Good bye Germany for now. We left Lübeck early this morning and headed southwest towards Belgium. Our destination for the night was Hasselt, a small town in northeastern Belgium. But there was one stop to do before crossing the border. That was to stop in the German town Bielefeld to meet up with an old friend.
Background Story: A Language Exchange
11 years ago when I went to upper secondary school we had a language exchange with a school in Brakel, Germany. I together with a classmate of mine ended up staying in the home of two twins in the small village of Stahle. The exchange was made so that we spent one week in Germany during the fall and then the Germans came to stay with us for a week during the winter.
I have still both twins on Facebook (or so I think), sometimes even Facebook comes to a good use. The twin, Benedikt, that ended up staying with my classmate when in Sweden came with the suggestion that we could meet up in Bielefeld as it was a good stop during our drive from Lübeck. It is a town that is located not too far from where he is living.
A Few Hours in Bielefeld
After my first proper drive on the Autobahn, we finally parked our car close to the train station. We arrived just a few minutes before Benedikt at the train station. What do you say when meeting someone for the first time in so many years? Well, I still don’t know and it will probably stay like that.
What we did was to first find somewhere to eat lunch in the center of Bielefeld. Afterward, we made sure to still have some time to explore the city a bit more. That is to say, explore the city’s main attraction – the Sparrenberg Castle. It was a steep climb up with the pram to reach the castle, but it did offer a great view out over the city. Once back down and several long discussions about different topics later we were eventually back at the train station. A short reunion had come to an end and we had to continue towards Belgium.
At this time we have already arrived in Hasselt and are now looking forward to a long nights sleep. There has been a long day of driving and we are looking forward to exploring Hasselt tomorrow.
Join us on the road through Europe here!
