Then it was on to the university city of Heidelberg on the Rhine River. We strolled a bit and took pictures of the bridge and the red-walled castle. The bridge had some cool markings, denoting floods in the past. We had a beer in a café along the river while waiting for Massimo to return with the bus. We also saw a gorgeous sports car that had all the guys drooling, a Wiesmann roadster. No one had ever heard of this make before, and apparently it’s extremely powerful and very expensive. It was the only one of its kind we saw the entire trip.
After Heidelberg, we drove the rest of the way to Frankfurt, where we checked in to the hotel and got cleaned up for our farewell dinner in the downstairs restaurant. It was a rather somber dinner, as most of us hated to say goodbye to each other. We really did forge some wonderful friendships. I thought people might linger to party together one more time, but everyone left right after dinner to prepare for our departure from Germany in the morning. It was hard saying goodbye, but many of us have promised to stay in touch. We’ve exchanged addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
During dinner, a waiter delivered a plate with a tiny cream pitcher to our table and handed it to me. Inside the pitcher was a mini liverwurst! Across the room, Lindsey, Meredith, Julia, Robin, and Michael, as well as most of our group which had joined in the fun by association, were howling with laughter. Well, the laugh turned out to be on them, because that particular liverwurst brought my stash to exactly five. Hmmmmmmm……….
A little while after everyone had gone their separate ways, Lisa and I obtained paper, tape, and pen from the front desk. We drew a stick figure on each of five sheets of paper, using a liverwurst as the body of the figure, and we decorated them to slightly resemble Michael, Robin, Lindsey, Meredith, and Julia, if you use a great deal of imagination. We then sneaked to the door of their room and taped up the liverwurst family. The pictures didn’t come out very well because the hallway was dark, and we didn’t want to arouse anyone’s suspicions by using the flash. You get the general idea, though. In the morning as we were getting ready to board the bus to go to the airport, out of the front revolving door ran the freshly showered and still damp Lindsey, Meredith, and Julia, bursting with laughter and hugs. Lisa and I almost cried at having to leave them. It was great fun that bridged the generation gap between these lovely young ladies and us older folk.
Note: The four of us have been particularly impressed with the young people on our tour. I didn’t really know what to expect when I saw there would be children/teens on a 15-day tour, much of which would be on the motor coach. It seemed like it might be a rather boring two weeks for young, energetic ladies, but these gals were super, every one of them! Talvi (16) was very mature and gracious. Grace (15) was a total hoot—funny, polite, and intelligent. Lindsey (14), Meredith (12), and Julia (9) were respectful and deferential, yet smart and lots of fun. And Danielle, who at 20 straddled the chasm between teenager and adult, was a lovely, intelligent (premed student!) young woman who impressed us with her loving relationship with her grandmother. There was never a moment when we didn’t thoroughly enjoy having all these girls as part of the group, and they all seemed to have a good time. Even more wonderful…….they all enjoyed being with their family members. As I’ve said before, this was a very special group of people.
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