (but equally cool). By the time were were finished we walked back out to the lobby and asked them if the trains were going through Seebrugg anymore. They said they were not going through Seebrugg but that we could take two buses that would take us to Waldshut. Waldshut is on the Swish border. They said, from there, we could catch a train to Radolfzell. The guy printed out a sheet of times and stops for us and even pointed out the window to what bus stop we needed to be at. The bus was not coming for another hour though so we could kill some time. At this point I had a false sense of security. I had a Fahrplan (trip plan) in my hand and I knew what bus stop to wait at. We were gonna be okay after all. So we decided to relax and have a Rothaus beer straight from the Rothaus brewery. We got to sit in this really cozy restaurant area and enjoy a beer. Outside the weather had turned to snow again and the building was very quiet because we were the only non-employee people there.

Just having a beer with Jesus.

This is also a really good time to mention that I didn't actually drink a beer. Not a real beer anyway. I had something called a Radler. It is basically half beer and half lemonade. Haha so it only has 2.5% alcohol and it tastes like lemony beer. Please don't judge me. I know I know. I should be able to drink beer since I am from Wisconsin and we are all beer drinkers. I never really liked the taste of beer but decided to work on it in Germany. What better place to train yourself to like beer? I started with Radlers and will hopefully work my way to real beer. I think Radlers are delicious so maybe there is hope for me yet.

The view from the bus stop.

So after having that false sense of calmness and enjoying a beer with my friend, me and him go outside to catch our bus. We go out there 7 min minutes early just to make sure we didn't miss it in case the bus was running early. On the way out my feet got soaked all over again. We wait and wait and wait. The bus finally came but it came super late. I was really confused at this point but we get on the bus and take it a couple of stops until the Seebrugg stop. When we start to get off the bus, the bus driver asks us what bus we are getting off to wait for. We tell him. He pauses and then shakes his head. He tells us that that bus is done running for the night but that if we wait at the Seebrugg stop we can use a different bus to get to Waldshut but that we would need to change buses once on the way. It was already like 7pm at this time and German public transportation can switch to the late night transportation as early as 8 pm in some places. The false sense of calmness had long left my body at this point and fear was kicking in. To make things clear, we were basically in a very sparsely populated area of the mountainous Black Forest, it was dark, freezing, and windy as hell. So many things were running through my head. It was so late already and we are supposed to use 2 buses just to get to a train station...and even if we get to the Waldshut train station will trains be running from it because of the bad weather? And even if we can catch the first bus in this crazy bus/train combination who is to say the 2nd bus won't be late or maybe it is just not running anymore at this hour. This was not an area that I was familiar with because I didn't live there so I was not 100% sure how the local transportation worked. I was basically taking people's word for it and the guy at the Rothaus brewery had already led us down the wrong path. We didn't really have a choice but to wait. The Seebrugg stop is a tiny train station located in the middle of nowhere in the Black Forest. It was the train stop that our train was originally supposed to let us off at on our way to the Rothaus brewery but couldn't because of fallen trees. So even though we were at a train stop no trains were coming through. Luckily there was a ticket machine there so that I could at least verify that the train station we wanted to get to (Waldshut) had trains entering and leaving it. Waldshut was fully functional that night but we just needed to get to it. It was dark, very windy, the snow was staying snow, and my feet were soaked. I was getting super worried. The bus we were waiting for was really late. A different bus driver even came up to the bus plan and verified that it should have been there already and that he didn't know what was going on. We were waiting there for at least an hour with about 6 other people (all German). Four of them were all together and the other two girls were friends. Eventually the group of 4 called a friend and had them pick them up. My friend and I did not have the luxury of calling a friend with a car. It was just me, my friend, and the two girls waiting at this train stop in the middle of nowhere for a bus that was really late and was probably never gonna come. I had lost feeling in my toes at this point. And because the first bus was so late, I didn't even think we would be able to catch the second bus we were supposed to use to get to Waldshut train station. At this point I started to get super worried. Where were we gonna sleep if this bus never came? Would we die? Who would die first? I thought that Adam would die first because he has much less body fat than me and I started to ask myself if I would eat him in order to survive? At this point, I knew how crazy I was becoming and my fear filled me with courage so I walked up to the two girls that were also still waiting there for the bus that was never coming and asked them (auf Deutsch) how they were planning on getting home. The one said that she had called her dad and that he was coming to pick them both up. Just then a white car pulls up. My eyes meet the girls eyes and there was a silent understanding of what I was thinking. She ran up to the car and asked her dad if he could give us a ride. A big burly man appears out of the car and tells us to throw our stuff in the trunk and hop in. Yay! I didn't need to eat Adam anymore!

So this really nice guy, who we have never met before, drove two strangers almost 30 km all the way to Waldshut where the weather was completely calm and trains were coming and going unaware of the nasty storm me and Adam had just emerged from. On the way we made a little conversation with our savior but mostly just soaked up the warmth of the car and prayed to God that this man did not come to his senses and drop us off on the side of the road. We offered the man money (gas is not cheap in Europe) when we arrived but he turned us down and said "Grüße nach Amerika" which means "greetings to America". It was my first experience with over the top unnecessary kindness in Germany and the fact that that man did that for us made me almost thankful that me and Adam had almost died...almost. So I have to ask the question. Since I risked my life for this one beer (Radler), does that mean I have a problem?

Two hours later we were sleeping in Adam's old host room from our days in Radolfzell. We had gotten something to eat already and we were warm and safe. I drifted off into sleep and awoke the next day greeted by the Bodensee that had previously welcomed me during my first week in Germany.