[1] I guess it should be called Super 8 squared now.
[2] Actually, you can say that they paid us $12 to eat it because I found a twenty dollar bill on the ground!!!
[3] Terrible exchange rate and, well, the Change Bureau wasn't open anyway.
[4] No, Jeff wasn't sitting next to him at the time.
[5] A phone card is like a "credit card" in the amount of ~$10 that you insert into the phone, and it deducts the same charges for your calls as cash--sehr toll! That means really cool to you and me.
[6] Direct quote from my little green notebook, which, in addition to short reminders of what we did and saw on this trip, also contains countless scribblings of addresses, rummy and dart scores, train times, a drawing of a soccer field and its positions, credit card charges, those little paper stubs reminiscent of pages that were torn out, and sketches of a language I think Doug was trying to invent.
[7] Tourist Information, TI from now on
[8] In the immortal words of Rick Steve's, "Great man, mediocre sight."
[9] No wonder, because that would be dinnertime at home.
[10] If only those who know us well could see us now!
[11] Finally got that sucker down...in time to leave!
[12] Much better than the typical $1.50 10 oz bottle of coke.
[13] Boy do I miss those already!
[14] Since Rick Steves' number was incorrect...RRRICK! (in the typical Ron voice)...we looked it up in the phone book--how resourceful of us!
[15] But man, were those backpack/rucksack/suitcase thingees the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially since there really is no sliced bread in Europe!
[16] We were finally getting the hang of this 24-hour clock stuff.
[17] Pronounced Sahnt Goo-ahr.
[18] Yet the warning of "We suggest you do not..." in the brouchure--which you had to ask (and pay) for--was the sole disclaimer for the castle owners...imagine in America, where people would sue even if they ignored glaring signs and broke down barracades to stupidly get lost!
[19] The guy reminded us of Journey's lead singer, and it became a personal joke. Sorry I mentioned it.
[20] ...and where we could actually walk through upright--many were less than three feet high and required crawling on all fours.
[21] From the Americans.
[22] We probably should have bought one, but they started at $100.
[23] One of the funniest things they said was a shocked, "You're taking the trains everywhere? You can dothat?"
[24] Completely fluent in three languages! How typical!
[25] (except for all the catacombs, as we said before)
[26] One named Delores gave Doug the name of her international company when he expressed interest in working in Europe. Leave it to Doug to find the one in the bunch.
[27] I even got to the point of writing Doug a note and started to get dressed.
[28] We haven't forgotten to tell you more about that story....we called once more when we finally found a card phone, but again, nobody was home.
[29] Dinnertime at home, remember?
[30] It blew out in about 3 seconds if you put it on setting 2, so you kept it on 1, which was slightly less than the typical exhale of a dog, but oh well.
[31] Which we stuffed in a ziplock baggie because we, naturally, were pretty stuffed ourselves.
[32] Lots of time to watch those trains zoom frighteningly close to the tracks (major phobic sweetie).
[33] The lateness part, not the potential prime sueing opportunity thing from falling in front of the trains. That was pretty typical.
[34] ...who only spoke German--anybody who says you don't need to speak German in Germany never took the trains!
[35] Both the windows and blinds could be manipulated from the inside without having to open the window!
[36] The "authentic" restaurant they originally wanted to take us to had no room to sit. Oh well.
[37] To model after the almighty United States, where we all know everybody is rich and healthy!
[38] A rumored beautiful resort town where all the locals like to vacation.
[39] Oops, we forgot this is Elke, who knows less about her country than we do!
[40] (it's full name, meaning Rothenburg Over the River)
[41] "I have no picture"
[42] Well, for $4 for a 8 oz. coke, they better!
[43] Which was very appropriately named, though Hansjörg kept teasing "What's so romantic about this?"
[44] Such as "100" with a grey "no" sign around it to mean "end speed limit".
[45] Which is why the telephone system charged us tons of money for a clueless operator!
[46] Our bags were already packed in anticipation of our early train.
[47] We had given Lissy a quick hug before we left--exclusively an American tradition, but we did it anyway.
[48] The second hand would stop at the 50 second mark while the minute hand clicked forward, and then shoot ahead 10 seconds before resuming its normal movement
[49] Even Doug was getting more used to it--it would be typical for him, after asking "Sprechen Sie bitte Englisch" the person would reply, in German, "Maybe we should just speak your good German."
[50] Which actually was a cute city, even though it blew apart my stereotype.
[51] We knew that buying a phone-card for one day would be ridiculous.
[52] Sounds like a bible passage, doesn't it?
[53] Between my German and Doug's French, you'd think we could have read the stupid directions!
[54] Uh-oh. Famous last words.
[55] There were little booths in the office where you could make a phone call.
[56] Doug's footnote: "Poor Sweetie !"
[57] Thank God it wasn't a Telelcom phone or they probably would have charged $10 for the call!
[58] It was so neat to change channels, and find each one in a totally different language.
[59] Yes, people take their dogs everywhere in Europe...even to bars.
[60] Maybe the recent arson attempt was just to get rid of those ugly buggers!
[61] Once again, the weather was very cold and rainy so we luckily didn't miss much anyway.
[62] Hey, I told you all day, didn't I?
[63] They also gave us horrifying stares if we ever walked between the train cars--I guess you aren't supposed to do that either.
[64] Okay, so maybe that wasn't the real selling point, but go without liquid soap for a week and see how you how much you appreciate it afterwards.
[65] Again via alarm clock, since we were definately used to European time by now.
[66] a.k.a. EuroDisney, Germany .
[67] Even the maid asked, in German, for our "Schlossel" to seat us for breakfast. Actually, demanded was more like it!
[68] ~$1.50 each/way--are you getting these conversions by yourself yet?
[69] We still don't know why we had to wait so long to collect 35 English-speakers--Stefan said that usually ALL the lines are completely packed by then
[70] ...which never had a throne in it because he mysteriously died before it was built.
[71] (which is actually pretty late for a castle).
[72] The sheets have not been washed since just after he died. Yuk!
[73] This is where Ludwig grew up, just on the other hill.
[74] "Beautiful view, but too many people!"
[75] There are little or no English language tours given because the owners don't care much for American tourists. I don't really blame them.
[76] Again, we were surprised that there were no guardrails or warning signs for stupid Americans not to fall off the edge of the mountain and try to sue.
[77] I ended up with Hagar der Schreckliche (Hagar the Horrible), which I enjoy more in the original German.
[78] Or as we would have luck, which was more often than not the case on this trip!
[79] Having a private shower in the room is very rare, especially in Munich during Oktoberfest! This particular one looked like a phone booth in the corner of the room, sans toilet (also very typical). It is also European practice to charge extra money for showers, even when you pay extra to have one in the room. Ours was to be 5 DM each ($3.75), although she actually never charged us.
[80] Full, no vacancy
[81] This is the commuters subway, which was included on the Europass.
[82] Typically washed once a month, and that was if they were lucky.
[83] 35,000 at Dachau alone.
[84] The originals were torn down because of the stench.
[85] ...after dodging many stumbling, green drunks who looked like they were going to blow chunks any second...
[86] Sorry. Lame attempt at a Return of the Jedi quote.
[87] Which, we discerned, would be far less crowded and perhaps would embody more of the drinking charm we longed for.
[88] He was actually Hungarian.
[89] The guy in the audience kept signalling "longer" until it ended up being at least two feet long. Yeah, right.
[90] And it was a little, since we were running out of marks and it was our last night in Germany.
[91] "Until next time, Germany. We will soon see you again!"