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.