The German Blogs: Munich to Salzburg

Today's plan was to drive up to Dachau and see the Concentration Camp, and then continue on. However, sadly, when I woke up I recalled that Monday was the only day that it was closed. So we were forced onto Salzburg.

And the drive was rather uneventful. The Alps really do just sort boink appear as you're driving. They are stunningly beautiful, and I can see why people have always talked about them.

Then we arrived at Salzburg. Here is where things start to go awry. Now, T's big plan was to just "roll with it", meaning no real planning, no booked hotels, no certain iternary that we needed to follow. Salzburg turned this idea to shit. We didn't have a hotel, so we didn't have an actual in-town destination. We wound up driving around this town for about an hour, trying to figure out where we were, where we could stay (after he realized that it was my intention to stay overnight) and generally just being lost.

So we decided to pull into a parking lot. Bad decision. The person in front of us was sitting in front of the gate. Just sitting there. Neither pulling in nor pulling out. Parked, as it were, in the entrance to a parking lot.

I honked. Nothing.

I honked again. Nothing.

We sit for about 2 minutes, noticing that there is a woman in the booth near the entrance.

There are now people lining up behind us. I try motioning to the woman in the booth. She continues to clean her habitate with Windex.

Another honk. Nothing.

Now I am frantically waving at the woman in the booth, trying to get her attention. These two people in front of us are just sitting there. They truely seem to have no intention of moving. The person behind us gets pissed and backs away to get out. There is a horse and carriage waiting behind us somewhere. I'm still waiving at this woman, and when she finally sees me, I motion to the people in front of me and she shrugs and continues with cleaning her habitat.

Alright. That's it. I put the car in reverse, turn around and get the hell away from this situation. I'm aggrivated, tired, have to pee, and still don't have a place to sleep. There were about 14 cars and a carriage behind us, only 7 of which were trying to get in to the lot-- the others were trying to get into the old town. So I finally pull down in to the new town and there's traffic.

I look down the street and then look over at T. "Are we stuck behind a horse?"

He looks out the window. "I do believe that we are."

Indeed, there was a horse and carriage holding up traffic. I'm so irritated I don't know what to do with myself at this point. So I make a radical left or right, and I see a Mercure hotel up a head. I have seen these hotels before, so I pull in the driveway. I get out and go in and ask how much for a night. More than I wanted to spend, but if it has a toilet, I'm there.

Here's some traveling advice for Europe. Go with small, independent hotels that have 3*. Stay away from chains. Chains are terrible over priced and under-unique (if that's a term). They lack the charm that the others have, and almost never ever have a nice view.

So we check into our rather small disappointing room and head out on the town. We decide to walk. It's really not that far, on some major roads, so it's not a big deal. Not yet. Keep this in mind!

We find the old down and look through what, by the end of our trip, we would fondly refer to as the Ghetto Guide. We decide that there are only so many churches one can see, so we head up to the Fortress.

This is the only fortress in all of Europe never to have been taken by force. It was only captured once, and that was because it was handed over to Napolean. It dominates the whole town is really a wonderful peice of Europe. We took the funicular up because the path said 30 minutes climb and we said, "Um, no." When you get to the top, you are left at the main stairs and up and in you go.

Once you are inside, the first thing you encounter is the Marionette Museum. These things freak me the hell out, but T wanted to go in. They had one you could play with and this time it was my turn to play. But the strangest thing of all was that under one of the glass portholes in the floor, there was a skeleton marionette covered in money. It was really strange and kinda sealed my decision to leave.

We walked out into the court yard and walked around until we found the guided tour that we had paid for. Once again, we were handed those wonderful little prerecorded handests and listened to everything about the Fortress in not so mangled English. They took us to the top of the highest tower in the Fortress and let us out on the roof. Which is great for my new found fear of heights that I'm battling. Well, maybe it's not the height, maybe it's the fall...



I also would like to take a moment at this juncture to mention that I hate castle stairs. Any and all castle stairs. The spiral ones drive me nuts. This has been true since my first trip to Europe. I hate them, and not to mention about 90% of them have this little worn down divot where thousands of Royal Feet have trod upon them up and down and you have to aim for this divot or risk taking down the tour group.

This fortress-- no exception.

Now remember, Salzburg, The Last Golden Days Before the War, so I'm naturally looking for anything that's related to the Sound of Music. Up in the Fortress, I figure I can, at the very least, spy Nonneburg Abbey, where the real Maria taught and where the movie Maria was learning to be a nun.

I did. And wow, was it disappointing. It's still a convent, so you can't go in, and really the only thing you can see are the barrel vault arches on the far right of the center court. That's its. Talk about a non-event. We did find St. Peter's Cemetary, where they used the gravestones in the one scene, and that was pretty neat. But that was it. Everything else was way out of town.

We were going to eat at the world's oldest restaurant upon decending the funicular, but it was so fancy when we passed it that I didn't even realize that was the place. So instead we decided to try another cafe on the top of the hill. Upon buying the tickets for the elevator to the top, we are informed that the cafe is closed, and that the elevator only runs until 7 p.m. It's already 6.

Well, we have the tickets so we get to the top and take in the view. We take a little walked to the old City Wall and back and then try to figure where the heck we're going to eat.

Our Ghetto Guide recommends a small place just to the right of the elevator at street level. We decide that it's probably our best bet, and the gentleman comes up and offers us street seats. It's Italian, but I'm OK with that. Somewhere halfway through the meal, the owner realizes that we followed our Ghetto Guide and asks to see it. He's delighted to see his restaurant in an American book, ghetto or no.

It was lovely meal by the way.

So, after dinner we start heading back to the hotel. We're flat out of cash so we hunt down a Geldautomat. Geldautomat offers us a 50 euro. You can't get on the bus with that. Well, it wasn't a long walk to the center from the hotel, so it's probably not that far back.

Except that while T's sense of direction is good, his sense of neighborhood was not so good. Wandering through the dark, small back streets of the new town at 9 p.m. was not exactly what I called an experience you wanted to have. I was never so happy to see the hotel as I was that night. We walked in, walked up to the room, spent a few minutes searching for THE FRAU and then went to bed.

The German Blogs: Wilkommen im Munchen!

The people of Munich do not like it when you blow nose in public.

This particular breakfast spoiled us for the rest of our trip. Breakfast was included with every hotel room (save one) and after this morning we expected nothing but the best. Hot bacon and sausage, soft boiled eggs, cold meats, breads out the backside. And I have a new problem. I like their grapefruit juice. Why is this a problem? Because it's european grapefruit juice and I don't live there. It's same thing with my green orange juice in Belize. I don't live there.

While breakfasting, I had to blow my nose. Having postnasal drip, this is a terribly common occurance for me and I don't think twice about it. I try to be quiet about it. This time, though, I was recovering from a demon of a cold, and it was slightly more loud than usual.

You would think that I had just yell a profanity from the looks I got.

Sadly, this one go at it didn't satisify the situation. I realized that the only to take care of this problem was to leave the table, find an enclosed space and take care of this. So, I did. And I was happy. And the people of Munich were happy.

We then went on a bus tour. Here is a very wonderful thing about Europe-- there are so many languages in such a small area that they have tape recordings and headphones of the tour. You pick your language and listen along. Sometimes, the grammar is a little strange because of the literal nature of German, but hey. It works.

Our bus departed from the Hauptbahnhof and we opted for the short tour. One hour. It was just long enough to go all around the old town, and then head back to our room to get our bearings. From our room, we headed out to the Deutsche Museum.

We took the subway, which was an interesting experience. We got the platform and bought the tickets. The train pulled up and--

-- the doors wouldn't open. What the? We stood there waiting, and nothing. No door for us. DEnied. The train pulls out. Next train pulls in, and I see little green buttons on the door, and realize that we have to push them. So we push them and--

--nothing. Still nothing. They people in the train are probably laughing at us by now. We can't get on the damn train. New Strategy. Move near people who are going to get on the train as well. Jackpot, we're on! We cruise all of 3 stops and pop out for the Deustche Museum.

This was dad's recommendation, so you know that there's all kinds of dad stuff involved: cars, planes, trains, mines, motors... But the place that he told we need to go was the mine under the museum.

Keep in mind, this is a museum display. What they did was cut out peices of the real mine and move them to these caves. Which is totally ingenious because then you don't walk around in the dark with a hard hat and light on your head worrying that the place is going to blow at any moment.*



Quite an interesting little trip through, and really, I don't know that you want me to sit here and tell you the details. If you know me, dear reader, you've already seen the pictures. However, let me share with a sign from this museum that demonstrates the literal nature of the German language.



Truly, need I say more?

During our adventure, T discovered that there were "interactive" displays, ala 1960-- Also known as "Push Here". He gleefully ran from button to button and was more disappointed than the 3 year old when they didn't work. Because while the 3 year old just enjoyed pushing the button not expecting anything, T did. And was disappointed repeatedly.

On to the town! As I am studying to be an architect, I have an accute interest in churches. So on a Saturday afternoon, we are wandering around Munich looking at churches. By the time we were done, we were trying to see how many different masses we could hit in an hour. Four. We missed one by a few minutes.

We arrived in the Marienplatz just in time to see the Glockespeil ring at 5 p.m. This clock has been ringing since sometime in the late 1700s and has two little stories. The first celebrates the marriage of the Emperor to I believe Maria Theresa (whom the whole area we traveled through was completely infatuated with). The second is the Beer Barrel dance, that the town still holds every 7 years as they have for decades.

I just have to say here that I have never heard so many genuine real church bells chiming at the same time as I did in Munich. It was fantastic. I could have stood there all evening if they had been ringing them that long. It was amazing-- nothing like the US's recorded chimes. These are the big bells that have names, like Charlie and Hans and Marie.

Here, have a look and listen:


Now, we're hungry. Before we had even arrived in Europe, T had declared that we were going to eat at the Hofbrauhaus. This is reported to be the oldest biergarten in Europe and anyone who is or was anyone in Europe has been here. They have an oopma band that plays every night.

Be warned: You seat yourself in all but the fanciest of restuarants in Europe. And if you should happen to go to this place, don't sit at the tables with the tableclothes. Trust me on this. I thought that they were going to turn the Panzers on us when I sat at one of them. We wound up outside in the courtyard, which was fine with me.

I ordered a goulash, and T ordered sauages and sauerkraut. And Beer. Very Large Beers. Liter beers. I ordered an ale that was tempered with lemonade (and couldn't finish it) and he ordered a Pilsner (and finished mine). We really enjoyed this place. We just sat and ate and chatted for almost 2 hours before we finally decided that it would be wise to head back.

But before we went, there was an oompa band- being conducted by a very very drunk Japanese man. I mean this guy had the whole place going, clapping and cheering him on. I was more than highly amuzed by this drunk gent thinking that he was conducting the band. I do believe that several of the waitresses had to drag him away back to his buss eventually.

Well, we head back to the room and we're not quite tired yet. On goes the television.

How do I explain this. Let me say that Europe is much more open with their sexuality, to begin. They don't have a problem with 900 numbers on TV. Whereas in the US, the 900 numbers only come up after say, midnight, Europe starts around 10.

But they aren't afraid to show the goods. At all. There were boobies on every channel. Boobies and booty. I was a little perturbed by this until--
--THE FRAU--
came on. This was a half dressed woman that looked for all the world like a librarian. And not the Hot For Teacher kind either. I'm talking about a middle aged woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a suit and unnaturally perky goods hanging out of her shirt. I think that to say this was bizzare would be an understatement. Both T and I stood there looking at the TV with these shocked expressions, and the inability to communicate our disbelief.

Finally he changed the channel, and said, "I think the news will be just fine." He rolled over and went to sleep.


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*An experience I had in Wales. We were actually taken INTO a real working mine and told all about how natural gas condenses and gathers in pockets, and how the smallest spark could set it off...

The German Blogs: Adventures in Europe

The Flight.

So, we left on April 21* from the ever lovely Newark Liberty International Airport. I highly recommend taking advantage of online check in if your airline offers it. We didn't have to be there until just one hour until take off. This was a vast improvement from previous international flights that required 3 hours previous.

Flying to Germany requires 8 hours in a metal tube. This is not necessarily an enjoyable experience Please see previous blog entry. Well, we take off late as usual from Newark. I'm used to this by now. We're always late from Newark. Up, up and away.

Dinner is served within an hour of take off. I ask for Chicken. T asks for chicken. I receive chicken. T recieves beef. bwah? I offer to change with him, but he declines. So he eats the beef. I eat the chicken. Not in anyway exciting at all.

Next up, they turn off the lights, and we are all supposed to try and sleep. Side note: We purchased the funky u-shaped travel pillows. I will NEVER travel without them again. They are the bomb. Well worth the money. I succeed with about 3 hours of sleep. T does not. He gets about 20 minutes, he says.

So then we're sitting there, half away for about 3 more hours of the flight. Somewhere over Ireland we start our decent.

Ireland?

Ireland is about 2 hours by flight from Frankfurt, so instead of this being the nice quick pleasant and occasionally fun decent that I'm used to, we're creeping down. Foot by foot for two very long hours. Now, I don't know if you have ever been on a plane, but the take off and landing are the two parts that people complain about the most. It's not a fun feeling. This is exacerbated by doing it over the course of two hours. By the time we get near Frankfurt Airport, I'm ready to scream at the pilot to just get us on the ground already.

However, this was not to happen, as there was Traffic. Traffic. In Germany. On a Saturday morning. In the air.

Great.

Meanwhile, there is Pants Man. He stands up just as the pilot informs us that we are going in for our final approach. His pants are undone, his shirt untucked and hanging out of his sweater vest, his shoes are off, his hair looks like it has been neither washed nor combed in far longer than 8 hours. He is LARGE, he blocking the aisle, and he completely ignores the flight attendants as they repeated tell him in English, German, French and Spanish that he has to sit down. So he proceeds to run his hands through his hair to no effect, pulls his shirt down to try and straighten in, pulls his pants away from himself to tuck the shirt in, hikes up the pants, and closes them while I am thanking God that I didn't get glimpse of anything, buckles his pants and puts his shoes back on. He finally sits down as the pilot calls for final decent.

So we circle and decend, and I'm about ready to puke my guts out. It's getting worse and I have never experience this horrid feeling before. It was an absolute relief when the wheels finally hit the ground, and we taxied in. I got off that hot, stuffy tube of horridness and made for a bathroom. I needed a cold towel on my face and when I returned to T standing there, I told him that had this been my first flight you would have been hard pressed to get my ass on another plane. Ever.

Meanwhile, T has discovered a pillar of joy in his wait. There are smoking stations in the airport. You seidle up to this thing, light up and sucks away you smoke so the whole building doesn't fill with smoke, and you don't have to wait to clear passport control to have a cig. This was the beacon of hope in his day, and he gladly indulged in one.

Passport control was a breeze-- they looked at the thing, looked at us, and stamped us on unsmiling. I swear they don't know how to smile in government over there. We moved quickly onto the Car Rental counter.

At this point, kind reader, I would like to remind you that we have now been basically awake for about 20 hours. We have just been thrown across the mighty Atlantic at 550 miles an hour at about 35,000 feet. We have eaten bad food, slept not so soundly, been subjected to Pants Man, and felt like we were going to puke.

At the Hertz rental counter, we encounter the following: Mr. and Mrs. Joe Americantourist avec hideous hawaiian shirt and fishing hat who don't speak a lick of German, and apparently don't have a good command of English either. We have Mr. Leather, who is waiting patiently like us, for the counter lady. A couple walks up behind us, speaking German and queuing properly.

It takes the poor counter lady, left by herself to defend the counter, close to 20 minutes to explain to these dingdongs how to get out of the airport. During this 20 minutes, Psycho Bitch comes stomping up to the Please Wait Here and starts rustling her paperwork. When Mr. And Mrs. Joe Americantourist walk away, Psycho Bitch starts to walk up to the counter.

T flipped. "Um, no! There is a line here you know!"

Well, PB's male companion was clearly embarassed that she thought she was going to be served next after Americantourist and waves her back to him on line. She starts to make a fuss, but he says something to her, and waves to the people waiting. Just to piss her off, after Counter Lady takes care of Mr. Leather, we wave forward the Hertz Gold Club member who was standing at the back of the line.

We get our turn at the counter, and we are asked if we would like the wagon for the same price as the regular, and T takes it. Meanwhile I was secretly hoping that they would offer us an automatic at the same price, but no luck. His first card was declined. His second card was declined. His third card, the one that he didn't want to use for the car, was finally accepted, and he was ANGRY. He knew that he had enough on both of those cards, and they wouldn't go through. I was able to talk him down from choking the poor Counter Lady.

We go all the way to Europe and we get stuck with a rented Ford Focus Wagon.

Faboo. This dog of a vehicle eats gas, sucks air and drags ass on the Autobahn. I got it up to 100 but it was running high, about 4500 RPM. (It redlined at 6.) The only thing that this baby had going for it was that it held our bags without complaint.

Time to go. I revv it up and off we go- my first time driving a stick in nearly 7 years. And it was like riding a bike. You don't really forget. We pull up to the first light and--

um.

now what?

We have no idea which way is which and I randomly pick a road. I get on the A5 at the first chance, and head in the wrong direction. So, now, dispite being on the ground, we are circling Frankfurt again.

Sheer Dumb Luck, who was my best friend on this trip, caused me to pull on to another highway and we saw the names of the towns on the sign that we were looking for. I slap that sucker into 5th and rip into the Autobahn.

Until we hit traffic in Wurtzburg. An HOUR of traffic in Wurtzburg. Because they are patching the road. I nearly wept. And then I nearly peed myself. Worse, we discovered that you have pay to pee on the Autobahn. 50 Cents, and we had a 50 euro bill. I wanted to get going, so at the next stop we bought two sodas and had a wonderful pee.

We drive for four hours to get to Munich where our first hotel is, and arrive on the outskirts of the city-- and once again, um... now what? Yes, dear reader, we were sitting on a major roadway in Munich with ab-so-lute-ly no clue how to get to Swanthalerstrasse, or even where we were. Eventually we started following signs for the Oktoberfest grounds because the hotel claimed they were within walking distance.

And Sheer Dumb Luck had us cross Swanthalterstrasse less than 5 minutes later. The hotel was at the one end of the street, and we wound up circling that twice before finding the entrance to the parking garage.

We check in, and haul up to our room. We realize that we need to call our parents and have no way of doing this because direct dialing from the room would be insane. We freshen up a touch and head to the Hauptbahnhof (Big Train Station)and find a... um... calling card dealer. Now, being as I am, I think that calling the US is still a big deal, and that we're going to need at least 20 Euros with the calling card. Turns out the 5 Euro would have been enough. It had 460 minutes on it.

We take our purchases back to the hotel and decide that it's time to eat. At 8 at night.

A word of advice. If you're Europe, make sure you've eaten dinner by 6. Trust me on this. However, Sheer Dumb Luck was once again riding shot gun and there was a wonderful little restuarant next to the hotel that had a kick ass italian menu.

All the way to Germany to have a pizza and a spaghetti bolognaise. *thumbs up!* It was however, an acceptable dinner.

Back to the room, I attempt to call my parents-- 37 times. What I had forgotten, idiot that I am, was that I was dialing TO the US and not out. I was trying to get the US internation operator and kept getting "Incorrect number." Finally I realized that I had to dial 001 and not the international operator.

So, I was toast by this time. I cleaned up for bed and went to hop on the bed. But I think that the last and only person who would have found this bed comfortable was Fred Flintstone. I passed out anyway.

The German Blogs: Attention Passengers!

Your flight to Frankfurt International Flugelhaffen or something will be departing in approximately twenty hours. Thanks to the glories of modern technology, we have called you and informed you that you may now CHECK IN for your flight electronically.

In addition to this miracle of technology, you are now are required to show up only and hour and a half before your flight to drop off your bags and show your passports.

You will be served one of our gourmet meals as soon as we're not climbing straight up so that by the time the 4th or 5th hour of your flight rolls around, you'll be so hungry that our complimentary pillows start looking like tasty marshmallows. The jackass infront of you will put their chair in recline before you have a chance to adjust for this, and will have said gourmet meal shoved into your lower gut. No doubt about 3 or 4 hours into flight you just about have fallen asleep when you will jostled awake by turbulence, and possibly by the remains of your drink falling off your tray table onto your lap.

Approximately 6 hours into your flight, you will lose all feeling in your left leg and have no choice to but to vault over the sleeping body of the person next to you in hope of saving said foot from aputation.

Also about this time you may or may not suffer a rousing bout of diarrhea from our gourmetmeal. You also find that you are not the only one contending with Montezuma upon entering our luxurious and spacious restroom facilities.

We won't bother to warn you about landing either so that unless someone is pay attention and looking out the window and happens to say, "Hey isn't that the runway?" everyone will start screaming thinking that we are in a head spin and ready to crash.

Thank you for hurtling over the Atlantic in a small metal tube. Enjoy your vacation.