The German Blogs: Click, Click, BLAM!

I have to tell you, this was probably my most favorite day on the whole trip.

We got up super early to get to the train station (and try to get some breakfast that once again didn't live up to the expectations). Our train was leaving at 7:35 a.m., and wouldn't arrive at the Top of Europe until 10 a.m. The trip was only about 5 miles on the train.

The thing is, the stop we were heading for was 11,388 feet above sea-level. Jungfraujoch.

The ingenious Swiss built an electric cog railway from Grindlewald through the rock and up to the very top of the mountain. We happened to pick the place where these cog railways started and stopped. Perfect. This was not a cheap trip. It's very expensive. Far more than the top of Mt. Pilatus would have been, but it was a gorgeous clear, amazing day and worth every damn swiss franc we spent.

I've found some Jungfrau Webcams so you can check out the area. In the winter, the snow is just amazing.

We hop on the train, and-- well by now you should be able to glean something of what I am about to tell you --get stuck behind the most rude British Indian family you have never wanted to meet. Everyone on this train was quiet, neat, respectful and spent the time admiring the view. Not them. I was fairly convinced that they had won the trip and had never bother to go father than 30 miles from their shack in Blackshire. I didn't know the British could piss me off, but this gross family did.

We did our best to ignore them. The train was distraction enough, as were the views.



The train had four stops along the way. The first was super tiny little town about 1/3rd of the way up. No one got on, but you could tell that people did live there. I would have loved to live somewhere that was only accessible by electric cog railway. The next stop was 2/3rd of the way up. Mannlichen. A full blown station town, with a hostel, shops, ski lifts, and a restaurant.

Ski lifts. Yes. Skiing in Europe is very, very different from what we are used to in the US. There are lifts to get you to peaks, but there are no trails. Not marked ones like you think of at like Hunter Mountain or Killington on the East Coast. Perhaps some of the higher peaks in the Rockies might have something like this, but even there I imagine that unless you are being dropped from a helicopter up near the top, there're still marked trails. There aren't over there. So several people hiked up to the one still working lift and off the went.

Then you reboard a different train, and this is much steeper, much older cog railcar. Still electric (since the clever Swiss saw that it was a cleaner and better way to go from the start), but the cogs were more serious on this one.

The car starts to tilt an unreal angle on the way up-- and I've been on cog railways before that dangled off the edge of cliff. This was a severe tilt. Walking up the train wasn't going to happen, you could only fall to the back of the car. You traveled for about 15 minutes on a very steep track, and then you came to the third stop. A supply station, a super tiny 6 room hostel, and that's it. Apparently, it also served as a ski launch in mid-winter.

And then you're off again. Up into the mountain this time, though you'd have gotten a few tastes of the tunnel by then. Still, it's cool. There's wall about 2 inches outside the train, and they run a little documentary on the building of the tunnel. It's about 25 minutes from the entry of the tunnel to your fourth and final stop. A viewing platform to one of small glacial gulches on the side of Mt. Eiger (which is the mountain you are traveling through). What this really does is give your body a chance to adapt to the thinner air. You're at about 9,000 feet when you get out that time.


You get 10 minutes to pee, get your pictures and get back on the train. And then it's another 20 minutes and the rest of the documentary to the top.

The train station is completely under the mountain. You depart the train in a solid rock cavern. In fact, the entire complex save the restaurant and observatory is carved into the rock.

Well, there were about 3 or 4 large tour groups on the train we arrived on. We decided to take our time and head out for the glacier at leisurely pace. We take an elevator to a long, lighted tunnel that's probably about 1/4 mile or so. The tunnel lets you out on to the glacier.

The valley between the peaks of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau is a glacial valley. It's a huge glacier, in other words: A huge sheet of flowing ice. I didn't imagine that we were going to get to see something like this in Europe. I was sure that it was going to have to wait until we were able to go to Alaska. But there it is. Right there. AND-- we're allowed to walk on the marked path. I wanted to walk all the way to Monch peak. I really did. But I forgot about something.

Altitude sickeness.

It was hard to walk after only about 100 yards. My legs were tingling, and my head was getting light. All of sudden I had a massive asthma attack right there on the glacier. I also managed to step a little too far over to the right and started to go through the snow. I pulled out the inhaler and told T that we coudln't go that far; I wouldn't make it. I was sorely disappointed.

Still, we were able to walk for a while and just the idea that we were on top of this amazing glacier was a cool feeling. I decided that I wanted to take a picture of us on the glacier and there was a convenient post sticking out of the edge of the path. I didn't want to trust anyone with my digital because I seem to be the only one who can work the thing the right way. I set the timer, I perched it on the post--

-- and fell off the snow path and into the glacier. Right up to my hip. I had to yank myself back out, and run over to where T was standing.


Thankfully, the picture did come out, and it's one of my very favorites of the trip. I also fell in again when I was retrieving the camera, but only up to my knee on the other leg. *Sigh* It started to become a game of how many times can J fall into the glacier.

We hiked back to the tunnel and headed back down towards the other things going on. Along the way, T decided that he wanted a cigarette.

Now, we all know that altitude sickness is caused by the lack of oxygen in the thinning atmosphere, right children. Pause a moment and reflect on what else needs air a/k/a oxygen to exist.

That's right! Fire.

So, T has the cigarette in his mouth, ready to light, lighter out.

Click. Nothing. Click. Nothing. Click, click, click, shake, click, click--

--BLAM!!!!

Fireball. All the gas had built up around the lighter, and when he finally got enough of a spark it all ignited in a fireball. After I checked that his eyebrows were still there, I gave into a fit of laughter. He was naturally not too happy about this, but it was damn funny.

Our next stop was the Sphinx platform. This is an indoor/outdoor observation platform that you have the option of visiting. We opted to visit. Now, in the picture above, you can see the Alps behind us, and it looks really cold and snowy right? And I've said, at least twice that the Alps just pop up as you're driving along. Here's your visual proof from 11,000+ feet--

picture is MIA, please enjoy this one instead:


Somewhere close by in that picture is Bern, the capital of Switzerland. But you can see there are only a few peaks to the west of the one were on.

And the cold and the snow? Yeah, that's about the only picture that I got from the top of the Sphinx platform. The wind was whipping up the side of the mountain and most of it was frozen with melted/refrozen snow. We walked around the Platform once and we were done. Back inside where the wind wasn't threatening to lift me off and toss me over the rail into the glacier. Again.

I mentioned the tourists when we debarked the train. But here's an odd thing. Like most of the other places we had been, the groups... disappeared. I swore that the mountain ate this time. But it was every place we went where there were tours going on. There were no tour groups. They disappeared into the realms of the attraction never to be seen again. At the Fortress, at the Hofberg, at the Kristallwelten, at Jungfrau. The only place that didn't eat it's visitors was the Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Go fig.

There are still things to see at the top of this mountain, if you can believe it. We next ventured into the Ice Caverns. These are man-made caves carved into the glacier about 10m down (about 30ft.)


Let's review briefly what a glacier is, shall we? It's snow. Ok, it's not quite as easy as that. What it is is thousand upon thousands of years of snow layered new on old. Now, you know from shoveling (and if you don't, shut up and be grateful) that snow is heavy. If you put more snow on top of it, the snow beneath gets compacted. Imagine this happening over and over and over and the snow never having a chance to melt. The old snow gets more and more compact until the individual ice crystals are pressed so hard that they melt briefly from the pressure and refreeze into ice. Now remember, it's still snowing on top of your compacted ice. The weight of the snow and ice above the old layers causes them to flow. Ice flows, and naturally out to sea or seeking the lowest level. (This is what's going on when you see those really cool pictures of Alaska... the glaciers are cleaving [breaking off] because they are flowing into the sea.)

Now, what someone did here on Jungfrau was dig down about 10 thousand years (30 feet) to find a nice clean area of snow-turned-ice, carve a cavern into it. The ice is pure and clear and blue. True ice is blue. They carved some ice statues into it, and you can run and slide along the floor. (This was fun until I hit the wall.) The cavern has to be maintained because it's always melting and flowing. And this ingeniousness leads to this:



The chance to humiliate my husband. Thank you, Mother Nature.

So, after getting this picture, which illicted at "Damn, he must really love you if he let you take that" from my brother-in-law, we moved on. There were two more stops we had to make. The next was called the plateau. It was near the Sphinx platform, but... you went out on the snow on the top of this mountain. Not the glacier but the snow.

I am wearing sneakers. NOT ideal for walking in snow, but still, they have some grip. T is wear a nice heavy pair of Sketchers, so he's good to go. But the idiot in front of us whom I think has never seen snow in his life, not so much. He's wearing dress shoes.

Dress.
Shoes.

A great part of the snow field was more like an ice field. There was a section over on the side that was snow that allowed you to get out the door and on to the plateau. I spotted this and immediately took that path out. Carefully, and T followed. Dimwit goes straight for the ice and down on his ass. He got up and tried about three more times before he realized there was no one else trying to walk where he was, and followed the rest of us. But even out beyond this icy area, he and his cohorts were sliding all over the place. Not a one of them had the common sense to wear something more sturdy on their feet, or even not go out on the ice. Tough one, that.

Anyway, it was beautiful, beautiful view, and not nearly as cold the platform earlier. The wind was much less strong.



By that picture, you would never guess that there were about 50 people out there with us, slipping and sliding and cursing in about 12 different languages. We carefully crawled back down another less icy portion of the plateau. And went to lunch.

There is indeed a restuarant at 11,000 ft. The food was not gourmet, but it was acceptable and filling, and it's the view down the glacial valley that really makes it worth it. There aren't many times in your life you have to eat lunch with your sunglasses on from the glare.

We wandered down to the train station after our late lunch so that we wouldn't be on the last train and everyone shoving to get on. We did get seats and we were on our way back down. After we changed trains at Mannlichen, I looked over to discover two dogs sitting on the floor. I don't know how the Europeans trains their animals, but Americans really need to do learn the tricks. I would never have seen the silly hunds there if I hadn't looked over. Because the animals are so calm and so well trained, there aren't many restrictions on bringing pets places.

It was about 5 or 6 when we got back to the station. Grindlewald isn't an exciting place in the offseason. The restaurants were closed, and the only thing that really had anything for us to munch was the ice cream parlor. It was good ice cream. We sat for a while, and then went back to the hotel for dinner again. we took our time with diner, and then went up to bed. We were heading back to Germany the next day.

The German Blogs: Um...Mt. Pilatus? --Ok, Zurich.

Waking up the morning, it was one of those instincts that just TOLD you your plans were not going to work out. I didn't even really have to open my eyes to know that the world outside was a sucky foggy day.

And it was. *sigh*

We went to breakfast in the restaurant, which again, didn't even come close to our expectations. I do believe that this was the first place I encountered the 5 minute egg. Now, I like a nice soft boiled egg here and again. Usually they are 7 or 9 minute eggs. But sometimes, they do not advertise how long said egg has been cooked, as here. So I cracked my egg open to enjoy my soft-boiled good new and almost puked on the table. It was the consistency of half cooled jell. I calmly put it to one side and ate my roll. T said that had I attempted to eat it, he would have had to leave the table.

We took our showers, loaded up the car again, and looked up to where Mt. Pilatus should have been.


Hmph. No mountain. For the heck of it, we drove to the cable car base again. And looked up. And saw nothing but clouds. It was raining quite badly, in fact. I was disappointed. My father has spoke so highly of the Mountain, and the information I had found on it had me interested. But it was E80 to go to the top, and that just wasn't going to happen if we couldn't see anything.

So, sadly, we piled back into the car, and headed for Zurich.

The ride to Zurich was uneventful. But again, with the clouds, I do believe that were gypped out of a beautiful, beautiful view. I would say, by comparison that this town was the least stressful of the towns because we quickly gave up and parked and walked into the hotel.

This was another positively WONDERFUL hotel, The Alder. It was an old hotel, and they were updating while we were there. I loved how clean and neat it was and we had a wonderful room on the top floor in the corner so we could see what was going on outside in the little platz we were on. They were helpful and nice.

The ONLY problem was the bathroom door. When you walk in, the bathroom is right there, and then you walk into the rest of the room, so you can't see the door from the rest of the room. However that does not change the fact that the door was glass.

Yes. Glass.

Did you think that I would not have photographic proof of that?

Anyway, the biggest problem was not so much that the toilet was RIGHT THERE, but that when frosted glass gets fogged, it becomes not frosted. IE, you could see right in to whomever was standing there in their naked glory.

Aside from this strange door situation, the room was very nice. There was mural on the one wall and 23" LCD tv in the corner which a certain someone couldn't stop pointing to and smiling. So, I used the free internet (heh) to email a teacher some homework and quick chat with a few people, while T looked at a few maps of the city and figured out where we were headed next.

The City of Zurich was a specific request from him. His favorite author, James Joyce, is buried there and he, much like me, seems to like to visit very famous people's graves. We got on the tram not all that far from our hotel, and headed up to the fluntern.

And walked right by it. We didn't even realize that it was a cemetary. It was so... entrance to a mansion-esque. We tried asking one woman at the zoo where James Joyce was buried, but got only a "who?" out of her. Her boss seemed to know who we were talking about and pointed us back the way we came. We realized then that we had walked right by it.

Into the cemetery we went. There was, for you perusing of the dead, a map on which to find the... um, residents. Mr. Joyce was buried in the back, and it was quite a nice little plot.

I have often wondered what other people think whilst standing and looking at the grave of someone who had such influence on them as I know Joyce had on T. I know that when I stood at Shakespeare's birthplace, I cursed him for creating the English language as we know it today, and for that leading to my great weakness in life-- writing. I'll never know though, because I believe that what you think at the grave of another is between you and them. And maybe God if s/he's interested.

So, since we found the zoo while trying to locate the Late Mr. Joyce, and having not much else to do, we went in.

I told you. We have an obsession with zoos.

I was delighted to find that this particular zoo had penguins. Oh, I've seen penguins before, don't get me wrong. But always the smaller ones that actually live on the coast of Chile and Argentina. Damned if I can remember what they are called.

These were the Emperor Penguins. I had, until that very day, never seen an Emperor penguin up close. They are tall suckers. About 3 feet tall, and just beautiful. I wanted to stay and watch them for a while, but T was all into everything else there. We walked up stairs to a hot room habitat that had frogs and lizards and snakes. Then into the bird habitat, and then to the primates.

I love the little monkeys. They are the best. The ultra tiny ones like the tamarins and such. They are so cool to watch, because they are just mini monkeys.

To add to my delight in this particular enclosure, not only was I treated to those penguins, but I was also treated to a silverback gorillas. HUGE was not the word for him. He just sat there peeling a stick, or something, not at all interested in all the activity by the other silverback around him. I loved it-- I could have there all day.

I have to say that the Zurich Zoo has one of the most natural habitats I have ever seen. Standing by the red pandas, I couldn't figure out how they kept them in their area. I mean, there must have been something, but I couldn't figure it out. I was pleased with that, because I had the feeling that the animals were happy about it too. The only thing we couldn’t find were the kangaroos. That was sad to me, but considering that I had my penguins and my silverback by then, I was otherwise pleased.

We go back on to the tram. And go on the wrong tram. And didn't get off in time. So we wound up by the Bahnhofstrasse. Um. Yeah.

The Bahnhofstrasse is one of the most expensive places in Europe to shop. Yes, just as hoity toity as Paris and Milan. But lower key, and certainly no concession to the people who just want to buy something there to say they bought something there. Prada, Louis Vuitton, names you couldn't even thing of buying from. As we walked down the street, I mumbled to T, "We can't even afforded to walk here, never mind shop here."

So we walked along for a little while, me knowing that the Bahnhofstrasse would lead to the Bahnhof, which would take us to the bridge back to our hotel. Apparently, T did not know this, and decided to take a right toward the river. And we were lost on the back streets of Zurich in moments.

We did encounter a wonderful black lab that decided to eat a florist's wares whilst her owner kept walking. All of sudden the owner realized what was going on, and yelled at her, "HELEN! Come! Wretched Hund!!!" At which T and I stifled the gales of laughter that threatened to boil up.

We reached the river bank, only to find that we were nearly 100 feet above the river in a park that I had no idea how we had gotten there. We did discover that there was a foot bridge not that far away over the river. We headed that way, and wandered along the other side of the river to the Bahnhof (which to say I was miffed about going there after getting lost was a touch of an understatement.)

We picked up a water bus that took us out to the Chinese Garden, which was closed for the day. And a pile of Junk. Or Art. Or whatever. It was awful and rusted. We were getting hungry by this time, it was starting to rain and my feet were still hurting. So we found the trams and took one of those back to our closest stop on the line and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner that night was what I had been looking forward to for a while. Swiss Fondue. With real Swiss Cheese. T opted for something called Rosti-- for which he was brought a little grill and toasted his meat on the top and melted the cheese underneath and ate everything together. I opted for the fondue itself, a bourguignon based boiling pot with meat and veggies. Heavenly! I love nothing so much as a good fondue, and this was really good fondue.

We walked around for a little while after the meal (because it was a MEAL) and found that we were in the bar district. Sadly all the bars were filled with University students and we're too old do be doing that stuff at this point or they were gay bars. So after paying an exorbitant price for a soda, we headed back to room, and hit the bed for the night.

The German Blogs: The Funkiest Thing in Feldkirche

Sadly, today, we had to leave Innsbruck (aww) and move on to other places in Europe.

However, before we got our autobahn on, we decided that it was worth it to stop at the Swarovski Kristallwelten. Hmm. Have you ever seen this on the discovery channel or the like? It's built in the ground and a museum.

Of sorts.

If I thought that I had previously experienced bizarre, that paled in comparison to this. Now, the entrance was fine. They were showing off with several reproductions of famous painting and original pieces reproduced in crystal, as well having both the largest crystal and the small crystal in the world in the room. And that was the last normal thing in there.

The next room was some sort of holographic bizarre display that you had to stand through and probably would have been more fascinating had I been dead stoned. (And I don't smoke.) Then we passed into the crystal dome which had perfect, and I mean PERFECT acoustics. It would make even Ashley Simpson sound like she could sing. It was actually the most interesting of the rooms. We left and passed a room that had an all crystal tree in an alcove and into some sort of floor projected kaleidoscope.

Next was the Theater of the Bizarre, I mean the Crystal Theater. In here, were supposedly reproduction of scenes from famous operas. Or that's the interpretation I took away from it. We ran out of this room because there was this weird mind control music playing. We were led into the ice passage which pales in comparison to being in a real ice cavern* and kept moving. About this time, we realized that this was getting more and more strange as we went along...

Then came the Eno Room. As in Brian Eno, founder of Roxy Music. Now this sounded like it might, might be interesting. Wrong. It was, following the theme, bizarre. It was a completely dark room with three shapes projected on a wall and provided you uncomfortable chairs in which to ponder these shapes. Eyeah. Moving on.

... to the strangest, to my way of thinking, room of all. The Giant's Belongings. Now, this would have been ok, if they had kept everything in scale. But the scale used for each piece was different and, AND, they chose to have a Very Large Accordion in the corner that was supposedly supply the music. Run. Just run.

The next room was cool. It was called The Floating Poem and it projected a poem in down each crystal of what looked like spiral chandelier. It was an awful poem, but I liked the idea of it. Next was the Crystal Forest. I didn't get it. At all. There were tubes hanging from the ceiling projecting squares of blue on the floor... I'm shaking my head remembering it. Then there was world networking was a really neat spinning globe that might have been quite profound if I had been able to understand German.

Somewhere a lot the way we passed a huge fiber optic octopus, too. Just kind of laying in the hallway.

You are, naturally, let out into one of their stores, and you can browse for all things Swarovski. And while I liked the crystal, it was time for us to move on. Though not before we went through one of the most disappointing mazes ever. Perhaps if there had been leaves on the bushes it would have been more of challenge, but we were in and out in less than five minutes.

And then-- ON TO LUZERN!

Ok, so we're supposed to drive from Innsbruck, Austria to Luzern Switzerland via Lichtenstein and stop for lunch in said country. Well, the best way to go is to take this tunnel. I like tunnels.

I didn't like this tunnel. It was 22 Km long and full of the worst diesel smoke ever. It cost us E20 to go through it too. I would rather have tried my hand at the pass to get over the mountains than this thing, though T swears that I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Like the tunnel was fun?

A word about the Swiss: they love tunnels, and in some places I can see the reason for them. People have been living on these mountains and plains for thousands of years so why displace them for a road. But in the middle of nowhere, tunnel after tunnel. To the point where tunnels now make me cringe.

Soon after the tunnel is the exit that we have to take to get to Lichtenstein. We get off and my darling my love my husband the weirdo decides that he's going to play the Funkiest thing that Feldkirche has ever heard on the iPod.

He puts on the Bertha Butt Boogie, quickly followed by The Troglodyte. Thereby planting the Bertha Butt Boogie firmly in our heads for the rest of this trip.

FanTASTic!

So, after torturing ourselves with pinnacle of horrible 70s funk, we are now approaching the Lichtenstein border, and T is hoping for a really cool check point into the country, as it's not part of the European Union.

"Guttentag."
"Good day."
"Englisch? Ja. Where are you headed?"
"Switzerland."
"Don't forget to buy your road tax sticker. Have a nice day."
A moment later, T: "That's it? That's the world most disappointing checkpoint!"

So we pull into this little store and buy a road tax sticker (which cost E40 and she wasn't very happy about selling it to us!) and we were off again, into quaint wonderful little Lichtenstein.

Here's another Swiss quirk. They LOVE the freakin' circles. LOVE them. Circles, roundabouts, rotaries, what you want to call them. And since the Lichtenstienians are a breed of Swiss, they too have them. Now, rotaries in the US are a free for all. In Europe, they are NOT. NOT. NOT. You yield to the left, and only go after that person has decided what they are doing.

I did not know this yet, as I had only encountered once circle and there was no one there to share it with. Well, I got the European equivalent of the Jersey (New Jersey) Salute by a Lichtensteinian who didn't appreciate my lack of knowledge on how to negotiate one of these things.

We decided to hightail it out of there. And anyway, there wasn't even a donner kebab place to be seen anywhere in Vaduz.

So, may I present:
The Only Picture You Will Ever Need to See of Lichtenstein:


You may now proceed to Switzerland. Thank you.

After leaving Lichtenstein, you immediately find yourself in the Appenzel region of Switzerland. And since we were deprived of food and rest in Lichtenstien, we had to pee, something bad. We find the first rest stop, about 30 minutes later and pull in. It's actually quite a beautiful view, with a huge mountain and glacial lake below.

This is where I learned that the French language really does include the word "Pissoir". There it was, emblazoned on the men's room of the rest stop. We use the bathrooms (quickly) and decide to check out the little shop there that was nothing but a greasy spoon and one or two cheesy souvenirs.

However, across the road from us was a palatial rest stop that looked ever so inviting and clean and filled with food. We saw no way across. After a moment of staring, we sighed, got back into the car, and drove off. Not that much later we did come across another rest stop and had one of the most disappointing meals of the trip. I think I had lettuce.

So, we're on to Luzern! We were planning to get there and find a little hotel to stay in. Perhaps in town? Perhaps out by the Famous Mt. Pilatus. A bit to eat is on the agenda as well.

Here's another free tip: never go into a town without a goddamned map and some kind of destination in mind. Driving aimlessly around a medieval town that became a famous resort in the 1800s will get you nothing.but.frustrated. And Lost. We mustn't forget lost.

Somehow, in the wandering through what I'm sure was a lovely town, really!, we managed to get all the way to the other side of the lake on about 1/4 tank of gas. I found out here that my French wasn't so hot anymore, but didn't reveal with to T, and that I still had no command of German. Thankfully, holding up three fingers to indicate 'pump 3' will still allow the clerks to know what pump you were at and how much you owe.

We turn around, and head right back into town. Now it's getting late, I'm getting really aggravated, tired and hungry, and we're about to snap each other's heads off. We drive straight through the center of what I'm sure was a really lovely town, and out the other side, hunting for the Famed Mt. Pilatus.

On the way, we pass a sign for an Ibis hotel. Another chain that we are aware of. We find the cable car departure for the mountain and nod. We're happy we've found it.

We head directly back to this Ibis in the middle of nowhere, with no one in the parking lot. We walk through what looks for all the world like a porn outlet into the lobby of this hotel, and up to the desk.
"Guttentag."
"Guttentag," I respond. "We'd like a room for the night."
"Ah, I am sorry, but we are booked."

T and I look at each other. There was no one around this hotel, there was no one in the parking lot, there was no one anywhere, and they were booked? Also, please realize-- it's just about 8 o'clock, and we're getting desperate for a place to sleep that night. I was ready to cry, and T started to walk away, but a desperate idea formed.

"Do you know of any other hotels that might have rooms available?"
"Ah, yes... Pilatusblick should have a few room still."
"Thank you."

Imagine. I actually thought to ask before we left if there was another hotel we could try.

Pilatusblick, down the road, through about 1000 more traffic circles, did indeed have room and also had a restaurant. We had a plain, clean room, and plain, filling dinner and hit the bed like there was nothing else to do. Which there wasn't.

---------------
*story to come in a few blogs.