Lost in Deutschland: Marburg and Hardcore Music

Marburg: What I thought would be a guided tour of the city by Rita, turned into a super long lunch with shitty service, an average veggie burger, and a self-tour of the city. Marburg is past Frankfurt and the ride took about 1 hour.

Rita, Vanessa, ?, Alex. It's hard to hang with them because I don't understand anything they talk about. The did do all the navigating for us though. I didn't have to figure out any buses or trains. Vielen Dank.

Rita's dog joined us. She's a very well behaved dog so the train and restaurant weren't a problem

Marburg, Germany

Somehow we ended up at an American restaurant. The choices were simple; salad, burgers, pizza, steak. Just to get seated was a struggle. There were 8 of us so we scrambled to congregate around 2 small circle tables. We all ordered without incident, but from then on it was almost comedy. The server couldn’t remember who had which drinks. She came by a few times with drinks that weren’t for our table, or for our party for that matter. She came by a couple times with beer that wasn’t for any of us. She went to the other group of people with our food, then auctioned it off because she didn’t know where it went. We had two girls serving us which was a mistake. Neither one knew where the food went. A guy joined in and still messed things up. Poor Sam didn’t even get his meal until we had all finished. They had forgotten his burger, and still messed it up by putting tomatoes on it when he asked to have them left off.

I was told German service at restaurants was bad, but this was laughable. It’s amazing that Germany can be known for precision, yet have shitty restaurant service. This place must have had no training for their servers. OK, this was one girl’s first day, but that doesn’t account for the other two underperforming. The veggie burger wasn’t worth the headache. It took way longer than it should have. Next time I think I’ll just eat at a doner shop. Turkish fast food may be my go-to. It’s fast, easy, and relatively cheap. Our mood was a little down after lunch so when Rita told us she had no plans to show us the city we were caught off guard. I had seen a castle on our way in so I said that I’d like to see it. I made my decision to go and asked who wanted to join me. Rita and her friends were going to a game shop, and Sam, Lauren, and Andras joined me on a walk up the hill to the castle.

We made plans to meet back at the comic store in two hours. OK, let’s go! I didn’t stick around to discuss further. Decision made – DONE.

Sam, Lauren, Andràs.

Two slacklines were set up at the top of the hill by the castle. I guess they're here all the time for people to use. Sam and András

PHOTO BOMB!

Can you believe it? I finally found a public drinking fountain! All I had to do was take 2 trains and walk up to a castle to find it. The word for castle in german is Schloss. fyi.

The castle as viewed from below.

The churches are pretty cool too.

Random wall of animal heads.

These stairs get pretty jammed when trains arrive. We all funnel up these steps so beware the guy in from who falls forward revealing his butt crack! Yes, that happened.

Upon returning to Karlshof, I remembered that there was a concert at Oetinger Villa. It’s a house right next to the dorms that has turning into a music venue/community style living facility. I was told squatters/punks took it over and it’s become theirs. They keep it relatively clean, and the artwork consists of concert posters and graffiti. At least that’s what I saw on the walls of the first floor. The concert had been going for a while, so people were milling about between bands. With the crowd outside it was easy to slip by and go inside without buying a ticket. Pretty sweet, right? Some girls were selling sweets so I decided to buy a cookie. When I asked how much it costs, the girl shrugged and said I could pay whatever I wanted. What? I pulled out a 1€ coin and traded it for the cookie. That was a super delicious cookie.

Concert room wall art.

As I was wandering the interior and checking out the concert room I noticed people had wrist bands on. I was worried that I would be seen without one rendering me suspect and prone to getting the boot. I should support this place anyway, right? I wasn’t sure the price of a ticket, or if there were any left, but I went back to the front table to inquire.

I get a similar response from the guys out front as I did form the girls at the cookie stand. He said he’ll be happy with anything between 5€ and 10€. 10€ for a concert is a good deal, so I paid the guy and got stamped for clearance. Good deal. It turns out I walked into a hardcore show. The music was heavy, contained few melodies, loaded with screams and heavy breakdowns. It was pretty cool. I wouldn’t buy any music from these bands, but it was fun to watch.