Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Man, we didn't sleep worth a shit that night. Of course, there was only a couple hours of it, anyway. Up and at 'em. Quick shower but still the same clothes because, as I've said, the rest of them were all packed up and somewhere in the airport.
Because we did not view the sights of London last night, we were going to do that this morning but the price we would pay for doing this meant that we ahd to carry our carry-on luggage everywhere we went. We sort of looked like street people, I'd imagine, except we were freshly bathed. I still had the map that the concierge gave me the night before in his ever-so-polite manner. We checked out of the hotel but we were hungry.
Up until this point, we had not had a bite of fast food anywhere along our journey. Right across the street from the hotel, however, there was a McDonald's so we decided today was the day we'd have some. We had sausage biscuits and coffee. The interesting thing about the coffee was when we ordered 2 coffees, the young lady behind the counter politely asked: "white or black?" Huh? Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she translated that for me. "With milk or without?" Ah! With milk, please. For a week now, we'd had coffee with milk, not cream. I much rather prefer cream in my coffee but I accepted milk as a suitable alternative given the environment we were in only drank it that way--no cream.
After breakfast, we caught the bus from the hotel back to the terminal at the airport that would lead us to the Picadilly Line on the tube, again. The ride was not as long as I remember from the night before but it was far more scenic. In the sun-drenched morning, you could watch the activities of London suburbia. The houses, the small shops in little parts of the outlying towns. Various brief stops at the stations provided us with a little longer view.
Finally, we arrive at the Hyde Park Corner stop and made our way to the top. The escalator to get to the surface was absolutely the longest, tallest, and steepest escalator I had ever seen. Once to the top, there was a slight labyrinth of tunnels to navigate to get to the park but we made our way through and into the city. The entrance to the park was a beautiful but small piece of architecture. Of course we took pictures but did not enter. We only had a couple short hours to see some of the things we wanted to see. Tarrying in the park would not do our agenda justice.
Hyde Park is not all that far by foot to Buckingham Palace. It was just a short stroll down a road called Constitution Hill. What a beautiful road! Each side was adorned with large trees, providing shade for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike. It was nice taking a walk with my wife in London in a setting such as this, even though we looked like vagabonds with our luggage strapped to us. After a few short minutes, we finally found ourselves just beside Buckingham Palace.
What an impressive sight! The palace itself was not all that awe-inspiring but the whole scene was just awesome! The Palace, the modern Police officers with automatic weapons but wearing traditional bobby hats, and of course the traditional Palace Guards. They were not outside of the gate but instead they were up against the Palace walls. Yes, they marched back and forth, for what I do not know. Probably mostly for show, now, as I think the automatic weapons out front served as much more of a deterrent than these fellows. We took a few pictures of the palace, the modern cops, and the traditional guards then walked over to the Victoria Memorial for a greater view.
The Victoria Memorial was a wonderful piece of art. Looking out over the Mall was the likeness of Queen Victoria--regal and graceful, at the same time. We took a few pictures there and had our picture taken by a French man there. Looking away from the Palace while standing at the memorial, the Mall was an impressive sight, as well. On each side of the street for as far as the Mall stretched, dozens of British Flags hung as a bold reminder of exactly where you were standing.
Knowing that we didn't have that much time, we headed out by foot toward the clump of history that all sat near the banks of the River Thames. We took the path of a street called Birdcage Walk. Another impressive compilation of pavement and horticulture, if I must say. On that little road, we passed the barracks for the Palace guards. There were tour times available but had to press onward.
After a few mintues of walking down Birdcage Walk, we came upon the square where one could see Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey almost all in once view. It was magnificent. We headed to Westminster Abbey first. What an impressive sight, that was! Built in the Gothic model of architecture, the details and the angles...the towering spires and the artwork that was so intricately incorporated into the architecture was something that modern day engineers would simply not have the patience for. I could not get enough of staring at this beautiful piece of history. But after several pictures of the church and about 20 minutes of taking it in, it was time to move on, yet again.
All of these traditional sights are literally clumped all together so just beyond the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament sat waiting to be viewed. This structure was absolutely enormous. Not so much tall as it was just the massive amount of real estate that this thing took up. We walked the entire length of the Houses (aka Westminster Palace), taking pictures and just looking at the buildings. Two things really caught my attention. There was this very small structure across the street from the Houses that was built in the shape of a castle. I didn't know what it was while we were there but I thought it was interesting. Later, when we came back to the States, I was doing a little informal research of the Royal lineage and saw that one of the Kings had built that to house the Royal Treasure. I cannot remember now which King it was but it was neat learning about that.
The other thing that really grabbed my attention was the statue depicting King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart). It was a representation of the King who reigned between 1189 and 1199. He was mounted atop a horse and holding a sword above his head. No savage look on his face...no galloping steed...no robes flowing behind him. Just the King with a face that demanded respect. Odd thing about this English King was that the man hardly spoke a word of English and was rarely even in his country. Instead, he was commanding armies in battles throughout the vast majority of his life. But it really wasn't the statue, the warrior spirit, nor the placement next to the Houses of Parliament that got me. It was the simple history of it. King Richard I, the English People and their pride. Regardless of how proud I am to be an American, most of us have our roots right here in England. Some man, some woman, some child who were subjects of this mighty king had children, who would have children, who would have children, who would become my parents. This is just as much a part of my history as any given British subject, regardless of my nationality.
As much as I hated it, it was time to move on. Through the whole venture in this historic part of London, I would occasional snap pictures of Big Ben from the different angles I could see it from. Yes...just a clock but it's iconic. I think many of us think of Big Ben when someone mentions London. But this time, I was there. Just on the other end of the enormous grounds that held the Houses of Parliament, this giant clock they call Big Ben stood high and proud...the base of it all literally being slapped by the small waves of the River Thames. I wondered for a moment how long it would be before erosion wore completely through the base of ole Ben and caused to tumble into the water.
Many pictures taken of all of it. The River Thames, Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament, the various statues of heroes (including the great Winston Churchill), the double decker buses... just amazing. But only 3 hours worth of it.
My wife and I got a cup of espresso from a little shop run by an Italian man. We stood outside, drank our coffee and just watched for a bit. But very soon, it was time to catch the tube back to Heathrow.
In the station waiting for the train, we met a man from India who was just beginning his journey all over Europe until he made his way back to his home country. He spoke very good English and was excellent conversation both in the station and on the train, itself. We talked about our children, our cultures, our political views... It was interesting.
Back in the airport, we had a couple hours to kill. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time just in case there were any security issues or other unforeseen events. Inside the airport and near our gate, there was this little restaurant that we decided to eat in. They served Bass on Nitrogen which was delicious. In fact, I had a beer there on our way to Germany a week earlier. Anyway, since I really wanted to have English Fish and Chips, I was very pleased to find these on the menu. It was heavenly! The greatest part was that I discovered "mushy peas." WOW! They were fantastic and taste4d nothing like the canned or even fresh peas we have here. They were large, bright green and just as the name implies: mushy.
We ate, paid our tab, and headed to the gate. After about half hour, we were able to board the 747 that would take us directly back to Phoenix. The plane was not packed but was not particularly empty, either. My wife and I had 2 seats in a row of 3 and after several minutes, no one had claimed the other seat in our row. We started to get a little excited, thinking that perhaps we would have this space to ourselves for the whole 10.5 hour flight.
One particular woman was making her way toward us and we thought "damn!" but no. She passed us and we both breathed a sigh of relief. But then she came back. Passed us again. Over and over she passed us heading in both directions. Finally, she was shown to her seat by an attendant. Yep. She sat with us. She was a very petite woman who was probably in her mid-40's. She absolutely smelled like a French whore. My goodness! Her perfume was so overwhelming that I just wanted to gag. Her make-up was caked on her skin which looked like leather. Literally. Once we took off, she ordered wine after wine after wine. In French! no kidding. Maybe she was a French Whore. Anyway... for 10 hours and after several wines, she never got up once. WTF?
After those 10.5 hours, we were home. It was a long flight. We were tired, I was grumpy... you know how it goes. It was May 31st in Phoenix so it was hot. We got a ride back to my car and made the trip back to our house. It was over.
What a great time. I had been to Europe as a young man in the Marines but not like this. When I was younger, I had to go out with a "liberty buddy," I had to be back on ship at a certain time, etc. This time, I was with my wife...my life-partner. We were totally immersed in the culture. We had to learn together and live together for 24 hours a day that week. We saw human atrocities. We laughed at things we saw. We drove on the autobahn. We visited a castle. It was simply amazing.
If you've read all of these, thank you for taking time out of your lives to read about mine.
Dad's Childhood and the Picadilly Line (Day 7 of Germany--final day)
Saturday, May 30th, 2009.
We had decided that we would try to sleep in a little on our last morning. We did manage to get an extra hour of sleep. That puts us at 7am instead of 6. :) But we really took our time getting ready. Took turns taking showers and getting ready. Watched a little bit of the German version of the Disney Channel. It was an American show with German dubbed over. Looked about as natural as Kung Fu theater, as far as words matching lip movement. I have no idea what they were saying but it kept me interested, anyway.
While my wife was in the shower, I decided to use the hotel's complimentary computer that was in the lobby to check some emails. I logged in alright but the keyboard was so different. It took me a very long time to find the apostrophe and when I did finally find it, I couldn't figure out how to actually make it appear on the screen. Well, we have the "shift" key that gives us the alternate symbol on a given key. They have that too but they also have keys that have three options. You have to hold the "Alt" key to get those symbols. they also had the vowels with the umlauts on them. Overall, it was odd trying to use it. I gave up on it and went back upstairs to pack. I packed all of my clothes except for my current selection, as we would be home tomorrow. I had on a t-shirt, some thin plaid shorts, and flip-flops. Everything else would be checked. Not important now but it would play out later.
Guess what else? No deli meat and cheese this morning. Instead, we decided to see if we could find a bakery. I remembered that there was one enxt to the pizza place we had visited on the first night here, several days ago. I lied the look of the bakeries, here. Of course they were more like little shops that just happened to bake in the back but they were quaint. Don't know why we never tried one prior to that day. We went in, got a couple of pastries, couple cups of coffee and ate inside the bakery. A lot of these places (Imbiss included) had these tall tables that were at just the perfect height to stand and eat or drink at. Never a chair. It was almost as if they invited you to stay and consume there but don't wear out your welcome. An invitation to eat and run, I guess.
Since this was a little shop, we bought the kids each a magazine in German to take back to them. After we came back home, we realized that one of them had some very sexual stuff in advertisements. This was a magazine that featured Hannah Montana on the cover. We assumed it would be safe. You know what happens when you assume, right?
We had decided that we would spend the day in Wiesbaden, which is a little town about 20km outside of Frankfurt. I really wanted to go there because my Grandfather was stationed there back in the late 50's/early 60's. My Dad had actually lived there att he time, with my Grandparents. To me, it was awesome to know that I was nearly 6,000 miles from home but in the same place that my father was when he was a child. And in another country, no less.
We made our way to Wiesbaden and found a parking garage near a very busy shopping district in the town. The parking garage was actually affixed to a "mall" of sorts. We'll call it a mall anyway, because I can't think of how else to describe it. Each floor of the place was dedicated like a department store but it was huge! They even had a Starbucks on site. Of course we partook of the caffeine goodness. :)
After perusing the mall for a bit, we decided to walk around the shopping district of Wiesbaden. The streets and alleys were closed to motorized traffic but was jam-packed with pedestrian shoppers and gazers. We even found a little farmer's market where people were buying all sorts of fresh produce and meats. The biggest selling item there? White asparagus. I'm personally not a big fan of asparagus but my wife loves it and was really impressed with the odd cousin of the more popular green asparagus. Apparently, these little guys needed to be shucked or peeled or whatever they do to them. There was a machine that did this for the masses at the end of the market.
We didn't buy anything. We just sort of walked around and looked in many of the shops. Of course, I stopped for a beer. We sat there for a bit before deciding it was time to head back to Frankfurt.
Once we got back to the airport, we parked the car and headed in to hang out at the gate before our departure back to London. I had a couple beers and sent a couple texts back to my colleagues in the U.S. All of our bags were checked and the only clothes we had were what we were wearing. I had on shorts, a t-shirt, and some flip flops. The weather was nice in Germany. Later, I would pay for it.
On the flight there were a lot of American high-school aged girls who were on a softball team for some American School in England. We spoke for a while with the chaperones--an American couple and a young woman who was from London but barely had an accent. She claimed that was because of her consistent exposure to Americans. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in London as the sun was starting to set. The American man that we had spoken with earlier said that if we wanted to hang out in historic London, we could take the Picadilly Line on the Tube straight from the airport to the Hyde Park stop. That sounded like an excellent idea but we wanted to drop our bags at the hotel first.
Our hotel was located just on the other side of London Heathrow but the cab ride with tip cost us 20 pounds!! That's like $30! Pretty rich, if you ask me. We checked into the hotel and took our bags to our room. Once back in to lobby, I asked the concierge about more economical means of transportation back to the airport where we could catch the tube to downtown. He told us about the buses and which one we should take to get us to the right terminal for the Picadilly Line. He gave us a map and he was most pleasant to speak with. When I said "Thank you" his response was "pleasure." That was neat.
We waited for the bus for what seemed like an eternity. I was getting very thirsty after several minutes of waiting. I went into the hotel bar to get a bottle of water. Guess what. The bus came and went while i was inside. Nice. So, we waited another 15 minutes for another bus.
Bus ride was uneventful. We found the Picadilly Line, no problems, and headed downtown. The funny thing about the "Tube" which is really caleld The Underground was that above each door, there were these signs that said "Mind The Gap." It was really neat to note the differences in the English we speak in America, and the English spoken there. "Mind The Gap" was literally used as we would use "Watch Your Step" in our culture. Exit signs said "Way Out" instead of "Exit." Our "Clearance" signs (i.e. drive-thru windows and parking garages) said "Max Headroom." In fact, the "Mind The Gap" saying has apparently gotten a lot of attention because you can even find shirts, panties, and other items with this little saying on them.
We finally got to the Hyde Park stop and it was damn near midnight. We were very tired. We got outside of the station and my goodness! It was so cold!!! Those shorts, flip-flops and t-shirt were now not a good idea. The train was going to stop running in a little over an hour so we needed to head back. What a waste of time!!!
My wife fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back to the airport. I was people watching. Many people dressed to go out partying, as it was Saturday. Girls there were dressed just as trampy as the girls here, apparently unbothered by the cold night air. Young men were riding together and chit-chatting about nothing at all, the same way we do here. Just as it was in Berlin, these were just people, going about their business the same as people all over the world. Just with different accents and different ways of doing things.
We finally got back to the airport around 1:30am. The buses had mostly shut down and we couldn't find a cab to save our lives. I was so ready for bed and just wanted a ride back to the hotel from anywhere. We did finally grab a cab and thankfully, we were cloer to the other side of the airport and the cab ride was only about 10 pounds.
Made our way to our room and we both crashed pretty hard. The next 3 hours of sleep were going to be short, indeed. But we wanted to make sure we got to see the sights we intended to see.
We had decided that we would try to sleep in a little on our last morning. We did manage to get an extra hour of sleep. That puts us at 7am instead of 6. :) But we really took our time getting ready. Took turns taking showers and getting ready. Watched a little bit of the German version of the Disney Channel. It was an American show with German dubbed over. Looked about as natural as Kung Fu theater, as far as words matching lip movement. I have no idea what they were saying but it kept me interested, anyway.
While my wife was in the shower, I decided to use the hotel's complimentary computer that was in the lobby to check some emails. I logged in alright but the keyboard was so different. It took me a very long time to find the apostrophe and when I did finally find it, I couldn't figure out how to actually make it appear on the screen. Well, we have the "shift" key that gives us the alternate symbol on a given key. They have that too but they also have keys that have three options. You have to hold the "Alt" key to get those symbols. they also had the vowels with the umlauts on them. Overall, it was odd trying to use it. I gave up on it and went back upstairs to pack. I packed all of my clothes except for my current selection, as we would be home tomorrow. I had on a t-shirt, some thin plaid shorts, and flip-flops. Everything else would be checked. Not important now but it would play out later.
Guess what else? No deli meat and cheese this morning. Instead, we decided to see if we could find a bakery. I remembered that there was one enxt to the pizza place we had visited on the first night here, several days ago. I lied the look of the bakeries, here. Of course they were more like little shops that just happened to bake in the back but they were quaint. Don't know why we never tried one prior to that day. We went in, got a couple of pastries, couple cups of coffee and ate inside the bakery. A lot of these places (Imbiss included) had these tall tables that were at just the perfect height to stand and eat or drink at. Never a chair. It was almost as if they invited you to stay and consume there but don't wear out your welcome. An invitation to eat and run, I guess.
Since this was a little shop, we bought the kids each a magazine in German to take back to them. After we came back home, we realized that one of them had some very sexual stuff in advertisements. This was a magazine that featured Hannah Montana on the cover. We assumed it would be safe. You know what happens when you assume, right?
We had decided that we would spend the day in Wiesbaden, which is a little town about 20km outside of Frankfurt. I really wanted to go there because my Grandfather was stationed there back in the late 50's/early 60's. My Dad had actually lived there att he time, with my Grandparents. To me, it was awesome to know that I was nearly 6,000 miles from home but in the same place that my father was when he was a child. And in another country, no less.
We made our way to Wiesbaden and found a parking garage near a very busy shopping district in the town. The parking garage was actually affixed to a "mall" of sorts. We'll call it a mall anyway, because I can't think of how else to describe it. Each floor of the place was dedicated like a department store but it was huge! They even had a Starbucks on site. Of course we partook of the caffeine goodness. :)
After perusing the mall for a bit, we decided to walk around the shopping district of Wiesbaden. The streets and alleys were closed to motorized traffic but was jam-packed with pedestrian shoppers and gazers. We even found a little farmer's market where people were buying all sorts of fresh produce and meats. The biggest selling item there? White asparagus. I'm personally not a big fan of asparagus but my wife loves it and was really impressed with the odd cousin of the more popular green asparagus. Apparently, these little guys needed to be shucked or peeled or whatever they do to them. There was a machine that did this for the masses at the end of the market.
We didn't buy anything. We just sort of walked around and looked in many of the shops. Of course, I stopped for a beer. We sat there for a bit before deciding it was time to head back to Frankfurt.
Once we got back to the airport, we parked the car and headed in to hang out at the gate before our departure back to London. I had a couple beers and sent a couple texts back to my colleagues in the U.S. All of our bags were checked and the only clothes we had were what we were wearing. I had on shorts, a t-shirt, and some flip flops. The weather was nice in Germany. Later, I would pay for it.
On the flight there were a lot of American high-school aged girls who were on a softball team for some American School in England. We spoke for a while with the chaperones--an American couple and a young woman who was from London but barely had an accent. She claimed that was because of her consistent exposure to Americans. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in London as the sun was starting to set. The American man that we had spoken with earlier said that if we wanted to hang out in historic London, we could take the Picadilly Line on the Tube straight from the airport to the Hyde Park stop. That sounded like an excellent idea but we wanted to drop our bags at the hotel first.
Our hotel was located just on the other side of London Heathrow but the cab ride with tip cost us 20 pounds!! That's like $30! Pretty rich, if you ask me. We checked into the hotel and took our bags to our room. Once back in to lobby, I asked the concierge about more economical means of transportation back to the airport where we could catch the tube to downtown. He told us about the buses and which one we should take to get us to the right terminal for the Picadilly Line. He gave us a map and he was most pleasant to speak with. When I said "Thank you" his response was "pleasure." That was neat.
We waited for the bus for what seemed like an eternity. I was getting very thirsty after several minutes of waiting. I went into the hotel bar to get a bottle of water. Guess what. The bus came and went while i was inside. Nice. So, we waited another 15 minutes for another bus.
Bus ride was uneventful. We found the Picadilly Line, no problems, and headed downtown. The funny thing about the "Tube" which is really caleld The Underground was that above each door, there were these signs that said "Mind The Gap." It was really neat to note the differences in the English we speak in America, and the English spoken there. "Mind The Gap" was literally used as we would use "Watch Your Step" in our culture. Exit signs said "Way Out" instead of "Exit." Our "Clearance" signs (i.e. drive-thru windows and parking garages) said "Max Headroom." In fact, the "Mind The Gap" saying has apparently gotten a lot of attention because you can even find shirts, panties, and other items with this little saying on them.
We finally got to the Hyde Park stop and it was damn near midnight. We were very tired. We got outside of the station and my goodness! It was so cold!!! Those shorts, flip-flops and t-shirt were now not a good idea. The train was going to stop running in a little over an hour so we needed to head back. What a waste of time!!!
My wife fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back to the airport. I was people watching. Many people dressed to go out partying, as it was Saturday. Girls there were dressed just as trampy as the girls here, apparently unbothered by the cold night air. Young men were riding together and chit-chatting about nothing at all, the same way we do here. Just as it was in Berlin, these were just people, going about their business the same as people all over the world. Just with different accents and different ways of doing things.
We finally got back to the airport around 1:30am. The buses had mostly shut down and we couldn't find a cab to save our lives. I was so ready for bed and just wanted a ride back to the hotel from anywhere. We did finally grab a cab and thankfully, we were cloer to the other side of the airport and the cab ride was only about 10 pounds.
Made our way to our room and we both crashed pretty hard. The next 3 hours of sleep were going to be short, indeed. But we wanted to make sure we got to see the sights we intended to see.
Chickens and Shamrocks (Day 6 of Germany)
Screw it. Youc an deal with the spelling errors. There's really a good chance I'll never fix them. :)
Friday, May 29th, 2009.
BRRRRRRR!!!!!! Seeing as how our bed and breakfast was atop a mountain in the Bavarian Alps AND the fact that we slept with the windows open, it was effing COLD in our room when we woke up that morning. It's all good though. It caused us to snuggle a little at night which is never a bad thing (unless it causes you to sweat like crazy...then, it kind of sucks).
6am, as usual. We decided that since the showers were community, we'd skip out on a full on bathing and just do the brush your teeth thing this morning. It was a little hazy this morning but I suspect that was due to the temperature and the altitude at which we were. We got everything ready to go fairly quickly today and got everything out to the Punto before having the usual breakfast of meats and cheeses. The restaurant part of the B&B was pretty neat. It had windows but it was wide open and there was plenty of natural lighting to keep the place bright enough to not need any artificial lights. We were the only ones in the restaurant at breakfast which was sort of nice. That way, people weren't staring at us like the tourist Americans we were.
Today, we were heading back to Frankfurt, as our flight leaves the next evening. We had plenty of time to do what we wished, though so we headed into town (Hohenschwangau) for a bit more tourist activity. The good thing about the next 2 nights was that I had already booked these nights months in advance (that night in Frankfurt and the following night in London).
We parked the PUnto in the same little gravel lot that we had parked in the night before and proceeded to walk to the ticket building again to purchase tickets for Schloss Hohenschwangau. After buying the tickets, we were waiting outside of the building and I read a sign that had a brief history of the two castles. Schloß Hohenschwangau had actually been the original Neuschwanstein but when König Ludwig (King Ludwig) had the new Neuschwanstein built, he had the name changed to fit his liking. The Schloß Hohenschwangau (as it is now known) was a meeting place for the Knights of Schwangau (Swan order) as far back as the 13th century. It had been attacked and burnt down by Napolean centuries later, and then rebuilt by the Bavarian Royal family. As far as castles go, it was fairly small and was considered more of a vacation home for the family.
On the way up the hill to the castle, we stopped to take a couple pictures of a couple of giant slugs. She had never seen slugs before and of course I grew up torturing the little bastards but these things were HUGE! I had my wife put her hand next to one while I took a picture so you could really grasp how large these suckers were.
Anyway...that wasn't too awfully important but I wanted to throw it in there.
We arrived at the top of the hill and at the castle gate well ahead of our scheduled tour so we walked around the various small courtyards that surrounded the castle. Of course, it was adorned with many variations of swans, some of them serving as fountains. Again, the fountains ran on the natural pressure running water from the mountain streams. There were also many paintings on the structures, many of them with a blue and white themed background. Bavaria's colors are blue and white. Perhaps you've seen the checkered pattern. Heck...look at the BMW symbol. Why do you think it's Blue/White checkered? BMW = Bayerische Motoren Werke(Bavarian Motor Works). Nice cars. But I prefer Audi.
The tour started right on time and once again, we were instructed not to take pictures INSIDE the castle (but could take them through the windows). This castle was by far my favorite of the two. The rooms were all painted with elaborate pictures. They usually were portraying a legend or fairy talke of some sort. Some them represented actual historical events. They were all painted int he romantic ers though, so even the battle scenes on the walls had no blood depicted. The romantic era was good for that. There were family portraits, gold dining sets, stone floors, windows everywhere... The entire place also had a network of passages for the servants to move through so they would not have to be seen by the inhabitants of the castle. One of the guest rooms was my favorite. Apparently, Ludwig was fascinated by Wagner's music. Wagner used to come and stay with Ludwig on occasion and play piano for him and his family at the castle. The piano was still there as well as the linens from when Wagner stayed there. Very cool! While Neuschwanstein was being built, Ludwig chose to live at Hohenschwangau instead of in Munish where royalty normally stayed. His wife had her own room just above his in the castle. Funny thing...they had a secret staircase that ran between the two rooms so they could have a late night rendezvous, if they needed to vent some frustration. :)
Yes, Schloß Hohenschwangau was my favorite. But the tour was over and it was time to walk the town a little more before heading back to Frankfurt. We stopped at a couple different gift shops. She got a purse, got the kids some things. Got my mom and her mom some things. I was seriously debating getting an authentic Bavarian Style hat. I changed my mind because the cost was just too much for how often I really would have worn it. Looking back, I should have just bought the damn thing. I'd wear it if only to be goofy. I'm good at that, I've heard. I thought baout getting some real lederhosen too but that would have been a little extreme.
Seeing as how we were litterally only 2km from Austria (östereich), I thought we may as well dip down into another country, even if it was just to say we'd been there. On the way down, we decided to pull off on the side of the road where there was a small waterfall so we could take some more pictures. It wasn't the waterfall that had our interest piqued, it was that damn light green/pale blue water that was just odd. Above the little fall, there was a bust of King Maximillian carved into the stone. Maximillian was Ludwig's father. He was well known for traveling the world and being the first German to really establish a good relationship with Mexico (of all places). He even had his own manor in Mexico and it was due to this relationship that the Mexicans learned to brew beer in the European style. Most "Mexican" beers are really variations on the German and Czech styles, by the way. And if you wonder why they call it cerveza, it's because Spanish is one of the Latin languages and the Latin term for yeast is Saccharomyces Cervisiae. Anyway....so there was Maximillian.
Back into the car and down the little stretch of road into Austria. The state was called Tirol, if I remember right. Driving in the European Union is like driving between states in the U.S. There was just a little sign indicating we were in Austria and that's it. Austria is a German speaking country so the road signs were very similar to the ones we had gotten used to over the past week. The only real difference is that some of the signs weer different color schemes than in Germany. We took a couple pictures and then turned around to head back into Germany. That's it. Just to say we'd been there. :)
We decided to spend a little more time in Füssen to see what else we could discover. That really only lasted about 30 minutes. I had a bratwurst and a cola light and we took off.
I input the hotel in Frankfurt into the BlackBerry and off we went. This time, however, it had us going through some back country roads. I figured I would trust it and go with it. The twists and turns were a little crazy though, especially getting out of one of the tiny towns just outside of Füssen. But in that little town we were able to confirm the age old question: Why did the chicken cross the road? I had to slam on my brakes at one point because there was a chicken that ran out in front of me. There were no other chickens on the opposite side. No food, nothing chasing it. So, why did it cross the road? To get to the other side. I feel as though I've made a startling discovery (or confirmation) and my life has meaning.... ok...bad joke. But we both had a good laugh at the time.
Through the little town we went and the road we were on was making me ask whether or not this road actually went anywhere at all. It was a no-lane road through some fields and woods. We faced no oncoming traffic and had nobody behind us for miles. Finally, we came upon another road that looked a little more travelled. Yep, we had gone the right way. Oh, little BlackBerry, how did you know this road was here but you jacked me up on the Autobahn, yesterday? Que sera, sera. In a few miles, we were finally led to the Autobahn that would take us into Frankfurt.
I won't dwell too much on the Autobahn trip, this time. I was so pissed off on this drive. We were in stop and go traffic the entire freaking day. I mean I was livid. I'm an impatient person and I had suspected that I suffered from anxiety (although I've only recently confirmed that with help) so traffic gets under my skin like you would not believe. Of course with me being stressed out, my wife gets stressed out, and then we're stressed with each other. Not comfortable at all.
After we finally get to Frankfurt (I thoguht we'd never make it), we find the hotel again, drop off our bags, and head into the city. We were hungry and I wanted some beers to wash away the stress from the day. We settled on this fairly large pub style place right across from the gigantic train station in downtown Frankfurt. It was called O'Malleys, or O'Charley's or something like that. It was definitely an Irish name. Aside from the Dunkin Donuts we had in Berlin, we really had eaten only local dishes wherever we had gone so when I saw they had loaded nachos on the menu, I was quick to order a big plate of them. I was jonesin' for some food like that. The place was PACKED with Irish guys. They were all taking a train to somewhere but I'm not sure where they were all going. There was a soccer game on between Ireland and one of the Island teams so they were all drinking and having a good time. The waiting staff seemed to all be Irish and British, too. It was actually a very nice environment to spend our last night in Germany.
On our way back to the hotel, I thought I had remembered the way without question. Well, I did alright for not being from the area. As usual, the train tracks and the road shared the same real estate. I didn't really pay attention to that after a while but perhaps I should have. After a few minutes, I noticed there were no other cars on this particular part of the road. SHIT! I was on the train tracks and there IS no road, here. I was smack dab in the middle of a very large train stop. You know...the kind that has the higher platforms for easier passenger loading. Well, there I was. In the station. I didn't know what to do so I stepped on the gas and hauled ass past the train that had stopped to pick up passengers. Oh, we got some stares. Even the conductor was looking at us like WTF are they doing? The hairs on my neck were on end (I don't have any on my head) and my heart was racing but of course, as soon as we made it through, we were both laughing our asses off. It really was good time.
We found our way back to the same hotel we stayed at the first night. We checked in and while my wife was bathing (we had not done so in the community showers earlier) I went down to the hotel bar for a couple of beers. There were two couples sitting there having beers as well but it was otherwise quiet.
Paid my tab and went upstairs. It was definitely time for bed.
Friday, May 29th, 2009.
BRRRRRRR!!!!!! Seeing as how our bed and breakfast was atop a mountain in the Bavarian Alps AND the fact that we slept with the windows open, it was effing COLD in our room when we woke up that morning. It's all good though. It caused us to snuggle a little at night which is never a bad thing (unless it causes you to sweat like crazy...then, it kind of sucks).
6am, as usual. We decided that since the showers were community, we'd skip out on a full on bathing and just do the brush your teeth thing this morning. It was a little hazy this morning but I suspect that was due to the temperature and the altitude at which we were. We got everything ready to go fairly quickly today and got everything out to the Punto before having the usual breakfast of meats and cheeses. The restaurant part of the B&B was pretty neat. It had windows but it was wide open and there was plenty of natural lighting to keep the place bright enough to not need any artificial lights. We were the only ones in the restaurant at breakfast which was sort of nice. That way, people weren't staring at us like the tourist Americans we were.
Today, we were heading back to Frankfurt, as our flight leaves the next evening. We had plenty of time to do what we wished, though so we headed into town (Hohenschwangau) for a bit more tourist activity. The good thing about the next 2 nights was that I had already booked these nights months in advance (that night in Frankfurt and the following night in London).
We parked the PUnto in the same little gravel lot that we had parked in the night before and proceeded to walk to the ticket building again to purchase tickets for Schloss Hohenschwangau. After buying the tickets, we were waiting outside of the building and I read a sign that had a brief history of the two castles. Schloß Hohenschwangau had actually been the original Neuschwanstein but when König Ludwig (King Ludwig) had the new Neuschwanstein built, he had the name changed to fit his liking. The Schloß Hohenschwangau (as it is now known) was a meeting place for the Knights of Schwangau (Swan order) as far back as the 13th century. It had been attacked and burnt down by Napolean centuries later, and then rebuilt by the Bavarian Royal family. As far as castles go, it was fairly small and was considered more of a vacation home for the family.
On the way up the hill to the castle, we stopped to take a couple pictures of a couple of giant slugs. She had never seen slugs before and of course I grew up torturing the little bastards but these things were HUGE! I had my wife put her hand next to one while I took a picture so you could really grasp how large these suckers were.
Anyway...that wasn't too awfully important but I wanted to throw it in there.
We arrived at the top of the hill and at the castle gate well ahead of our scheduled tour so we walked around the various small courtyards that surrounded the castle. Of course, it was adorned with many variations of swans, some of them serving as fountains. Again, the fountains ran on the natural pressure running water from the mountain streams. There were also many paintings on the structures, many of them with a blue and white themed background. Bavaria's colors are blue and white. Perhaps you've seen the checkered pattern. Heck...look at the BMW symbol. Why do you think it's Blue/White checkered? BMW = Bayerische Motoren Werke(Bavarian Motor Works). Nice cars. But I prefer Audi.
The tour started right on time and once again, we were instructed not to take pictures INSIDE the castle (but could take them through the windows). This castle was by far my favorite of the two. The rooms were all painted with elaborate pictures. They usually were portraying a legend or fairy talke of some sort. Some them represented actual historical events. They were all painted int he romantic ers though, so even the battle scenes on the walls had no blood depicted. The romantic era was good for that. There were family portraits, gold dining sets, stone floors, windows everywhere... The entire place also had a network of passages for the servants to move through so they would not have to be seen by the inhabitants of the castle. One of the guest rooms was my favorite. Apparently, Ludwig was fascinated by Wagner's music. Wagner used to come and stay with Ludwig on occasion and play piano for him and his family at the castle. The piano was still there as well as the linens from when Wagner stayed there. Very cool! While Neuschwanstein was being built, Ludwig chose to live at Hohenschwangau instead of in Munish where royalty normally stayed. His wife had her own room just above his in the castle. Funny thing...they had a secret staircase that ran between the two rooms so they could have a late night rendezvous, if they needed to vent some frustration. :)
Yes, Schloß Hohenschwangau was my favorite. But the tour was over and it was time to walk the town a little more before heading back to Frankfurt. We stopped at a couple different gift shops. She got a purse, got the kids some things. Got my mom and her mom some things. I was seriously debating getting an authentic Bavarian Style hat. I changed my mind because the cost was just too much for how often I really would have worn it. Looking back, I should have just bought the damn thing. I'd wear it if only to be goofy. I'm good at that, I've heard. I thought baout getting some real lederhosen too but that would have been a little extreme.
Seeing as how we were litterally only 2km from Austria (östereich), I thought we may as well dip down into another country, even if it was just to say we'd been there. On the way down, we decided to pull off on the side of the road where there was a small waterfall so we could take some more pictures. It wasn't the waterfall that had our interest piqued, it was that damn light green/pale blue water that was just odd. Above the little fall, there was a bust of King Maximillian carved into the stone. Maximillian was Ludwig's father. He was well known for traveling the world and being the first German to really establish a good relationship with Mexico (of all places). He even had his own manor in Mexico and it was due to this relationship that the Mexicans learned to brew beer in the European style. Most "Mexican" beers are really variations on the German and Czech styles, by the way. And if you wonder why they call it cerveza, it's because Spanish is one of the Latin languages and the Latin term for yeast is Saccharomyces Cervisiae. Anyway....so there was Maximillian.
Back into the car and down the little stretch of road into Austria. The state was called Tirol, if I remember right. Driving in the European Union is like driving between states in the U.S. There was just a little sign indicating we were in Austria and that's it. Austria is a German speaking country so the road signs were very similar to the ones we had gotten used to over the past week. The only real difference is that some of the signs weer different color schemes than in Germany. We took a couple pictures and then turned around to head back into Germany. That's it. Just to say we'd been there. :)
We decided to spend a little more time in Füssen to see what else we could discover. That really only lasted about 30 minutes. I had a bratwurst and a cola light and we took off.
I input the hotel in Frankfurt into the BlackBerry and off we went. This time, however, it had us going through some back country roads. I figured I would trust it and go with it. The twists and turns were a little crazy though, especially getting out of one of the tiny towns just outside of Füssen. But in that little town we were able to confirm the age old question: Why did the chicken cross the road? I had to slam on my brakes at one point because there was a chicken that ran out in front of me. There were no other chickens on the opposite side. No food, nothing chasing it. So, why did it cross the road? To get to the other side. I feel as though I've made a startling discovery (or confirmation) and my life has meaning.... ok...bad joke. But we both had a good laugh at the time.
Through the little town we went and the road we were on was making me ask whether or not this road actually went anywhere at all. It was a no-lane road through some fields and woods. We faced no oncoming traffic and had nobody behind us for miles. Finally, we came upon another road that looked a little more travelled. Yep, we had gone the right way. Oh, little BlackBerry, how did you know this road was here but you jacked me up on the Autobahn, yesterday? Que sera, sera. In a few miles, we were finally led to the Autobahn that would take us into Frankfurt.
I won't dwell too much on the Autobahn trip, this time. I was so pissed off on this drive. We were in stop and go traffic the entire freaking day. I mean I was livid. I'm an impatient person and I had suspected that I suffered from anxiety (although I've only recently confirmed that with help) so traffic gets under my skin like you would not believe. Of course with me being stressed out, my wife gets stressed out, and then we're stressed with each other. Not comfortable at all.
After we finally get to Frankfurt (I thoguht we'd never make it), we find the hotel again, drop off our bags, and head into the city. We were hungry and I wanted some beers to wash away the stress from the day. We settled on this fairly large pub style place right across from the gigantic train station in downtown Frankfurt. It was called O'Malleys, or O'Charley's or something like that. It was definitely an Irish name. Aside from the Dunkin Donuts we had in Berlin, we really had eaten only local dishes wherever we had gone so when I saw they had loaded nachos on the menu, I was quick to order a big plate of them. I was jonesin' for some food like that. The place was PACKED with Irish guys. They were all taking a train to somewhere but I'm not sure where they were all going. There was a soccer game on between Ireland and one of the Island teams so they were all drinking and having a good time. The waiting staff seemed to all be Irish and British, too. It was actually a very nice environment to spend our last night in Germany.
On our way back to the hotel, I thought I had remembered the way without question. Well, I did alright for not being from the area. As usual, the train tracks and the road shared the same real estate. I didn't really pay attention to that after a while but perhaps I should have. After a few minutes, I noticed there were no other cars on this particular part of the road. SHIT! I was on the train tracks and there IS no road, here. I was smack dab in the middle of a very large train stop. You know...the kind that has the higher platforms for easier passenger loading. Well, there I was. In the station. I didn't know what to do so I stepped on the gas and hauled ass past the train that had stopped to pick up passengers. Oh, we got some stares. Even the conductor was looking at us like WTF are they doing? The hairs on my neck were on end (I don't have any on my head) and my heart was racing but of course, as soon as we made it through, we were both laughing our asses off. It really was good time.
We found our way back to the same hotel we stayed at the first night. We checked in and while my wife was bathing (we had not done so in the community showers earlier) I went down to the hotel bar for a couple of beers. There were two couples sitting there having beers as well but it was otherwise quiet.
Paid my tab and went upstairs. It was definitely time for bed.
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Hallertau Fields and Disney Land (Day 5 of Germany)
May 28th, 2009. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear.... blah blah blah.
Yes... more spelling errors on this one too. Again, I will fix them. :)
Up and at 'em at 6am again. I'll bet there's no surprise there. I think I'm even cold this morning. It's a cloudy day outside and about 12 or 13°C. Yes, it's my birthday today. I turn 33. Wow. 33 years old. I remember 13 like it was yesterday...or 20 years ago. One of the two. The Goldner Löwe, as small of a town as it's in, actually had the forward thinking enough to mount the handheld shower head to the wall. BRILLIANT! THat way, us Americans could shower like we're accustomed to and the Europeans could sit in the tub and shower the way they're used to. I opted for the standing position as it is much easier to use both hands on the actual business side of the act of showering.
We took our luggage out to the Punto, paid for the incidentals from the hotel room (beer, water, another beer...), and went to the restaurant to eat breakfast. In many of the hotels, breakfast is included in the rate of the room. At the Leonardo Di Vinci and the Alfa, it was separate but at the Goldner Löwe, it was included. In Germany, that is called a Hotel Garne. Usual deli meats and cheeses with soft boiled eggs but this one actually had some sort of an egg scramble. We liked that one too.
Finished breakfast and headed back to the Autobahn to start the 500km trek to the Austrian border and a little cluster of towns called Füssen, Schwangau, and Hohenschwangau. Schwan in German is translated to Swan. There were knights in the little town of Schwangau back in the early part of millenium. They were the order of the Swan. More about that when we get there, though.
The Autobahn trip today was fairly uneventful. We did encounter a few spots of drizzle while were driving but otherwise, it was smooth sailing. We always seemed to stay fairly quiet in the car while we were driving and today was no exception. It was always just nice to be together in the car and driving through a European country. Sure, we ahd the radio going most of the time and even though the commercials and news breaks were in German, the majority of the music was American. The songs were never anything I would listen to personally but she seemed to know most of them so I guess I was happy as long as she was. A couple hundred km into the trip, we entered Bavaria. As some of you may know, the current states of Germany were at one time all separate countries with the northern most portion of the country being part of Prussia. It wasn't until Hitler that they all became unified under one nation. So, today, Bavaria is a state inside of Germany instead of its own country (although they do still recognize the royal lineage of the former nation).
Once we're into Bavaria for a little ways, I saw one of the brown and white signs that got me pretty excited. It read "Hopfenland Hallertau." SWEET! Hallertau hops are the hops I use predominantly in my beers (especially the German ones, even though there are 6 noble hops). Of course, we took the exit so I could see some of the hops fields a little more closely. I took a left because it looked more promising, as there was a little town just off the Autobahn on the lefthand side. The hops were everywhere! Hops grow on vines that are technically called "bines" instead of "vines." A healthy environment allows hops to grow upward for several feet (maybe up to 20 feet). Usually, the farmers will run what looks like a bunch of clothes lines in a field and have hundreds of strands of twine gowing from the horizontal lines down to the ground. May was still fairly early in the season so the hops were still growing and the cones themselves were not ready for harvest. It was so neat to drive through the little town that was full of hops and their caretakers. We turned around in one of the fields' private drives so I got out really quickly to get a picture taken with hops in the background. Happy Birthday!
Ok, on with the day's journey.
Getting back to the Autobahn was a real pain in the ass! We passed the Autobahn and went to a gas station to fill up again and use the restroom. Coming out of the restroom, there were signs indicating that we couldn't turn left. Ok... I'll turn right and then turn around somewhere (the Autobahn was on the left). Wow...went about 15km before I found a place where I could legally make a u-turn. After my run-in with the Berlin Polizei, I didn't want to test my luck in rural Bavaria. So, of course that meant the Autobahn was 15km back the other way. Sure, I got to see tons more hops but at this point, I just wanted to start heading southward!
I want to pause while I'm remembering to let everyone know that "Bavaria" is English. The state is actually called "Bayern" in German. We tend to do that a lot. Just like Munich (which is in Bavaria). That's actually called München. Not even close. So, for anyone who watches European Soccer, the team "Bayern München" is really the team in Munich, Bavaria. Oh! And remember when I told you all about how "er" means "from" somewhere? Not the case in Bayern. If you're from Bayern, you are Bayerische. You can see a little of our German roots there.
For the most part, the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. There was a point in the day where the BlackBerry did its best to really screw me up. Man, oh man! I got so freaking lost where the Autobahn split off from one to the other (I forget now which one I was supposed to be on). The BlackBerry told me the road went one way but it did not go that way. I was heading toward Munich and I didn't want to do that. This one took me a little while to figure out and about 3 different Autobahns to get back where I needed to be. I was irritated as hell.
Ok...calmer now.
Got to our exit (Ausfahrt) to the 2 lane highway that would take us the rest of the way into Schwangau and to the Bavarian Alps. The sun was actually starting to peak through thte clouds so the scenery changed quite dramatically with this shift in lighting. It was a beautiful "country road" with wide open fields of tall grass and yellow flowers lining the sides of the roads. Way off in the distance, you could make out the shapes of the peaks of the Alps. They already looked magnificent and we still have 30 or 40 km left to go! As we get a lot closer, the mountains become bigger and more impressive. My wife is snapping photos left and right of all of the gorgeous scenery. We come around one curve and there we could finally make out the contrast of the Schloss Neuschwanstein. Wow... Simply breathtaking. There was this giant white castle nestled in the hills that even though so big, was dwarfed by the dark mountains in its background. I haven't seen my wife so excited about anything in my life, I don't think. I'll bet she used 50 shots just on this scene alone. It really was something. As we were getting even closer, you could see this very large lake below the mountains that had a very odd green/blue tint to the water. It's almost as if the mineral content of the water was so high that it actually changed the color of the water itself.
Ok... Now, we're coming into the town of Füssen and there are signs to head left for Hohenschwangau. I know our hotel is in that town and not the other two so I follow those signs. By now we can see the other castle in the same town as Neuschwanstein. This one is called Schloss Hohenschwangau and while not as magnificent as Neuschwanstein, it is still just as neat to look at (and much older, I might add). The streets of Hehnschwangau were absolutely packed with tourists, buses, horses with carriages. It was almost nerve wracking to drive in the town for fear of running someone over.And just as in American tourist towns, these people didn't even look to see if cars were coming before venturing out onto the streets. How irresponsible!
So, I'm looking for the address of our hotel. It's called Schloss Restaurant. I'm counting the street numbers and know I'm close but the buildings stop before we can get as high as the numbers for our address. Hmmm... Where the heck is our hotel? So, I drive down the other street in town (there are only 2) and that's not the right street. Wow...I'm so confused. So, I think to myself that maybe our hotel is not in Hohennschwangau but maybe in Schwangau about 4km away. I drive into Schwangau, stopping to let my wife take a few more pictures from the roadside. After not finding anything close to the streetname I'm loking for, she spots a sign for a tourist information center. We pulled into there, went inside, and asked the young lady where our hotel was. No... we didn't miss it. We didn't go far enough on the road we were on initially. But the buildings stopped. How could that be? Well, she explained that our aprticular hotel was UP the mountain and literally at the foot of the castle. Not down in town like all the other ones. What?!?! SWEET! So, we made our way back through Hohenschwangau and up the mountain to our hotel (bed and breakfast, really). It was a very attractive cottage looking building (though bigger) with just a few rooms on one floor. We checked in, took our luggage up to our room and then went back down the mountain so we could get tickets for the castle. This hotel was different than the others. Breakfast was included, of course, but this one had community restrooms and showers. I didn't mind that at all. I was in the Marines for goodness sakes. She, however, wasn't too keen on the community shower part.
Back in Hohenschwangau, we parked in a little pay lot in town and walked to the building that sold the tickets for both castles. It was getting later into the afternoon so we only had time for one of them today. Obviously, we chose Neuschwanstein. We will do Schloss Hohenschwangau tomorrow. We took a bus up to the top of the mountain and walked about 1km the rest of the way to the castle. Our tour didn't start for another 45 minutes so we had time to kill. At one of the bends in the path to the castle, there was a look out point. What an incredible view!!! You could look down onto the town and the other castle and into a large cove between some of the mountains. There was another lake at the end of town (it was a tiny town) that seriously looked like something you would see in a book or on a postcard. We took pictures from that view. Tons of them.
After a little more walking, we were now at the entrance of the castle. Man! It was so damned breathtaking up here (both from the beauty and altitude). My kids had just sent me a text on the BlackBerry and asked what we were doing. I responded that we were having dinner with the King. My daughter responded with "are you really having dinner with a King, Daddy?" It was cute. We waited at the gate until it was our group's turn to go into the castle. In the meantime, we took a bunch of pictures in the courtyard at the entrance. Took some of the towers, too. You see, this castle was the inspiration to the castle at Disney. You can really see the similarities between Neuschwantstein and the Disney castles.
During the tour, we were not allowed to take pictures IN the castle. We were allowed to take the through windows, if we wanted. The story behind the castle is pretty neat. King Ludwig reigned briefly in the 1800's and wanted a castle that was as authentic to a 13th century castle as he could get it. He had this one designed and built in that historic fashion. The biggest difference was that most of the windows had glass but the glass was inset as to not show glare from the sun (to further enhance the authentic look from outside). Only a couple of the floors were actually ever finished, though. You see, King Ludwig drowned in a lake in Munich after only a few years on the throne so construction screeched to a halt. In fact, he never even had his crown or throne made because these items were going to finished after the castle was built. His throne room, however was an emaculate display of art. Thousands of tiles depicting all of the kings in Germany as well as religious pictures. The castle also had running water but that was more primitive (although genius). The engineers of the day figured out how to channel water from the natural springs of the Alps and the pressure from the mountains actually made the water run. All of the water fixtures were swans and the water exited through the beaks of the swans. Very neat! The King's bedroom still had the blanket on the bed from when Ludwig was king. He slept on that bed and under the very blankets we were looking at. Wow. The whole castle was just an awe inspiring piece of history and architecture. The tour ended in the ballroom (which was finished) and then we were led throught the gift shop and let go. We bought a few things for ourselves and the kids and left the castle.
When we left the castle, we decided to walk back in the direction of where the bus stop was instead of down toward the town. At the bus stop, you had the option of going to the castle or going onto the bridge that was about 700 feet above a rocky stream. So, we wanted to visit the bridge, now. WOW! We both were nervous as hell and dizzy on this thing. Just some steel and some thing planks of wood that bounced when you walked too heavily. We went to the other side of the gorge, paused, got our bearings right and started back accross. We stopped for pictures halfway accross then got the hell out of there!
On the walk back down the mountain and into town, we decided to take the short cut through the woods instead of staying on the paved path. It may have been a little quicker but it was much prettier to look at than the pavement. Once we got into town, we decided to grab dinner. We went to a little restaurant in town and it really felt like we were the only ones there. I had what I will always remember as the best dinner of my life. It was called Jägerbraten. It was a piece of steak (the steaks are fairly thin there) smothered in a unique brown gravy with tons of mushrooms. It also came with Spätzle (little noodles). Together, that was the BOMB! Had a couple beers with dinner, paid, and decided we weren't ready for bed yet so we headed into the little town of Füssen for a bit.
Füssen was a very pretty and very traditional looking Bavarian town. It was about dusk by the time we got there so the pictures that I took were very cool, in my opinion. Street lights were on but there was still a soft blue glow in the sky in the background. People were still sitting at some of the cafes. We stopped at a more upscale gift shop where I bought myself a pewter (yeah, real classy) mug with a German fairy tale depicted around the perimeter of the mug. I;ve been meaning to drink a beer out of it but keep forgetting (not to drink beer...just to use the mug). We walked around sort of aimlessly for a bit and stopped for an espresso. After the espresso, we decided to head back to the hotel for the night.
On our way back to the hotel, we detoured down one of the country roads to try to get a good night picture of both of the castles. They were under lights at night so in the middle of the jet blackness that was Hohenschwangau, the castles were bright and easily seen. The problem with the pictures was that we had nothing to mount the camera on. As some of you may know, the lens opens to allow light in so it can capture the image. In the absence of light, the lens stays open longer. Well, it you're holding a camer with the lens open, you get really blurry pictures. We finally got a couple pictures of the castles that we considered decent so we headed back to the hotel.
Once in the hotel, we actually decided to watch a little TV for a bit. It was neat. Just the 2 of us in a bed and breakfast at the foot of a European Castle. Before long, we were both just too tired to stay awake so off with the lights and hello to a good night's sleep.
Yes... more spelling errors on this one too. Again, I will fix them. :)
Up and at 'em at 6am again. I'll bet there's no surprise there. I think I'm even cold this morning. It's a cloudy day outside and about 12 or 13°C. Yes, it's my birthday today. I turn 33. Wow. 33 years old. I remember 13 like it was yesterday...or 20 years ago. One of the two. The Goldner Löwe, as small of a town as it's in, actually had the forward thinking enough to mount the handheld shower head to the wall. BRILLIANT! THat way, us Americans could shower like we're accustomed to and the Europeans could sit in the tub and shower the way they're used to. I opted for the standing position as it is much easier to use both hands on the actual business side of the act of showering.
We took our luggage out to the Punto, paid for the incidentals from the hotel room (beer, water, another beer...), and went to the restaurant to eat breakfast. In many of the hotels, breakfast is included in the rate of the room. At the Leonardo Di Vinci and the Alfa, it was separate but at the Goldner Löwe, it was included. In Germany, that is called a Hotel Garne. Usual deli meats and cheeses with soft boiled eggs but this one actually had some sort of an egg scramble. We liked that one too.
Finished breakfast and headed back to the Autobahn to start the 500km trek to the Austrian border and a little cluster of towns called Füssen, Schwangau, and Hohenschwangau. Schwan in German is translated to Swan. There were knights in the little town of Schwangau back in the early part of millenium. They were the order of the Swan. More about that when we get there, though.
The Autobahn trip today was fairly uneventful. We did encounter a few spots of drizzle while were driving but otherwise, it was smooth sailing. We always seemed to stay fairly quiet in the car while we were driving and today was no exception. It was always just nice to be together in the car and driving through a European country. Sure, we ahd the radio going most of the time and even though the commercials and news breaks were in German, the majority of the music was American. The songs were never anything I would listen to personally but she seemed to know most of them so I guess I was happy as long as she was. A couple hundred km into the trip, we entered Bavaria. As some of you may know, the current states of Germany were at one time all separate countries with the northern most portion of the country being part of Prussia. It wasn't until Hitler that they all became unified under one nation. So, today, Bavaria is a state inside of Germany instead of its own country (although they do still recognize the royal lineage of the former nation).
Once we're into Bavaria for a little ways, I saw one of the brown and white signs that got me pretty excited. It read "Hopfenland Hallertau." SWEET! Hallertau hops are the hops I use predominantly in my beers (especially the German ones, even though there are 6 noble hops). Of course, we took the exit so I could see some of the hops fields a little more closely. I took a left because it looked more promising, as there was a little town just off the Autobahn on the lefthand side. The hops were everywhere! Hops grow on vines that are technically called "bines" instead of "vines." A healthy environment allows hops to grow upward for several feet (maybe up to 20 feet). Usually, the farmers will run what looks like a bunch of clothes lines in a field and have hundreds of strands of twine gowing from the horizontal lines down to the ground. May was still fairly early in the season so the hops were still growing and the cones themselves were not ready for harvest. It was so neat to drive through the little town that was full of hops and their caretakers. We turned around in one of the fields' private drives so I got out really quickly to get a picture taken with hops in the background. Happy Birthday!
Ok, on with the day's journey.
Getting back to the Autobahn was a real pain in the ass! We passed the Autobahn and went to a gas station to fill up again and use the restroom. Coming out of the restroom, there were signs indicating that we couldn't turn left. Ok... I'll turn right and then turn around somewhere (the Autobahn was on the left). Wow...went about 15km before I found a place where I could legally make a u-turn. After my run-in with the Berlin Polizei, I didn't want to test my luck in rural Bavaria. So, of course that meant the Autobahn was 15km back the other way. Sure, I got to see tons more hops but at this point, I just wanted to start heading southward!
I want to pause while I'm remembering to let everyone know that "Bavaria" is English. The state is actually called "Bayern" in German. We tend to do that a lot. Just like Munich (which is in Bavaria). That's actually called München. Not even close. So, for anyone who watches European Soccer, the team "Bayern München" is really the team in Munich, Bavaria. Oh! And remember when I told you all about how "er" means "from" somewhere? Not the case in Bayern. If you're from Bayern, you are Bayerische. You can see a little of our German roots there.
For the most part, the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. There was a point in the day where the BlackBerry did its best to really screw me up. Man, oh man! I got so freaking lost where the Autobahn split off from one to the other (I forget now which one I was supposed to be on). The BlackBerry told me the road went one way but it did not go that way. I was heading toward Munich and I didn't want to do that. This one took me a little while to figure out and about 3 different Autobahns to get back where I needed to be. I was irritated as hell.
Ok...calmer now.
Got to our exit (Ausfahrt) to the 2 lane highway that would take us the rest of the way into Schwangau and to the Bavarian Alps. The sun was actually starting to peak through thte clouds so the scenery changed quite dramatically with this shift in lighting. It was a beautiful "country road" with wide open fields of tall grass and yellow flowers lining the sides of the roads. Way off in the distance, you could make out the shapes of the peaks of the Alps. They already looked magnificent and we still have 30 or 40 km left to go! As we get a lot closer, the mountains become bigger and more impressive. My wife is snapping photos left and right of all of the gorgeous scenery. We come around one curve and there we could finally make out the contrast of the Schloss Neuschwanstein. Wow... Simply breathtaking. There was this giant white castle nestled in the hills that even though so big, was dwarfed by the dark mountains in its background. I haven't seen my wife so excited about anything in my life, I don't think. I'll bet she used 50 shots just on this scene alone. It really was something. As we were getting even closer, you could see this very large lake below the mountains that had a very odd green/blue tint to the water. It's almost as if the mineral content of the water was so high that it actually changed the color of the water itself.
Ok... Now, we're coming into the town of Füssen and there are signs to head left for Hohenschwangau. I know our hotel is in that town and not the other two so I follow those signs. By now we can see the other castle in the same town as Neuschwanstein. This one is called Schloss Hohenschwangau and while not as magnificent as Neuschwanstein, it is still just as neat to look at (and much older, I might add). The streets of Hehnschwangau were absolutely packed with tourists, buses, horses with carriages. It was almost nerve wracking to drive in the town for fear of running someone over.And just as in American tourist towns, these people didn't even look to see if cars were coming before venturing out onto the streets. How irresponsible!
So, I'm looking for the address of our hotel. It's called Schloss Restaurant. I'm counting the street numbers and know I'm close but the buildings stop before we can get as high as the numbers for our address. Hmmm... Where the heck is our hotel? So, I drive down the other street in town (there are only 2) and that's not the right street. Wow...I'm so confused. So, I think to myself that maybe our hotel is not in Hohennschwangau but maybe in Schwangau about 4km away. I drive into Schwangau, stopping to let my wife take a few more pictures from the roadside. After not finding anything close to the streetname I'm loking for, she spots a sign for a tourist information center. We pulled into there, went inside, and asked the young lady where our hotel was. No... we didn't miss it. We didn't go far enough on the road we were on initially. But the buildings stopped. How could that be? Well, she explained that our aprticular hotel was UP the mountain and literally at the foot of the castle. Not down in town like all the other ones. What?!?! SWEET! So, we made our way back through Hohenschwangau and up the mountain to our hotel (bed and breakfast, really). It was a very attractive cottage looking building (though bigger) with just a few rooms on one floor. We checked in, took our luggage up to our room and then went back down the mountain so we could get tickets for the castle. This hotel was different than the others. Breakfast was included, of course, but this one had community restrooms and showers. I didn't mind that at all. I was in the Marines for goodness sakes. She, however, wasn't too keen on the community shower part.
Back in Hohenschwangau, we parked in a little pay lot in town and walked to the building that sold the tickets for both castles. It was getting later into the afternoon so we only had time for one of them today. Obviously, we chose Neuschwanstein. We will do Schloss Hohenschwangau tomorrow. We took a bus up to the top of the mountain and walked about 1km the rest of the way to the castle. Our tour didn't start for another 45 minutes so we had time to kill. At one of the bends in the path to the castle, there was a look out point. What an incredible view!!! You could look down onto the town and the other castle and into a large cove between some of the mountains. There was another lake at the end of town (it was a tiny town) that seriously looked like something you would see in a book or on a postcard. We took pictures from that view. Tons of them.
After a little more walking, we were now at the entrance of the castle. Man! It was so damned breathtaking up here (both from the beauty and altitude). My kids had just sent me a text on the BlackBerry and asked what we were doing. I responded that we were having dinner with the King. My daughter responded with "are you really having dinner with a King, Daddy?" It was cute. We waited at the gate until it was our group's turn to go into the castle. In the meantime, we took a bunch of pictures in the courtyard at the entrance. Took some of the towers, too. You see, this castle was the inspiration to the castle at Disney. You can really see the similarities between Neuschwantstein and the Disney castles.
During the tour, we were not allowed to take pictures IN the castle. We were allowed to take the through windows, if we wanted. The story behind the castle is pretty neat. King Ludwig reigned briefly in the 1800's and wanted a castle that was as authentic to a 13th century castle as he could get it. He had this one designed and built in that historic fashion. The biggest difference was that most of the windows had glass but the glass was inset as to not show glare from the sun (to further enhance the authentic look from outside). Only a couple of the floors were actually ever finished, though. You see, King Ludwig drowned in a lake in Munich after only a few years on the throne so construction screeched to a halt. In fact, he never even had his crown or throne made because these items were going to finished after the castle was built. His throne room, however was an emaculate display of art. Thousands of tiles depicting all of the kings in Germany as well as religious pictures. The castle also had running water but that was more primitive (although genius). The engineers of the day figured out how to channel water from the natural springs of the Alps and the pressure from the mountains actually made the water run. All of the water fixtures were swans and the water exited through the beaks of the swans. Very neat! The King's bedroom still had the blanket on the bed from when Ludwig was king. He slept on that bed and under the very blankets we were looking at. Wow. The whole castle was just an awe inspiring piece of history and architecture. The tour ended in the ballroom (which was finished) and then we were led throught the gift shop and let go. We bought a few things for ourselves and the kids and left the castle.
When we left the castle, we decided to walk back in the direction of where the bus stop was instead of down toward the town. At the bus stop, you had the option of going to the castle or going onto the bridge that was about 700 feet above a rocky stream. So, we wanted to visit the bridge, now. WOW! We both were nervous as hell and dizzy on this thing. Just some steel and some thing planks of wood that bounced when you walked too heavily. We went to the other side of the gorge, paused, got our bearings right and started back accross. We stopped for pictures halfway accross then got the hell out of there!
On the walk back down the mountain and into town, we decided to take the short cut through the woods instead of staying on the paved path. It may have been a little quicker but it was much prettier to look at than the pavement. Once we got into town, we decided to grab dinner. We went to a little restaurant in town and it really felt like we were the only ones there. I had what I will always remember as the best dinner of my life. It was called Jägerbraten. It was a piece of steak (the steaks are fairly thin there) smothered in a unique brown gravy with tons of mushrooms. It also came with Spätzle (little noodles). Together, that was the BOMB! Had a couple beers with dinner, paid, and decided we weren't ready for bed yet so we headed into the little town of Füssen for a bit.
Füssen was a very pretty and very traditional looking Bavarian town. It was about dusk by the time we got there so the pictures that I took were very cool, in my opinion. Street lights were on but there was still a soft blue glow in the sky in the background. People were still sitting at some of the cafes. We stopped at a more upscale gift shop where I bought myself a pewter (yeah, real classy) mug with a German fairy tale depicted around the perimeter of the mug. I;ve been meaning to drink a beer out of it but keep forgetting (not to drink beer...just to use the mug). We walked around sort of aimlessly for a bit and stopped for an espresso. After the espresso, we decided to head back to the hotel for the night.
On our way back to the hotel, we detoured down one of the country roads to try to get a good night picture of both of the castles. They were under lights at night so in the middle of the jet blackness that was Hohenschwangau, the castles were bright and easily seen. The problem with the pictures was that we had nothing to mount the camera on. As some of you may know, the lens opens to allow light in so it can capture the image. In the absence of light, the lens stays open longer. Well, it you're holding a camer with the lens open, you get really blurry pictures. We finally got a couple pictures of the castles that we considered decent so we headed back to the hotel.
Once in the hotel, we actually decided to watch a little TV for a bit. It was neat. Just the 2 of us in a bed and breakfast at the foot of a European Castle. Before long, we were both just too tired to stay awake so off with the lights and hello to a good night's sleep.
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Mash Tuns and Network Porn (Day 4 of Germany)
Yeah... funny title, I guess. Maybe not. Oh...this one may have more spelling errors than the others. I'll get around to editing it.
Wednesday morning, May 27th, 2009.
Prior to our trip, I had decided that one thing I really needed to experience in Germany was a real German brewery. Everyone hears about Germans and beer and most of you know that I'm REALLY into beer. There is one particular beer that I really had an interest in: Köstritzer (prounounced almost like KER-strits-a...but the "r" in "ker" ir almost silent). The brewery for Köstritzer was in a little town in the Federal State of Thuringen called Bad Köstritz (about 300km south of Berlin). As I may have mentioned before, the use of the "er" at the end of a German word usually means "from" wherever is in front of the "er." For instance: "Frankfurter" is from Frankfurt. "Hamburger" is from Hamburg. "Berliner" would be from Berlin. So, naturally, "Köstritzer" would be from Köstritz (more specifically Bad Köstritz). Anyway...Köstritzer is one of my favorite beers. They make a style called Schwarzbier which literally translates into "Black Beer." Most people who do not know beer like many of my friends associate black or dark beers as "stronger" or "heavier" or they compare it to beers like Guinness (a dry stout). Schwarzbier is different. In fact, it usually bears the nickname "Black Pilsner" because it's rather light bodied and just a bit sweet, as far as beers go.
I found the website for Köstritzer in March or April and sure enough, they had an email address to contact them with any questions or concerns. Coincidentally, if any of you want to visit their website, it is http://www.koestritzer.de/. I mentioned in my email that my wife and I would be visiting Germany during the last week of May and enquired about the possibility of touring the brewery. It only took a couple days for me to get a response from a young lady named Susan Ringelhan. She was very nice through the email and was very welcoming and invited us to the brewery. We set the date for May 27th and a tentative time of around 1pm.
That was all just to lay a little groundwork for this day's events, fyi.
So, we're up this morning at 6am, like usual during our trip. Bathed, teeth brushed, etc and we were getting ready to leave. Since we damn near missed out on getting a hotel room when we first arrived in Berlin, I decided that now would be a good time to try and locate a hotel and book reservations for tonight in the little town of Bad Köstritz. So, I paid the 5 Euros to access the T-Mobile wi-fi for an hour and made the search for hotels. Found one called the Goldner Löwe (Golden Lion). It had great reviews, the place looked gorgeous, and the price was not bad, so we booked it. That was a little sense of relief since we now knew that we would not have to worry about that once we got into town.
Since our room in the Alfa was on the top floor, we actually had access to the roof. It was very cold this morning but my wife wanted to go out onto the roof and take pictures of the cty of Berlin from the perspective of the roof of our hotel. Of course, there was one building with a big "Mazda" sign on it right in the way of much of it but hey, it was still Berlin, and we still got some pitcures.
We took our bags to the Punto and went back into the Hotel to eat breakfast. We had decided it would just be easier to have breakfast there, regardless of the cost, so we could head out relatively soon. Of course, as usual, breakfast consisted of the typical meats, cheeses, and soft boiled eggs that I was quickly becoming accustomed to. I actually enjoyed our Deli breakfasts. While sitting at breakfast, I sent a quick reminder email to Susan at Köstritzer that we would be there around 1pm (1300). She responded almost right away and said that she and Mrs. Voigt were looking forward to our arrival.
After breakfast, we both grabbed a Coke Light from the Imbiss next door, got in the car, plugged the address for Bad Köstritz into the BlackBerry, and off we went. Not gonna lie. Getting out of Berlin was sort of a pain in the ass. But we got out. The traffic heading out of the city was not bad at all but looking at the traffic on the opposite side of the Autobahn coming INTO the city was horrendous. I was so thankful that we were not in that line of cars that never seemed to end. I was happy to be headed the other way. The trip to Bad Köstritz was fairly uneventful, really. Made a couple stops along the way but nothing really to note (that I can remember. It has been 5 months since our trip, now).
When we pulled off the Autobahn and onto the smaller highway that would take us to Bad Köstritz, that's when it realy and truly looked like the Germany you see in pictures. The small two-lane highway that would take us into Bad Köstritz was interrupted frequesntly with these very small towns and clusters of homes and barns. The highway was small and curvy with little hills every now and then. It truly reminded me of driving on the roads of East Tennessee. I felt at home.
After several km, I could finally see the main building that bore the name of the brewery that I so wanted to explore. There it was. Köstritzer. I dare say that my wife was nowhere near as excited as I was but she was down for it and was having fun, regardless. As of now, it was only noon so we still had an hour before I had committed to meeting Susan and Mrs. Voigt at the brewery. We parked the car at the end of Heinrich-Shütz-Straße (that was the main drag throught the little town. The brewery was on it, the hotel was on it... if you're in Bad Köstritz, you're probably on Heinrich-Shütz-Straße. After parking the car, we decided to walk the street for a little bit and kill some time before our meeting at the brewery. We found the neatest little shop. Yeah, it had candles, ornaments, and other typically female things but I thought it was very cool. We ended up buying a little ornament for our door at home that said "Willkommen" on it. It's in the shape of a sheep. Pretty cool.
Closer to 1300, we went ahead and headed down to the brewery. Susan saw us from inside the office and came out with Mrs. Voigt to greeet us. It was a little awkward, I guess, because it was only the 4 of us. Me, my wife, Susan, and Mrs. Voigt. The great thing was that it was our own private tour of the brewery that makes the best beer in the world....nice. Susan explained to us that Mrs. Voigt normally guides the tours but because she spoke no English, Susan would be guiding us with Mrs. Voigt to translate.
The town and the acreage that the brewery was on smelled absolutely delightful. The whole place smelled like a mash. If you don't know what a mash is or better yet what one even smells like, find a local brewpub and ask them when they'll be brewing again and ask if you can come in while they're mashing so you can smell it. My wife equates the smell to warm Grape Nuts. Mashing is the process of applying a specific volume of water at a specific temperature at a specific ratio to the lbs of grains to a specific amount of grains at a specific pH in order to convert the starch in the grains into sugar that can be fermented by the yeast in order to make beer. I hope you can follow that. I tried to make it fairly simple.
The tour was fantastic. We got to see some of the historical advertisements for the beer. They had a little frame on the wall that had various types of malted grains and I asked them if they used Pilsener, Munich, and Carafa Special in their beer and Mrs. Voigt confirmed that they did use those three malts. That made me want to brew one up, of course. Then, they showed us some of the hops that were in a little container on a table. If you;ve never smelled hops before, they really stink until you get used to them. Then you actually start looking forward to that smell. I asked again if they were Hallertau hops and she confirmed that they were. NICE!
They then guided us into the brewhouse and it was awesome! The brewer opened up the mash tun so I could see the decoction mash going on inside of it. It smelled so damn good in there. Then we saw the lauter tun and the boil kettle. They obviously could not open the portal tot he boil kettle as all of the pressure from the boil would have potentially blown the door off the hinges and kill us. I didn't need killin' that day so I was ok with the door remaining closed.
After the brewhouse, they took us into the filtering room where the beer travels straight from the fermenters, through the filtering system, and off to packaging. Off to the side of that room was an office that 3 men were sitting in and monitoring the 38 fermenters that they have. They also had a little machine that showed the current temps of the fermenters, and the amount of CO2 pressure in there. In Germany, they let the yeast carbonate the beer naturally as it is fermenting. They only allow a little of the CO2 out during fermentation. All part of the Reinheitsgebot. One of the guys came out of the control room (they all had on lab coats, by the way). He grabbed 2 glasses that looked to be about half-pint each and tapped a beer for me and my wife. That's right. Straight from the damn fermenter. This beer has never been in a bottle, keg, can, anything. So. Effing. Good. After that, we went to the packaging facility where they were bottling, kegging, washing bottles, etc. The bottles would move through the line so fast and the beer sprayed into them at such a high rate, it was almost hard to believe that they were actually filling bottles and not just wasting beer.
After the tour, Susan and Mrs. Voigt opened the gift shop for us. It wasn't scheduled to open for a little while longer but they had us in there, anyway. It was pretty cool. They had glasses, bottle openers, shirts, jackets, and some other random things. But it was all centered around a bar that of course served their beers. Mrs. Voigt poured us a couple beers (the employees included--hey, they work at a brewery) and we all sat around for about 45 minutes just chatting about life and differences in cultures. I learned that Bad Köstritz used to be under the East german flag. I learned that the vast majority of the brewery's employees did not live in Bad Köstritz and that almost everyone who lived in Bad Köstritz commuted elsewhere for work. Sort of backwards. I learned that Susan Ringelhan had a degree in Business Psychology from a University in Switzerland and learned English so that all of the students had a common language in which to communicate. I bought a couple trinkets and a very nice beer mug with the Köstritzer logo on it.
Before we said our goodbyes to Susan and Mrs. Voigt, we asked where we should go for a little afternoon and evening entertainment. They suggested that we either drive 20km to Jena or 60km to Leipzig. She really suggested that Leipzig would have far more for us to do than Jena (pr Yenna) so we decided to check that out. We said our goodbyes and went to find lunch!
We found a little restaurant in a town that basically adjoined Bad Köstritz called Gera. The restaurant was a quaint place where the waitresses were dressed fairly traditionally German. They didn't really speak English but after 3 days of being submerged into the country, I was actually starting to understand a whole lot more than before. I ordered this amazing steak that came folded with some sort of cheese in it. The cheese was the consistency of paste, though, so it wasn't like a melted creamy cheese. It was so good. Mushrooms and beer would accompany my main course again and I was in heaven. Outside of the little restaurant was a church than was again very old. We took a bunch of pictures of it (I took a lot of building photos while we were there).
We headed back to the Autobahn to go to Leipzig and after a few km, we decided that we really didn't want to spend that long in the Punto after our trip from Berlin earlier in the day. So, we turned around and headed toward the town of Jena. What a cool little town. There is a University there and we parked just off the main strip of restaurants and bars. The scenery was similar to any other college town. Young students bustling through the streets, in and out of shops, bars, hanging with friends... We ended up at this bar called Cheers that was an American themed bar. All the beer tap handles had labels of American craft beers but the selection of beers was all German, despite the appearance of the handles. The bar was covered in American posters, mostly sprts. NFL teams, MLB teams... they even had an MLB game on the TV that was being broadcast on ESPN Europe. We ordered some fries and she had a milkshake. All the tables at Cheers were reserved for something so we asked the bar tender about it. THe Chamions League final was on that night so they had tables reserved for customers who had been smart enough to reserve them.
We settled our tab and walked around the busy strip for a bit before heading back to the Punto. On the way back to Bad Köstritz, we stopped in this very small town to take some more pictures. There was a church again but this one had a date on the gate. 1135. Wow... Looking at that church in a town that was undoubtedly unchanged by growth in the past 900 years was awesome.
We get back to the Goldner Löwe and have a couple beers in the Hotel restaurant before eading upstairs. We caught the end of the game in which Barcelona beat Manchester United for the CHampions League title. Apparently it was a pretty good match.
Now, here's the interesting part. This game was being played on a regular network style channel. Much like our NBC, CBS, etc. As soon as the game was over...I mean within seconds... a show came on that featured the life of a female porn star. No, not just her life outside the studio. Not really about her life at the grocery store or laundry, or day to day activities. Nope. This was about her filming the porn. Was it edited? Nope. Was it interesting. Well, of course. :) But really? Network Porn? I love Europe.
Before bed, I decided to go ahead and book our hotel for the next night. We had decided to go ahead and make thr trip down to the border of Austria and Bavaria to see the castle Neuschwanstein. She was very excited to go there. I have to admit, I was looking forward to it, too. Booked a nice looking bed and breakfast right in town, drank another beer, opened the wondows, and turned off the lights.
Wednesday morning, May 27th, 2009.
Prior to our trip, I had decided that one thing I really needed to experience in Germany was a real German brewery. Everyone hears about Germans and beer and most of you know that I'm REALLY into beer. There is one particular beer that I really had an interest in: Köstritzer (prounounced almost like KER-strits-a...but the "r" in "ker" ir almost silent). The brewery for Köstritzer was in a little town in the Federal State of Thuringen called Bad Köstritz (about 300km south of Berlin). As I may have mentioned before, the use of the "er" at the end of a German word usually means "from" wherever is in front of the "er." For instance: "Frankfurter" is from Frankfurt. "Hamburger" is from Hamburg. "Berliner" would be from Berlin. So, naturally, "Köstritzer" would be from Köstritz (more specifically Bad Köstritz). Anyway...Köstritzer is one of my favorite beers. They make a style called Schwarzbier which literally translates into "Black Beer." Most people who do not know beer like many of my friends associate black or dark beers as "stronger" or "heavier" or they compare it to beers like Guinness (a dry stout). Schwarzbier is different. In fact, it usually bears the nickname "Black Pilsner" because it's rather light bodied and just a bit sweet, as far as beers go.
I found the website for Köstritzer in March or April and sure enough, they had an email address to contact them with any questions or concerns. Coincidentally, if any of you want to visit their website, it is http://www.koestritzer.de/. I mentioned in my email that my wife and I would be visiting Germany during the last week of May and enquired about the possibility of touring the brewery. It only took a couple days for me to get a response from a young lady named Susan Ringelhan. She was very nice through the email and was very welcoming and invited us to the brewery. We set the date for May 27th and a tentative time of around 1pm.
That was all just to lay a little groundwork for this day's events, fyi.
So, we're up this morning at 6am, like usual during our trip. Bathed, teeth brushed, etc and we were getting ready to leave. Since we damn near missed out on getting a hotel room when we first arrived in Berlin, I decided that now would be a good time to try and locate a hotel and book reservations for tonight in the little town of Bad Köstritz. So, I paid the 5 Euros to access the T-Mobile wi-fi for an hour and made the search for hotels. Found one called the Goldner Löwe (Golden Lion). It had great reviews, the place looked gorgeous, and the price was not bad, so we booked it. That was a little sense of relief since we now knew that we would not have to worry about that once we got into town.
Since our room in the Alfa was on the top floor, we actually had access to the roof. It was very cold this morning but my wife wanted to go out onto the roof and take pictures of the cty of Berlin from the perspective of the roof of our hotel. Of course, there was one building with a big "Mazda" sign on it right in the way of much of it but hey, it was still Berlin, and we still got some pitcures.
We took our bags to the Punto and went back into the Hotel to eat breakfast. We had decided it would just be easier to have breakfast there, regardless of the cost, so we could head out relatively soon. Of course, as usual, breakfast consisted of the typical meats, cheeses, and soft boiled eggs that I was quickly becoming accustomed to. I actually enjoyed our Deli breakfasts. While sitting at breakfast, I sent a quick reminder email to Susan at Köstritzer that we would be there around 1pm (1300). She responded almost right away and said that she and Mrs. Voigt were looking forward to our arrival.
After breakfast, we both grabbed a Coke Light from the Imbiss next door, got in the car, plugged the address for Bad Köstritz into the BlackBerry, and off we went. Not gonna lie. Getting out of Berlin was sort of a pain in the ass. But we got out. The traffic heading out of the city was not bad at all but looking at the traffic on the opposite side of the Autobahn coming INTO the city was horrendous. I was so thankful that we were not in that line of cars that never seemed to end. I was happy to be headed the other way. The trip to Bad Köstritz was fairly uneventful, really. Made a couple stops along the way but nothing really to note (that I can remember. It has been 5 months since our trip, now).
When we pulled off the Autobahn and onto the smaller highway that would take us to Bad Köstritz, that's when it realy and truly looked like the Germany you see in pictures. The small two-lane highway that would take us into Bad Köstritz was interrupted frequesntly with these very small towns and clusters of homes and barns. The highway was small and curvy with little hills every now and then. It truly reminded me of driving on the roads of East Tennessee. I felt at home.
After several km, I could finally see the main building that bore the name of the brewery that I so wanted to explore. There it was. Köstritzer. I dare say that my wife was nowhere near as excited as I was but she was down for it and was having fun, regardless. As of now, it was only noon so we still had an hour before I had committed to meeting Susan and Mrs. Voigt at the brewery. We parked the car at the end of Heinrich-Shütz-Straße (that was the main drag throught the little town. The brewery was on it, the hotel was on it... if you're in Bad Köstritz, you're probably on Heinrich-Shütz-Straße. After parking the car, we decided to walk the street for a little bit and kill some time before our meeting at the brewery. We found the neatest little shop. Yeah, it had candles, ornaments, and other typically female things but I thought it was very cool. We ended up buying a little ornament for our door at home that said "Willkommen" on it. It's in the shape of a sheep. Pretty cool.
Closer to 1300, we went ahead and headed down to the brewery. Susan saw us from inside the office and came out with Mrs. Voigt to greeet us. It was a little awkward, I guess, because it was only the 4 of us. Me, my wife, Susan, and Mrs. Voigt. The great thing was that it was our own private tour of the brewery that makes the best beer in the world....nice. Susan explained to us that Mrs. Voigt normally guides the tours but because she spoke no English, Susan would be guiding us with Mrs. Voigt to translate.
The town and the acreage that the brewery was on smelled absolutely delightful. The whole place smelled like a mash. If you don't know what a mash is or better yet what one even smells like, find a local brewpub and ask them when they'll be brewing again and ask if you can come in while they're mashing so you can smell it. My wife equates the smell to warm Grape Nuts. Mashing is the process of applying a specific volume of water at a specific temperature at a specific ratio to the lbs of grains to a specific amount of grains at a specific pH in order to convert the starch in the grains into sugar that can be fermented by the yeast in order to make beer. I hope you can follow that. I tried to make it fairly simple.
The tour was fantastic. We got to see some of the historical advertisements for the beer. They had a little frame on the wall that had various types of malted grains and I asked them if they used Pilsener, Munich, and Carafa Special in their beer and Mrs. Voigt confirmed that they did use those three malts. That made me want to brew one up, of course. Then, they showed us some of the hops that were in a little container on a table. If you;ve never smelled hops before, they really stink until you get used to them. Then you actually start looking forward to that smell. I asked again if they were Hallertau hops and she confirmed that they were. NICE!
They then guided us into the brewhouse and it was awesome! The brewer opened up the mash tun so I could see the decoction mash going on inside of it. It smelled so damn good in there. Then we saw the lauter tun and the boil kettle. They obviously could not open the portal tot he boil kettle as all of the pressure from the boil would have potentially blown the door off the hinges and kill us. I didn't need killin' that day so I was ok with the door remaining closed.
After the brewhouse, they took us into the filtering room where the beer travels straight from the fermenters, through the filtering system, and off to packaging. Off to the side of that room was an office that 3 men were sitting in and monitoring the 38 fermenters that they have. They also had a little machine that showed the current temps of the fermenters, and the amount of CO2 pressure in there. In Germany, they let the yeast carbonate the beer naturally as it is fermenting. They only allow a little of the CO2 out during fermentation. All part of the Reinheitsgebot. One of the guys came out of the control room (they all had on lab coats, by the way). He grabbed 2 glasses that looked to be about half-pint each and tapped a beer for me and my wife. That's right. Straight from the damn fermenter. This beer has never been in a bottle, keg, can, anything. So. Effing. Good. After that, we went to the packaging facility where they were bottling, kegging, washing bottles, etc. The bottles would move through the line so fast and the beer sprayed into them at such a high rate, it was almost hard to believe that they were actually filling bottles and not just wasting beer.
After the tour, Susan and Mrs. Voigt opened the gift shop for us. It wasn't scheduled to open for a little while longer but they had us in there, anyway. It was pretty cool. They had glasses, bottle openers, shirts, jackets, and some other random things. But it was all centered around a bar that of course served their beers. Mrs. Voigt poured us a couple beers (the employees included--hey, they work at a brewery) and we all sat around for about 45 minutes just chatting about life and differences in cultures. I learned that Bad Köstritz used to be under the East german flag. I learned that the vast majority of the brewery's employees did not live in Bad Köstritz and that almost everyone who lived in Bad Köstritz commuted elsewhere for work. Sort of backwards. I learned that Susan Ringelhan had a degree in Business Psychology from a University in Switzerland and learned English so that all of the students had a common language in which to communicate. I bought a couple trinkets and a very nice beer mug with the Köstritzer logo on it.
Before we said our goodbyes to Susan and Mrs. Voigt, we asked where we should go for a little afternoon and evening entertainment. They suggested that we either drive 20km to Jena or 60km to Leipzig. She really suggested that Leipzig would have far more for us to do than Jena (pr Yenna) so we decided to check that out. We said our goodbyes and went to find lunch!
We found a little restaurant in a town that basically adjoined Bad Köstritz called Gera. The restaurant was a quaint place where the waitresses were dressed fairly traditionally German. They didn't really speak English but after 3 days of being submerged into the country, I was actually starting to understand a whole lot more than before. I ordered this amazing steak that came folded with some sort of cheese in it. The cheese was the consistency of paste, though, so it wasn't like a melted creamy cheese. It was so good. Mushrooms and beer would accompany my main course again and I was in heaven. Outside of the little restaurant was a church than was again very old. We took a bunch of pictures of it (I took a lot of building photos while we were there).
We headed back to the Autobahn to go to Leipzig and after a few km, we decided that we really didn't want to spend that long in the Punto after our trip from Berlin earlier in the day. So, we turned around and headed toward the town of Jena. What a cool little town. There is a University there and we parked just off the main strip of restaurants and bars. The scenery was similar to any other college town. Young students bustling through the streets, in and out of shops, bars, hanging with friends... We ended up at this bar called Cheers that was an American themed bar. All the beer tap handles had labels of American craft beers but the selection of beers was all German, despite the appearance of the handles. The bar was covered in American posters, mostly sprts. NFL teams, MLB teams... they even had an MLB game on the TV that was being broadcast on ESPN Europe. We ordered some fries and she had a milkshake. All the tables at Cheers were reserved for something so we asked the bar tender about it. THe Chamions League final was on that night so they had tables reserved for customers who had been smart enough to reserve them.
We settled our tab and walked around the busy strip for a bit before heading back to the Punto. On the way back to Bad Köstritz, we stopped in this very small town to take some more pictures. There was a church again but this one had a date on the gate. 1135. Wow... Looking at that church in a town that was undoubtedly unchanged by growth in the past 900 years was awesome.
We get back to the Goldner Löwe and have a couple beers in the Hotel restaurant before eading upstairs. We caught the end of the game in which Barcelona beat Manchester United for the CHampions League title. Apparently it was a pretty good match.
Now, here's the interesting part. This game was being played on a regular network style channel. Much like our NBC, CBS, etc. As soon as the game was over...I mean within seconds... a show came on that featured the life of a female porn star. No, not just her life outside the studio. Not really about her life at the grocery store or laundry, or day to day activities. Nope. This was about her filming the porn. Was it edited? Nope. Was it interesting. Well, of course. :) But really? Network Porn? I love Europe.
Before bed, I decided to go ahead and book our hotel for the next night. We had decided to go ahead and make thr trip down to the border of Austria and Bavaria to see the castle Neuschwanstein. She was very excited to go there. I have to admit, I was looking forward to it, too. Booked a nice looking bed and breakfast right in town, drank another beer, opened the wondows, and turned off the lights.
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History and Attrocities (Day 3 of Germany)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009:
So, now that our very eventful, long, FUN, and stressful drive to Berlin was behind us (and a few beers in us, I might add), it was time to be tourists. People always make fun of tourists but aren't we all when we're not at home?
Woke up really early. I set my alarm for about 6am everyday there. Yes, we were out late on most nights but our thought was that we could sleep any ole time. When and how often do we have the chance to visit Europe?
So... 6am and of course I want....wait....need some coffee. In Germany, there are these little stands literally on every corner. Some are in actual spaces, some are carts. But they're called Imbiss and they genereally have snack foods, bratwurst, Cola, etc. Well, tehre was one right between our hotel and the little bar I had gotten ripped in the night before. It was a small shop up front and most obviously a man and his wife's abode in the back. They were having coffee themselves in the back part (the door separating the two was open). The gentleman came to the front and cheerfully wished me a good morning ("morgen"). I ordered a cup of coffee and a little pastry filled with apples. WOW!!! Some of you know (most of you don't) that a well-made apple fritter is my morning vice. This little apple-pastry was nothing like a fritter but blew the fritter completely out of the water. Wow! You know what was even better? The two of them together was less than 2 Euros. :) SCORE! Of course the cup of coffee was tiny compared the Venti I get daily at home but it was good coffee and I appreciated its morning power. :)
Even though we're at the end of May, it was downright cold over there. Well... atleast to us Arizonans. How cold? Maybe 14-18°C. Not freezing, mind you. But not shorts on a motorcycle weather, either.
Went back to the room and took a.....bath? Shower? Mix of the 2? Bawer? The bathing situation of there was interesting. First of all, I don't take baths, I shower. Have any of you ever watched Everybody Loves Raymond? There is an episode where they go to Italy and there is a scene where Ray is taking a bath but has to hold a shower head in his hand to get water on him. Well, that was me. It was just strange to me to be sitting in a tub but holding a shower head.
We decided not to eat hotel breakfast this morning as it just seemed too expensive for us and we didn't know what to expect, anyway. Instead, we found the car, opened up some maps and decided we would hit up the Brandenburg Gate first. So, we plugged it into the trusty ole BlackBerry, once again and off we went.
Ok, I forgot to mention that it was now close to 8am. It took us a couple hours to drink our tiny coffee and get ready for the day. Why is this important? Well, rush hour traffic in a major city is not just an American affliction. Apparently, it is a global pandemic. :)
So, here we were, in the Punto on roads which were poorly marked and in a foreign language. I'm still only about 36 hours into the driving in Germany experience so I was not entirely comfortable although the rush hour experience will get you up to speed pretty quickly. Aside from being generally lost but feeling like we were headed in the right direction, we got to see a couple of interesting things. One was a guy on a scooter (like a vespa) that got hit by a car. He was alright but it's just not something you get to see everyday. The other point of interest was me almost running over several bicyclists. Not funny at all...especially when you're being cursed at in German.
Finally made our way through and around town enough to say we'd travelled it several times. You see...there really is no grid to the majority of the streets. They just sort of go whichever way was most convenient at the time of their construction. So, I took many turns thinking "it goes in the right direction" and that always got me further into the state of "lost." But then there was the Victory Tower. What a gorgeous piece of architecture that just sits as the conterpiece of a large round about now. A piece of history...
At this point, we're starting to see some tour bus activity so we figured they would be heading to the place we wanted to go...Pariser Platz. Sure enough we followed them long enough and I could finally see the famous Qudriga that sits atop the gate above some of the buildings in the area. I got a little lucky and found a parking space fairly close to the whole thing so we parked. The pay parking over there is pretty similar to ours. There were these little machines that you put in your money and got a little receipt that you had to put in the window. So, instead of a meter at ever spot, there was one meter to get your receipt and display it.
The parking spot was right next to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe--a 4.7 acre field of black concrete slabs (2,700 of them). They were very solemn. Rows and rows of these slabs. Up and down the little hills. One could easily go into the rows and be in darkness even in mid day. Beneath the slabs was an Information Center that contained to names of all the known Holocaust victims. Very sad.
Since we had not eaten breakfast yet, we saw a Dunkin Doughnuts...yeah, Dunkin Doughnuts of all places. We had a couple of these doughnuts and some coffee and proceeded to walk to Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg gate. The direction we came from actually put us right next to the American Embassy in Berlin.
Then, there we were. So awe inspiring to look at the same piece of architecture that Napolean fought and won at. The same place that Hitler draped his horrendous Nazi flags at and paraded through in a show of power. The very same place that was utterly detroyed near the end of WWII. All of the buildings around demolished except for the gate itself. The symbol of Prussian Power prior to its collapse as a nation. The place where just on the other side, President Ronald Reagan spoke for democracy. The symbol of a divided nation that had previously wrapped around the gate. Wow. I couldn't get enough of looking at it.
There were these two Italian men playing guitars near the gate and selling CD's for 5 Euros each. I bought one even though music is clearly Italian inspired. It was just neat. There was also a man dressed in traditional German Military attire making fake Visas that were used to get through the various sectors of Berlin...The French, British, American, and Soviet sectors each had their own stamp admitting you through the sectors on a single visa. Of course we got a couple of those.
After about an hour of just being in the presence of this magnificent work of art, we took a little stroll down to the Bundestag (formerly known as the Reichstag). This is the big German Parliament building with the words Dem Detschen Volke in giant letters above the main entrance. It was an amazing sight as well...knowing the history that has occured in this very building. We were actually stopped outside of the Bundestag by a news crew asking us about our opinions on the upcoming European elections. We explained that we were American so we really didn't have any knowledge or input about it.
We left the Bundestag and went back towards the Brandenburg Gate. We were hungry and remembered seeing a few restaurants in the area. We stopped at one called the Hofbrauhaus Berlin. I don't remember what I had but it was delicious. My wife, on the other hand, ordered a baked potato and when that thing came out, it took up the whole damn plate! HUGE potato covered in this thin sour cream. The sour cream over there was a real point of interest to us because there was something different about it. We eventually looked up what it was and the difference was the dill they put in the sour cream. Delicious!!! Of course, I had a couple beers with lunch. I seemed to have beer with every meal over there (except breakfast--not that I'm opposed to it, it just wasn't available). I ordered Pils, of course (Pilsner Beer) since that's the common style of beer--at least in Berlin. As we were sitting at lunch, we both made comments about how it really wasn't all that different there than here. People coming and going...eating lunch....catching the bus. Just in a different language and with a different cultural flare.
After lunch we were trying to figure out exactly what to do. It was still fairly early in the day and we had daylight until 10pm, anyway. We had time. We input the address to the last remaining portion of the Berlin wall into the Blackberry and set our course. It started raining while were driving and the whole atmosphere was just plain gloomy. Knowing we were in former East Berlin and heading to see a wall that did not serve to keep people OUT of a country. It kept its own people IN their country. Sort of backwards and not ever really recorded in history aside from East Germany. On the way to the wall, we once again found ourselves sharing our driving lane with the train tracks. That was something that we didn't understand the whole time we were there. We really had to pay attention to if a train was coming so we could get the hell out of the way.
We made it to the wall. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the streets were shiny with the standing puddles and just moisture in general. We had parked right next to a cemetery which coincidentally was just on the west side of the portion of the wall that was left standing. There was a plaque on the wall in both German and English and we read where they had to move all the graves in the cemetery back (West) to make room for the wall. Horrible. The portion of the wall was open on the side and we were able to walk in the open section between the physical barriers. If you don't know, it was not just a wall. It was a wall, then a very wide section to patrol in, and then another wall for the other side.
Across from the wall was an information center and gift shop. The info center had a short tower that we cold climb to the top of and see out over the wall. That put an even bigger perspective on things. You could visually follow the path of the now fallen wall through the city. Like a barren wilderness just a few yards wide in the midst of a large city. To the right we could see a big pile of rubble from where the wall was torn down. I don't know how long it had been sitting there but it was still various shades from the graffiti that had once adorned the wall. You've seen the pictures. While we were atop the tower, there was a tour going on. The group consisted of what was obviously a bunch of American High School students. The tour guide was apparently of American background but now resided in Berlin. It was interesting to hear her speak to the tour group about some of the history of the wall. One of the things she shared really took me by surprise. She had mentioned how many East Germans were disappointed when the wall came down because, regardless of how the democratic world viewed the communist nations, people had their identities as such and now were forced to live how others thought they should. We were done with the wall. Quite moving. We stopped at the gift shop and bought a couple books and a postcard that had a piece of the wall in it (in a little plastic bubble attached to the card. It's kind of neat to say that I own a piece of the Berlin Wall.
I forgot to mention that we had gotten a tour book of Berlin and the surrounding area from the receptionist back at the Alfa Hotel. Within the book, there was mention of a concentration camp just outside of Berlin called Sachsenhausen. It was situated just on the edge of a town called Oranienburg. Literally on the edge of town. So, we decided that it was a must that we one of these for ourselves. Neither of us really knowing what to expect. So, into the Blackberry it went and we were on our way...about 35km.
Sure, we got lost a couple of times on the way but eventually found where we were supposed to be. There were actually signs for the camp as we got deeper into town. That made it easier for us. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the signs were brown with white lettering to mark the historic landmark. Way back at the end of town as you head from the Autobahn, there it was. It already looked gloomy. Coming up the camp, we were greeted by the sight of a tower at the corner of a wall. On that wall was the constantan wire. Of course we were on the outside of the camp but it still looked overwhelming.
We weren't exactly sure where to go but we found a welcome center that was once the headquarters for the whole base. Aside from being a camp (Konzentrationslager), this was also a military base and more specifically a weapons storage facility. Everything around was dedicated to the German military at one point and the concentration camp was just a part of it all.
I want to take a minute here to shed some light on the idea behind concentration camps as they were designed to be...not what they ended up being. I learned about it while visiting Sachsenhausen so, I'm no expert. These camps were designed for storage of prisoners of war. Not meant to kill people but to put them to work. In fact, Sachsenhausen was more of a Soviet POW camp than anything else. Of course, eventually, the atrocities of the era would change everything about that.
Inside the welcome center, there were several personal items that were discovered and on display. Some were letters, spoons, diaries, shoes.... It was almost just too heavy. I don't know if that makes sense to everyone but your heart hurt a little when you read the translations from these letters. There was also a bookstore within the center. My wife and I browsed through several books and read some of the personal accounts of what was witnessed at the camps. Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz (Auchwiz), and others. The stories were sad. Very sad.
We left the center and made the 400 meter walk down to the entrance of the camp. The wall was to our left, looming over us as we walked. To the right were historic barracks that were built for the Nazi officers who worked the camps. To the left, we finally made it to the gate. Inside the first gate, it looked like this was at one time a sort of receiving area. There was a gate and walls but there were other walls and a gate a little further beyond. We walked through this receiving area and got to the main gate to the camp. Wow... you almost didn't even want to walk through the gates. Like if you went in, you were entering hell on your own accord. On the iron gate were the words that appeared on every concentration camp gate: "Arbeit Macht Frei." Work Means Freedom.
Most of the barracks (that's what the Germans called them) had been burned down by activist groups throughout the years. But, the semicircle arrangement of the barracks was still very easy to discern. I would ask that you look up the Sachsenhausen camp so you can see what I'm talking about. Although this one is not as known as Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen was the model for concentration camps going forward. It was the first one.
Off to the right were the barracks that were dedicated to the Jews that were brought to Sachsenhausen. We went to those barracks to see the inside. It was horrible. The room that contained the bunk beds was small and number of beds was outright unbelievable. How was it even possible for this many people to be forced into a single room. There was a general community room, as well. Many tables in rows where they were allowed to congregate when they had the chance. The restrooms and bathing rooms were roped off but you could see in them. By each, there were plaques with stories about the evil things that were done to the Jews while in each. Once, a man washed his feet in the washroom (there were places to actually wash feet). A Nazi officer drowned him for that. Right there in the room I was looking into. It was very easy to get choked up when reading these stories.
On the opposite end of these barracks was a museum type display of many other items recovered from the camp. All along the walls were pictures and stories about the innocent people in their prior lives. There was a timeline along the walls which gave me a better understanding of how and when Hitler decided that the Jews were a European "problem." The part that bothers me is that so many people bought into it. How? I don't get it.
We left the barracks and started walking through the camp in general. There were many towers along the walls. Also parallel to the walls was a "caution zone" that was about 5 yards wide. This separated the wall from the rest of the camp. It was wide open but had rocks instead of grass. If a prisoner crossed that line, they were shot. No warnings. Just shot. We walked through a lot of the camp but didn't go all the way to the back. I was under the impression that it was only a train station back there (prisoners were brought in that way, as well). It wasn't until after I got back home that I realized that there were actually execution trenches back there. It is difficult to say without sounding odd but I really would have liked to see that. Not for any good reason really. It's just something that I can say I looked upon with my own eyes. Something that represented how evil humans can be to one another. But it was sort of raining and we needed to get back to the car soon.
We walked back to the car. The walk seemed long and we really didn't say much to each other. Just sort of taking it in. After getting in the car, we saw signs for a mass grave. We did go to see that. It was a large squared off piece of land in the middle of a field, just behind the walls of the camp. Very sad. Ugh.....
It was now around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and we were hungry. We drove through the town of Oranienburg a couple of times. Either we didn't know what what we were hungry for or we just weren't ready to eat. I don't know. One of the sights that really was something to see was Schloss Oranienburg. It seemed like every little town had a Schloss or two in it. That was either a castle or a mansion. Either way, the term was the same. Schloss Oranienberg sat along the bank of the River Harvel. Big, beautiful white mansion.
After a couple of trips around town, we found ourselves outside of town a little and settled on a little place along a different part of the river. That looked good enough for us so we stopped. I should have known by the blue and white exterior decor and the chosen font of the place that it was a Greek restaurant but I wasn't paying enough attention. I'm not really a big fan of Greek food outside of real Gyros (not the bullshit you get over here). Once we sat down, however, I felt it would have just been rude to leave so we ate there, regardless. The meal started with a shotglass of Ouzo for each of us. I hear many people talk about ouzo and many others wanted to make sure I drank it while I was there. I had ouzo back in the 90's and didn't care for it. This time was no different. It really tastes like burnt licorice to me. I don't recall what we had to eat but we finished up and headed back to Berlin.
By this time, directions were getting much easier to follow. My wife was learning more about reading the directions, and I was learning more about how to actually follow them. We made it back into town and I had exited the Autobahn. I stopped at a red light that was positioned just before a roundabout. Once I got the green, off I went. I damn near hit someone but made it through without incident. The next turn was coming up but I wan't exactly sure where it was. All of sudden, there was the street I was supposed to turn on. I was going like 60km/h. Shit! I hit the brakes and turned left as quickly as I could. I then thought to myself that the streets of Berlin might be better navigated a touch more slowly. So, I slowed it down. There was this van behind me and he was right on my ass. I decided that I needed to speed up the get him off of me. He was trying to pass me so, relieved, I moved over a little. Just as he got to the side of me, an oncoming car forced him to fall back in behind me. By now, I'm irritated and just want this guy to go around me ASAP. Well, he gets beside me this time and stays beside me. I look over and there's this gy hanging out of the window with a lit sign that says "Stop." Great.
I pull over and the van pulls over in front of me. The guy from the passenger side gets out and comes to my side of the car. He pulls out his badge from inside of his shirt (wearing it like a necklace) and begins speaking to be in a very flat but fast German. Because I don't even think he stopped to breathe, I let him finish before telling him politely that I didn't speak German. He motioned for the driver to come back there with him and asked him in German if he spoke English. Of course the driver (another cop) did not speak English, either. I was a little baffled, actually. Now, I already feel bad because I didn't speak their language while being in their country but of all places, I figured Berliners would speak English. After several minutes of neither one of them knowing what to do, I understood that the roundabout I had gone through earlier apparently had another red light in the MIDDLE of the roundabout. It had been red for 4 seconds when I went through it That must have been why I almost hit another car. Oops. But who the hell puts a red light IN the roundabout. Aren't those supposed to negate the need for traffic signals? Regardless, they let me off the hook and off we went. Heart was pounding cause I was nervous as hell but we made it through that.
Back to the Alfa Hotel we went. By the time we had gotten back, t was really starting to get dark. We were tired and had seen and done many things today. I was really looking forward to tomorrow by then. It was time for bed.
So, now that our very eventful, long, FUN, and stressful drive to Berlin was behind us (and a few beers in us, I might add), it was time to be tourists. People always make fun of tourists but aren't we all when we're not at home?
Woke up really early. I set my alarm for about 6am everyday there. Yes, we were out late on most nights but our thought was that we could sleep any ole time. When and how often do we have the chance to visit Europe?
So... 6am and of course I want....wait....need some coffee. In Germany, there are these little stands literally on every corner. Some are in actual spaces, some are carts. But they're called Imbiss and they genereally have snack foods, bratwurst, Cola, etc. Well, tehre was one right between our hotel and the little bar I had gotten ripped in the night before. It was a small shop up front and most obviously a man and his wife's abode in the back. They were having coffee themselves in the back part (the door separating the two was open). The gentleman came to the front and cheerfully wished me a good morning ("morgen"). I ordered a cup of coffee and a little pastry filled with apples. WOW!!! Some of you know (most of you don't) that a well-made apple fritter is my morning vice. This little apple-pastry was nothing like a fritter but blew the fritter completely out of the water. Wow! You know what was even better? The two of them together was less than 2 Euros. :) SCORE! Of course the cup of coffee was tiny compared the Venti I get daily at home but it was good coffee and I appreciated its morning power. :)
Even though we're at the end of May, it was downright cold over there. Well... atleast to us Arizonans. How cold? Maybe 14-18°C. Not freezing, mind you. But not shorts on a motorcycle weather, either.
Went back to the room and took a.....bath? Shower? Mix of the 2? Bawer? The bathing situation of there was interesting. First of all, I don't take baths, I shower. Have any of you ever watched Everybody Loves Raymond? There is an episode where they go to Italy and there is a scene where Ray is taking a bath but has to hold a shower head in his hand to get water on him. Well, that was me. It was just strange to me to be sitting in a tub but holding a shower head.
We decided not to eat hotel breakfast this morning as it just seemed too expensive for us and we didn't know what to expect, anyway. Instead, we found the car, opened up some maps and decided we would hit up the Brandenburg Gate first. So, we plugged it into the trusty ole BlackBerry, once again and off we went.
Ok, I forgot to mention that it was now close to 8am. It took us a couple hours to drink our tiny coffee and get ready for the day. Why is this important? Well, rush hour traffic in a major city is not just an American affliction. Apparently, it is a global pandemic. :)
So, here we were, in the Punto on roads which were poorly marked and in a foreign language. I'm still only about 36 hours into the driving in Germany experience so I was not entirely comfortable although the rush hour experience will get you up to speed pretty quickly. Aside from being generally lost but feeling like we were headed in the right direction, we got to see a couple of interesting things. One was a guy on a scooter (like a vespa) that got hit by a car. He was alright but it's just not something you get to see everyday. The other point of interest was me almost running over several bicyclists. Not funny at all...especially when you're being cursed at in German.
Finally made our way through and around town enough to say we'd travelled it several times. You see...there really is no grid to the majority of the streets. They just sort of go whichever way was most convenient at the time of their construction. So, I took many turns thinking "it goes in the right direction" and that always got me further into the state of "lost." But then there was the Victory Tower. What a gorgeous piece of architecture that just sits as the conterpiece of a large round about now. A piece of history...
At this point, we're starting to see some tour bus activity so we figured they would be heading to the place we wanted to go...Pariser Platz. Sure enough we followed them long enough and I could finally see the famous Qudriga that sits atop the gate above some of the buildings in the area. I got a little lucky and found a parking space fairly close to the whole thing so we parked. The pay parking over there is pretty similar to ours. There were these little machines that you put in your money and got a little receipt that you had to put in the window. So, instead of a meter at ever spot, there was one meter to get your receipt and display it.
The parking spot was right next to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe--a 4.7 acre field of black concrete slabs (2,700 of them). They were very solemn. Rows and rows of these slabs. Up and down the little hills. One could easily go into the rows and be in darkness even in mid day. Beneath the slabs was an Information Center that contained to names of all the known Holocaust victims. Very sad.
Since we had not eaten breakfast yet, we saw a Dunkin Doughnuts...yeah, Dunkin Doughnuts of all places. We had a couple of these doughnuts and some coffee and proceeded to walk to Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg gate. The direction we came from actually put us right next to the American Embassy in Berlin.
Then, there we were. So awe inspiring to look at the same piece of architecture that Napolean fought and won at. The same place that Hitler draped his horrendous Nazi flags at and paraded through in a show of power. The very same place that was utterly detroyed near the end of WWII. All of the buildings around demolished except for the gate itself. The symbol of Prussian Power prior to its collapse as a nation. The place where just on the other side, President Ronald Reagan spoke for democracy. The symbol of a divided nation that had previously wrapped around the gate. Wow. I couldn't get enough of looking at it.
There were these two Italian men playing guitars near the gate and selling CD's for 5 Euros each. I bought one even though music is clearly Italian inspired. It was just neat. There was also a man dressed in traditional German Military attire making fake Visas that were used to get through the various sectors of Berlin...The French, British, American, and Soviet sectors each had their own stamp admitting you through the sectors on a single visa. Of course we got a couple of those.
After about an hour of just being in the presence of this magnificent work of art, we took a little stroll down to the Bundestag (formerly known as the Reichstag). This is the big German Parliament building with the words Dem Detschen Volke in giant letters above the main entrance. It was an amazing sight as well...knowing the history that has occured in this very building. We were actually stopped outside of the Bundestag by a news crew asking us about our opinions on the upcoming European elections. We explained that we were American so we really didn't have any knowledge or input about it.
We left the Bundestag and went back towards the Brandenburg Gate. We were hungry and remembered seeing a few restaurants in the area. We stopped at one called the Hofbrauhaus Berlin. I don't remember what I had but it was delicious. My wife, on the other hand, ordered a baked potato and when that thing came out, it took up the whole damn plate! HUGE potato covered in this thin sour cream. The sour cream over there was a real point of interest to us because there was something different about it. We eventually looked up what it was and the difference was the dill they put in the sour cream. Delicious!!! Of course, I had a couple beers with lunch. I seemed to have beer with every meal over there (except breakfast--not that I'm opposed to it, it just wasn't available). I ordered Pils, of course (Pilsner Beer) since that's the common style of beer--at least in Berlin. As we were sitting at lunch, we both made comments about how it really wasn't all that different there than here. People coming and going...eating lunch....catching the bus. Just in a different language and with a different cultural flare.
After lunch we were trying to figure out exactly what to do. It was still fairly early in the day and we had daylight until 10pm, anyway. We had time. We input the address to the last remaining portion of the Berlin wall into the Blackberry and set our course. It started raining while were driving and the whole atmosphere was just plain gloomy. Knowing we were in former East Berlin and heading to see a wall that did not serve to keep people OUT of a country. It kept its own people IN their country. Sort of backwards and not ever really recorded in history aside from East Germany. On the way to the wall, we once again found ourselves sharing our driving lane with the train tracks. That was something that we didn't understand the whole time we were there. We really had to pay attention to if a train was coming so we could get the hell out of the way.
We made it to the wall. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the streets were shiny with the standing puddles and just moisture in general. We had parked right next to a cemetery which coincidentally was just on the west side of the portion of the wall that was left standing. There was a plaque on the wall in both German and English and we read where they had to move all the graves in the cemetery back (West) to make room for the wall. Horrible. The portion of the wall was open on the side and we were able to walk in the open section between the physical barriers. If you don't know, it was not just a wall. It was a wall, then a very wide section to patrol in, and then another wall for the other side.
Across from the wall was an information center and gift shop. The info center had a short tower that we cold climb to the top of and see out over the wall. That put an even bigger perspective on things. You could visually follow the path of the now fallen wall through the city. Like a barren wilderness just a few yards wide in the midst of a large city. To the right we could see a big pile of rubble from where the wall was torn down. I don't know how long it had been sitting there but it was still various shades from the graffiti that had once adorned the wall. You've seen the pictures. While we were atop the tower, there was a tour going on. The group consisted of what was obviously a bunch of American High School students. The tour guide was apparently of American background but now resided in Berlin. It was interesting to hear her speak to the tour group about some of the history of the wall. One of the things she shared really took me by surprise. She had mentioned how many East Germans were disappointed when the wall came down because, regardless of how the democratic world viewed the communist nations, people had their identities as such and now were forced to live how others thought they should. We were done with the wall. Quite moving. We stopped at the gift shop and bought a couple books and a postcard that had a piece of the wall in it (in a little plastic bubble attached to the card. It's kind of neat to say that I own a piece of the Berlin Wall.
I forgot to mention that we had gotten a tour book of Berlin and the surrounding area from the receptionist back at the Alfa Hotel. Within the book, there was mention of a concentration camp just outside of Berlin called Sachsenhausen. It was situated just on the edge of a town called Oranienburg. Literally on the edge of town. So, we decided that it was a must that we one of these for ourselves. Neither of us really knowing what to expect. So, into the Blackberry it went and we were on our way...about 35km.
Sure, we got lost a couple of times on the way but eventually found where we were supposed to be. There were actually signs for the camp as we got deeper into town. That made it easier for us. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the signs were brown with white lettering to mark the historic landmark. Way back at the end of town as you head from the Autobahn, there it was. It already looked gloomy. Coming up the camp, we were greeted by the sight of a tower at the corner of a wall. On that wall was the constantan wire. Of course we were on the outside of the camp but it still looked overwhelming.
We weren't exactly sure where to go but we found a welcome center that was once the headquarters for the whole base. Aside from being a camp (Konzentrationslager), this was also a military base and more specifically a weapons storage facility. Everything around was dedicated to the German military at one point and the concentration camp was just a part of it all.
I want to take a minute here to shed some light on the idea behind concentration camps as they were designed to be...not what they ended up being. I learned about it while visiting Sachsenhausen so, I'm no expert. These camps were designed for storage of prisoners of war. Not meant to kill people but to put them to work. In fact, Sachsenhausen was more of a Soviet POW camp than anything else. Of course, eventually, the atrocities of the era would change everything about that.
Inside the welcome center, there were several personal items that were discovered and on display. Some were letters, spoons, diaries, shoes.... It was almost just too heavy. I don't know if that makes sense to everyone but your heart hurt a little when you read the translations from these letters. There was also a bookstore within the center. My wife and I browsed through several books and read some of the personal accounts of what was witnessed at the camps. Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz (Auchwiz), and others. The stories were sad. Very sad.
We left the center and made the 400 meter walk down to the entrance of the camp. The wall was to our left, looming over us as we walked. To the right were historic barracks that were built for the Nazi officers who worked the camps. To the left, we finally made it to the gate. Inside the first gate, it looked like this was at one time a sort of receiving area. There was a gate and walls but there were other walls and a gate a little further beyond. We walked through this receiving area and got to the main gate to the camp. Wow... you almost didn't even want to walk through the gates. Like if you went in, you were entering hell on your own accord. On the iron gate were the words that appeared on every concentration camp gate: "Arbeit Macht Frei." Work Means Freedom.
Most of the barracks (that's what the Germans called them) had been burned down by activist groups throughout the years. But, the semicircle arrangement of the barracks was still very easy to discern. I would ask that you look up the Sachsenhausen camp so you can see what I'm talking about. Although this one is not as known as Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen was the model for concentration camps going forward. It was the first one.
Off to the right were the barracks that were dedicated to the Jews that were brought to Sachsenhausen. We went to those barracks to see the inside. It was horrible. The room that contained the bunk beds was small and number of beds was outright unbelievable. How was it even possible for this many people to be forced into a single room. There was a general community room, as well. Many tables in rows where they were allowed to congregate when they had the chance. The restrooms and bathing rooms were roped off but you could see in them. By each, there were plaques with stories about the evil things that were done to the Jews while in each. Once, a man washed his feet in the washroom (there were places to actually wash feet). A Nazi officer drowned him for that. Right there in the room I was looking into. It was very easy to get choked up when reading these stories.
On the opposite end of these barracks was a museum type display of many other items recovered from the camp. All along the walls were pictures and stories about the innocent people in their prior lives. There was a timeline along the walls which gave me a better understanding of how and when Hitler decided that the Jews were a European "problem." The part that bothers me is that so many people bought into it. How? I don't get it.
We left the barracks and started walking through the camp in general. There were many towers along the walls. Also parallel to the walls was a "caution zone" that was about 5 yards wide. This separated the wall from the rest of the camp. It was wide open but had rocks instead of grass. If a prisoner crossed that line, they were shot. No warnings. Just shot. We walked through a lot of the camp but didn't go all the way to the back. I was under the impression that it was only a train station back there (prisoners were brought in that way, as well). It wasn't until after I got back home that I realized that there were actually execution trenches back there. It is difficult to say without sounding odd but I really would have liked to see that. Not for any good reason really. It's just something that I can say I looked upon with my own eyes. Something that represented how evil humans can be to one another. But it was sort of raining and we needed to get back to the car soon.
We walked back to the car. The walk seemed long and we really didn't say much to each other. Just sort of taking it in. After getting in the car, we saw signs for a mass grave. We did go to see that. It was a large squared off piece of land in the middle of a field, just behind the walls of the camp. Very sad. Ugh.....
It was now around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and we were hungry. We drove through the town of Oranienburg a couple of times. Either we didn't know what what we were hungry for or we just weren't ready to eat. I don't know. One of the sights that really was something to see was Schloss Oranienburg. It seemed like every little town had a Schloss or two in it. That was either a castle or a mansion. Either way, the term was the same. Schloss Oranienberg sat along the bank of the River Harvel. Big, beautiful white mansion.
After a couple of trips around town, we found ourselves outside of town a little and settled on a little place along a different part of the river. That looked good enough for us so we stopped. I should have known by the blue and white exterior decor and the chosen font of the place that it was a Greek restaurant but I wasn't paying enough attention. I'm not really a big fan of Greek food outside of real Gyros (not the bullshit you get over here). Once we sat down, however, I felt it would have just been rude to leave so we ate there, regardless. The meal started with a shotglass of Ouzo for each of us. I hear many people talk about ouzo and many others wanted to make sure I drank it while I was there. I had ouzo back in the 90's and didn't care for it. This time was no different. It really tastes like burnt licorice to me. I don't recall what we had to eat but we finished up and headed back to Berlin.
By this time, directions were getting much easier to follow. My wife was learning more about reading the directions, and I was learning more about how to actually follow them. We made it back into town and I had exited the Autobahn. I stopped at a red light that was positioned just before a roundabout. Once I got the green, off I went. I damn near hit someone but made it through without incident. The next turn was coming up but I wan't exactly sure where it was. All of sudden, there was the street I was supposed to turn on. I was going like 60km/h. Shit! I hit the brakes and turned left as quickly as I could. I then thought to myself that the streets of Berlin might be better navigated a touch more slowly. So, I slowed it down. There was this van behind me and he was right on my ass. I decided that I needed to speed up the get him off of me. He was trying to pass me so, relieved, I moved over a little. Just as he got to the side of me, an oncoming car forced him to fall back in behind me. By now, I'm irritated and just want this guy to go around me ASAP. Well, he gets beside me this time and stays beside me. I look over and there's this gy hanging out of the window with a lit sign that says "Stop." Great.
I pull over and the van pulls over in front of me. The guy from the passenger side gets out and comes to my side of the car. He pulls out his badge from inside of his shirt (wearing it like a necklace) and begins speaking to be in a very flat but fast German. Because I don't even think he stopped to breathe, I let him finish before telling him politely that I didn't speak German. He motioned for the driver to come back there with him and asked him in German if he spoke English. Of course the driver (another cop) did not speak English, either. I was a little baffled, actually. Now, I already feel bad because I didn't speak their language while being in their country but of all places, I figured Berliners would speak English. After several minutes of neither one of them knowing what to do, I understood that the roundabout I had gone through earlier apparently had another red light in the MIDDLE of the roundabout. It had been red for 4 seconds when I went through it That must have been why I almost hit another car. Oops. But who the hell puts a red light IN the roundabout. Aren't those supposed to negate the need for traffic signals? Regardless, they let me off the hook and off we went. Heart was pounding cause I was nervous as hell but we made it through that.
Back to the Alfa Hotel we went. By the time we had gotten back, t was really starting to get dark. We were tired and had seen and done many things today. I was really looking forward to tomorrow by then. It was time for bed.
Three Castles and the Autobahn (Day 2 of Germany)
I've been letting this go for too long so I figured I'd better get on here and update this before the details slip away. Pardon my spelling. I'll edit it later.
That first night of sleep was out-freakin-standing. Interesting note about the beds in Germany--at least the hotel beds. They all used these really small beds that were quite smaller than what we know as a twin bed. If you got a "double" room, two of these beds were crammed together side by side. Every hotel had the exact same type of white down comforter and they were warm as hell.
We got up fairly early and got our things together. Did our thing--you know...shit, shower, and shave. We didn't pay for breakfast with the room but we had the option to pay for it separately so we exercised that option this morning. Went into the restaurant and not being used to the customs yet, we didn't know if it was a buffet style or if we needed to order. Sure enough, it was buffet which always sounds good to me. The breakfast here in Frankfurt was well diverse but it sort of set the pace and kind of eased us into the breakfasts in days to come. There were some cereals and milk. Juice and coffee, of course. But the thing that struck us as different was the large selection of what I would call "deli-meats" and cheeses. Hams, turkey, cold sausages...then there was this one particular meat that sort of reminded me of bologna but not quite as pink. This "bologna" had pieces of mushrooms IN the meat. It was actually quite good. Neither one of us really knew what to eat so our meal was quite small.
After breakfast, we sat outside on the patio for the restaurant for a few minutes. There was a local men's soccer team who were coming back from a workout or a team run. The coaches passed by and smiled and said "morgen" to us. We replied in the native tongue of course but it was nice to appear that we just blended in.
Time to go, I guess. We loaded our car, took a few pictures and headed out. At this point, I had not QUITE figured out how to put in addresses accurately in Google Maps but I was starting to get the hang of it. So, I just typed in "Berlin" and got directions. Let's keep in mind that from this point, we had no itinerary and absolutely NO HOTEL accommodations reserved anywhere. We were foreigners in a car heading whichever direction the BlackBerry told us. And that was fine by us.
We decided to hit up the bank before we took off from Frankfurt. I had discovered the night before that the max my bank would let me take out at a time was 150 Euros. Seems like enough but you'd be amazed at how quickly you can go through that. BUT... I had to keep track of the days in the U.S. for the withdrawals because if I didn't time it right (and being 9 hours ahead of AZ), I was "screwed" out of an ATM withdrawal for the day.
There is a term--or rather a street sign I should say-- that everyone going to Germany should know and understand well. "Einbahnstraße." Pronounced: Ein'-bon-shtrass-a... Guess what that means? "One Way Street." They're on blue signs with a big white arrow. Problem I had with German street signs was that they seemed to be fairly low and typically further back from the intersection that I'm used to. German streets were crowded enough. Throw in a lost American going the wrong way down a one-way street and it's a "puckering" experience.
Pulled over and got my bearings. Looked around a figured out where we were and the ole lady started reading directions to me. We got lost a couple times (as we certainly would the remainder of the week) but we never let that slow us down. On this particular morning, we followed one road entirely too far and ended up on the bank of a river. We got out and took some pictures. Sure, it was like any river in any place but took pictures anyway. There was an older woman across the river on the opposite bank feeding ducks by herself. Just sort of neat.
Got back in the car and finally found the exit for the Autobahn. Here we were....still didn't know the courtesies of the Autobahn yet but I would learn that day. After about 20 minutes, I realized that again, we were heading the wrong way on the autobahn. :) Dear oh dear... This is going to be a long week. Finally got turned around the right direction and off we were. Heading toward Köln (Cologne). We weren't stopping there but that was the direction we were heading on the A5.
Once we got well out of town, I decided that the child-sized coffee I had at breakfast wasn't going to cut it. I found a little pull off with a gas station/convenience store. These little pull-offs are absolutely nothing like American ones. I'm talking slow down from 170km/h to stop in about 500 feet. Imagine the dinkiest little "rest area" on any given American Freeway, bring it right up against the freeway, and put a gas station in the middle of it. That's what we're talking about here. Went in to get coffee and was greeted by a young child--probably 6 years old--who was bulky as hell and wearing nothing but some tighty-whiteys. Ok...WTF? Not my culture...can't judge.
Got my coffee and the wife came back from the restroom. In Europe (fairly Universally), restrooms are denoted in public by the letters "WC." In German, that is pronounced "Vee-Tsee" (those are the letters in the German alphabet, after all). She told me about this little dish next to the WC that had change in it. People were putting change into the dish but she didn't because neither one of us understood what that was really all about. It's not like they had people in the WC giving out towels, etc. We later learned that these were to pay for the cleaning of the WC and there were usually people in vests outside of the WC who probably took care of that.
Off we go again. We don't really talk much in the car during this week. We both just sort of keep to ourselves and take it in. The countryside here is absolutely gorgeous. Most of actually reminded me of driving through TN and GA. We started noticing that every town, village, collection of houses had a very large and ornate steeple (attached to a church, of course) somewhere near the middle of the town. They were all black (the steeples) and most were pointed although some were rounded. I think--but never received confirmation--that the round ones were Jewish Synagogues.
On our way through some of the mountainous terrain early in today's voyage, we see this traffic jam on the Autobahn that looked like it went on for a while. I thought "damn...glad that ain't me." Why is this important? It's not but as we were driving, we noticed that this traffic jam just kept on going. And going. And going. Wow. I'm talking 20-25km of a traffic jam. STOPPED cars, not slowed cars. Everyone was out of their cars…smoking, talking to other drivers (or non-drivers at this point). It looked really bad and it appeared to have begun with one single broken down truck that blocked a single lane. Crazy.
We had all day to get to Berlin and by-gosh we took all day. We stopped a couple times for no reason at all. Once, we stopped in this little town just because it looked classic from the autobahn. We drove around for a minute or two, got out, walked around for a few minutes, and took some pictures of the church in the middle of town. Got back in the car and headed back to the autobahn again.
The historical markers on the freeways are similar to the ones on our roads. They are brown signs with white lettering. We kept seeing these signs for historical houses, mills, churches, etc., but we never actually saw any of the historical landmarks that they were supposed to represent. But then, we saw one. :) The marker said "Drei ......" I don't remember what the second word was but it was basically talking about "three castles." The word was not "Schloß" which would make sense. We saw three castles (or ruins of them, rather) spread out on top of three different hills (the three largest in the area). Of course, we took the exit to get to the most accessible one. It was called Die Mühlberg and was built sometime in the 700's. The tower still stood high and it was rather small but wide open. To get to the castle, you actually had to walk across a bridge that most obviously used to cover a moat. Yeah...a freaking moat! I loved it. You could tell time really took effect on this little castle. You could see remnants of the walls inside. We got some great pictures of the castle. We climbed to the top of the tower and took pictures of the surrounding area--the other castles and the town below). We also walked down into the dungeon. VERY cold down there and hardly any natural lighting at all. It was a neat little side-excursion because there was no guide for this thing. We could take it in at our leisure and by ourselves.
Back on our journey NE...
We left the state of Hessen where Frankfurt lies, and headed into the state of Thuringen. For those of you who don't know, Thuringen is the home of the Rostbratwurst (how we know bratwurst). We stopped at a little "truck stop" (they call it a truckstop but it was more like a rest stop without gas...restaurant, gift shop, etc). I ordered a Rostbratwurst mit senf (brat with mustard). They also had on tap... Köstritzer Schwarzbier (I'll try my best to pronounce this: Koo'-stritz-a Shvatz-bia). This is my absolute favorite beer. It's a Black Pilsener beer from the State of Thuringen from a little town called Bad Köstritz. On tap...at the truck stop. DAMN! Anyway, more on that in a few blogs.
Back to the Autobahn we go. Heading out on A4 this time. Hey, did I explain "The Autobahn" to you? Let's set the record straight here. There is no such thing as "THE Autobahn." That's like saying "THE Freeway" or "THE Highway" over here. "Bahn" basically means "way." "Autobahn" is just the name of their freeway SYSTEM. Not one road. And there are certainly speed-limits. Did anyone adhere to them? No way. The large Audi A6 and the Volkswagens were the car to have there. I'm talkin' fast, brotha. Yes, there were some short sections with no speed limit but the majority of the time, the limit was 120-130km/h. But there was a LOT of road construction so you couldn't really get going that fast for very long. So... I call bullshit on the autobahn myth. There was a courtesy though that I learned on this day. If you were slower, you DID move to the right. No question. And nobody passed on the right. Instead, they would come up on you and move in directly behind you so you could move over and let them pass to the left. Brilliant!
So, we head on up and through and get near the A14 (somehow, we were actually on the A9 from the A4). That was the section of freeway that took you to Leipzig. I REALLY wanted to see a little of Leipzig and more specifically Thomaskirche. Johann Sebastian Bach did most of his work from Leipzig and was the cantor for Thomaskirche before he died. His grave is supposedly in the church. That would have been cool. But, It didn't know where I was going and it was getting late in the afternoon. Instead, we saw a really filthy part of Leipzig and just wanted to get out of town.
On the way back to the A14, I decided that now would be a good time to stop for gas. The had 3 selections. Benzin, Super, and Super Plus. WTF was Benzin? It took us about 30 minutes to get gas because I wasn't sure which was just plain old unleaded gas. I asked the clerk in the store but no English and I didn't know enough German to navigate the gas pump question. We settled for Super and that seemed to be a good choice. Let's put price into perspective for a moment. Gas was about 1.80 (Euros) per liter. That's right...liter. And the car took about 30 liters to fill up. Small tank but it was damned expensive to fill up.
Back on the road. Confused as hell as we get near Berlin. The directions are starting to be more obscure because, if you remember, I simply put "Berlin" into the map. Who knows where we'll end up. So we stopped again and a roadside gas station to look up some hotels. Found one and input the address and headed out once again.
We get downtown and now it's about 6:30-7pm. I don't know where I am. I'm realizing now that if Berlin is anything like Frankfurt, I'm looking at not finding anything open very soon. I'm starting to stress a little but try my best not to let the wife see that. Once I realized where we were, I started fresh in the blackberry and got us to a hotel near Schloß Charlottenburg (you should look that up). Lucky for us, it was still open. Unlucky for us, they had no rooms available. Ok, I was really starting to worry that we would be sleeping in the car. Was I worried for my sake? No way! I've slept in a lot worse places in my adult life. I was worried that it would stress my wife out and I wanted her to be comfortable--more so than me, anyway. So, again to the blackberry. This time I did a search of the area for hotels. Found one just a km away and drove there. We walked into the lobby at 8:20. They closed at 8. But they had a bar that was attached to the lobby and a waiter greeted us. We told him our situation and he was so nice. Went out of his way for us really. He called the owner of the hotel to see if he would let him check us in anyway. The owner said no but the waiter called some more hotels until he found us one. It was nice of HIM to call because he could speak to the other hotel personnel in German and as a local. He secured us a spot at the Alfa Hotel--just a few blocks away-- for two nights. I breathed a sigh of relief as we thanked him for his kindness and drove away to our hotel.
We checked in to the Alfa Hotel. We had a room on the top floor. There were only about 4 rooms per floor sp it's not like these hotels were like ours at all. At the end of our very short hallway was a door to the roof of the hotel. What a good view! Sure, it was city, but a good view of it, regardless.
By this time, we're hungry and it's 9pm. I knew we weren't far from the Schloß Charlottenburg and I remembered seeing a restaurant/brewpub nearby. I plugged it into the BlackBerry and it only took us a minute to get down there. The place was called Brauhaus Lemke. We ordered food and of course I wanted to try their beers. They had 4 on tap that were brewed there at the pub. Lemke Original (which I got the recipe for from Mr. Lemke. Just brewed it 2 weeks ago), a Seasonal Maibock, a Pilsner, and a Hefeweizen. Of course I had a large one of all 4. :)
I don't remember our exact meals but the food in Germany was outstanding. Lots of meats, mushrooms, and brown gravies.
We asked for our bill ("die rechtnung, bitte"). I asked the waiter (fairly nice man) if it was common to offer gratuity in Germany. I told him this was our first meal at a restaurant so we didn't know the custom. He seemed embarrassed a little. He said yes it is. I tipped him 5 euros and he was the most thankful waiter I had ever seen because of a tip. Wow!
It was late, I had a buzz, time to go back to the hotel. We get back and I'm not ready to quit drinking German bier yet. I just happened to notice that right next to the hotel was this little hole in the wall bar. I HAD to go in there of course. I knew there would be no other tourists. Only locals. And I welcome that. My wife went with me of course. I drank more beers there and struck up conversations with the only other 3 people in there (one guy was an ass so we excluded him pretty quickly). The other 2 were very friendly. One of them was rolling his own cigarettes too (like I was) so I offered him some of my American tobacco (yes tobacco). The other guy was like a trip back to 80's American rock. He was probably mid-late 40's with a mullet and a denim jacket on. He told us the story about going to America for Woodstock '94. He talked about smokin' grass and speeding through Montana. He talked about cops, politics, and the health of jobs in Germany. It was really a good conversation and it was nice to feel welcome in that cozy little bar that served really shitty Pilsener (Berliner).
Back to the room and into bed. Since the hotel was technically "closed," the room key also opened the back door to the hotel. It was REALLY dark and I was REALLY drunk. But we made it up to our room. The room was sort of hot but the night air was cold. Not really an A/C to speak of in the Alfa Hotel but the window opened wide and cooled us off pretty well. The only problem I had was that the window had no screen and it opened up directly to the fire escape. Technically, anyone had access to our room from the fire escape.
It was a long day in Germany but it was fun. It was rewarding.
That first night of sleep was out-freakin-standing. Interesting note about the beds in Germany--at least the hotel beds. They all used these really small beds that were quite smaller than what we know as a twin bed. If you got a "double" room, two of these beds were crammed together side by side. Every hotel had the exact same type of white down comforter and they were warm as hell.
We got up fairly early and got our things together. Did our thing--you know...shit, shower, and shave. We didn't pay for breakfast with the room but we had the option to pay for it separately so we exercised that option this morning. Went into the restaurant and not being used to the customs yet, we didn't know if it was a buffet style or if we needed to order. Sure enough, it was buffet which always sounds good to me. The breakfast here in Frankfurt was well diverse but it sort of set the pace and kind of eased us into the breakfasts in days to come. There were some cereals and milk. Juice and coffee, of course. But the thing that struck us as different was the large selection of what I would call "deli-meats" and cheeses. Hams, turkey, cold sausages...then there was this one particular meat that sort of reminded me of bologna but not quite as pink. This "bologna" had pieces of mushrooms IN the meat. It was actually quite good. Neither one of us really knew what to eat so our meal was quite small.
After breakfast, we sat outside on the patio for the restaurant for a few minutes. There was a local men's soccer team who were coming back from a workout or a team run. The coaches passed by and smiled and said "morgen" to us. We replied in the native tongue of course but it was nice to appear that we just blended in.
Time to go, I guess. We loaded our car, took a few pictures and headed out. At this point, I had not QUITE figured out how to put in addresses accurately in Google Maps but I was starting to get the hang of it. So, I just typed in "Berlin" and got directions. Let's keep in mind that from this point, we had no itinerary and absolutely NO HOTEL accommodations reserved anywhere. We were foreigners in a car heading whichever direction the BlackBerry told us. And that was fine by us.
We decided to hit up the bank before we took off from Frankfurt. I had discovered the night before that the max my bank would let me take out at a time was 150 Euros. Seems like enough but you'd be amazed at how quickly you can go through that. BUT... I had to keep track of the days in the U.S. for the withdrawals because if I didn't time it right (and being 9 hours ahead of AZ), I was "screwed" out of an ATM withdrawal for the day.
There is a term--or rather a street sign I should say-- that everyone going to Germany should know and understand well. "Einbahnstraße." Pronounced: Ein'-bon-shtrass-a... Guess what that means? "One Way Street." They're on blue signs with a big white arrow. Problem I had with German street signs was that they seemed to be fairly low and typically further back from the intersection that I'm used to. German streets were crowded enough. Throw in a lost American going the wrong way down a one-way street and it's a "puckering" experience.
Pulled over and got my bearings. Looked around a figured out where we were and the ole lady started reading directions to me. We got lost a couple times (as we certainly would the remainder of the week) but we never let that slow us down. On this particular morning, we followed one road entirely too far and ended up on the bank of a river. We got out and took some pictures. Sure, it was like any river in any place but took pictures anyway. There was an older woman across the river on the opposite bank feeding ducks by herself. Just sort of neat.
Got back in the car and finally found the exit for the Autobahn. Here we were....still didn't know the courtesies of the Autobahn yet but I would learn that day. After about 20 minutes, I realized that again, we were heading the wrong way on the autobahn. :) Dear oh dear... This is going to be a long week. Finally got turned around the right direction and off we were. Heading toward Köln (Cologne). We weren't stopping there but that was the direction we were heading on the A5.
Once we got well out of town, I decided that the child-sized coffee I had at breakfast wasn't going to cut it. I found a little pull off with a gas station/convenience store. These little pull-offs are absolutely nothing like American ones. I'm talking slow down from 170km/h to stop in about 500 feet. Imagine the dinkiest little "rest area" on any given American Freeway, bring it right up against the freeway, and put a gas station in the middle of it. That's what we're talking about here. Went in to get coffee and was greeted by a young child--probably 6 years old--who was bulky as hell and wearing nothing but some tighty-whiteys. Ok...WTF? Not my culture...can't judge.
Got my coffee and the wife came back from the restroom. In Europe (fairly Universally), restrooms are denoted in public by the letters "WC." In German, that is pronounced "Vee-Tsee" (those are the letters in the German alphabet, after all). She told me about this little dish next to the WC that had change in it. People were putting change into the dish but she didn't because neither one of us understood what that was really all about. It's not like they had people in the WC giving out towels, etc. We later learned that these were to pay for the cleaning of the WC and there were usually people in vests outside of the WC who probably took care of that.
Off we go again. We don't really talk much in the car during this week. We both just sort of keep to ourselves and take it in. The countryside here is absolutely gorgeous. Most of actually reminded me of driving through TN and GA. We started noticing that every town, village, collection of houses had a very large and ornate steeple (attached to a church, of course) somewhere near the middle of the town. They were all black (the steeples) and most were pointed although some were rounded. I think--but never received confirmation--that the round ones were Jewish Synagogues.
On our way through some of the mountainous terrain early in today's voyage, we see this traffic jam on the Autobahn that looked like it went on for a while. I thought "damn...glad that ain't me." Why is this important? It's not but as we were driving, we noticed that this traffic jam just kept on going. And going. And going. Wow. I'm talking 20-25km of a traffic jam. STOPPED cars, not slowed cars. Everyone was out of their cars…smoking, talking to other drivers (or non-drivers at this point). It looked really bad and it appeared to have begun with one single broken down truck that blocked a single lane. Crazy.
We had all day to get to Berlin and by-gosh we took all day. We stopped a couple times for no reason at all. Once, we stopped in this little town just because it looked classic from the autobahn. We drove around for a minute or two, got out, walked around for a few minutes, and took some pictures of the church in the middle of town. Got back in the car and headed back to the autobahn again.
The historical markers on the freeways are similar to the ones on our roads. They are brown signs with white lettering. We kept seeing these signs for historical houses, mills, churches, etc., but we never actually saw any of the historical landmarks that they were supposed to represent. But then, we saw one. :) The marker said "Drei ......" I don't remember what the second word was but it was basically talking about "three castles." The word was not "Schloß" which would make sense. We saw three castles (or ruins of them, rather) spread out on top of three different hills (the three largest in the area). Of course, we took the exit to get to the most accessible one. It was called Die Mühlberg and was built sometime in the 700's. The tower still stood high and it was rather small but wide open. To get to the castle, you actually had to walk across a bridge that most obviously used to cover a moat. Yeah...a freaking moat! I loved it. You could tell time really took effect on this little castle. You could see remnants of the walls inside. We got some great pictures of the castle. We climbed to the top of the tower and took pictures of the surrounding area--the other castles and the town below). We also walked down into the dungeon. VERY cold down there and hardly any natural lighting at all. It was a neat little side-excursion because there was no guide for this thing. We could take it in at our leisure and by ourselves.
Back on our journey NE...
We left the state of Hessen where Frankfurt lies, and headed into the state of Thuringen. For those of you who don't know, Thuringen is the home of the Rostbratwurst (how we know bratwurst). We stopped at a little "truck stop" (they call it a truckstop but it was more like a rest stop without gas...restaurant, gift shop, etc). I ordered a Rostbratwurst mit senf (brat with mustard). They also had on tap... Köstritzer Schwarzbier (I'll try my best to pronounce this: Koo'-stritz-a Shvatz-bia). This is my absolute favorite beer. It's a Black Pilsener beer from the State of Thuringen from a little town called Bad Köstritz. On tap...at the truck stop. DAMN! Anyway, more on that in a few blogs.
Back to the Autobahn we go. Heading out on A4 this time. Hey, did I explain "The Autobahn" to you? Let's set the record straight here. There is no such thing as "THE Autobahn." That's like saying "THE Freeway" or "THE Highway" over here. "Bahn" basically means "way." "Autobahn" is just the name of their freeway SYSTEM. Not one road. And there are certainly speed-limits. Did anyone adhere to them? No way. The large Audi A6 and the Volkswagens were the car to have there. I'm talkin' fast, brotha. Yes, there were some short sections with no speed limit but the majority of the time, the limit was 120-130km/h. But there was a LOT of road construction so you couldn't really get going that fast for very long. So... I call bullshit on the autobahn myth. There was a courtesy though that I learned on this day. If you were slower, you DID move to the right. No question. And nobody passed on the right. Instead, they would come up on you and move in directly behind you so you could move over and let them pass to the left. Brilliant!
So, we head on up and through and get near the A14 (somehow, we were actually on the A9 from the A4). That was the section of freeway that took you to Leipzig. I REALLY wanted to see a little of Leipzig and more specifically Thomaskirche. Johann Sebastian Bach did most of his work from Leipzig and was the cantor for Thomaskirche before he died. His grave is supposedly in the church. That would have been cool. But, It didn't know where I was going and it was getting late in the afternoon. Instead, we saw a really filthy part of Leipzig and just wanted to get out of town.
On the way back to the A14, I decided that now would be a good time to stop for gas. The had 3 selections. Benzin, Super, and Super Plus. WTF was Benzin? It took us about 30 minutes to get gas because I wasn't sure which was just plain old unleaded gas. I asked the clerk in the store but no English and I didn't know enough German to navigate the gas pump question. We settled for Super and that seemed to be a good choice. Let's put price into perspective for a moment. Gas was about 1.80 (Euros) per liter. That's right...liter. And the car took about 30 liters to fill up. Small tank but it was damned expensive to fill up.
Back on the road. Confused as hell as we get near Berlin. The directions are starting to be more obscure because, if you remember, I simply put "Berlin" into the map. Who knows where we'll end up. So we stopped again and a roadside gas station to look up some hotels. Found one and input the address and headed out once again.
We get downtown and now it's about 6:30-7pm. I don't know where I am. I'm realizing now that if Berlin is anything like Frankfurt, I'm looking at not finding anything open very soon. I'm starting to stress a little but try my best not to let the wife see that. Once I realized where we were, I started fresh in the blackberry and got us to a hotel near Schloß Charlottenburg (you should look that up). Lucky for us, it was still open. Unlucky for us, they had no rooms available. Ok, I was really starting to worry that we would be sleeping in the car. Was I worried for my sake? No way! I've slept in a lot worse places in my adult life. I was worried that it would stress my wife out and I wanted her to be comfortable--more so than me, anyway. So, again to the blackberry. This time I did a search of the area for hotels. Found one just a km away and drove there. We walked into the lobby at 8:20. They closed at 8. But they had a bar that was attached to the lobby and a waiter greeted us. We told him our situation and he was so nice. Went out of his way for us really. He called the owner of the hotel to see if he would let him check us in anyway. The owner said no but the waiter called some more hotels until he found us one. It was nice of HIM to call because he could speak to the other hotel personnel in German and as a local. He secured us a spot at the Alfa Hotel--just a few blocks away-- for two nights. I breathed a sigh of relief as we thanked him for his kindness and drove away to our hotel.
We checked in to the Alfa Hotel. We had a room on the top floor. There were only about 4 rooms per floor sp it's not like these hotels were like ours at all. At the end of our very short hallway was a door to the roof of the hotel. What a good view! Sure, it was city, but a good view of it, regardless.
By this time, we're hungry and it's 9pm. I knew we weren't far from the Schloß Charlottenburg and I remembered seeing a restaurant/brewpub nearby. I plugged it into the BlackBerry and it only took us a minute to get down there. The place was called Brauhaus Lemke. We ordered food and of course I wanted to try their beers. They had 4 on tap that were brewed there at the pub. Lemke Original (which I got the recipe for from Mr. Lemke. Just brewed it 2 weeks ago), a Seasonal Maibock, a Pilsner, and a Hefeweizen. Of course I had a large one of all 4. :)
I don't remember our exact meals but the food in Germany was outstanding. Lots of meats, mushrooms, and brown gravies.
We asked for our bill ("die rechtnung, bitte"). I asked the waiter (fairly nice man) if it was common to offer gratuity in Germany. I told him this was our first meal at a restaurant so we didn't know the custom. He seemed embarrassed a little. He said yes it is. I tipped him 5 euros and he was the most thankful waiter I had ever seen because of a tip. Wow!
It was late, I had a buzz, time to go back to the hotel. We get back and I'm not ready to quit drinking German bier yet. I just happened to notice that right next to the hotel was this little hole in the wall bar. I HAD to go in there of course. I knew there would be no other tourists. Only locals. And I welcome that. My wife went with me of course. I drank more beers there and struck up conversations with the only other 3 people in there (one guy was an ass so we excluded him pretty quickly). The other 2 were very friendly. One of them was rolling his own cigarettes too (like I was) so I offered him some of my American tobacco (yes tobacco). The other guy was like a trip back to 80's American rock. He was probably mid-late 40's with a mullet and a denim jacket on. He told us the story about going to America for Woodstock '94. He talked about smokin' grass and speeding through Montana. He talked about cops, politics, and the health of jobs in Germany. It was really a good conversation and it was nice to feel welcome in that cozy little bar that served really shitty Pilsener (Berliner).
Back to the room and into bed. Since the hotel was technically "closed," the room key also opened the back door to the hotel. It was REALLY dark and I was REALLY drunk. But we made it up to our room. The room was sort of hot but the night air was cold. Not really an A/C to speak of in the Alfa Hotel but the window opened wide and cooled us off pretty well. The only problem I had was that the window had no screen and it opened up directly to the fire escape. Technically, anyone had access to our room from the fire escape.
It was a long day in Germany but it was fun. It was rewarding.
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