When I woke at what I thought was 11pm, I debated about what to do. I could walk around outside by myself[27], but thought better of it when I realized that nothing would be open in this small town. So I sat up reading the Far Side book we had brought for Elke[28]. After all, we said, if we don't get in touch with Elke soon, we'd just mail her the books we brought from the US because they were too heavy to cart around anymore. So I thought I'd take advantage of it while I had it.

Doug woke not long after I did, and we both talked a great deal about the dilemma we were in. What do you do if you can't sleep anymore just as most people are going to bed? We talked for at least an hour or two when we finally decided to walk around the town anyway. I wanted to check my watch again to see how much time we had to waste.

11pm?

The same time that I awoke? My watch had stopped. Battery dead? Maybe I DID get some sleep last night. We took out Doug's "watch", which was the watch face minus the band, which we ironically brought on accident because it stowed-away in his backpack pocket.

5am.

We couldn't have talked for 6 hours. I must have woken up at about 4, giving us 7 hours of sleep instead of 2. Much better! Irony number two.

But we still had a lot of time to kill, and of course, we were starving again[29] so we did the shower thing, taking advantage of the blow drier[30], and ventured into the streets, which were totally dark. It was beautiful and so peaceful, looking a little bit like I imagine Disneyland to look after closing time. Under strands of colored lights draped lazily over the cobbled streets, the only stirring was a man leisurely unloading his store's groceries from a truck. We stopped the only other person we could find, an old woman patiently strolling past the shops windows, to verify the time. It certainly didn't look like any city in America at 6:00, which would have had hustling and bustling from people getting an early start to work. This was definitely Europe.

We stumbled across a sign that said "Frisch Brot, 6:30" and wandered down an alley to a small bakery. I spotted one man kneading dough in a back room, and a woman who was apparently on her way out when she saw us. "Möchten Sie Brötchen?" and we got four, hot, fresh rolls that melted in our mouths for about 40 cents. If only there was some butter. Our favorite cafe opened up not long after and we had two hot chocolates...for $7?!? Kind of backwards, isn't it?

I think we took a short nap back at our room (big mistake!) before breakfast[31], then took off for the train station. I remember a woman coming up to me there, rattling off all kinds of things in German about which train she should take to get to someplace. I replied in German that I was not from here, but if she spoke a little slower I might be able to help her. She apologized for mistaking me for a local and looked elsewhere. I thought to myself, "No need to apologize! Actually, I'm flattered!" What is this, irony number four now?

Irony number five is that, for some reason, our train to Mainz took twice as long as scheduled[32]. This is VERY unusual for Germany[33]. See, we had decided that, since we STILL couldn't reach Elke, we better just go on to Rothenburg, and Mainz was the nearest big station able to get us there. The train conductor[34] told us we should take the train to Nuremberg, which seemed very far out of the way to me to get to Rothenburg. Irony number six is that, when we got to Mainz, the train to Nuremberg was also late--by 45 minutes! We decided to roam around the station while we waited.

When we did, I saw a bookstore and said to Doug, "Hey, want to look at the books?" But just as we walked in to the store, I saw a newspaper article that had the word "post" in it. The combination of books and post reminded me that we were going to mail our books to Elke's if we didn't reach her today, so we should try to call her one last time. We called and...someone answered!?! "Hello! Is Elke there, this is Doug."...(confused look on Doug's face)..."What is my business? I'm her friend!!"...(waiting while the person transfers Doug to somebody who speaks better English)..."Hi, I was trying to reach...." (blah blah blah)...Anyway, after a few minutes of relaying numbers and cities and explanations of what we had done, this helpful gentleman realized that, if you wanted to reach a city outside the one you were in, you had to dial a "0" first. All those calls, and all it took was a "0"!! Why didn't the operator tell us that? Irony numbers 6-10000! What are the chances that we chose the right city where 7251-17310 is valid, and has a person who speaks English, and who was helpful enough to try to figure out the problem instead of just saying "Sorry, wrong number", and knows the phone system better than the average operator?!?

So, amazingly enough, we finally reached Elke, who told us that they were so worried about us that they even checked the news for plane crashes! Not only had they been home, but they were all waiting by the phone, afraid to go out and miss our call. So we told her where we were, thought it would be great to see her that day, and took the train out to Bruchsal where she lived. Perfectly planned--all before our "late" train would have arrived. If we had known about the "0" on Thursday, we would have missed the Rhein and Bacharach, which would have been a real shame. And Rothenburg wouldn't have worked out very well that day anyway, because it had been raining cats and dogs--better to spend that rainy day on the train and in the protection of a car and private home! Boy are we powerful.

At the Graf Renault Dealer are Gunther, Tracia, Elke, and Klaus with his girlfriend

After we met Elke at the station, she took us to her father's car dealership to see her father Gunther and her brother Klaus. We then went to her house to meet her mom...and be blown away! What a gorgeous, sophisticated, technologically advanced house. I felt like we were stepping into the 21st century, out of the dark-ages that is America: windows that open both vertically and horizontally[35], wooden blinds on the outside that you can manipulate any way you want, showers with temperature controls ("I want my water to be 38^o C!"), urinals and heaters IN the bathroom, and baths with those great shower nozzle thingees. And don't get me started about the kitchen! When do we move in?

From the top of the Heidelberg castle

We then ended up in a restaurant called Palmbräu Gasse[36], where Doug ordered the "beef rolls" against everybody's advice. And you know what (irony number x), it was the best entree of everybody's. In fact, it was probably the best single entree of the whole trip. YUM! The dinner cost $100+ for the four of us, and again Elke insisted on footing the bill. Bless you, Elke!

We took advantage of this meal to learn a great deal more about German culture. Hansjörg told me of the housing problem in Germany. Germans typically pay 600 DM/m²--$45/ft^.2, which would make a typical plot $225,000--for the LAND ONLY! The typical house on top of that would be a million Deutche marks (~$650,000), making the AVERAGE, middle-class house cost nearly $1,000,000! He says that he makes a "pretty good" salary of 5600 DM/month (<$2000), but only sees 3200 (>$1000), plus there is a 15% sales tax on everything. For some people, welfare might pay more than working, but very few people just mooch off the system. He was surprised to hear how "cheap" everything is in the US in comparison, but also to find that Doug is at about the same "tax bracket", but doesn't get the free college or medical benefits. Not to worry, though, because it looks like the social benefits might be disappearing in Germany soon[37].

We then came back to Elke's house, where Lissy and Gunther were dying to hear all our stories about anything...or they were just being polite. Poor Doug had drunk two beers with dinner (German brew, you know), and couldn't keep his eyes open. So I was left by myself and my poor grasp of the German language to talk about problems in the US, our vacation plans... and I think we finally got to the meaning of life question, but the answer probably got lost in translation. They were so cute, though--when I mentioned that we were planning to go to Hallstatt[38], Gunther was on a quest. He dug up all kinds of maps and books to find out about Hallstatt, as Lissy tried to read up on Heidelberg and tell me about it, since Elke didn't know anything. I think they really liked having somebody there interested in their art, architecture, and history, but it seems somehow that I knew more about it than they did. Irony number...