Bubble Dishes: Where am I?

A week ago today, I found myself sitting in Athenos restaurant somewhere in the Taunus Mountains North of Wiesbaden, Germany. I was alone, the only patron of the establishent, eating pita bread and drinking Greek white wine. The sun had been down for nearly an hour, though it was only just past 6pm. I was surrounded by an laughable amount of both pictures of Greece and duck figurines. The only thing in my bag, other than my camera and wallet, was my journal. If ever there were a time to make an entry, this was probably it.

That day, November 1st, was Allerheiligen- probably better known in English as All Saints Day. It's a Catholic holiday (maybe also Anglican?), and while I'm not Catholic, I do have family graves in Wiesbaden. What better day to head to a cemetery than this one? And what better time to get there than late afternoon before the sun is down but as it's thinking about getting dark out? There are candles on every plot in the cemetery and each candle is lit on Allerheiligen. I wanted pictures of this, since we have family pictures in daytime, but none at dusk of which I'm aware.

Well, since I have a knack for creating adventures, planned or otherwise, this was no exception. I arrived at the Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof just in time to miss my #6 bus to the cemetery. I had no idea that it ran every 15 minutes, and that if I had been patient I could have gotten a coffee and then hopped the next bus. Instead, I had researched beforehand what line to take, and the 272 had a stop a couple blocks away. I got on the 272 and explained to the driver in German that I was trying to get to this place but I don't know what the right stop is that will get me closest to it and will you please help me? "mumble mumble mumble sit down" was basically the response. (Normally it's not that the person is mumbling but a mixture of dialect meets my inability to always make sense of the words flying at me in German.) I figured that he meant me to sit down near to the front so that he could point out to me the right stop when we got there. This is something that is not out of the ordinary for a bus driver to do in the US. Or, at least, that's my experience. Well, I was wrong. I knew I'd recognize the neighborhood. It's at the top of a hill, and I could recognize the cemetery and I could recognize a flower shop across the street. Using memories, I was sure I could figure out the right stop. Sure enough, I recognized all of it as we blew down the street- swoosh went the flower shop past the window, swoosh went the cemetery out windows on the other side of the bus, and down the highway we went. Oh crap.

"No worries," I thought. I like to walk, so I would just walk from the next stop. I pressed the "let me off at the next place please" button, and some lady looked at me like I was crazy. What? Then I looked around the bus and realized that half the passengers had nodded off. This bus was not stopping any time soon. Oh gosh, here we go. Up into the Taunus Mountains the bus roared. Too far to walk back. The sun went down. It was cold outside. And even if I were crazy and did want to walk back, there were no sidewalks and we were going reeeaalllyyy fast.

Well, the bus finally did stop about 10 minutes later. I was about 6.5 miles past my intended destination. The only thing I could see were 2 houses, 4 streetlights, and one bus stop on the other side of the highway. On the other side, the schedule informed me that the 272 was done running for the evening, but in one hour I could catch a different bus back into Wiesbaden. One hour. Welp, might as well see what's in the place, wherever I am. "This Place" turned out to be Neuhof and what was in it turned out to be not much, but there was Athenos.

Following in someone's footsteps, obviously

I made friends with the hostess/bar tender/waitress and told her all about why I was there. I ate pita, drank wine, wrote a little, and left again with best wishes for catching the right bus this time from the employee. If you ever find yourself in this place, I recommend trying out the local Greek establishment. And I'll have to try again to make it to the cemetery (which I did once it was pitch black and I started walking down some totally dark road next to it and decided that was a terrible, terrible idea and horror movie plot waiting to happen and then turned right around, found the main gate, and realized it was, for good reason, closed after dark). Turns out the number 6 bus goes right from the MAINZ Hauptbahnhof to the cemetery in Wiesbaden. Figures it's that easy :)