Weekend in Aachen

Hello, sorry I haven't posted in a while; I know how much you readers depend on my small doses of Deutschland Erfahrungen, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you. I do suggest to skip down three posts and work your way up, because I just now posted three posts (that's a lot of posts!) and this one is the most recent post posted and I don't want you to cheat the order of the posts.

I took a train to Aachen last Saturday and stayed with my friend Mo (short for Moritz, and no Jim, it's not short for something else!). As I mentioned, he spent a year in an Ohioan high school so we already had a lot in common. He's also a soccer player and plays in a club like me so that makes him extra cool. When he was in the U.S., he only had the opportunity to play football at his small school in Monroeville, but nonetheless became the star kicker! Even now while living in Germany he keeps track of Football and Basketball news and highlights, so I pretty much consider him at least half American. The first day, he rounded up a group of guys and we played soccer on a dirt field. On a side note: it's kind of amazing to me that for how popular soccer is, how green and grassy the terrain is, and how much money is put into parks in Germany, there aren't more nice, public soccer fields. Anyway, it was still a lot of fun, pretty relaxed, a fair mix of talent, and really dirty. Other than that, we pretty much just walked around the city and then up a hill to get a nice view of the surrounding country. We could see beyond the borders into Belgium and Holland - very cool. The city of Aachen is relatively small, very nice with a good vibe. Mo lives right in the center of everything and he has balcony right over the street. The combination of warm sun, cool breeze, clean air, and the string of canopied cafes made it feel like Espanola Way in Miami beach - please stop feeling sorry for me.