Our latest trip...

Let's say... you book a flight from New York to Los Angeles and instead they decide to land in Kansas City for some unknown reason. You'd assume the airline would help you schedule the remainder of your flight, right?

Well, that's not how the trains over here work, evidently.

The wife had a trip to The Hague (there's that pesky capital T again), so I tagged along, as usual. Our train tickets were direct from Frankfurt to Utrecht (in The Netherlands), then switching trains to The Hague. 

When we got to the station for our trip, I opened the app to see what track our train would be on, and there was a big red notice that the train wouldn't be going past Cologne, but everything else in the app looked correct, if that makes sense. When the time came to board, I asked (in pidgin German) the conductor-guy at the door about our route. He just sighed and told me to go ahead and get on. So we went ahead and boarded, and figured we'd handle it as it came.

When the conductor (attendant?) came through to check tickets, we spoke (?) about how we could get to The Hague. She looked at her scheduling app and found a connection in Cologne, where we'd swap to another train going to Utrecht, then onto a different train than our original one to The Hague.

When you're on a train, you take your seats, and an attendant comes by and checks your ticket, to make sure that you've actually got a ticket to be on the train... so what's going to happen when they come by to check our tickets and we don't have tickets for that train - and I can't exactly explain what happened, in my pidgin German?

Turns out, it's not a big deal. They don't seem to care. Evidently (at least on that route), there's enough of a problem that they just assume that if you've got a ticket for any train on that route, that's good enough for them.

Who'd've thunk that German "efficiency" would lead to this sort of confusion?

So, we hopped onto trains which happened to be going to the right places, and used my pidgin German to get across what had happened... which was met with a shrug and a look of "Eh, what can you do?"

Met by utter amazement, on my part.

So, we rolled into The Hague only a little later than intended.

On our previous trips to The Hague, we've stayed close to (or in the middle of) the more "touristy" area, and that's the area I'm most familiar with. Now that it's come up naturally in conversation, let's talk about my "familiarity" for a paragraph or two.

I have a bit of a "gift." We jokingly refer to it as my "spidey sense" in our family. I have an extraordinary sense of direction. I spend a little bit of time studying a map ahead of time, and my sense of direction points me in whichever direction I need to go. If I have a certain store I'd like to go to, I can glance at a map to see where it's at, and (generally) point myself in the right direction pretty quickly. Not necessarily turn by turn directions, more of a "three blocks in this direction, and about a block toward the right" feel. 

Having quickly covered that, our hotel this time was in a completely different section of town.  Rebecca's "spidey sense" was a bit off from mine - I was orienting more toward "This is the direction we need to go," whereas hers was more "I'm more familiar with this direction, and we can navigate from area to area to get to the new area." We disagreed, I gave in (knowing that I could eventually get us there when she started listening to me), only for her to immediately give in and go in the direction I'd wanted to go originally. We headed in the right direction, and off we wandered, looking forward to a refreshing walk after being cooped up in multiple trains for hours.

We had about a 45 minute walk to get to our hotel, not too bad, and it wasn't raining (yet), just a little chilly. Turns out, the hotel was just past a little "Embassy Row," so we got to play a game of "identify the flag" for the last few blocks of our walk.

We asked at check-in for a restaurant recommendation - this is a new thing the boss has started doing on our trips. We've gotten some pretty good recommendations - that night, we walked over and had Italian food at a local place.

Next day, the wife was off to work, and I was off to explore. Well, not really. I had an assignment this time (in addition to a visit to my Hat Lady). Last trip, when I almost "van Gogh'd" myself, I had to go to the emergency room to get stitched up. We got a bill in the mail, which we paid, then submitted for reimbursement from our insurance company. 

Well, the bill didn't have an itemized list of charges. When we originally got the bill, I contacted the billing office of the company, and due to privacy laws in the EU, they couldn't mail me an itemized list of charges, and also couldn't email it to me. The only way I could get an itemized list of charges was to go there in person... OR, the insurance company could request it. Well before our trip, I had contacted our insurance company and given them contact information for the billing service, and was assured that they'd put a note in my file, so that the people looking at the claim would see it.

SPOILER ALERT: They didn't. What they "didn't" (make a note, read the note, actually do anything about the note) isn't really clear, but prior to our trip, I got an "Explanation of Benefits" from the insurance company explaining that they wouldn't be paying that reimbursement, as there wasn't enough documentation. 

Flash back forward to our trip... the first day, I walked from the hotel down to the hospital, and eventually got a single sheet with a summary of charges on it. In Dutch. Just a single paragraph. Alrighty then.

From there, I walked over to see my Hat Lady, and found that she's closed on Mondays. <cue sad trombone sound>

So, I wandered back up to the hotel. That night, we had snacks at the hotel lounge, then walked through the neighborhood next to the hotel to find real food. Ended up at a local restaurant, had their version of "Bang Bang Shrimp," no sauce to be found, just a little bit of spice in the batter. Meh. Also got something called "corn ribs." Intriguing concept. Think half length ears of corn on the cob, with the cob cut into 6 pie shaped wedges. Basically, 3 or 4 rows of kernels. Buttered, rolled in some sort of barbecue seasoning. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. (Blogging about it, though.... fair games)

Back at the hotel, I was looking at the paper that I'd gotten from the emergency room, and on the letterhead, I saw a street name that I thought I remembered. A quick glance at Google Maps, and... turns out, the hotel was actually on that street. I looked up the address, and it was two blocks away from the hotel. I referred back to my emails with the lady in the billing office, and she specifically said that to get an itemized list, I'd have to come by with my passport. Looks like I've got a plan for tomorrow!

Next day, I headed out and went down to the billing office. I found my way into the reception area, and happened across two people who were quite eager to help. I explained my story, and one of the people told me that she'd go get someone to help me out. The lady came out and listened to my tale of woe, and told me that she would be happy to help me, but that she needed to return to the office and finish up with a meeting, and asked if I would mind waiting for a few minutes. I assured her that it wouldn't be a problem at all. 

I played on my phone for a half hour, when she came out, overly apologetic, and told me that the meeting was almost over. I assured her that it was no trouble at all, and that I was in no rush. She came out about 20 minutes later, apologizing profusely, and gave me a translated version of the paragraph that the folks at the emergency room had given me, but in a more traditional format. We traded pleasantries, and I hit the road again.

Turns out, there's a tram stop right around the corner from the hotel that goes right by the hospital and dropped me off around 2 blocks from my Hat Lady.

I had walked 5 miles the day before, and a 15 minute tram ride would have circumvented all of it. D'oh!

I rode the tram to visit my Hat Lady, and.... she wasn't there. Both previous times I'd been there, it had been the same lady. This time, it was another lady. I still bought a hat - don't get me wrong - but I was looking forward to seeing her again. I have hopes that once I've seen her a few times, she'll give me a discount. 

I putzed around the tourist area for a little while, then went down to catch the tram back up to the hotel. That night, we stuck around the hotel, eating in the lounge. 

Next day, we arranged for a late checkout, and headed next door to the art museum first thing. The wife is continuing her fascination with van Gogh, and there were a couple of his works on display there. We went back and checked out of the hotel, then got on the tram to get back over toward the train station. 

On the way through town, the wife saw a familiar location, so we got off the tram to visit the cheese shop that we've made a habit of stopping at. We've gotten cheese from this shop each time we've gone to The Hague, so I guess it's another regional haunt like my hat store.

We just walked back to the train station, stopping for a quick bite to eat on the way.

For the train ride back, we essentially reversed our original (planned) train ride. Interesting little story attached to that, though...

For some reason, we were ticketed to get off of a train that would continue on to Frankfurt, and wait for another train to come by. So, we got off the train, and dutifully waited - even though the train we were on would have gotten us there about a half hour earlier.

So we're standing on the platform, watching the train that we'd just deboarded from disappear into the distance, at which point, my darling wife decides to check for her cell phone. 

At this point, I must digress for a moment, and tell you about her cell phone collection. When we moved over here, we ported our US numbers over to Google Voice. She kept her US phone, but didn't get a SIM card for it, so it only works when she's attached to wi-fi. She uses that one for her mobile games and Google Voice. She's got 2 additional cell phones for work, one with a US number, and one with a German number.

Luckily, it was her wi-fi cell phone that she left on the train. Luckily, because if it was a work cell phone, there would have been a lot of paperwork and a LOT more panic to go through.

I wandered around the station for a while, looking for someone to talk to, but wasn't able to find anyone. We got onto our final train, and I took off looking for someone to talk to on board the train. Finally found someone, and explained the whole thing to her, with the car number and seat number where the phone would be, and told her where we were sitting in the current train. She said that she'd call the other train, and would come let me know what happened.

She came back about a half hour later, and told me that they'd found the phone, and would leave it at the service desk in Frankfurt; we thanked her effusively. 

We arrived at the station and went to the service desk. The gentleman at the service desk looked around half-heartedly, and told us that he didn't see it, and that we'd need to go to the Lost and Found area the next day. At that point, I started planning the easiest way to get down there... and then my wife walked around the booth, looking at the other stations, and saw her cell phone sitting on a ledge with a post-it on it. She got his attention, and demonstrated that the cell phone was hers, so she was immediately able to reclaim it.

Rather than sitting on a bus for 45 minutes to get home, we just caught a cab home - it was already late, and we just wanted to be home at that point.

Lessons from this trip:

1. Train cancelled? Eh, we'll figure it out.
2. I will check for public transit before I blindly start walking.
3. I cheated on my Hat Lady. I'll probably confess next time. Probably.
4. If a train's going where we want to go, we're just gonna stay on it, whether our tickets are for that particular train or not. If it works for them when they want it to, it'll work for us when we want it to.

A couple of Christmas markets, and a last minute trip...

Last weekend, one of the guys in the office had an Open House, so we loaded up the family truckster  with a couple from the office who live in our town and headed over there. We spent a couple of hours at their place and then went to one of the Christmas markets in their town, a few towns over from us (but still in the Frankfurt area).

Parking at the Christmas market was horrible, so we parked on the street leading up to the little castle. Halfway up the hill, we encountered a few cops, blocking off traffic so that tow trucks could come in and use cranes to lift parked cars onto flatbeds. This concerned us a little bit, since we were parked on the same street, about 6 cars down the hill. 

We sent the ladies inside, with the plan to move the car to a (more) legal spot... but before moving it, we confirmed with one of the cops what was going on. Evidently, you're not allowed to park with your wheels on the curb on that specific street. If all four wheels are on the street, your car is fine. Well, I moved the car, and made sure that all four wheels were on the street. After the Christmas market, our car was in the same place we'd left it. There were quite a few Germans who weren't able to say that. 

Tuesday, we decided to head downtown and hit the Frankfurt Christmas markets. I drove down to the wife's office, and met her there after work. She put on some warm clothes, and we caught the bus downtown. 

We walked through the main part of the Christmas market, then made our way down to Romer (the tourist area). We had some decent glühwein (isn't all gluhwein decent, by its very definition?!?!?), then caught the bus back up to the car, then drove home.

Because of my wife's tenure with her employer, she gets a bunch of leave each year - more than she's able to use, sometimes. Toward the end of the year, she has to get rid of her excess leave somehow, or she loses it - this is referred to (oddly enough) as "use or lose." She put in for every Thursday and Friday through the end of the year, to try and get rid of it.

On Tuesday evening, we were talking, trying to come up with places we could go over the weekend, and came up with a handful of towns in our area to do day trips to. I'm not sure what her thought process was, but after checking hotel prices she threw out the idea of taking a trip to a place we'd never been before.

We decided to take a long weekend in Prague. We looked at train tickets, and it'd be a bit more expensive than we were hoping, plus, it would take close to 8 hours to get there. Driving would take a little more than 6 hours.

Thursday morning, we left the house in route to Prague. We made a quick detour through Nürnberg for lunch - remember that barbecue restaurant? Had that for lunch, then got back on the road.

We eventually ended up in Prague, and checked into our hotel. We were a ways out of the middle of the city, but less than a 5 minute walk to the nearest subway station. The wife asked the receptionist about an authentic Czech restaurant, and she recommended one a few minutes away, right on the other side of the metro station. 

We got all settled in and walked over. The food was pretty good. I just had some sides; the wife had garlic soup. Looked a little like French onion soup, but the cheese was inside the bowl instead of on top. The wife had a half liter of beer (a little more than 16 ounces) for $2.06. Cheapest thing on the menu, I think. 

Friday morning, we metro'd and walked to Prague Castle. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it's the largest ancient castle in the world. I'm not certain what its competitors are from the "ancient" standpoint, but the complex dates back to 870, and clocks in at around 70,000 square meters (750,000 square freedom units). The complex contains multiple palaces, cathedrals, and meeting halls of all types and sizes. There's also a little shopping street called "Golden Lane," where gold merchants worked and hawked their wares in the old days. In one of the shops on Golden Lane, Franz Kafka wrote one of his stories, "The Castle" while he lived there.

Interestingly enough, this tour gave us a bit of the opposite perspective of the story of the Habsburgs of Vienna; it's always said that "History is written by the victors," and the Habsburgs were winners by just about any definition - what with being monarchs in the Holy Roman Empire, and all. You know who wasn't really happy about the Habsburgs being rulers? The Czechs. While in Vienna, we got the story of the Habsburg reign as a picture of roses and sunshine, in Prague they were interlopers and outsiders. 

My readers who are history buffs (Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Just as I thought! Nobody.) might remember something about the Thirty Years War. I remembered something about it... the name. That's all I remembered about it. Turns out, it was a big deal over here, when the Bohemians (Czechs) revolted against the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburgs). One of the major events in the revolt was something called The Defenestration of Prague, where the protestant Bohemians threw three Catholic regents (two regents and one of their secretaries) out a seventh story window.

I misspoke a bit ago. It wasn't called "The Defenestration of Prague." It was actually called "The Third Defenestration of Prague." You'd think, after it happening twice before, people would start to notice a pattern when negotiating with the Bohemians, and stay away from the windows.

The weather was crappy all day long - mid twenties with snow flurries. The castle was situated on top of a hill, as many good castles are. On the way out of the castle, we had to walk down a long set of stairs... and despite holding onto the handrail on my way down, I ended up falling on my butt. Not fun. Didn't bruise anything, but I ached all day from my spill, and walked pretty slowly for the rest of our time in Prague.

We followed the stairs down and caught a tram towards the Old Town area, where our dinner tour would be taking place later. We went out onto Charles Bridge, the main connection between the palace and the main town of Prague back in the old days. Until 1841, this was the only means of crossing the river between east and west Europe, which made Prague quite important in medieval times.

We took a handful of pics, then kept wandering.

We'd signed up for a food tour for that night, meeting at the entrance to the Natural History Museum. We got there a bit early, so the wife walked over to explore Wenceslas Square, named after King Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech Republic and the subject of the Christmas song. He ruled Bohemia (the Czech Republic) from 921 until his death in 935, or maybe his reign ended in 929. History is a bit murky on that - but we all know I'm not a historian, so... we'll just say his reign ended sometime around 1100 years ago. There was a little Christmas market there - the wife walked through it while I waited in an abandoned doorway, staying out of the flurries and momentarily resting my sore bones. For some reason, the Czech markets we went to didn't have porcelain cups for their wine. All of their hot drinks were sold in paper cups - where's the holiday spirit in that?!?!? We collected a paper cup from one of the markets anyway - just to make sure our collection was truly representative of our experiences here.

Our food tour group met on time, and we were introduced to our tour guide, Martin, and the rest of our group. It was Martin, the wife and me, a group of four (a couple celebrating their engagement, and each of their mothers), and a single lady traveling home from working in Poland.

We touched briefly on the history of Prague while we stood in front of the museum, then walked over to our first stop. Our guide was a very well traveled gentleman his late 40's, and during the day, he was a butcher. One of his friends had opened the first restaurant we visited, and this was my favorite stop on the tour, a place that specialized in meat. There, we encountered a horseradish cream sauce that I'm going to figure out how to make.

I won't belabor to individually describe all of the places we went... I'll just tell you that we made 4 stops: the meat place, a pub (with local pub dishes), a wine bar, and a dessert place and bakery. I will relate one story that Martin told us.

One of the Czech Christmas traditions is to have carp on Christmas. There are tanks all over the city where they sell live carp on street corners. Families purchase the live fish, and transport them home in the days leading up to Christmas. They bring them home and keep them in a their bathtubs, so they can swim freely until Christmas. Carp are bottom feeders, feeding on whatever they can find as they grow. Keeping them alive in fresh water in the tub is supposed to help clean them out before they make their way to the holiday table. Opinions vary on whether a few short days in a tub with (chlorinated) bathtub water is enough to clean out the fish's system. Evidently, activists have gotten involved too, and protest the tradition from both a cruelty perspective, and from an environmental perspective. 

Me? I don't currently have a carp in the bathtub, nor do I have any plans to put one there in the foreseeable future. I'm not getting involved in any of this 'bathtub carp' business any more than that. Your may, of course, run your own house however you wish though.

After a long day on Friday, we took our time getting moving on Saturday. We walked over to the shopping mall (because we seem to always stay next door to shopping malls, right?).

We metro'd over to Old Town, and hit a little Christmas market on the way. Still no porcelain cups. Walking over to Old Town, we walked through a little antique store where the wife found two steins (maybe closer to little jugs) of the same style as the ringkrug from the Garmisch-Partenkirchen entry. She took pics of them, and I predicted in my head that we'd soon be the "proud" owners of another piece of salt glazed pottery.

I should have taken the over. We ended up with both of them, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

So... we made our way to the Old Town, and I managed to keep my wife from visiting any more antique stores on the way. We missed the hourly chiming of the clock, so when we got to the old town, we looked around for some way to spend some time inside, and found an art museum, displaying the works of Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, and Alfonse Mucha. I've only heard of two of these guys, but evidently Mucha was a famous illustrator and graphic artist. I might or might not have seen some of his stuff before, but I did recognize at least the style of some of his work. Warhol's work was (of course) quite recognizable, and Dali was just an odd fellow. 

We went back out afterward and wandered around the town square for a while, taking in the biggest Christmas market (that we saw, at least) in Prague. Same general goods that are usually on sale in Christmas markets. Still no porcelain cups though.

We walked over to the end of the square with the astronomical clock in it. I had seen pictures and videos of it, but I personally found it a bit underwhelming. Other attractions such as this are huge, and seem larger than life, dominating the area where they're installed. This was just a couple of dials mounted on the side of a building. For as large as the dials were, I would expect that they would be mounted quite a bit higher. 

The Glockenspiel in Munich is massive, and high up on the building. When it chimes, the entire square fills with people to watch the story that it shows. 

The astronomical clock in Prague isn't much smaller (dimension-wise) than the Glockenspiel, but there's no real performance or show that goes along with it (that we saw, at least). Two windows open above it, a few bells ring, and some figurines pass in front of the windows. Then, the windows close. Disappointed? Don't be. I just gave you the full experience, and you didn't have to stand in the cold.

We got something to eat at a local restaurant, and while we were eating, the wife was researching the mugs, because of course she was. We left the restaurant and headed back over to the metro station, stopping (of course) to buy those two damned mug things. Should have taken the over. We hit the little Christmas market again before taking the metro back to the hotel. 

Sunday morning, we took our time getting all packed up and hit the road. We stopped in Nürnberg to check out the Christmas markets. There were a couple of markets there, we walked through most of the old town, sampling glühwein at a few booths, and buying a couple of Christmassy things we couldn't possibly do without.

We drove back home afterwards, ending our most recent trip.

Here is the latest pic of the Christmas mug collection (including the paper Czech cup):

In retrospect, it's quite interesting to find ourselves in the position where we could talk on Tuesday about our weekend plans, and find ourselves in Prague for four days, out of nowhere. We'll remember this trip, as well as keeping in mind the flexibility that we're enjoying now. Just so all of you know... there's nothing that we did this weekend where we couldn't have added a couple more people to our trip - if you come visit us, we very well could find ourselves taking a trip like this, so make your plans now!

Pictures!!!

Due to an increasingly vocal minority of my readers (y'all know who you are!), I have selected a random assortment of pictures to share. I'll make sure that our designated photographer (my darling wife) adds to this collection occasionally... by taking her phone and choosing some more photos.

Without any further ado, please look immediately under the "Blog Archive" on the right side of your screen, for the link titled "Random Germany Pics." Yes, I (of all people) am aware that some of these pics were taken in France, The Netherlands, or Austria... if that bugs you, start your own blog!

I was not around for some of these pics (notably the ones related to The Sound of Music), so I won't have any additional information on them, but I'm working on going through and commenting on the ones I'm certain about.

As always, if you've got any questions, please let one of us know!

Big trip.... WARNING - long post ahead

Boy, oh boy, do I have a treat for y'all! Grab a drink, and venture onward for a novella of an entry.

I figured out a new way to keep track of what we do on our trips... I bought a little notebook, and update it each night with all the things we did. That way, the fun stuff won't fall through the cracks any more.

Anyway, once my wife had gotten the job here in Frankfurt, she saw an ad online for a 5 night deal at one of the resorts we visited during our last tour, so she booked it for my birthday before we even moved over here. Additionally, she had some vacation saved up, so she took a few days before and after our reservation, and we decided to make a real vacation out of it.

We left on Friday, the 11th, and drove to Nuremburg. I had seen an ad for a barbecue restaurant there (Boogie's BBQ), and we drove straight there. The barbecue wasn't bad... the best brisket I've had while in Europe, but honestly, there aren't many places over here that serve brisket. I guess being from BBQ country, I'm spoiled. We went and checked into the hotel, then wandered around the tourist areas of Nuremburg. It's a pretty cute town, one we'll go back to visit again. The Christmas markets weren't set up yet - I expect that we'll take a long weekend trip there to visit the Christmas markets once they open up, as it's supposed to be one of the best cities for those.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and hit the road, making one last stop before we left town: the Nazi Party Rally Grounds Museum and zeppelin field. The entire facility is pretty large (although unfinished). The museum is in the main building, not very large, but pretty informative, with the majority of the displays having English translations posted as well. After walking through the museum, we went into the rally grounds themselves... this was a massive horseshoe shaped building, designed to hold more than 50,000 people, with a roof 230 feet above. The facility wasn't finished, but it was still possible to see how massive it was planned to be, as the foundation and most of the surrounding building was partially remaining.

We wandered around the grounds a bit, then jumped in the car and drove around a small lake to the zeppelin field... that's what it was referred to as (because a couple of zeppelins landed there), but it really was the parade grounds. The grandstands are still standing, as well as most of the earthen surroundings (that the seats were to be built on). The field itself fit more than 200,000 people on it - it's just impossible for me to describe the scale of it. The grandstands are almost a quarter mile long (across one side of the field). During special occasions, 150 spotlights ringing the field would be lit, pointing straight up, creating what they called a "cathedral of light." When you see photos of Nazi leadership looking down on tens of thousands of soldiers in a parade formation, there's a good chance that picture was taken there. Quite sobering to be able to climb the grandstands and stand on the same platform as one of the most evil men to walk the face of the earth - I couldn't bring myself to step out onto the platform itself, but it was definitely a time for reflection.

We stopped at the last Esso station in Germany, which was around 40 miles from Austria. We decided to get a bite to eat at a restaurant in that town... and it wasn't a tourist area at all. We very well might have been the only Americans to have stopped in the town itself in the last month. It was a bit of a challenge for my German language ability (or lack thereof), but we managed to get our food and pay for it without making complete asses of ourselves.

To drive on the autobahn in Austria, you have to have a special sticker called a "vignette." You buy the vignette from a gas station for around $10 for 10 days (which would be enough for our trip). The Esso station wasn't close enough to Austria that they sold vignettes, so after eating, we drove to the next rest area gas station to get one. I put it on the car, and as we were leaving the rest area, we got flagged down by a cop.

In all of Europe, cars have license plates on the front and back of the car, and all the license plates are the same general format, with a (usually) blue stripe on the left side with letters indicating what country the car is from. At that point, we were still waiting for our German registration for the car to come through. Tennessee only requires the rear license plate, and I have a Packer plate on the front... which looks NOTHING like a European license plate. We're used to getting looks wherever we drive, but this was the first time we've had to have a conversation with the police about our car registration. Luckily, the cops spoke at least a bit of English, so after explaining that we were waiting for our German registration to come through... and handing over both of our passports, my German driver's license and the US registration for the car, they sent us on our way after only about a 10 minute delay. Next stop, Vienna!

We pulled into the hotel in Vienna and parked the car in the underground garage. We checked into the hotel and grabbed dinner from the kebab place across the street, and tried to decide what we wanted to do the next day.

The wife had been exploring online, and found that there's something guides are doing now... giving free walking tours, where you pay what you want after the tour is over. She signed us up for one of those, and we metro'd over the next morning, and walked to the square where we met up with the group. We learned about the history of Vienna, and the monarchs who ruled for a few hundred years (the Habsburgs, if you're interested). I've tried to dig into the history, specifically to give y'all fine folks a little hard info with your entertainment, but I'm incredibly confused about the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy. Somehow, some (or most) of the people who lived in the fancy castles in Vienna were some sort of rulers of part of the Holy Roman Empire... whatever that really was. If you look at a list of Holy Roman Emperors, there are folks from France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Bavaria, Prussia, Luxembourg, and all the countries and duchies between. I'm certain it makes sense to someone, but you'll have to find another blog to read if you're really wanting that kind of information.

After the tour, we went to the Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library. The wife's always had an appreciation for globes, so I thought that'd be a good stop. Lots of globes, both terrestrial and celestial globes. Attached to the globe museum was the Esperanto Museum of the Austrian National Library... Esperanto is a language created in the late 1800's, intended to become a universal second language for international communication. After a hundred and fifty years, there are around 200,000 people who speak it... doesn't sound very "universal" to me, but I had a teacher who was fluent, so I at least knew what it was, and since the museum was in the same building, and included with our ticket to the globe museum... now, we can say we did it.

Dinner was at the kebab place again. My pidgin German seemed to do the trick there - it was close, and we could make ourselves understood there. The Austrian guys who ran the place seemed to be kinda "over" us though.

The next morning, we took the metro up one stop to the Schönbrunn Palace. This was the palace where all the aforementioned Habsburg family lived in the summers. Quite decadent, and the buildings and grounds were much larger than we (mostly I) expected. The grounds encompass around 400 acres, with the main palace having around 1,440 rooms.

Did you know that snow globes were invented by an Austrian? Neither did I, but one of the little kitschy touristy things I found for the afternoon was a snowglobe museum. Turns out, that was the original snowglobe company. Down in the museum area, they had samples of all of the kinds of globes that they'd done before, and some "famous" ones... they had some that included the confetti from President Clinton's inauguration, and one that they'd created as an official invitation for one of President Obama's daughters to visit Vienna. I'll let you decide for yourselves if the word "famous" needs to be in quotations... I thought it was pretty cool though.

Afterwards, we ate a late lunch at a place recommended by one of the ladies at the snowglobe factory (a stroke of genius for the wife to ask her for a recommendation, I thought!), and then took the metro back into the tourist area to find a Christmas market we'd skipped through on our walking tour. We walked around the main shopping area downtown and encountered a store for the Manner company. They make the little wafer cookies that have a sort of icing in between wafer layers... I know I'm not describing them very well - I know that you'd know what I'm talking about, if I was a better writer.  We've loved the cookies for years, and we discovered that the Manner company is based in Vienna. Looks like we've got another factory tour to fit in! 

The next day, we packed up our stuff and metro'd (and walked) to the Heindl chocolate museum (and factory), where we compared their version of the history of chocolate with what we'd learned at previous chocolate museums... pretty much the same. Then, we bought a bunch of chocolate at their factory store. 

We metro'd back to the hotel and checked out, and retrieved our car. Next stop... the Manner factory! We stopped by there, and bought a bunch of the wafer cookies, in all sorts of different flavors that we hadn't seen before.

One of the things that I'd added to my list of interesting sights was a kangaroo refuge a little south of town. Turns out, for all of my lackadaisical "planning," I hadn't taken into account that they'd be closed on the day we were planning on driving by... I still got a t-shirt that says "There are no kangaroos in Austria" though.

We skipped the kangaroo refuge on our way out of town and drove to our next stop... Salzburg.

First things first. We're working on keeping the wife's status at a couple of hotel chains, so all of the hotels we stayed at (with the exception of the resort we originally booked) are all part of the same chain. Due to her status at that specific chain, we got an upgrade at the hotel in Salzburg. A significant upgrade. A mama-hootchie upgrade. They put us on the top floor, in a King Suite with our own terrace. In the afternoons, a maid would knock on the door and ask if we'd like a turndown service. I might just be spoiled now, as far as hotel rooms go.

From here on out, I'll always be bringing up the shower at the hotel in The Hague, and the King Suite in Salzburg. I'll find a way to work both of those into just about every conversation.

For dinner that night, we took a pedestrian bridge across the river and walked up the hill to the Augustiner Brewery & Kloster. 

The Augustine hermits got permission to open the brewery in 1621, which was then bought out by Benedictine monks in 1835. Over the next 50 years or so, they expanded into more of a biergarten type business, and that's the way it's been ever since. We really enjoyed our visit to this place, and we'll be going back. 

When you go in, you get a mug off the shelf and rinse it out yourself, then pay for whatever kind of beer you want. You take that receipt over to a guy at an old fashioned wooden keg, and he fills your mug up. You buy whatever kind of food you want (pretty much anything you'd find at a regular beer market) and go find a table to sit at in the seating area - think traditional biergarten type long tables and benches. Just a really cool environment, good food, good beer... we'll go back.

Next morning, the wife did some sort of "Sound of Music" singalong tour. You'll have to ask her how it was. She tried to tell me, but I lost interest when she kept breaking into song.

That afternoon, we went to the Stiegl brewery for dinner. Seemed a bit more of a commercialized experience, rather than an authentic biergarten, but that was fine. They produce one of my favorite radlers (a mix of beer and fruit juice), so it was on my list. Afterwards, we parked and walked through the old town area; there were a few stores open, but it was mostly just about the atmosphere of the place, and all the neat little alleyways. We'll explore more next time we're there (and more is open).

Next morning, we packed up and drove back into Germany. We had nothing planned for this day (except travel), so we were looking for stuff to do along the way. We stopped at a little town called Chiemsee. Turns out, there's a lake there, where there used to be a recreation area for the US military... but now. it's just a pretty lake with a little town next to it... and an island in the middle with one of Ludwig II's castles on it. This is the same Ludwig II who built Neuschwanstein castle (that Cinderella's castle is based on).

The castle at Chiemsee (Schloss Herrenchiemsee) was based on the castle at Versailles, but some of the proportions are a little off... some of the arches are a little wider, so the Hall of Mirrors is evidently a little longer in this version than in the original, those kinds of differences. The castle was never completed, and Ludwig only was able to stay there for a few days in September 1885. After his death the next year, the building was almost immediately opened up to the public as a tourist attraction. 

Ludwig is often referred to as "mad" or "crazy," but from a historical perspective, the question of his sanity hasn't been settled. From the little research I've stumbled across, he comes across as more of a dreamer, unprepared for the responsibilities of the monarchy, but quite willing to expend his considerable personal wealth on what seemed to be foolish projects at the time.

I'll close this little section with one of his most famous quotes: "I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others."

We had a quick bite to eat after the tour, then caught the ferry back to our car. Next stop... Edelweiss!

Our last tour over here (in Rome, for my newer readers), we were authorized to use military facilities during our tour, the shops and hotels on the US military bases... we stayed at the hotel in Naples many times (since it was convenient to a lot of the touristy stuff down there), Sicily, Livorno (the next town down from Pisa), Aviano (up by Venice)... our trips to the American facilities gave us places that felt more like home, and played an important part in keeping us all comfortable in a chaotic foreign country where we all felt a little out of place in every situation. One of the facilities we were authorized to use was in the Bavarian Alps, a designated R & R facility for military members worldwide - Edelweiss. If you ask our kids, our three vacations at Edelweiss would probably be some of the best memories they have from overseas. You can understand our exhilaration to have this stay booked before we even got in country.

We got all checked in, and it was all the same... but we're not the same family unit we were. We're in a different place in our lives, and it was just the two of us... so while Edelweiss remains one of my/our favorite places, it didn't quite have the magic that we felt previously.

There was a laundry room onsite - and we knew about it when we were planning this trip, so we only packed enough clothes for half the trip - so we did laundry the first night, and ate in the restaurant on the lower floor.

The next morning, we headed into Munich, about an hour or so away, in time for another free walking tour that the wife signed us up for. We met the guide and the rest of the group at the Marienplatz, in the center of downtown. Throughout the tour, we learned a lot about the history of Munich, and our guide was quite entertaining. We've decided that the "free" tours are the way to go in the future... we paid between €20 and €25 each for the tours, and they've been quite informative and entertaining.

After the tour, we had lunch at the Ratskeller under the town hall, then navigated our way back out to the Christmas market our guide had showed us. 

Thus begins our glühwein adventure.

Glühwein is a hot mulled wine, usually found at Christmas markets. Typically, you pay a €2 or €3 deposit for the mug, and around €4 or €5 for the wine itself. The cups are small, about 6 ½ ounces, with each Christmas market having their own colors and designs for the cups. We had glühwein 5 days in a row, but if we want to break that record, we'll have to start over, since we didn't have any today.

Some cities have multiple Christmas markets, and the market that we went to in Munich wasn't the main market for the city; this one was just a smaller one that happened to open a few days earlier than the others. This one had a couple of weird things of note; specifically, two booths with animatronic figures. One had a singing moose (that I took a video of - I'll try to figure out how and where to post it), and the other had a threadbare rat/mouse thing, telling a story to his/her/its kid.... think "low budget Chuck E Cheese Christmas Crack-head," and you wouldn't be far off. The market was pretty cool though, and we kept the two glühwein mugs.

We had dinner back at the resort at the American buffet restaurant. Eh.

The next day, we started out with coffee and muffins from the (third) restaurant at the resort, then hit the road for Mittenwald. Mittenwald is about a half hour from Edelweiss, historically known for their talented woodworkers who create violins, violas, and cellos there. We wandered around town for about a half hour, but couldn't find the museum. We finally stumbled across a giant carved violin sculpture - probably 15 feet tall. Looking for more things to do around town, my wife somehow talked me into going to the Leutasch Gorge, right outside of town, and a few feet over the Austrian border.

From the parking area, it's a gentle quarter mile (or so) climb up an access road, then down some metal stairs to the side of the gorge itself. The gorge isn't more than 30 or 40 feet apart at its widest, with a walkway suspended along one side of the gorge, about 50 feet above the crystal clear river winding its way through the rocks at the bottom. Incredibly beautiful walk, up to a suspended bridge over the river - the wife took lots of pics, you'll have to harass her into sharing them.

We drove back to Garmisch (the city where Edelweiss is) for lunch, then wandered around the tourist area for a while. One of the stores we encountered was an antique store, and my wife fell in love with a pitcher that she found. She's collected a specific type of pottery for a while (google Salmon Falls Pottery to see the general style), and she found a pitcher that's the same general type of pottery, salt glazed, but it's weird looking. Picture a ring, standing on its edge. Put a little base under the bottom, and a little can shaped thing on top, with a handle from the edge of the can connected part way down the outside of the ring... do me a favor, and google "ringkrug" (no quotes, all one word). The images that pop up... yeah, that's it. Before she got too attached to it, she wanted to do a bit of research first. We verified that he'd be open on Monday, and wandered on. We had some glühwein at the little Christmas market (day 2 in our record setting stretch), and kept both of those mugs as well (our mug count is now at 4, for those of you keeping track at home). After glühwein, we went back to Edelweiss.

Next morning, we had breakfast at the buffet, then did absolutely nothing all day long. Glorious nothing. Sat around the room all day. Took a bit of time out of our busy schedule to go down to the outdoor hot tub. We soaked for about a half hour, then got out... at which point, we saw a sign on our way back in telling us that beer was available, so the wife had the idea that we hadn't "hot tubbed" correctly, so we got a couple of radlers and got back in for a while.

Dinner... I feel silly typing this, but I'm not gonna lie. We went to Pizza Hut in town for some good old fashioned American pizza. So sue me.

Afterwards, we went over for more glühwein (that's day number 3, but we gave the cups back to get our €5 deposit back - still just 4 cups).

The next day, we headed into town for coffee and croissants while we waited for the antique dealer to open at 11. By the time noon rolled around, he still hadn't showed, so we went on with our day. We left town and headed up to a neighboring town called Ettal, where we'd found a cool woodcarver back in 2010. The store was in the same spot, and was exactly as we remembered, great prices, great selection, and as near as we can tell, all hand carved. So... we spent way too much money there, and kept wandering.

We drove up to the town of Oberammergau, host to a famous Passion play. According to legend... in 1633, the villagers of Oberammergau vowed that if their village was spared from the plague, they would perform this play every ten years. After they made that vow, there were no further deaths from the plague, so they started performing the play in 1634. Now, they perform the play every year that ends in the number zero, but the 2020 play was postponed for 2 years (thanks, COVID). So, the 2020 play closed just last month, and the town was in a bit of a lull after hosting all of the tourists there for the summer and to see the (delayed) play, and it's not quite Christmas season yet there. Evidently, the play is a pretty big deal. The town has around 5500 inhabitants, and close to 2000 of them perform in the play. We didn't see the play though - we just had coffee & croissants at a café, then wandered through all of the touristy areas.

We made it back to Garmisch late afternoon and wandered back over to the antique store. He still wasn't open. We consoled ourselves with more glühwein (that's 4 days straight, still kept just 4 cups). 

The last morning at Edelweiss, we woke up and took our time getting ready for checkout. We checked out and left a little before 11:00, and went into downtown Garmisch. We got coffee & croissants at a café (again), then went over to the antique dealer - he was actually open this time! 

So my wife had done some research on this thing, and looked for the specific things that she read about and saw online, and found them on the jug, so she ended up getting it.

Then, we hit the road, and drove the 5(ish hours)back home. Sorry for the end of this novella to be so sudden, but I'm tired of writing, you're tired of reading, and that's kinda the end of it, unless you want to hear about catching up with laundry and filling the fridge and pantry back up!

As always, if you've got any questions, let one of us know!

Back to the old stomping grounds...

I'm going to try something different for this post. I'm going to write it day by day, to try to put together a better narrative of our trip - we'll see how it works out.

This morning, we woke up a little early and walked down to the bus stop, and caught a bus to the metro station, then took the metro to the airport... the first time we've done that, and it worked out pretty well.

We eventually boarded a flight to Rome, as the wife took a one week temp assignment to help out in her old office. We were met at the airport by a driver who the local office uses, and he brought us to a hotel near the Rome office. We checked in, and planned our evening. 

We left the hotel and wandered around the area looking for a place to eat, and ended up choosing a streetside osteria. We ordered a couple of glasses of wine and some appetizers. We took our time eating, then headed toward a bar about a 20 minute walk away; it was the closest place we could go to watch the Packers game.

Turned out to be a little Scottish pub with 4 tv's in different areas; we'd reserved seats at a table near the TV that would be showing our game. We shared our table with a couple from Canada who were Packers fans, some Washington fans were at the next table over. Fun atmosphere, even though the Packers stunk up the place.

Walked back to the hotel after the game, getting ready for bed. More tomorrow.

So... It turns out I'm not that good at updating this daily, as I missed a day. Sorry about that... Here's what you missed:

Woke up way too early and had breakfast with the wife before she went to work. Decided that I wasn't quite done sleeping, so I went back to bed for an hour or so.

Got up and walked down to the metro station, and took the metro to a stop down south, to visit one of my favorite stores: Eataly. We first discovered them when we lived here in Rome, and have since visited other stores when we've been near. The chain was originally started by a group affiliated with Mario Batali, but he got kicked out when he was accused of being a slimeball. Anyway, it's a cool chain with all kinds of authentic Italian foodie stuff. They're all over the world - check them out if you're near one. Thus ends the commercial.

Rode the metro back, and inadvertently found a way to avoid climbing the Spanish Steps... For those of you who aren't familiar, they're a famous, picturesque set of stairs - but they're not fun to walk up. Turns out, there's a metro stop within a block of the bottom (Spagna), and a series of underground passageways and escalators that lead up to the top of Via Veneto. Who knew?!?!

Got back to the hotel and waited for the wife to get off of work, then went out to dinner; she finally got to have cacio è pepe - she's been jonesing for some for a while, and that's one of the dishes that I don't make. It's more her thing, and I haven't seen any pecorino cheese around Frankfurt. At dinner, we sat next to an older couple who travels quite a lot... they had all kinds of stories of places they'd been, we shared a few tips with them as well.

Walked down and had gelato at one of our favorite places... oh, story time again! 

When we moved here back in 2010, we lived in a hotel in the tourist area for a few weeks before we could move into our apartment. One of the things we did to keep the kids engaged was to test all of the local gelato places to find the best, and we ended up with 4 favorite ones in Italy, with one of them being in the tourist area near the hotel. That's the one that we went to last night, and it was just as good as I remembered. Walked back up the hill to our hotel. 

This morning, the wife headed off to work without having breakfast, so I ate without her, then took off exploring. I intended to find a local wine store, or a grocery that had wine, as I've been looking for a wine she really enjoyed when we lived here. Couldn't find it, so just kept walking. 

Rome was built on 7 hills, and our hotel is on top of one of them. Just about any direction you go, it's an easy walk downhill, with just enough of an incline that coming back just saps your energy. So I decided not to walk back, at least not straight back. I wandered through the 2 main tourist areas (Trevi Fountain & the Pantheon), and then remembered why I hate wandering through the tourist areas... too many clueless tourists! I took a turn in a direction I've not been in before, and found myself in a section of town I haven't been in before, toward the Tiber River and away from all the tourists. I had the idea to take the metro back to the station next to the Spanish Steps (so I didn't have to walk back up the hill), but discovered that I was nowhere near a metro station... the nearest station was Spagna, the station that I wanted to end up at, but around a mile away from it.

Now, it's time for a confession: I finally broke down and did a millennial thing that I haven't done before...

I rented a scooter. One of those Lime scooters that you get on at a street corner and drop off wherever you end up. It cost me around $5 for a 10 minute ride that would have taken me 45 minutes to walk. I'll probably do it again, too.

I rode it to Spagna and took the passageway/escalator to the top of the hill next to the hotel. 

So, now I'm back at the hotel, just hanging out, waiting for the wife to get off work and staying cool in the air conditioning. We'll probably go out to dinner later. If she wants to walk around, I'll probably try to talk her into taking some scooters back up instead of walking up that damn hill. Ciao for now! 

So... my master plan of writing an update every day didn't work very well. Now we're back at home, and I'm writing about the rest of the last week. Oh well, won't bother trying that again.

We ended up going out to dinner that night as well, then walked over to a gelato place that one of her coworkers suggested (Come il late, if you're interested) - and that one rocketed up to the top of our list. We ended up going back there a couple of times, even though it was a little out of the way.

Next day, I just hung around the tourist area, explored around a bit. Once the wife got off of work, we got together with her coworker for dinner. She picked a place on the north side of town, close to our old stomping grounds. We caught a cab up there... well, after our cab driver got lost, we finally got up there. We told him the area we wanted to go to (Ponte Milvio, for those of you keeping track at home), but for some reason, he heard "Ponte Sistino" (or something similar). We went a few blocks in the wrong direction before we called his attention to it, so it took a few extra minutes (and Euros) to get there.

The food was great - it was a little similar to a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse), in that they brought the meats out on skewers, but you had to order the skewers individually, three different flavors of steak skewers. Bottle of wine too. We had hopes of visiting another of our favorite gelato places (in the same shopping area), but they were already closed. The wife's coworker gave us a ride back to the hotel that night.

More hanging around the tourist areas... got dinner at one of the local restaurants - I think the wife had cacio è pepe again (I was picking up on a pattern at this point). Then we walked back up to the gelato shop that the wife's coworker introduced us to.

Wife went to work, I hung out in the tourist areas. After she got off of work, we walked across town a little ways, as the wife wanted to go through the Van Gogh exhibit - she'd had me buy tickets for it for Friday night. We walked to that area, and had a quick bite to eat beforehand... then were turned away at the door, as evidently there was a private event that night. Not sure why I was able to buy tickets for that night if the museum was closed, but... they told us that the tickets would be good the next morning as well, so we planned on coming back Saturday morning. We had planned on getting together with that coworker again afterwards, so we called her, and she said that she'd meet us back at Ponte Milvio. We hopped into a cab, and the wife told the cab driver where we were going, repeating it multiple times like she was working out the pronunciation - solely to insure that he'd heard it correctly. So we made it there in one piece, and met up with her. Turns out she'd made reservations at another one of the local restaurants.

We got to the restaurant, and all of the patrons were gathered out on the sidewalk out front; looking in, there was some sort of medical emergency going on inside. We all stepped out of the way - she had brought her dog along, and we wanted to just make sure that we were out of the way... after a few minutes, we all drifted in different directions, and shortly, we couldn't find the coworker anymore. I looked around, and she'd stepped inside, and was assisting with the first aid efforts going on, with her dog pacing on his leash behind her. I snuck inside and had her give me his leash, to get him out of the way, I took him back outside with me. The wife and I hung out with him for a few minutes, then I took him down the sidewalk a ways to get away from some of the people. He & I chilled out at the end of the block for about 15-20 minutes, then went back to the restaurant after getting a text from the wife that the ambulance was leaving. 

The four of us were sat at a table toward the back of the restaurant, and we ate more great food, drank more great wine. While eating, I checked to see what time the gelato place in that same shopping center (that we missed on Wednesday night) closed, Google said 11:00. Around 10:30, I left the ladies at the restaurant and walked around the block to the gelato place.

Google lied.

Got over there, and it was closed. Ended up meeting back up with the ladies, then walking to another place, where the wife got a tiramisu, then we cabbed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning, we walked over to where the museum was, in hopes of using our tickets from the previous night. We got some coffee and pastries for breakfast, then headed toward the museum, getting in line a few minutes before 9 (when the museum opened). Our tickets were accepted without a second look, so we wandered around for a while, checking out all the Van Gogh paintings on display. Not sure why the wife has taken a liking to Van Gogh in particular, but she's seen his work in (I believe) 5 different places: Rome, MOMA in NYC, The Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the Musée d'Orsay and The Louvre in Paris. More power to her - at some point, we'll make it to Amsterdam, and I'm sure we'll see more Van Gogh there as well.

Afterward, we walked back to the hotel and finished packing everything up, in time to get picked up by our driver for our ride back to the airport. An hour and a half flight later, we landed back in Frankfurt, where we attempted to take the metro back to our town... but after waiting for half an hour or so, we gave up on waiting, and just caught a cab back to the apartment (20 minute drive, versus over an hour on metro and bus - no brainer!!).

So that's it for last week - another trip coming up shortly, watch this space.

Another week, another trip!

So... when last we spoke, I had landed in Frankfurt on Saturday morning. First thing Monday morning, we walked down to our local metro station and caught a metro to the main station downtown, then boarded a train bound for The Hague. We arrived a few short hours later and navigated to our hotel... sadly, a different hotel than our last visit. The shower in this one wasn't nearly as impressive as the one from last time. The location was quite a bit closer to the train station though - I guess you win some and lose some. We checked in, then started poking around, looking for a place to eat - that turned into a much bigger ordeal than it really needed to be. Turns out our hotel was right on the edge of the main shopping district, with restaurants lining most of the surrounding streets. We didn't know that at the time though, and somehow managed to stay away from most of the populated areas that first night. Anyway, found an Italian place - the wife had lasagna, and I had pizza.

The next morning, the wife went to work, and I decided I was going to shower and shave my head. There are only a couple of readers of this blog who remember me with more than stubble on my head - I've been shaving it for eighteen years now. Not a single time in that eighteen years have I needed to go to the emergency room for an injury sustained while shaving... until last Tuesday morning in The Hague. I nicked the top of my ear while shaving my head in the shower, and bled like a stuck pig for two and a half hours, direct pressure be damned. I walked to the local pharmacy twice for different supplies, and finally gave up and went to the emergency room, just simply for some help getting it to stop bleeding. 

The doctor tried direct pressure. Didn't work. She tried superglue. Didn't work. She tried something else - I can't remember what it was, but it didn't work. After over an hour of trying to get it to stop, she ended up putting a single stitch in, then a strip of some sort of clotting material, then 2 or 3 of those steri-strip things. Then, she covered my whole ear with a bandage and tape - I joked to my wife that I was working on my Halloween costume, dressing up as Van Gogh.

All for nicking myself while shaving.

Let's see.... oh, I got to visit my Hat Lady again. Last time we were there, I found a hat store, and the lady who owns it took some time with me and helped me pick out a hat. I'd been wanting to be a "hat guy," but hadn't been able to find one that looked good. She spent a lot of time with me, helping me choose the right style and color, and now whenever we go back to The Hague, I'll try to go back and see her again. 

Lots of exploring... to be perfectly honest, The Hague has turned into one of my favorite cities. It's just a comfortable place to explore. The demographics of the city seem to skew pretty young, but in both of our visits we've stayed mostly around the tourist areas, and there's a major college in that area of town as well, so that might be coloring my viewpoint.

This morning, before we hopped on a train headed back to Germany, we walked through the Mauritshuis museum, and saw some of the work of the "Old Masters," including Rembrandt and Vermeer. There were quite a few other artists exhibited there as well, but I'd only heard of those two and Rubens (also saw some of his stuff). If you wanna read the work of a real art critic, you're on the wrong blog. Saw lots of pretty pictures.

I think that was about it... more trips are coming up, so stay tuned!

What a long/short month it's been!

 Well, there have been lots of activities since (most of us) last spoke... buckle up for a bit of a ride!

One of the things that the wife has done in past years is an assignment in New York City for the month of September providing support for the United Nations General Assembly. With us being at a new assignment, with a new boss, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to go this year. After careful deliberation, her local boss signed off on her trip this year. There was nothing saying that I needed to be here during that month, so we planned for me to head back to the states that month as well, to "check on the kids and house." Actually, just an excuse to spend some time back home.

She left Frankfurt in early September, nonstop to JFK. I'll only be able to relate specific parts of her story since I was only involved with a portion of it. A few days later, I flew to Knoxville, connecting through Charlotte. Charlotte shows up again later in my story.

She arrived and settled back into her New York routine, with minimal differences from the activities of previous years. I arrived in Knoxville to meet Cori waiting at the airport for me. We retrieved my checked suitcase and went outside, to find Palmer waiting in the loading area. We got home and surprised the animals... the kids have been in charge for the last few months, and evidently didn't tell the dog and cats that I'd be coming home.

I arrived on Friday night; bright and early Monday morning I had a lab appointment scheduled at my doctor's office. We changed some of my medications before we left, so I wanted to check and make sure that all of my levels looked okay. Later Monday afternoon, I took the cats in for their annual shots and checkup. They both hate vet appointments, and I'm quite sure that neither of them are looking forward to my next visit home, if they think this is what they can expect.

The following day, the boy and I drove to Nashville, and took a Jet Blue flight to La Guardia airport in New York to take up some space in Rebecca's hotel room. He stayed in the city from Tuesday night till Friday morning. This was the first time the wife and boy had seen each other since we moved to Germany. He and I hung out and explored during the day, then hung out with the wife in the evenings. While he was there, he and Rebecca went to a Broadway show (Aladdin, I think), and he went to Book of Mormon on his own. On Friday morning, I put him in an Uber to La Guardia, and he flew back down to Nashville. When he hit the ground in Nashville, he met up with the girl, who had driven his car to Nashville from Knoxville. She got onto a plane to NYC (La Guardia again), and he drove back to Knoxville in the car she'd just driven in. I took an Uber to the airport that night to meet Cori and get her back to the hotel. Her flight arrived late in NYC - she was scheduled to arrive at 10:00 pm, and didn't get to the gate until close to 11:30. Evidently, the plane that was at the gate her plane was scheduled to use had "issues" of some kind. If you read closely, you'll see a parallel later in the story.

Finally collected the girl and Uber'd back to the hotel. That Friday was one of the high stress days in Rebecca's schedule, so she got back to the room after we got there. She and I went down to wander through Times Square for a little while, while Cori decided that she'd had a long day, and wanted to go to bed.

The next day, Rebecca was able to clear out a bit of time, so we met up with one of the guys who'd traveled up from Knoxville for the UN, then metro'd to Little Italy to wander around the Feast of San Gennaro for a little while. We walked down to One WTC and putzed around down there for a little while, then took the metro back to Times Square and the hotel. We took Cori out through Times Square that night, just so she could experience the true chaos once, as she'd never been in the city before.

The next morning, we had breakfast and wandered around a little bit, then jumped in (yet another) Uber for the airport for our 3:00 departure. Our boarding was delayed (still not sure why), and we sat on the plane for a while. After waiting on the plane for a couple of hours, they finally let us back off the plane, to hang around the gate area. And wait. Then, wait some more. Then, they moved us to another gate. Where we waited a couple more hours. Then finally boarded the replacement plane. To then sit and wait for almost another hour while they checked out yet another issue. We ended up flying home without video service, which I truly don't care about; but when that's one of the main selling points of a cut rate wanna-be airline, you'd think that's one of the few things they'd get right. When they came over the PA to tell us that the video system wouldn't be working, the whole plane was so fed up with the delays and the lack of communication from the flight crew that we all yelled that we didn't care about the video, and just wanted to get home.

I'm truly not sure what time we finally took off, or what time we landed in Nashville. I just know that we ended up getting home around 2:30 in the morning on Monday morning. We were supposed to be home around 8.

I hate Jet Blue. The only reason I'll fly them again is to use up the vouchers we got for that debacle. Six homeless guys with a Red Flyer wagon wouldn't have been a much worse choice for our transportation, and we probably wouldn't have been much later getting home. At least we would have had some entertainment on our journey.

The next couple of days passed in a flurry of doctor's appointments and trying to chase down vaccinations of random types.

Cori and I got back on Sunday night (technically Monday morning), and on Thursday I drove to North Carolina to visit with a couple of people. One of my best friends moved to BFE, NC a couple of years ago, so I wanted to see him while I was in the area. Additionally, I need to tell y'all about our trivia nights real quick.

While we lived in Knoxville, we started going to trivia (pretty much) each week. We'd get together with another couple of people we'd gotten to be friends with, and settled into a routine where we'd meet at one of the local hangouts for dinner & random questions, occasionally winning a gift certificate. Our trivia crew grew a bit, ultimately including: S & E (our local friends, a couple), J & A (a coworker of Rebecca's and his girlfriend/fiancé/wife), Rebecca and me, and frequently Cori. This pattern went on for a couple of years. J was the coworker we had gotten together with for lunch while in NYC. S & E moved right outside of Raleigh at about the same time we moved to Germany.

Back to our tale. On the way to visit my friend in NC, I got together with E for drinks in Chapel Hill - S was out of town for a golf tournament (or just to play, not sure which). S & E were planning on coming to Knoxville the following weekend, so I made plans to meet them somewhere around town. After reconnecting with her, I kept driving through and spent the weekend hanging out with my high school buddy, his wife, and his mother in law. I drove back to Knoxville on Sunday morning, in time to catch the Packers game at the bar on Sunday afternoon.

While we've lived in Knoxville, we've been watching Packers games at a local craft beer market with our local Packer Backer club - the club's grown quite a bit since we've moved there. We joined in 2014, member numbers 34 and 35, thank you very much. In the years since, the membership has swelled to over 500 members, and spending just about every game with these folks every football season, we've gotten to know most of the people there. It was good reconnecting with them, especially after telling everyone that we were moving overseas, then showing up for 3 of the first four games this season.

The next week was filled with chasing down and visiting with friends, and getting more damn shots.

Rebecca was initially planning on flying back to Germany straight from NYC, but she was able to change her plans and come to Knoxville for a few days instead. On Thursday night, Rebecca, Cori, J & I went to trivia (just for old time's sake), and won first place. Rebecca took a picture of Cori, J & I, and sent it to the trivia group.

Palmer's girlfriend came to town somewhere in this time (I'm probably getting the order of events all screwy - what do you expect from me?!?!?). Some of our trips around town included random mixes of kids, some didn't. Nothing worth special mention at this point - just normal day to day life.

Saturday night, the wife and I got together with S & E. When I'd gotten together with E in Chapel Hill, there was no mention of Rebecca being in Knoxville, as it wasn't planned at that point. Rebecca and I went to the bar to meet them, and when we saw them pull up, she went and hid, then came out once they'd joined me at the table. S & E are a bit younger than we are, and we jokingly refer to them as "the kids." As Rebecca and I mused to each other: we have quite a bit of history surprising our kids, so it's not much of a jump to put together a surprise for the kids. Over the last few years, S & E have become quite close friends of ours - I officiated their wedding - so it was nice for all of us to be able to get together again.

We got to go to the bar and watch a Packers game with our club again; the last game I'd watched there, there was no plan for Rebecca to be in town, so we were able to surprise our friends there as well once her plans changed. See? It's a pattern!

Monday was Palmer's 21st birthday, in addition to being the day Rebecca left to come back to Germany. We all (Rebecca & I, Cori, Palmer & his girlfriend) went out to breakfast at a local place, so he could have his first legal drink. Had a pitcher of mimosas for the table. Cori had to stick with straight orange juice.

Rebecca & I stopped at a couple of places for some last minute (for her) shopping, then I dropped her off at the airport.

I went back to the house and loaded up Palmer & his girlfriend for more birthday shenanigans. We went to Pigeon Forge to do a tasting at a moonshine distillery. Wandered around the tourist areas, then headed home. Palmer & his girlfriend wanted to get together with some of his coworkers, but that fell through, so we ended up having a little tasting of random alcohol around the house. #JustBadDadThings

The next night, they went out with that coworker (and others), then came home a little loopy; we watched a few episodes of House of the Dragon. 

Just hung out and caught up with friends for the rest of the week.

When we booked my flight home, we had scheduled me for a 2 hour layover in Charlotte. American Airlines, in their infinite wisdom, sent me an email prior to my trip, and told me that they'd taken it upon themselves to change my return, evidently deciding that 2 hours was overly generous, and switching me to a 30 minute layover instead. In the week prior to my departure, I went out to the airport (rather than attempting to navigate their oh so helpful customer service number). The ticket agent couldn't figure out why they'd changed me, and switched me to the only remaining option: a ten hour layover in Charlotte, following a 5:05 am departure from Knoxville. Yay. Be at the airport at 4, to sit around for ten hours in a strange airport, arriving in Frankfurt after 24 hours of traveling. 

And airlines wonder why people think they suck. If I could have just skipped the Knoxville leg, I could have called those 6 homeless guys and their Red Flyer wagon and slept in a bit longer. Hell, I could have had one of the kids drive me to Charlotte, and they'd have been back home before my initial departure.

I guess it's not just Jet Blue - I've really begun to hate air travel in general. I've frequently wondered how much a good old fashioned ocean liner would cost for future trips back to the states. Even below decks with Jack in third class, I'd have more room than being crammed into the increasingly Lilliputian seats in roach class, and I wouldn't have to deal with all the BS the airlines serve up. I'd just hope they watch out for icebergs.

Maybe I'm just getting old. That's probably it.

Anyway, that's all for now, all the members of our family are back in our (current) rightful places... for now. More shenanigans are afoot, but as is my usual pattern, I'll wait until afterwards to share the events with you. Until then, I'll be yelling at the local kids to "Runter von meinem Rasen!" - that's (per Google Translate) "Get off my lawn!" in German.

Auf wiedersehen!