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.

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.

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.

A Rental Car, a Map, and Some Change (Day 1 of Germany)

Yep, this one may be a bit lengthy.

As some of you know, my wife and I went to Europe from May 23rd-May 31st. Specifically 6 days in Germany and a day and a half in England. Boy what an experience! I have been to many countries in Europe before but only for a few days at a time. I had never been so immersed like I was for this brief stay...I say brief because my passion for Europe makes my stays always seem short. I'm proud to be American but I truly believe I was born in the wrong continent. So, what is this blog for? I want o try my best to recount each day as they went. Bear with me and if you make it through, fine. If not, oh well. I may just write this so I can look back on it, too. :)

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009. We’ve been waiting for this for a little more than 5 months. It's hot in Phoenix today. We leave tonight. Do we have everything? I sure as hell hope so. Plane tickets...rental car papers...first night in Frankfurt Hotel reservations...passports...International driving permit? Check! Spent the day with the kids and her mom. Took them to Peter Piper Pizza. They left for Yuma and it was all of a sudden just us. Get to the airport about 3 hours before takeoff and because we had not checked in until now, we could not get seats together. Uh-oh! She's scared to death anyway. Now I can't even sit by her? What to do, what to do...

So, we sat at Chili's in the airport and had our fill of beer, wine, and spinach artichoke dip with chips. :) YUM! Getting ready for takeoff, I asked a middle-aged British man if he would mind trading seats with me because I wanted to comfort my wife during takeoff. He was hesitant but conceded his seat just for takeoff and up until altitude. That was fair enough, I reckon. Off we go.... 9.5 hours in the air. I couldn't sleep at all, although we purposely did not get much sleep the night before. Instead, I watched movies on the plane for the whole trip. Several hours into it, I couldn't wait to get to Heathrow. Most of you know I'm a smoker so I was envisioning this cigarette in London. No dice. Damn. Instead, I suffered the three hours in the airport AND the 1.5 hour flight to Frankfurt. You bet your ass that's the first thing I did in Germany though.

So, we make our way through the Frankfurt airport. Sure, there were signs for things but they weren't many and very vague to say the least. We finally found the baggage claim area and there was a passport control point. No problem. I've done the international thing before. There were many desks for this control point but only 1 desk had any officers at it. So we went to that one. The guy was a plain dick. He asked me in English: "What is this line for?" "Passport control?" I replied. "What does the sign say?" he responded. I stepped back so I could see the sign and it read "EU Passports Only." Ok....but these were the only desks open so it's not like I had options. "So, why did you come to this desk?" he asked....clearly irritated. I checked my smart-ass nature for a moment and apologized for the misunderstanding. He cleared me anyway. Got our bags directly after this and headed to Hertz to pick up my car. Found it at level U1 in spot 19. A little FIAT Punto. Tiny 4-door, hatchback, manual transmission car. Verity called it "cute." I had to smile, of course. So, we get in and I couldn't find reverse. Shit! I'm trying everything I could think of. I remembered that the old VW's used to get reverse if you pushed downward and over but that didn't work. I kept playing with the shift until I finally figured out that there was a little collar below the shift knob that you had to pull up to get to that elusive reverse gear.

I should pause to tell you that we had no local phone, no paper maps of any sort and no hotel reservations after tonight. Instead, I bought a global blackberry off of ebay and activated a global voice and data plan. We LIVED on Google Maps for this trip...a little shout-out there.

So, we pull out of the parking garage and I found myself in the lane that automatically puts you on the Autobahn (A3 to be exact). Ok... seems like we're going a little far and I don't know the rules of the road yet. People are absolutely flying by me in the left lanes. My little Fiat has no shot at keeping up. So, we get off on the exit for the B43/44. Ok. We're not supposed to be there yet, I guess but these highways are on the directions list somewhere so we figure we're good. We go one way for a while, then turn around and go the other way. Then we figured out we were heading back to the airport so we turned around again. THEN we went through this little section of a suburb but I was in the wrong lane and headed back the other way (toward the airport).....again.....so we turned around.....again.... :)

This time I say I'm going to get into the far right lane. So I did and it proved to successfully get me the hell off of that highway. :) No idea where I'm going, the street I'm on isn't even on our directions list in Google maps. I took the first right because a car in front of me did and I knew I could. Now, we're in a residential area and I tell my wife we'll pull over and try to figure out where we are and how to get directions from there. Guess where we were? Right in front of our hotel. What are the odds that with all of those mistakes, neither one of us knowing how to read the directions, that we would end up right in front of our hotel? Whew! Sigh of relief. So we check in and find our room. I had forgotten to get cash at the airport like I had planned on so I needed an ATM (Geldautomat). The hotel receptionist told me there would be one at the end of the main drag we were on. We were both dying for a shower so I let her take care of hers while I went for a stroll down the road to find this ATM. After a while, I could not see the end of this street and turned back. No biggie. I got to stretch my legs after spending all that time in the plane and the car. But I did notice one thing. There wasn't really anything open. And we were hungry!!!

Went back, took a shower, got the car and finally found the "end of the street" I was looking for. Sure enough, there was a Deutsche Bank right on the corner. Pulled out some Euros and we found this little pizza joint not too far from the hotel. Ordered up a pepperoni and mushroom (champignons) pizza (these were Italians there in Frankfurt so the Pizza was good enough). Interesting thing is, they had these little peppers on the pizza that had a flavor like pepperoncinis but a little more spicy. This was very relaxing for us. It felt like we had been on the go for a week. We were having fun but were stressed and in a brand new environment.

After dinner we figured we would try our luck at driving around in downtown Frankfurt. Let's keep in mind a couple things as we go through this journey. First: Frankfurt is like any big American city, by the way. Large buildings, slums, and ritzy areas. However (and secondly), let's also remember that the streets in European cities are older than our country so driving can be a challenge. These streets and the structure of traffic was not originally setup for cars, buses and trains. We got a lost a few times that night...even found the Frankfurt Hells Angels clubhouse somewhere in the mix. Somehow, we found our way back to that familiar hotel that we had already accidentally found earlier.

So, after a late dinner and all the evening activities, we went back to the hotel and crashed. I'll also point out here that it stayed daylight until about 10pm every night. That was odd for us but welcome.