Moving toward home
Upon leaving Dachau we went to the Munich Airport. The plan was to arrive at London's Stansted airport and then kill about 10 hours before checking in for our flight.
Our Europa: So ist das Leben Schön
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August 10, 2006
Dachau
A note: This is a rather serious post, we noticed upon reading it before posting it. I think it's necessarily so, noting the subject matter.
We had wanted to visit, or, felt the need to visit, a concentration camp at some point during our cumulative month in Germany. We had gone to Dachau, about 20 minutes by S-bahn train outside Munich during our time there in June, but it was closed since it was Monday. We decided to go back another time.
Munich again
After almost nine weeks our European adventure is coming to an end. We have spent the last couple of days here in Munich and really enjoyed our time in the city – there is certainly a different atmosphere here than during the world cup.
August 07, 2006
The Conference
Finally I’ve got the time to write an update. We’ve just spent the past six days in Baden-Baden, Germany working on the conference that has been in the works for the past two years. I’m really happy to report that the conference was a major success – at least that is what the attendees told us.
The Baden-Baden Kongresshaus
July 03, 2006
Things different
Our time in Austria has been a lot different from that in Germany.
Germany was really fast paced and a bit chaotic since it was World Cup feverish and since we had the car and wanted to see all of the German Hundertwasser sites.
July 02, 2006
German people roundup
We’ve found that the German people have been overall quite nice. Today we had a strange last situation here at the train station. While Troy was writing blogs I was just people watching in the food court of the main train station.
I noticed after a couple of hours that a piece of luggage was just sort of “there,” unattended in front of the Kebab place we were sitting next to. Knowing that Troy was always sensitive to unattended luggage from his awareness of IRA and bombings, etc. I said to him – should we tell someone about that bag. He looked and thought it belonged to the guy in line, but I said it wasn’t his. Afterwards, he asked and it wasn’t. Troy asked all of the people in the area and it wasn’t theirs either.
He asked the workers if they knew who it belonged to and they didn’t, so they moved it to the side. We were a bit, well, shocked. I thought that they would have notified the police or whatever to make sure it was safe. I thought they would have been trained since Frankfurt’s a big city, a financial capital and because a lot of World Cup games (some of the biggest – England’s) have been played here. But nope. They just put it up so if it was someone’s they’d see it.
Leaving Germany
We decided to drop the car off in Frankfurt. It was a bit traumatic dropping Greta off, even preparing to, since we’ve had a car for the past 3 weeks and we’ve had to deal with our little scratch. We decided that at the hotel we’d re-pack for mobile travel, rest, regroup and plan going to Austria.
Baden-Baden
I knew, by reputation that Baden-Baden was nice, but man, it was lovely.
Goodbye Greta
As you may know we have a GPS system in our rental car. Being in Germany we called her Greta and she has been a godsend, guiding us to places that we would have spent hours trying to find normally. That’s not to say that she’s perfect however. Here are two of her more outrageous gaffs.
Essen
Can you believe after three weeks of eating German food I managed to have a cheeseburger two meals in a row? As we were looking for parking near Gruga Park we drove past a place called the NYC bar. It was too good to pass up. E even got to have a bagel with lox…yummo
The Gruga Park was brilliant. It just had a magical feeling about it. We walked around for awhile and saw beautiful flowers, some lovely water pieces – one thing that has been common to the whole of Germany is the number and quality of the water pieces in each town – and some fantastic, large form, sculptures. We were even treated to a full-blown opera performance in the band shell.
June 29, 2006
Heading north for our art
One of the great things about renting the car for three weeks was having the ability to see much more of the country than most people. Some of our day trips were about 600 kms or more. The trip to the remaining Hundertwasser sites in the middle of country was an example of one of those.
We started just outside of Frankfurt and drove north to Hamm to visit the Maximillian Park. According to a book we had Hundertwasser had created a piece for the park but we had very little information besides that. We did know that the park was pretty famous for having a giant glass elephant. It was actually a building and the elephant was a façade – either way it was cool.
Blogging Malarkey
This blogging malarkey can be hard to keep up with. Erica and I have been sitting here for the past ten minutes trying to piece together the past few days. With the exception of the match with Italy the rest had been a bit of a blur…if some things are out of chronological order then I apologize in advance.
Still Gutted
Three days have now passed since the game in Kaiserslautern and I have to admit I don’t feel any better about it. I finally got to see some TV highlights yesterday and they did nothing to allay the feeling that Australia had been very hard done by. If the ‘penalty’ at the end was correct then surely the handball in the box by the Italians was a penalty too. Either way it’s sad to see the referee decide the game.
June 24, 2006
The City of Stuttgart
The city of Stuttgart is a strange one. We spent a couple of days there but couldn’t help feeling like we were missing out on something. To be honest the whole place is pretty non-descript. I’m sure that it’s just that we went to the wrong places but it just felt a little bland.
Fussball Fieber
So since we’re in ”fussball fieber,” as they call it over here, (football fever – it was obvious, right?) I thought it would only be appropriate that I write about the soccer too.
Arriving in Stuttgart 6/22/06
The day of the game we made our way to Stuttgart and to the campsite that Erica had booked a few months back. It was literally ten minutes walking distance from the stadium.
Ceramic Parade
I don’t know if it’s a fad thing, or if it’s a conscious German decision that each city have a type of ceramic creature painted by various local entities. If we get daily access one of these days, I’ll research this a bit.
I liken the statues to the Cow Parade. Remember it? It was in New York and Troy and I loved it. A few friends found it a bit kitchy.
If it hasn’t been to your city, essentially, there are ceramic cows which are painted by local artists, schools, etc. to a certain theme. So there’s the Taxi Cow, which looks like a taxi, for example. We saw one in a window here that was Café au Lait, playing on the milk theme.
So instead of cows, several of the cities we’ve been to have other creatures.
German Road Travel Tips
So as we come to our 3,100 kilometer travel marker, I thought I’d tell you a bit about the roads.
Perhaps not coincidentally, I’m typing this as Troy drives. We’re on the A7 from Schwanau to Stuttgart.
The autobahn’s interesting as Troy stated in an earlier blog.
I’ll write about the rest stops since we’ve been to a ton of them.
Hundertwasser Pilgrimage
One of the things we’ve set out to do on this trip is visit all of the architectural sites of artist/architect Hundertwasser in Europe. Not an easy feat since there are about 30 of them in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Thus far, however, we’re on track.
Cuisine ist gut
I must say that I was not thrilled that we were going to spend a month in Germany. To me it was all beer and wurst. Not all that appealing for more than one meal a week or month, really. I’ve been more than pleasantly surprised.
Toiletten
I wouldn’t be true to myself I didn’t do an entry about bathrooms.
As many of you know, I can map a city by which bathrooms I’ve been to. When I’m in New York and don’t feel that well I’m always really nervous since public bathrooms are scarse and Starbucks is often just so gross.
Hence, I was nervous about our overseas travels for the same reasons of access and general disgustingness.
June 21, 2006
Unexpected Weather
We had no idea it was going to be so hot here. It's around 100 F each day. Steamy really. And every night or evening there is a thunder, or thunder and lightning or rain or rain and hail storm. An Englishman said that he was told it's the Alpine air.
The other night there was thunder and lightening in Uelzen so bright and loud we could swear the lightning hit our building.
There have been rainstorms each night in Bavaria. Today, on our way back down the mountain (walking this time) it started to rain. Then it started to rain some more…then it started to hail a bit…then golf-ball sized chunks of ice were raining down. Luckily we had managed to find some shelter (although we still got drenched) to avoid the worst of it. When we got a break we made for the car. I got there just as the hail started again, leaving E under shelter up the road. As I got to her it was getting worse but she managed a quick sprint thorough the weather to the car.
We could barely see and eventually pulled over to wait it out…the hail was sooooo big that we were sure the windscreen would shatter at any moment. Luckily it didn’t.
We took some video. We'll try to pare it down a bit and post it.
The rain just stopped that's our cue it's almost time for bed.
Wacky King Ludwig II
This morning started out like the rest have in Germany – very nice weather with the expectation of the temperature getting into the 30s (mid 80s-90s). Today turned out to be a bit different…but more on that later.
We headed for the much fabled Neuschwanstein first thing this morning. This is the castle on which Walt Disney based his famous palace at Disneyland. On Sue’s recommendation we made sure that it was part of our itinerary. It was built by (or perhaps for is a better description) King Ludwig II of Bavaria who was quite the wacky fellow.
The trip from Munich took us along some very scenic routes, filled with pretty, small towns. This stretch of road goes by the name “the Romantic Road” and it certainly seemed fitting.
My bloody fear of heights
My bloody fear of heights gives me the shits sometimes. I think I miss out on doing loads of cool things because I don’t want to deal with the height factor. Actually, it’s not all about the heights, it more about the wind…then again the London Eye was inside and that was painful for me too. This is part of the problem for me. I never k now what activities are going to freak me out.
We rode a giant chairlift up a mountain and I was fine but I got pretty queasy stand atop the Arc d’Triomphe a few years back (and that’s only about 100 feet high). I love roller coasters even though they leave you very high and often without anything below you.
Drinkin' in Munchen
We spent yesterday in Munich walking around. It was really hot out but we still managed to see some sites while stopping often for various fluids. Troy’s got new favorite drinks – we’ll address those in another entry.
Munich is a nice city. It has water, but we weren’t really around that part of the city, so I’d still rank Hamburg higher in terms of favorite German cities thus far. But I think Munich comes in second. Dresden might have edged Munich out, but I don’t think we spent enough time there to decide that.
June 20, 2006
Meeting friends in a Beer Garden 6/20/06
Last night we finally managed to catch up with our friend Aaron – he has been following Team USA around the country.
This isn't Aaron's first blog mention. He earned a mentioned in the blog of Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl on June 12.
Continue reading "Meeting friends in a Beer Garden 6/20/06" »
June 19, 2006
Australia v Brazil – Munich…Gutted
Australia v Brazil – Munich…Gutted
The day began with such promise. On the way into town I heard my first words of English spoken by a German DJ, “Welcome Aussies to Bavaria”. Then a few minutes later they played Down Under (Men at Work has been heard, and sung, a lot this past couple of weeks) and I knew that this was a good omen.
The morning in Dresden
Dresden was one of the German cities I was interested in seeing, having learned about the War firebombings in such a vivid way in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5 which I read in high school. It did not disappoint.
Ich bin ein Berliner
It’s amazing just how much change a city can go through in eight years. That’s how long it had been since I was last in Berlin. When I was last there the city was going through a vast rebuilding process which seems, for the most part, to be complete. The new buildings certainly give the city a more modern look but in the process it seems to have lost some of the charm that made it the few cities I wished to return to on this trip.
Our car
We've mentioned our car a couple of times in our blogs thus far. We couldn't decide if we should get one.
Then when we saw how hard it was to get to campsites, we thought it was a good idea.
We got an automatic at a good rate. It has navigation included, air conditioning and a trunk area big enough to sleep in.
Hamburg in Photos
Here are some Hamburg highlights:
June 16, 2006
Games in Hamburg
There were a couple of fun water games in the Hamburg Botanic Garden area. Here's Troy's success. He's been drafted for the Olympics.
New York is a non-smoker's paradise
Apart from smog and cab exhaust I love the air in NYC. Putting the politics and economics of smoking totally to the side, smoking is really gross. I don't think Troy and I realized it much at home, apart from noticing that our clothes and hair don't stink when we go to bars or concerts anymore since the public place smoking ban came into existence. Here, everyone smokes.
A Day of Hundertwasser
This am we went to Uelzen to see the Hundertwasser train station. It was great and we got a nice souvenir bottle of wine. We got breakfast there and looked around a bit too. It was nice there.
After Uelzen, we then went to the city of Magdeburg to see another Hundertwasser site and to look around. This city has very interesting diverse architecture, even aside from Hundertwasser. They have really old traditional buildings next to glass and more modern structures. They also have the oldest Gothic cathedral in all of Germany.
We looked around the Hundertwasser complex and then caught a bit of the Netherland/Ivory Coast World Cup game with the locals on a big screen in a square next to the cathedral. It was pretty nice. We then left to find a rest area before Berlin to stop at for the evening and here we are. All up to date.
Is 11 pm really too late to get a hotel room?
We left Hamburg and went back to Buchholz to get the car. It was our intention to sleep in the car again at one of the huge, policed, autobahn rest-stops, but we soon realized that the path we charted was on a B-road, not an A-road so rest stops of the sort we would stay at didn't, well, exist.
Continue reading "Is 11 pm really too late to get a hotel room?" »
Rest Stop Catch-up
Troy says everyone's crying, "Let's hear from Erica" so I've grabbed the computer from him and find myself not knowing what I should write about. So many items I plan to ponder..let's see.. there is smoking, yummy pastries, Troy's swallowing an entire sore throat lozenge, visiting several sites (already) of my favorite artist/architect Hundertwasser, funny language stories, why coke is the most expensive item on menus, how people drink beer on the subways and trains and on the streets even early in the morning, and the little frustrations of traveling and getting a cold.
A day in Hamburg 6/15/06
The fact that the Beatles started their career in Hamburg meant that it was one of the places in Germany that I really wanted to see. I did not disappoint. Even though Erica and I were both pretty much under the weather we managed to see a good chunk of the city. The fantastic transit system certainly made it easier to get around town.
Regrouping in Buchholz 6/15/06
We spent Wednesday night in a hotel in Buchholz, just outside of Hamburg. After managing to scratch the crap out of the rental car – a station wagon and tiny, indoor parking garage is a recipe for disaster – we felt it would be best to get a hotel for the night so we could regroup.
After driving around the town of Bucholz for 20 minutes – even with the help of the navigation system – we found the place, checked in and then went to the local supermarket to buy dinner. In Spain we did the same thing; hoping to have sandwiches we purchased some rolls, cheese, mustard and yet managed to forget the meat. This time we managed to forget the bloody rolls! So we had some very nice roast beef, turkey and cheese roll-ups.
Unfortunately when we woke up we were both feeling sick. Sore throats and a runny nose couldn’t stop us from going for a swim in the pool however. We had a dip in the lovely swimming pool and then decided to leave the car in Buchholz for the day and take the train into Hamburg…
June 15, 2006
Australia v Japan - Kaiserslautern
Well, what can be said about that match? It’s hard to put into words the emotions that we (and yes I certainly include Erica in that) felt before, during and after the match. It was simply an amazing day.
The town of Kaiserslautern was very festive in the hours before the kickoff. The Aussie contingent was out in full force – the town really was Green and Gold for the day. In the middle of the festivities was a picnic/beer area that came with complete with a stereo blaring the classic Aussie rock songs. Someone here learned quickly that Men at Work was a good choice to play for the crowd – the locals looked on as hundreds of Aussies did their best Colin Hay impression. The Japanese fans were part of it all too and the whole city had a very good natured, festive feel.
June 14, 2006
Autobahn, Auto-crazy
If only I was more of a lead-foot. Everything you’ve heard about the Autobahn is true. There are no speed limits – you really can drive as fast as you want. The strange part is that it actually feels really safe, the drivers are fast but they are good drivers. This is the complete opposite of the NJ Turnpike which is filled with speeding, yet horrible, drivers.
The first night on the A-bahn was a bit of an adventure. To play it safe I tried to site behind trucks or buses so that the speeding traffic would not be a factor. That worked pretty well so by the next morning I felt a little more comfortable – cruising at around 130 kms and maybe nudging over that to overtake. By the afternoon I felt at ease going 150 – 160. It still comes as a shock though when you overtake someone at 160 kms and another car flies past you right away like you were doing 80 kms.
Another great thing about the German driving experience is that the cars are very fuel efficient. Our car is pretty big, with quite a bit of power, yet it looks like we will get very close to 1000kms on one tank of diesel – try doing that in a Hummer.
Autobahn, Auto-crazy
If only I was more of a lead-foot. Everything you’ve heard about the Autobahn is true. There are no speed limits – you really can drive as fast as you want. The strange part is that it actually feels really safe, the drivers are fast but they are good drivers. This is the complete opposite of the NJ Turnpike which is filled with speeding, yet horrible, drivers.
The first night on the A-bahn was a bit of an adventure. To play it safe I tried to site behind trucks or buses so that the speeding traffic would not be a factor. That worked pretty well so by the next morning I felt a little more comfortable – cruising at around 130 kms and maybe nudging over that to overtake. By the afternoon I felt at ease going 150 – 160. It still comes as a shock though when you overtake someone at 160 kms and another car flies past you right away like you were doing 80 kms.
Another great thing about the German driving experience is that the cars are very fuel efficient. Our car is pretty big, with quite a bit of power, yet it looks like we will get very close to 1000kms on one tank of diesel – try doing that in a Hummer.
Frankfurt
So, I’m beginning to think that Ryan air is more trouble than it’s worth. We booked a flight to Frankfurt, granted it said Frankfurt Hahn, so you would expect it to be a little farther out than the regular airport. However, one does not expect it to be 2 hours away, in another state altogether. It would be like booking a flight to New York and having them drop you off in Philly, or flying to Melbourne only to have the airport be in Ballarat.
Grr….since we were in the middle of nowhere we checked out the entire rental car places at the airport – automatics, which are rare in Europe anyways, were gone. Oh, we could have had a luxury Mercedes but I think that might have been just a touch outside our price range. There was no choice but to take the bus into town.
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All Rights Reserved
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