Writhe and Shine

From Writhe’s journal:

I got off the train in Koblenz and took a bus to the bottom of the hill. The youth hostel was at the top. I tried calling from the station to reserve a room, but there was no answer so my best bet was to go there. I walked up the steep hill, went down the long road, and got to the castle/hostel. Reception was closed so I found a bathroom, relieved myself, and waited. Reception opened a little later and they had a bed! Yeah! I paid and got my stuff together. Got kind of lost going back down the hill. Eventually found the buses and went back to town. Visited the Post Office. I sent most of my CDs and magazines back to Boo in New Orleans along with a few other things that I’ve been collecting along the way. Ate at some cheap fast food place because I was too hungry to find somewhere good to eat. I walked around for a bit and didn’t find anything too exciting. Went back to the hostel and fell asleep at 10.
Ate breakfast and met a couple people from around my home town in Illinois, one of who graduated from the same college I went to. I made sure to get another night at the hostel. Went with two Canadians I met at the hostel down the hill by a different “secret” way. Took a ferry to the other side of the river and got on a small cruise ship for a tour down the Rhine. It was a slow meandering tour down the river that brought us by tons of castles. It stopped at a few to let people off to explore and continued on its way after they disembarked. The Canadians got off at Marksburg and I got off at Rheinfelds. I fell asleep several times on the cruise, but didn’t really miss anything. This was perhaps the most relaxed I have ever been in my entire life. I didn’t need to be anywhere and I had no obligations. All I had to do was sit back and watch the ancient castles go by. It was mid afternoon and about to get dark when I realized that I had no idea how I was going to get back to the hostel for the night. I was lucky to have gotten off where I did because I caught the last train back with 5 minutes to spare.