A Day Without Laughter is a Day Wasted: In Germany

I have arrived in Germany after a surprisingly easy military flight. We flew out of Baltimore on a chartered flight right to Ramstein Air Force Base. It was a little confusing getting off the flight because you have people moving to Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Qatar, and then others deploying to Afghanistan. But they herd you through customs pretty efficiently and everyone seemed to have made it to where they were supposed to be ok.

I thought my timing to Germany was going to work out great because I would get here far enough before Thanksgiving to get things done, but I forgot about Veteran's Day. So I've been stuck unable to do much because I haven't in-processed into Germany or the unit yet.

I did go to the nearby city of Homburg to visit the caves and fortress ruins. It was my first venture out and it was a rainy cruddy day but still excited to start exploring. The Schlossberg Caves are man made. They are essentially mining shafts for the sandstone. An interesting fact they told us was the caves had been used for storage by the fortress during the late 1600s and 1700s but then forgotten until 'plyaing children' rediscovered them in the 1930s. Then during World War II people in the town used them as bombing shelters. Our guide said 4-5 thousand people would fill the caves and could stay about 3 days before needing fresh air (one because there isn't any circulation in the caves and two because there are not bathrooms in the cave).

On top of the sandstone hill are the fortress ruins. There isn't much left but it was still a pretty area. I'm not used to such wet areas so the vegetation is impressive for a girl from Colorado. Karlsberg Beer is brewed at the bottom of the hill. What we were told is the water the brewery uses filters through the sandstone hill so it's very clean and tasty. I didn't try the beer, sorry, but I'm sure it is good.