Another Hague trip... but first, Amsterdam!

I've been thoroughly chastised by my wife for not posting pictures, so to keep the house a little calmer, I've decided to start adding pics to the blog. I'm not the photographer in our family, so if you're planning on complaining about the subjects of the pics, (or telling me that there are too many or too few pics) I'll save y'all some time and just point you in the direction of the manager. "We" have evidently made an executive decision. Now, on to our irregularly scheduled blog post.

So, I know we just got back from Ireland, but the wife needed to make a quick trip to The Hague, and asked me if I wanted to go along, or just stick around the house. She was planning on traveling Monday, working Tuesday, and returning Wednesday. I told her that for such a quick trip, I didn't see the need to go, and could take it or leave it. She suggested leaving on Saturday and driving to Amsterdam, staying in Amsterdam on Saturday night and Sunday night, then driving to The Hague on Monday afternoon. 

Looks like we're going to Amsterdam!

We drove in on Saturday and checked into our hotel. To save money, we stayed out past the airport - only about 15 miles out of town, but around 45 minutes out via bus and tram. After we checked in, we found the bus stop and figured out the "best" way to get into town. We caught a bus to the airport, then switched over to the subway / train system and got out at the central station. We wandered around for a while, eventually finding a street with bunches of restaurants on it. We picked an Italian restaurant.

Fun thing we found out about that specific restaurant - our waiter (might have been the owner, not sure) was an Italian immigrant, from Rome. We talked with him a little bit about that, and our time in Rome. Also... the boss discovered that the napkins at this place had translations for common Italian phrases. Interestingly enough, though... they weren't translations to Dutch... or even English... but German! We thought that was pretty odd, and the wife kept (an unused) one as a little souvenir.

I'm gonna go ahead and mention this now, so I won't have to bring it up in each separate paragraph: there's a lot of pot in Amsterdam. On the more populated streets, you can almost see clouds of smoke wafting through the air, and the smell of marijuana permeates the whole (tourist area of the) city. We talked with our tour guide a bit about the legality of pot... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After dinner, we wandered around and explored a bit, with the wife taking pictures of the picturesque canals. We managed to find the big town square that we'd need to get to the next day for our tour.

On our trips to The Hague, there's one specific cheese shop that we usually visit, and while wandering around Amsterdam we found a massive store from the same chain - about 5 times the size of the one we go to in The Hague. So, of course we went in. They had a lot more to choose from, so we bought a bunch of stuff from there that we couldn't possibly live without.

Also took some of the standard tourist pics...

The wife insisted on taking some selfies next to one of the canals, and shared it with the daughter. Daughter showed it to one of her coworkers who was standing next to her, and the coworker said that I'm "old man cute." I'm not sure what that means, but I'm morally outraged nonetheless. I've never even met that coworker, and I've already called her a record number of names in my head.

In our wandering, we passed by the Anne Frank house. Evidently, it's one of the more popular tourist sites, and our trip was too last minute to be able to get tickets, so we didn't get to go in. We'll try to plan better next time. Wife snapped a pic as we walked by.

After that, we continued wandering... I have to share this part - sorry. On the banks of some of the canals, they have outdoor urinals. They're just a metal spiral shaped fence with a metal grate on the inside.. if you look at it from above, I guess it'd look a bit like a poorly drawn number 6. The fence starts at about knee height, and continues up to about shoulder height, with a screen that extends a couple of feet higher. I'd assume that it's mostly for guys to use, but who am I to judge?

After wandering some more, we walked back to the train station and took a train to the airport. While waiting for the bus, we saw a shuttle bus for the hotel, and hopped a ride with him instead. Little bit less walking for us, since the bus stop was around a 15 minute walk from the hotel.

Next morning, we caught a different bus into town - it dropped us off right next to the Van Gogh Museum, which we'd be visiting later in our trip. This day though, we caught a tram back up to the more touristy area, and went for breakfast to a restaurant that the wife had heard good things about: The Happy Pig. The Dutch are pretty serious about their pancakes, and this was a restaurant devoted to just pancakes. Not American pancakes, but a little thicker than French crepes. Rolled with your choice of filling and topping (sweet, savory, or some combination of the two). The boss had lemon juice and powdered sugar (for an old twist on Dutch Babies, that I have fond memories of in Texas), and I had bacon filling with caramel syrup on top. Both were delicious.

After our late breakfast, we wandered for a bit, then stopped on the main square for coffee. We finished our coffees just in time to meet our tour guide for our walking tour - funny how the timing worked out, huh?

Our tour guide's name was Phillip, and he was outstanding. He was from Brazil, but had lived in Amsterdam for 5 years, and gave us all kinds of information that we wouldn't have stumbled upon ourselves. We talked about the history of the city (including the famous "Red Light District") and the history of the tulip, and its importance in the history of the city, among quite a few other topics as well. Quite entertaining and informative 2 hours.

We were looking for something to do next, so we (the wife) decided to do a canal cruise. 

The canals weren't too busy, but even outside of the main tourist season there were quite a few boats touring around. I tried to imagine what the canals would look like if all of the boats were in operation, and I can't even picture it. We saw a dock where 15 or so boats were tied up, unused. As it was, our boat was following 2 or 3 others, and we had a handful behind us as well. All the boats had to slow down at every corner because the boats are pretty long, and they take a long time to turn those sharp corners.

I decided that I wanted some of the famous french fries for dinner (healthy, I know!). I waited in line for my food while the wife went next door to a restaurant that sells their food out of vending machines. Real food, cooked by real people, just in vending machines. All sorts of foods. The folks in the back cook them, then put them into the vending machines from the back. She got something called "Bami," that was a vegetarian, vaguely Indonesian noodle dish, served inside what appeared to be a fried spring roll wrapper. I didn't try a bite of that - I was too into my fries at that point. She also got something called "kaassouffle," which was basically an extra thick slice of cheese that had been breaded and fried. Now that - I had a bite of that. Pretty good as well, especially to have come out of a vending machine.

We wandered around for a while longer then made our way on foot back to the Van Gogh Museum, and caught a bus there that took us all the way out to our hotel (still with the 15 minute walk on the end, of course).

Next morning, we woke up and packed everything up, loaded the car and walked to the bus stop. For some reason, it was incredibly windy that day. I have no idea how hard the wind was blowing, but the boss had a hard time walking up the stairs to the bus stop - the wind was blowing hard enough that she was having trouble keeping her feet under her. The wind was trying to blow her faster than she could walk. We agreed that that was the hardest wind we could remember being in. 

We rode the bus to the area with the Van Gogh Museum, and went to the pancake restaurant that's rated number one in the city on Trip Advisor, The Pancake Club. It's basically a little hut on the banks of one of the canals, with seven tables in it. I know that there are seven tables because there's a sign on the door with a light on it; if the light is red, all seven tables are full, so please wait outside and they'll come get you when there's an available table. Cue the jokes about eating in a 'Red Light District' - you know I couldn't let an opportunity pass without taking a few swings at a softball like that!

The pancakes were pretty good. I got lemon and powdered sugar, the wife had ham and cheese with mushrooms - both were excellent.

After breakfast, we had a little while before our reservation at the Van Gogh Museum, so we walked over to a street with a lot of antique stores on it that the wife had found the previous evening. Turns out, in addition to a well developed taste for Westerwald Pottery, she's working on a thing for traditional Delft porcelain as well. I've really gotta stop letting her go to antique stores so often, huh?

She didn't find anything that she couldn't live without at those stores, so we walked back down to the Van Gogh Museum in time for our tickets.

I've mentioned it previously, but the boss has developed an appreciation for Van Gogh's work. Since there's an entire museum devoted to him in Amsterdam, there's no way she'd let me leave town without going through it. We learned more information about Van Gogh than one of us was interested in, and he (your oh-so-reliable narrator) tapped out after an hour and a half. The wife stayed for a while longer, then we stopped at a grocery store for munchies for the road, and rode the bus back out to the hotel. 

After battling the wind to get down the stairs at the bus stop, we hit the road for...... The Hague.

This was just going to be a quick trip, so not much was on the list. Our next morning was a little yucky, so I didn't wander around too much while the wife was working.

We'd found a restaurant that we wanted to try (The Big Green Egg), so we'd made reservations for that night. When the boss got done with work, we took off walking, and stopped by the Hat Lady - I got a new hat, because of course! The wife finally got to meet the Hat Lady - one of them at least. Turns out, "my" Hat Lady evidently doesn't work on Tuesdays; at least, this is the second visit in a row that I've gone on a Tuesday and talked with the other Hat Lady instead. I need to start scheduling it a little better... or maybe I just need to acknowledge that I have two Hat Ladies, since I've gotten 2 hats from each of them.

We wandered our way up to the Big Green Egg restaurant, and had dinner. The wife had a rib eye (and a little bit of my grilled shrimp), I had grilled shrimp (and a little bit of her steak). Pretty good, but I have nothing to compare it to, since I've never had anything else cooked on a Big Green Egg.... (hint, hint to the boss!).

On the way back from The Hague the next day, we stopped in Delft, so the wife could take a factory tour of the Delft Pottery Factory. We've always enjoyed factory tours, so to combine a factory tour with the boss's latest obsession seemed like a no-brainer. They had a couple of movies and presentations on the history of the pottery and how it's made, then a display with hundreds of years of pottery represented. Evidently, in the past, there were around 30 different pottery makers in the city, and now, there's only one - Royal Delft. They've been running for around 370 years without interruption, and are the official pottery manufacturers for the Dutch Royal family.

The displays were..... cool, but didn't do much for me. Whee, old pottery, right? When we got to the actual factory tour, I really enjoyed that part. There wasn't an actual tour, just taped off lines on the floor with arrows, and an occasional TV monitor with a video that displayed the steps that were going on around you. We were walking right beside where the work itself would actually be done, with the racks of half finished pottery waiting for the next step:

The painted lines guided us right next to the artisans themselves, for us to watch while they worked. The only person who was working next to the tour area was this lady, putting the final touches on a tulip vase:

The design on the items in the foreground is black right now, but after being fired in the kiln, it'll change into the blue that you see on the pieces in the background (technically called "Delft Blue").

Additionally, we learned that all of the pottery that comes from the factory isn't hand painted; some of it is created with a simple transferring process. If it's hand painted, the mark on the bottom (or back) will look like this:

Just the portion inside the red outline - this is just an example, part of a larger display. The trademark for their hand painted stuff has a vase, with the initials of one of the guys who helped reorganize the company and keep it afloat, and the word "Delft" in cursive underneath. Interestingly enough, the company was started in 1653, and Joost Thoof bought the factory in 1876... but those are his initials that are on the trademark symbol, with the J and T superimposed on each other. 

After spending way too much money in the gift shop, we caught a bus back to the hotel area, battled the wind for 15 minutes to get to the car, and hoofed it home, arriving around 8:00 last night.

So... what lessons did we learn in this latest installment?

1. Driving to The Hague lets us stretch it over a weekend and add other cities to the front or back of our itinerary. Probably cheaper for multiple people to travel there too - HINT, HINT!
2. Amsterdam smells like pot.
3. Amsterdam has lots of canals, and urinals on the sidewalk for guys (and adventurous ladies).
4. If the boss says "I'm not planning on spending any money in this shop," don't believe her, and hold onto your wallet. Exhibits A & B: The cheese shop and the Delft gift shop.
5. If the wife shows interest in pottery, immediately redirect her attention in a different direction.

TTFN, and stay tuned for our next adventure!

Dublin!

 Warning - LONG post coming up, but I'll do my best to keep it entertaining for you. Grab your choice of beverage (hot or cold, alcoholic or non) and buckle in!

So - the wife's <REDACTED> birthday was coming up, and she was waffling around about what to do for it. I finally goaded her into making a decision, thusly:

While Frankfurt International Airport is a major international hub, there's also a local regional airport that escapes a lot of people's notice. About an hour and a half away, Hahn airport is located in the southern Rhine valley, and serves smaller airlines, most notably Ryan Air. Looking at Ryan Air's web site, I learned that tickets from Hahn to Dublin can be had for as low as €10 each way, per person.

When I pointed this out to the boss, she decided that her <REDACTED> birthday would be the perfect opportunity to check "Visit Ireland" off her Bucket List. We booked plane tickets and traded in a pantload of Hilton points on a 5 star hotel. Then, the wife got to planning - her real wheelhouse.

The 25th, we left town and drove to Simmern, a little town about 15 minutes from the airport. We checked into a local hotel there and walked into town to find something to eat. Settled on an Italian place, then walked back to the hotel afterwards.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and drove to the airport. We paid extra to be able to check luggage - for the €10 fare, you can only carry on what will fit under the seat in front of you. We'd be there too long to only take that amount of stuff.

Hahn airport... it's a little bitty airport. Security and passport control were both fine. The waiting area... didn't have nearly enough seating for the people waiting. There were probably 10 - 15 seats total, and there were a couple hundred people in the waiting area. Additionally, our flight was late, with no explanation from anyone on what was going on - no announcements, no nothing. At this point, I really need to talk about Ryan Air.

Do you need a refill? I'll wait.

Better? Good.

I came up with a pretty good analogy for Ryan Air that I'd like to share with you.

I love Taco Bell. It's my favorite fast food restaurant. Sorry if we can't be friends anymore, I understand. You always know exactly what to expect. The food always tastes the same - it usually doesn't even matter too much what you order, since they only have a handful of ingredients back there, and it's incredibly cheap. If something's wrong with your food, they usually look at you and shrug: "What'd you expect? Your burrito was a quarter. Here - I'll give you another one. Now go away." If you want more than that, you should be going to a real restaurant.

That's how I've come to view Ryan Air. If you're paying €10 for them to fly you 650 miles, what are you really expecting? They'll get you on the plane, they'll fly you there, they'll get you off the plane. If you're wanting more than that, you should probably be flying on a real airline. If you want to take a real carry-on, you have to pay more. If you want to check luggage, you have to pay more. If you want more legroom, you have to pay more. If you want a beverage, you have to pay more. If you wanna select your seat, you have to pay more. Becca came up with an additional revenue stream that they're missing - letting you upgrade to be able to get off the plane first. I think that might be the only money they're leaving on the table.

Ryan Air flies 737's - we've all flown on those, right? Turns out, there's an option for a staircase at the front and back doors of the plane. Ryan Air went for that option - a little fold-out staircase that slides up into the plane when they've got everyone loaded. Hahn airport doesn't have jetways, or anything silly like that - when it's time to board, you just walk out on the tarmac, follow the signs for your destination a couple hundred yards, and board at either the front or back stairway, depending on your seat.

At a little less than 2 hours, the flight was relatively short and thankfully uneventful - I guess we're lucky no one on board paid more for the "turbulence experience."

We arrived in Dublin and deplaned the same way. Evidently, it's not just a Hahn Airport thing - Dublin Airport is a major international hub, but we had to climb down those same sets of stairs, and wander across the tarmac to find our way inside. Turns out, Ryan Air is a REALLY CHEAP airline - in all senses of the word. We will be taking more flights with them - again, Taco Bell is my favorite fast food restaurant!

We took an airport shuttle bus to the hotel. Turns out, our room wasn't available yet, so we left our luggage and went out exploring.

Our hotel was a block down from Saint Stephen's Green, a famous local park. Nice area, a 10 minute walk or so from Grafton Street, the famous shopping area. That's where the boss dragged me to. We wandered around gawking like newly arrived tourists for a while, and discovered the famous statue of Molly Malone, "The Tart with the Cart." Fun story, fishmonger by day, "lady of the evening" by night (according to some versions). According to other versions, she was one of the few fish peddlers who wasn't peddling other things as well. I'll let you choose which story you'd like to believe, but the statue has bright shiny breasts from being rubbed so many times for luck - I think it's obvious which story Dubliners and tourists choose to believe.

We wanted to stop for a quick snack, and happened to be standing across the street from a place that Becca had heard about, Laduree. Evidently, they're a French chain, famous for their hot chocolate and pastries. So, of course we had to stop there. Their hot chocolate was good, really thick, with just a hint of bitterness from the chocolate. I'm no food critic, though.

We returned to the hotel and wasted time until time to leave for our dinner reservations. The boss had found reviews for a restaurant that she wanted to go to for her birthday dinner, located in an old church (and called, ironically and unimaginably enough, "The Church"). The cornerstone of the building was laid in 1700, and Arthur Guinness was married in the church in the 1760's. In the late 1980's it was sold, and converted over to a restaurant. Beautiful inside, and it's known for their musical and dancing performances during the meals. Wife took lots of pictures, and enjoyed her birthday dinner muchly.

On the way back to the hotel, we crossed the river via the Ha'penny Bridge. This was the first pedestrian bridge over the River Liffey, the main river which bisects Dublin. There was one guy who provided a ferry service across the river, and he charged a half a penny fare. His boats got to be so decrepit, the city asked him to build a bridge for the public to use instead, and he agreed - as long as he could charge people a half a penny to use it, for a hundred years. it was originally built in 1816, and the toll was finally dropped in 1919.

Our route back to the hotel took us through the famous nightlife area, Temple Bar. We spent a lot of time in this area, lots of restaurants and pubs. That night, we just walked through.

So, now we're through the planning of the trip and our first day on the ground in Ireland. I told you this was going to be a long one. Do you need a refill?

The next morning, we started with breakfast in the hotel. Supposedly, the hotel offered a "Full Irish Breakfast," and I saw a couple of things on the buffet that I couldn't talk myself into trying. They had "black pudding" and "white pudding," which I chose not to try - especially after reading about them. I stuck with eggs, bacon, and sausage each morning. The wife ordered from the menu a couple of times, but she just ordered normal food - sorry to disappoint.

After breakfast we went over to the Little Museum of Dublin. Wonderful place. It's right on St. Stephen's Green, just an unassuming row house. It's a guided museum, and our guide (Aemon) was quite knowledgeable and entertaining. It's truly a little museum, with only a couple of rooms, but they cover the 20th century of Dublin and Ireland very thoroughly. There was a little room upstairs devoted to the band U2 as well. Quite entertaining, I'll be posting a 5 star review for them on Trip Advisor too.

After that, we wandered back over to the Temple Bar area and went to the Irish Rock & Roll Museum. This was a guided museum as well, and our guide, Brian, was quite entertaining too. The museum is affiliated with a local venue and a recording studio as well. They structure the tour as if you are a member of a band, going through all of the different areas of the facility (rehearsal, green room, stage, studio), and have a movie about Irish rock & roll as well. Quite heavy on Thin Lizzy, U2, and The Pogues, but that may be different with other guides. Brian was (understandably) a huge fan of Irish rock & roll, and had encountered most of the "Who's Who" in the industry, so his stories were quite entertaining. I'll be leaving them a glowing review as well.

Afterward, we walked through town, stopping to tour through Dublin Castle. The castle was erected in the 1200's on the site of an early Viking settlement, and serves as the ceremonial seat of the government. While researching for this entry (not while we were there, ironically enough), I learned that the site of the castle is is actually the source for the name of the city as well; the Viking settlement was near a dark pool, and in the Irish language "dubh linn" means "black pool." Interestingly enough, "Gaelic" refers to a family of languages (which include Scottish), and not to the Irish language itself. The more you know, huh?

We stopped for a quick bite to eat at a nearby restaurant after the castle. Afterwards, we went through Christ Church Cathedral, the official seat of both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. Construction of the cathedral began around 1030.

Next, we walked down the street a few hundred miles (felt like it, anyway) to the Guinness Storehouse. In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease for £45 per year for his brewery, after an initial payment of £100. Turns out, the lease is no longer in effect - when Guinness expanded the property, they purchased the land outright. It's a fun story though. The boss had her first Guinness beer there, at the storehouse. She's never been a fan of dark beers, but didn't seem to mind it too much. She also drank Guinness at various pubs while touring around town - not sure if she's been converted, but at least she approached it with an open mind!

We walked back to the hotel afterwards and had a quiet night after so much "go go going" throughout the day.

As part of our Dublin Pass.... lemme back up for a second.

Looking at all of the things we were planning on doing in Dublin, and the prices for admission to them, the family accountant did the math, and it would make financial sense to buy those tourist passes. In addition to admission to the majority of the attractions that we were interested in, we also got a day pass for the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, and a free afternoon costal tour.

The next morning, we hopped on the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, and rode it all the way around the city to the EPIC Museum. This museum is devoted to the history of Irish Immigration around the world, why they left, and what they accomplished. Ireland takes its role in world history very seriously, and is quite proud of the people who left to find more opportunity, but who still embraced their Irish heritage. We were given "passports" when we entered, and at each of the 15 or so stations, we had to stamp our passport to show that we'd been there. Areas like "State & Society", "Discovering & Inventing", "Changing the Game", "Music & Dance" - quite a thorough examination of Irish immigration.

We had a tour scheduled for later that afternoon, with nothing to do until then, so we took off walking and found ourselves in the oldest pub in Dublin. There's some dispute on how old it actually is... local stories claim that the first date was in 1198, but there's no evidence to support that date. There's an article that suggests that it first received a license to sell ale in 1661, and the first mention of it as an inn dates to 1668. Regardless of the real date, it was an old place. We happened to be sat next to a family that toured the Rock & Roll Museum with us, and one of the kids mentioned that her favorite stop had been Marsh's Library, which wasn't on our original list.

After our late lunch, we headed over for our tour at Jameson's Distillery. They're quite proud of their whiskey here. Couple of fun facts I've discovered about Jameson... the distillery dates to 1780, not the oldest in Ireland. Back in the 80's Jameson wasn't the highest selling Irish whiskey, but it was selected specifically for export because of its green bottle - as a result, it's the highest selling Irish whiskey in the world. Also, John Jameson was the great-grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the radio.

We took the city bus back to the hotel that night. Another quiet night in. 

Our first stop of the next day was Trinity College, and the Book of Kells. Trinity College was first founded in 1592, and is evidently well known in academic circles. We toured the beautiful grounds, and ended our tour in the Long Room, one of their research libraries on site, which dates back to the 1600's. After our walk through the Long Room, we got to the display area for the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript dating to around the year 800. We learned the history of the book... turns out it was moved from Kells to Trinity College in 1654, because Oliver Cromwell's forces were quartered at the church in Kells, and it was sent to Dublin for safekeeping. Pretty book, with a nice display that explains quite a bit about it, but a bit underwhelming, in the same way that the Mona Lisa is. Interesting historical tidbit about the college: women weren't allowed to study at Trinity College until 1904. George Salmon was the provost at the college around that time, and was reputed to have said "women will be admitted to Trinity College over my dead body." He died in January of 1904, and the first woman to be accepted to the college had her entrance exams delayed... his funeral was the same day as her exam. She got in, but unfortunately had to attend her classes "remotely", as she wasn't allowed to attend the all male classes for her first two semesters.

We grabbed a quick lunch, then headed to the Whiskey Museum, right across from Trinity College. The museum isn't affiliated with any specific distillery, they talk more about the history itself, then they offer tastings of different brands and types of whiskeys.

After our tour, we walked across one of the bridges and made our way to the bus stop for our afternoon costal tour of a neighboring harbor town, Howth. It's just a little ways up the coast, quite picturesque. It was originally settled a long time ago (not sure when), but was plundered by Vikings in 819. Now, it's a suburb for Dublin's well-to-do. There are some quite pretty overlooks on the peninsula, including a parking area at the top of the hill which overlooks the (now automated) lighthouse. After a short-ish stop at the top to hike around and take pics, we loaded back onto the bus and went down to the harbor. We got around an hour to explore the harbor and get a bite to eat before loading back on the bus for the trip back. On the way out, our driver pointed out the house owned by the drummer of the band U2, Larry Mullin, Jr. 

We caught a city bus back to the hotel that night.

You're probably going to need a refill for the next part. I'll wait.

Better? Good. Better buckle up for this next day.

The next morning, we got up early and caught a taxi outside our hotel at 6:30. There are two main train stations in Dublin, Connolly Station and Heuston Station. If you're heading north, you'll catch your train at Connolly Station. For trips south and west, your train will leave from Heuston Station. We were heading almost directly west, so we headed over to Hueston. We met our tour guide, Paddy, at the station. We were the only two people on the tour, so we got to know Paddy fairly well. Evidently, the tour company that we happened to use is affiliated with the rail service in Ireland, so Paddy was able to reserve pretty much however many seats he wanted. He reserved 8 seats for the three of us, two four top tables across from each other. The three of us sat at one table (with the other table empty), while Paddy chased off people who asked if they could sit at the other table. 

A quick note about Paddy: He was a charming older gentleman in his 70's, a wealth of information that he would share in his charming Irish brogue. He was a widower, his wife passed away last year.

Paddy chased quite a few people out of the reserved seats (that we wouldn't be using anyway) until one passenger in particular caught his eye - a young lady in her (about) late 20's who he (Paddy) judged would be an entertaining traveling companion for our trip. The boss and I talked about it afterward, and we both noticed his very purposeful choice of to whom he offered the seat.

Paddy and our new companion pointed out sites that we were passing. I'm not going to try to relate all of those, as I've forgotten most of them, and I don't want to do the follow-up research on all of them (to bring you tidbits like "Who is Marconi's great-grandfather?").

We got to Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, at around 10:00, and our bus had been delayed by traffic, leading Paddy to get quite concerned. The driver finally got there, and the wife and I loaded up for the next leg in our tour, while Paddy caught a train back to Dublin. We drove west along the coast, for about 15 minutes. We finally got to Connemara "Airport"... I capitalized the word "Airport" in that last sentence because it's a formal place name, but I'm not sure that it needs to be capitalized... or even referred to as an airport, to be honest (and that was the reason for the quotation marks). There were two buildings, and a... taxiway (for lack of a better term), then a strip of tarmac that they optimistically called a "runway."

We checked in, and stepped on a scale, and started having serious doubts about our choice of tour activities for that afternoon. There were a few others who would be flying with us.

The plane arrived, and we all went out to the plane. It was a little, itty bitty plane. A 10 seat plane. There were 4 bench seats for the passengers, and 2 seats for the flight crew. There were 2 doors for the passengers to use, one on the left side, behind the wing, for the last two bench seats, and one on the right under the front edge of the wing for the front two bench seats. There was no central aisle. You crammed into your seat, buckled in, and just nibbled on your knees until you were able to shoehorn yourself back out of the plane. There were windows, and we took some interesting pics. Our pilot taxied us out to the runway, and after the requisite shaking and rattling, we lifted off for our 12 mile journey to Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands.

We flew at around 500 feet above the ocean, at around 140 miles per hour... for 8 minutes. Then, our trusty steed set down (quite gently, I might add). We pried ourselves out of our seats and traipsed over to our waiting bus - we were the only ones on the bus (except the driver, of course), and were ferried across the island via twisting gravel roads. Once we got to town, he dropped us off at the bus stop, told us what time he'd be back for us for our afternoon return flight, and told us where to go to catch our next bus - about a hundred yards down the road. We were supposed to look for a black bus and talk to John O'Donnell. Well, alrighty then.

There was another couple who journeyed with us for this next portion; I believe they were with the same company, but they had gotten to the island via ferry instead, those filthy commoners. Our driver told us about the history of the island and the places we were passing, and we stopped at an old church, dating to the 8th century. As near as we can tell, the name of the church is "Na Seacht dTeampaill," which translates to "The Seven Churches," but there are only two churches on that site. The first church was built at that site in the 7th or 8th century. There are several old graves on the site, as well as much more recent ones of recent residents, all the way up into the 2020's.

After wandering around the grounds of the old churches for a few minutes, we loaded back into the bus and drove to the other side of the island to a parking lot near the cliffs of Dun Aengus, the location of an old fort dating back to the stone age. The parking lot was a little bit of a hike from the visitor's center, which itself was about a 20 minute hike up to the edge of the cliffs. The fort was constructed on the top of the south facing cliff, looking out over the cliffs from about 300 feet high. Quite pretty - just as pretty as the Cliffs of Moher (from what I've heard and the pictures I've seen), just not quite as tall.

We hiked back down and headed for the little tourist shops. Evidently, Aran Islands wool goods are known far and wide, and all kinds of wool garments were available at the shops, all locally knitted, from what we could tell. The wife got a sweater, and I got a scarf. We spent too much time on the cliffs to be able to eat at that stop, so we loaded back up onto the bus, and journeyed back into town. There was a restaurant in town, so we had a bite to eat there, then went across the street to another tourist store. Didn't find anything there that we couldn't live without. We walked around the corner for the bus back to the airport.  

We caught the bus, got back on the plane, and took the transfer bus back to Galway. We had a little bit of time in Galway before our train, so we wandered around the shopping area, didn't buy much there though.

Our companion on the way back was a different gentleman, by the name of Brian. He was just as friendly, but we didn't interact with him as much. All the lights inside the train were on, and it was dark outside, so we couldn't see anything. Brian told us that he was supposed to be pointing out the sights to us, but since we wouldn't be able to see any of them, he'd just be available if we had any questions. He pointed out the Shannon river, and told us something about the castle, but I don't remember what it was, and I couldn't see it anyway, so I won't bother trying to remember what it was.

Upon arriving back at Hueston Station, we jumped into a cab for the trip back to the hotel, arriving a little after 10. Long day, but quite eventful.

You might want a refill after that last part. I completely understand.

We took our time getting moving the next morning - we were definitely a little worse for wear from our trekking the day before.

As we were getting ready to head out, I got a call from the tour company. Our tour for the next day (Saturday, for those of you keeping track at home) had been cancelled. They offered us another trip that day instead, and after bouncing it off of the boss, we accepted. Our original tour was to be through Kilkenny and Waterford, with Paddy. I'll tell you about the trip we ended up on when we get there - hold your horses!

We didn't have anything planned for Friday. We'd specifically left it empty, so that we could find other things that we'd missed, or things that had been added to our list throughout the week. We'd heard about Marsh's Library on our Hop-On, Hop-Off tour, and from the family that we did the Rock & Roll museum with, so we decided to go there.

Marsh's Library is the oldest public library in Ireland, dating back to 1707. The original books are still on the shelves, with restraining bars across them to keep them in place. Additionally, there are cages built around some of the reading areas - scholars would be locked into the cages to peruse the books, to insure that they didn't steal any books. Those came into use in the 1770's to combat theft.

Afterward, we walked around the corner and went into Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the National Cathedral of Ireland, dating back to 1191. Another cathedral? Yeah. Another one. Evidently, way back when, there was no precedent for a city to have two cathedrals, and this caused quite a unique conundrum for the Church. They had to divide up the duties and responsibilities for the two cathedrals, formalized into an agreement signed in the year 1300, and followed until 1870. More than that, I really don't understand, and I'm not gonna research any more. My blog, my rules.

Frequent readers will remember my predilection for barbecue, and how I try to arrange to have barbecue in whatever city I'm in. Well, guess what! There's an American style barbecue joint in the Temple Bar area. That's what we had for lunch. Honestly, it was passable. Little bit of a weird flavor - mostly noticeable in the beans, but present in all of the sauces too... some sort of licorice flavor. The wife thought anise, I thought fennel... not offensive, just different. 

Temple Bar is a specific section of Dublin, but it's also a famous pub. So, of course we had to go there. I had an Irish Coffee, the wife had a Guinness. We hung around there for a while, then moved on. Next stop was Quay's Bar, another famous pub. The wife had another Guinness. I'm beginning to think she might actually like them. Ask her about the Guinness Challenge, if you want to hear a fun story.

After that, I was ready for a break. I walked back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. From what I understand, the wife stopped at a few other bars and listened to the musicians on Grafton Street on the way back. 

For dinner that night, we walked to a local restaurant called Juanito's. I'd been wanting fried shrimp, and they had it on the menu. Some sort of Asian-fusion place. Pretty good, actually.

We cut the night pretty short, because we had an early departure the next morning.

Another 6:30 cab ride to a train station... but to Connolly Station this time. You may remember from earlier that our original plan was to go south and west, but Connolly serves trains heading which direction? That's right. North. Our travels today would take us to Belfast, in Northern Ireland - part of the United Kingdom (which means different money).

We got to the station in plenty of time to grab a cup of coffee, and encountered Paddy again! He was going to be our guide to Kilkenny and Waterford, but when that trip had been cancelled, he switched over to this trip instead. On our trip today, we were joined by a family of four, so there were 7 of us total. Paddy pointed out a lot of the sights to us as we rode mostly along the coast.

We pulled into Belfast, and walked down the street from the bus station about a block or so to get to our bus and meet our driver. As we approached the bus, Paddy told us that we'd have a "woman driver," and hoped that we'd be okay with it. It was quite obvious that he was kidding. Evidently, he makes this trip pretty frequently, and knows all of the drivers that take care of that end of the trip. Our driver today was Gabby, and she was quite knowledgeable and personable. At one point, I told Paddy, loud enough for Gabby to hear me, "Paddy, she's not nearly as bad a driver as you told us she was!" We all had a good laugh. The two of them were a fun combination - she did most of the narration during the driving parts, but Paddy kicked in information when he had it as well.

Our first stop was a place called Carnlough Harbor - just a random little seaside town. The only reason that anyone would stop here on purpose is... like a lot of other places in Northern Ireland, Game of Thrones.

There's a scene in Game of Thrones where Arya is planning on leaving Braavos, and encounters an old lady on a bridge. The old lady turns out to be the blonde bully, and stabs Arya, who jumps into the river. By the magic of movie making, the bridge that she jumped off of was somewhere in Spain, while the staircase she climbs out of the river is in... Carnlough Harbor. The wife took a picture of me standing at the edge of the harbor, on the staircase - you probably saw it on Facebook.

Next stop was a place called the Dark Hedges. There's a random road that was originally built to allow access to some guy's house back in 1775, and he planted 150 beech trees along the sides of the road to create an imposing approach to the house. Some PA on Game of Thrones discovered it, and they decided to use it as a shooting location for the show. They shut down the road for a few months, covered it with dirt and gravel, and shot a single scene - of Arya and Gendry leaving King's Landing on the King's Road. 8 seconds of that shot made it onto the show. Now, it's a big tourist draw for that area.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Fullerton Arms, in the town of Ballintoy. We had given Gabby our lunch orders, so that they could be ready for us when we got there. The other group sat together, so the boss and I sat with Gabby and Paddy. The wife and I had Guinness, Gabby had water, and Paddy had... milk. He explained to the three of us that when he was 14, he decided that he would never drink alcohol. He didn't tell us what had driven him to make that decision, but told us that he was lucky that he had good friends back then, and they'd stick up for him. Interesting facet of his personality that wouldn't come up in normal circumstances. Gabby had known him for a while, and she'd never heard that from him. 

The pub had a room devoted to Game of Thrones, with siguls for each of the houses hung on the walls, and a mockup of the Iron Throne. Little cheesy, but the wife made me sit in it for a picture. Seriously, I was already in the bus, and she sent Paddy out to get me and bring me back in.

After lunch, we headed over to the Giant's Causeway. I'm sure you've seen pictures of it before, but it's really bizarre looking in person. Evidently, lava was extruded through layers of chalk, and formed generally hexagonal columns, which then cooled over time, separating into (what are legitimately called) "biscuits." The stones are a little over a foot across, with the erosion putting them all at levels pretty close to each other. There were only a couple of sections with big differences in height - most of the time, the tops of the columns were within about a foot or two of the ones around it. Almost surreal to look at - very impressive. We walked the half mile or so down, and rode back up to the parking lot on a shuttle bus.

We had one more quick stop to make... Dunluce Castle. It's just ruins at this point, and we couldn't approach it - only could take pics from the road, but it's quite picturesque, and looks off the north side into the Atlantic.

On the way back, Paddy asked Gabby if she could drop us at City Hall. We got out there with Paddy (the other group continued on to the station - they were catching another train to somewhere else). We were a little early for our train, so Paddy wanted to give us a little taste of Belfast. He told us about City Hall, and showed us just a little about the city.

The trip back was uneventful. We said our final goodbye to Paddy and walked back to our hotel, arriving around 8:30 or 9:00.

The next morning, we woke up a little later than the day before, had breakfast in the hotel, and caught a cab back to the airport. The flight was uneventful, and we had a reasonable hour and a half drive to get home.

All in all, I'd call it a success for the wife's <REDACTED> birthday, I'm glad that she got to check an item off of her bucket list, and glad I made the cut to accompany her!

If you have any interest in seeing Dublin, remember - flights are cheap from Frankfurt! One caution though... if you're wanting to see the Book of Kells, you might want to get on it. The Long Room is being closed for renovation, and they've already started taking the books off of the shelves and moving them elsewhere for storage. The Book of Kells will be displayed in another location on the campus, but you won't be able to see the rest of the library once it closes.

As always, let one of us know if you have any questions... ask the boss about the Guinness Challenge, and let us know when you're coming to visit!

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!