Saucer, finally!

It took me almost ten years, but I finally am approaching my goal at the Flying Saucer!  For those that don't know, the Flying Saucer is an establishment in the Columbia Vista specializing in beer.  If you have an account, you can keep track of what beers you have tried.  A maximum of three beers per day can be put on your account.  I joined the club almost ten years ago, in August 2003 and made steady progress toward my goal.  Until my first child was born.  Then Ellie was born.  Then we went to Germany for 14 months.  Then my kids were in sports and activities, so I rarely stopped off on the way home.

Recently, I found some new motivation when I realize that I had slowly gotten close to my goal.  Over the last few months I have steadily closed in on the elusive 200 mark.  It looks like I will finish this task and have my celebratory party on my 40th birthday at the end of June!  While it took me almost ten years to make one circuit, others have completed ten circuits in the same period.  Slow and not-so-steady completes the race?

So on June 28 we will have a little celebration and unveil my plate on the wall.  However, I am still looking for the perfect quote to put on my plate...

Summary -

Well, we have now been home for a week and we are getting settled in fairly well. Our friends were terrific this week. We had a couple of dinners with them and we got to catch back up with others. This afternoon was especially fun at the neighbors. They set up a few inflatable pools in their front yard and we brought over a plastic slide and some yard sprinklers and the kids had a great time while we sat there and drank beer in the shade of a tailgate tent. Very classy.

This morning was also Ellie's birthday. Everyone was amazed that we were able to pull that off a week after getting back. Andi did a good job setting us up at the kid's museum, so all we). really had to do was show up with food (and drink, which we forgot). I was amazed that so many people were not coming, then decided they would be able to show the day before. Luckily, we still had enough tickets for the museum for everyone.

I was doing daily updates on facebook before we left and I thought I would put copies here. A few days of things I would not miss, some things I would miss, and some things I was looking forward to.

One week left in Germany. Things I won't miss: "red man" rules for crossing the street or risk a fine, potential fines for insulting people, fines for driving on the highway without a toll sticker (Austria), expensive licenses and testing for everything (driving, sailing, hunting, fishing, golfing)

Six days left. More stuff I won't miss about Germany: riding public transportation, people staring at you, limited laundry facilities, and shelf toilets.

Five days left. More stuff I won't miss about Germany: paying for ketchup/toilet access/drinking water, parking on streets blocking traffic, big heavy doors, lights on timers, and having a flat-rate brothel next to my son's preschool.

Four days left. More stuff I won't miss about Germany: bottle deposits on everything, broken glass and graffiti all around, cigarette butts everywhere, punks left over from the 80s, lack of suburban sprawl, and socialized medicine.

Three days left. More stuff I won't miss about Germany: really crazy drivers on the Autobahn, no fast food other than McDonalds and Burger King (maybe a KFC), super slow and bad restaurant service, no personal space / people bumping you, rainy cold summers, long winter nights, dirty stone floor in our apartment.

Two days left. Last of the stuff I won't miss from Germany: mullets, bad customer service, shops closed early and on Sunday, expensive food and clothes, no big mattresses, having to register your address with the authorities, people blocking the train and elevator exits, "fade-away" trains, stinky people on the train, and no air conditioning.

One day left. Stuff I WILL miss about Germany: castles and museums, being able to drive to a lot of old stuff, spas, the Wrights, time with Drew riding to school on the train, food (cheese, meat, bread, beer, and spatzle), so many automatic espresso machines, beergardens, beer sold everywhere, crazy holiday schedule, Legoland, and lunches with my girls and the occasional Drew.

Headed to the airport soon. Looking forward to: friends, family, house, yard, bbq, real mexican food, Moe's, SC weather, real football, friendly people, my big TV, Tivo, Wii, a comfy bed, a comfy couch, English everywhere, 24 hour Walmart, my office, my giant monitor, teaching, beach trips, our cars, the BigMo, pickup trucks, the Y, and our dogs.

Some numbers about our trip:

• Nearly 50,000 km on the car we leased for a year
• Over 40,000 pictures and movie files generated
• Over 90 GB of movies and pictures
  
• 21 countries visited, including Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Andorra, and Vatican City
• More than 10 trips to Legoland, Germany
• Over 14 months in Germany
• Nearly 200 unique beers tasted
  

It is slow at work right now, but I managed to get out with a couple of guys to the Flying Saucer. This is the place where they put a commemorative plate on the wall for you if you drink 200 different beers (3 per night max). I was making good progress to finish a few years back, but then we had kids. I have been stalled near 100 since Drew was born. Some of the plates are colored representing guys that have cycled 200 beers four or five times. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Spaten Hefeweizen at the Flying Saucer - One of the better wheat beers I have had, amazingly.

It also makes sense to end up here, since I started this blog after I had a going-away beer with some guys from work at Rockaway's. Cheers!

Last week -

Our last week was more busy than expected. Leaving Germany is almost as difficult as getting there. Cancel phones, tell the authorities you are leaving, return the car, pack up all the stuff you have accumulated. Plus going away lunches and dinners and school leaving parties. Busy times!

Thursday we returned the car to Strassbourg, France. The Tour de France was nearby, so we tried to catch it. As we neared our target villiage, people started parking about 3 miles out and then walking or biking up the hill. At 2 miles, it was impossible to go further so we turned back in the car. It was raining and the kids were sleeping and the crowds were thick already, so I think we can accept this defeat.

We finlly tried the Pizza place near the house that made me ill months ago. Still not that great. Schoferhoffer.

We also had to pick up some souvenirs, but Stuttgart does not have a lot of tourist spots. We had lunch at the TV tower and got some overpriced trinkets. Maltesser, one of the first beers I had here.

The trip home was uneventful for the most part. The kids were awesome in the three planes and the 18 hours. Ellie only squealed a little. The best part was seeing our friends greet us at the airport then seeing more friends surprise us at our house. Now the next few weeks will consist of getting our house back in order and ramping back up at work...

Schoferhoffer Hefeweisen - Pretty good with pizza.

Malteser - Very tasty. Glass had a picture of the pope?

Final weekend -

Saturday was the big birthday bash. Kids running around, bouncing in the bounce house, grill, and just hanging out with our friends. Germany would have been much more enjoyable if we had found this nice family earlier on. We were pretty isolated for nearly a year, and we are ready to get back to the states. We stuck around at the party to let the boys play for a while one last time (and to help pack up the moon bounce).

I drank / tasted (partial cup) too many beers that day and had a wicked headache by 3 PM or so. Maybe I mixed too many different things? These were my last stash and were from everywhere (Poland, Germany, Belgium, France).

Sunday was our last trip to Legoland. I think they will miss us, since we seem to buy Legos every time we go. This time I finally realized what the German sign in the store said: the special parts I had been looking for for 25 years are kept behind the counter! So we bought about $30 worth of tank treads and chain linkages, assuming Drew and Ellie will grow into more technical stuff in the future. They have a building room and Drew was able to make a motorized car and a motorized windmill by following the plans with only a little supervision. Andi's dinosaur, however, never made it to fruition.

Hoegarten Speciale - Very, very good. Andi says: Smoothe and wheaty.

Lösch-Zwerh - Some aftertaste - Andi says: bitter.

Augustiner Edelstoff Exportbier - Good initial tast but bas aftertaste.

Chimay Peres Trappistes Tripel - Tastes very strong but only 8%. Ok.

Abbaye Abdij du val-dieu tripel - Odd but decent.

Bere Damien - Bugelflasche - Yucky, bubbly. Andi says: sediment is disturbing, not desirable. DNF.

Trappist Rochefort - Not bad. Randall says: a little chocholaty. Andi says: bad smell, but sweet. A "beerdonay" (like chardonay).

Bitburger Preimium Bier - Plain. Ok. Andi says: Tastes like beer. Cook with it, drink with it, sweat with it, a beer's beer.

Final week-

We finally made it to our final week in Germany. Andi has had our bags packed for about a month. This week, she packed up almost everything so we have maybe two outfits each and the kids have no toys in the house. The kitchen stuff is separated out (so we only have the stuff they provided) and we are getting ready to head home.

Friday we went to help our friends set up for their daughter's birthday party. They rented a moon bounce! The kids should have fun with that today (Saturday).

Münz Edel Export - Decent, but a little bitter. From Günzburg.

Tatra - Pretty good, from Poland.

Strzelec Mocne - Good overall, sorta like a Budweiser but better taste, also from Poland.

Busy weekend -

Friday was my conference near Köln, so I drove up early. The conference was nice, then we did a boat cruise on the Rhein for dinner. I had wanted to take the family on a Rhein cruise, but now I am glad that I did not. It was pretty boring and not as spectacular as I had hoped. You see some castles, but you can't go in them since they are up on the hills. At least the beer was free!

Saturday I drove home then went to Summer Fest at Drew's school. The kids sang songs and we had a quick lunch. Later that day, our friends the Wrights got us onto the Patch Military Barracks for the July 4th festival! It was terrific, with tons of Americans, rides for the kids, room for the kids to run, and American food. Plus a mini-keg of Heiniken for the daddies. The only distraction turned out to be one of the more amusing things: some big bugs came out at dusk, about the size of bumblebees (but without stingers). They were annoying, so we hunted them for about an hour until their population was significantly reduced. The kids made it to fireworks without issue, amazingly. Fireworks started at 11:00 and the kids handled the noise fine as well. I was surprised that the base did not do any sort of organized patriotic program. Maybe they get enough of that every day?

Sunday was our last daytrip tour. We drove up to see Trier, which is a bit of a hike from Stuttgart. Trier is the oldest city in Germany (they claim). They have a lot of Roman ruins to see, like the Porta Nigra (black gate), a couple of old baths, and a amphitheater. Emperor Constantine had his throne room here, that was really impressive. One of the Baths and the Amphitheater both had interesting catacombs you could walk around in. Plus they had a Sunday Market, so that was nice to see. The kids crashed in the afternoon, so we just drove by the house of Karl Marx and skipped the toy museum. Not a bad way to end our trips in Germany, but I may not put Trier on the top of our list to go see. The museum was not great and the ruins were not too extensive. But still nice.

Reissdorf Kölsch - Fine, especially for a long walk along the Rhein to catch your boat.

Heiniken Mini Keg - Terrific!

Reissdorf Kölsch

Another birthday bash-

We went out to an "American Rib" joint for dinner tonight to celebrate their daughter's birthday. I tried the BBQ, which was not really BBQ. Just a steak and pork chop grilled with some ribs. Not BBQ at all. But they did have a cherry wheat beer! Interesting taste.

I have been sick for nearly two weeks with a cough and fatigue. I finally went to the doctor and she said it is a virus, so she can't do anything. Oh well. Get better, good luck.

Tomorrow I am off to Remagen near Koln for a conference, then back to Stuttgart for the fourth of July. We should have access to the festivities on Patch this year, so we are excited. Our friends also helped us this week with a few things on base, including some Taco Bell! Woohoo!

Cheery Wheat Beer - Good, sweet, interesting.

Birthday bash-

This weekend was a rehashing of our greatest hits. Saturday was rainy, so we went up to the technical museum in Sinsheim again. I did the crazy boat ride and the kids did some of the little amusements, then we briefly looked at the tanks and cars and airplanes. As luck would have it, they were having some sort of model train convention there. These were large trains, like 2 inch rails with a 18 inch long locomotive. Some of the trains were priced at $5,000. Crazy. I thought model trains died out in the states years ago, but maybe I just grew up and out of it. We did not see anyone under 40 there, so maybe it will not last in Germany either.

That afternoon we drove around along the Rhine on the Berg Strasse (Castle Road) and saw a few castles and drove through Heidelberg.

Sunday was my birthday, and the weather was threatening again. Since we still have a bit of a cough, we decided to not go swimming and hit Legoland. Again. I thought maybe they were losing money on us since we have been so much, but everytime we go we manage to buy more legos. This time, we justified it as "for my birthday." They have a great selection of pick-your-own blocks here, so we always see something we "need." The big news for this trip: Drew is tall enough to ride all the rides, including roller coasters! A month ago we swear he was too short. This time, he appears fine. I think our last event in Germany will be a trip to Legoland again.

Andi drove to and from Legoland, so I had a nice relaxing day. And a couple of their beers.

Autenrieder Hefe Weissen - Good.

Becks Green Limon - Light and fruity.

Business trip-

So I had to go away a couple of days on business.

I booked a hotel in Freiberg. Then I realized I was headed to Freiburg (in the black forest) not Freiberg near Dresden. That cost me about $40 to cancel the room.

I got on the train yesterday. When they came around to check tickets, the lady realized that my Bahn card had expired last week, so I had to pay full fare (not half). That was another $70 on the spot, doubling the cost of the trip.

I left my umbrella on the train. No worries, cheap Ikea.

I get to Freiburg and it looks like rain, so I borrow an umbrella.

I did have a Ganter Hefe Weissen last night. Drinking beer alone is about as fun as gouging your eyes out with a spoon.

This morning, the train arrived just as I got to the station. Two stations later I realize I left my borrowed umbrella at breakfast.

And to top it all off, my two projects in Freiburg are not working out.

I am ready to come home.

Ganter Hefe Weissen - Not very good.

Summer?

It has been relatively quiet recently. Andi and I were sick before we went to Berlin / Slovakia, but the antibiotics cleared it up. As soon as we got back, Andi had some small cold then I had something else and Andi got what I had. Now the kids may be getting it. Miserable. And to top it off at the beginning of summer, the high was 50 yesterday. And we had hail, which is not quite snow, but close enough.

As a result of our illnesses, I had to pick up Drew a few times. I have managed to miss the ideal train (making me late), take the wrong train (making me late), and just barely miss the train (making me wait). I hate public transit.

We did do something fun this weekend, the Stuttgarter Zeitung Marathon. Well, the kids version. The short version. They have 1k and 2k events for the kids. We all ran the 1k. Ellie and Drew ran the whole thing, just over half a mile. Andi and I followed along. I was not planning to run since I was sick, but I saw the crowd and did not want Drew to run on his own. So I paced him while carrying two backpacks, two plastic bags, and our camera. What a sight! And we ended up walking over four miles because of the train station and registration locations. It was like a death march of sorts, but the family had fun. BTW, Ellie is in their photo gallery here, picture #62 for the Minimarathon.

Beer drinking is off as well.

Some Urtyp - Not bad.

Paulanner Hefe Leicht - Awful. But it is a light beer. Awful.

Slovakia, Vienna, and Eagle's Nest -

We had our meeting with the president of Germany, but since there were about a thousand people at the event, we did not get to talk with him personally. We were in the fourth row of people, so we did see him up close. I think he is scheduled to leave office shortly, so he is a lame duck president anyway. They had a nice river cruise for us on the Spree in Berlin, but we had to wait an hour to get on the kid friendly boat. This was actually good, as the boat was fairly empty and we had more room to roam with the kids.

We drove the next day to my conference in Slovakia with a quick stop in Prague to see the Prague castle. It was an impressive sight, so I am glad we added a couple of hours on a long day to see this thing.

We had some trouble getting to our hotel later that night. You should always check to see if your GPS knows where you are going before you leave the comfort of decent networks. Just like when we showed up in Greece and didn’t even have a Greece map in the GPS, assuming we had all of Europe. We made it to our hotel, but it was tiring after a long 15 hour day wandering around the little ski resort in the dark.

The conference went well and Slovakia was pretty nice. The best part of Slovakia were the prices for food. We had a giant pork knuckle for less than four Euros, a steal. All the food and drinks were finally reasonable. For me, it made eating much more enjoyable when you are not too worried about the tab and you can eat some decent somewhat healthy stuff.

Friday after the conference, we drove from Slovakia to Vienna. We stopped briefly in Bratislavia, then we tried to go into Hungary just to say we were there. However, the Slovakian border patrol stopped us and fined us for not having highway vignettes!! We really never saw any signs. Our problem was that we entered Slovakia on a backwoods road then got on the highway inside the country. The guy was pleasant enough and we only had to pay 50 Euros, so it was not too bad. Note: it looks like Hungary has vignettes on their highways too.

So Saturday was Vienna. We started out at Schonbron Palace near our hotel. I had been there twenty years ago on a band trip. The gardens were amazing in scale and quality, but Drew was acting up so we did not see as much as we had hoped to. We did not do the tour, it was long and expensive and the kids would not have handled it well. We went on to the Treasury, which was probably the most amazing we have seen so far (we never saw the British jewels). The Wein Dom, Mozart's house and Mozart's grave then off to Germany.

Update: Sunday was Eagle's Nest near Salzburg then back home. We stopped in at Lego Land for a few hours in the afternoon and closed the park down. I still love walking around the park drinking a beer. Autenrieder Hefe Weizen. Very good with Lego Land Pizza.

Fransikaner Weiss Dunkel - Good and tasty, but not my favorite Weiss Dunkel

Wroclaw, the Venice of Poland –

So we drove up to Berlin after work on Friday. Traffic and construction was not bad, so we got in around midnight. I was a bit wired, even though Andi drove the last hour and I could not get to sleep. At all. An all-nighter, with no energy to try and be productive for work, so this morning was a little rough.

Saturday we got up and drove into Poland. A little over three hours gets you to Wroclaw, what is described as the Venice of Poland. HA.

As you get close to town, you see an Ikea. Near the Ikea is a strip mall, so we had to go check it out. Most of Europe has not discovered the beauty of a good strip mall. They even had a Pizza Hut! This brand-new place was probably the nicest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. And the waitress spoke English and they took plastic (no Euros in Poland) so all was good. Andi loves to see local grocery stores in every country, so we hit one in the strip mall. It was probably the nicest grocery store I have ever seen, with a huge selection of beer and wine. I picked up a few Polish brands to try. We hit a store almost exactly like a Best Buy, but there were maybe four people there on a Saturday.

After we ate and shopped a bit, we went downtown. They had another big modern Mall downtown, but Andi was surprised at how bad the prices were. Food seemed quite reasonable, but prices in the stores were just as bad or worse than Germany. Driving around downtown, we saw a few rivers and bridges, but nothing like Venice.

I must comment on the roads in Poland. For almost two hours after we crossed the border, the roads were awful. In spots in Wroclaw, the roads were awful. Their infrastructure looks terrible, although they have some nice new highway and new shopping centers.

We found a little homestyle restaurant in the middle of nowhere on the way back to berlin. Good food but slow service. One local dark beer, Louny.

The next day we did the Berlin Museums. They have an island near the middle of town with some of the best museums in the world. We now have a new outlook on German hospitality and service.

First we went to the Pergamon. We were there about ten minutes before open, so we got in the line which was about 100 feet long. A few minutes later, a bus full of Germans came and they all rushed to the very front, ignoring the fact that there was an established queue. After we got inside, the lady handing out headsets was quite rude and Andi had troubles with a guard complaining about Drew leaning on a wall. In the first room, I saw tons of people taking photos with flash without reprisal, so I took a couple and a guard came and talked to me. But really, this museum is amazing. Really old stuff from the near east. Some of the oldest stuff we have seen, like artifacts from Uruk dating to 4000 BD. A six-thousand year old mosaic wall and some of the first writing tablets ever. This pre-dates stonehenge.

Next we did the Deutsches Historisches Muesum which seems to have a lot of Hitler stuff. I liked the way they had timelines set up, with a ruler on many exhibits showing what period you were looking at. BTW, our German Museum pass did not cover this one. Not much of a pass.

We tried to go in the Berliner Dom, but our museum pass did not cover this either. And there was a rude lady that tried to go through a doorway when I already had the nose of the stroller in the doorway. And the guard was asinine.

We used our Legoland pass to see the Sea Life aquarium. The aquarium was typical of Sea Life aquariums, but they also had a giant cylindrical aquarium in the middle of a hotel atrium with a two-story glass elevator in the middle. It really was neat to see, as you ride up and down in this aquarium.

We hit the Altes Museum where they have a bust of Nephrititi on display. Andi took a few photos and I did some movies. Since Neprhititi is a big item, I thought I would use the cam corder to get a still. I forgot that Drew had the camcorder. He had managed to turn on the flash, so I took a flash photo of the museum's biggest artifact. The guards were on me and Andi was mortified. HA. Just my luck.

Finally, we did the Bode museum. The guard there was also asinine, she would not let Andi in with our backpack (but let others in with bigger bags and similar backpacks). Crazy. This musuem had a net coin collection.

And we finished the night at a chinese buffet near the house. Not traditional German food, but it was plentiful and good. Good quick service. And all-you-can-eat sushi.

Louny - Dark and good.

Perla - Not good at all. Andi says it tastes like Coor's Light. I think I like Coors better. Polish. DNF

Faxe - Better than Perla, but watery. This was not from Poland, it was Danish. DNF

Louny - Dark and good.

Patch -

Forgot to mention that our friends got us onto the Patch Barracks Monday night for dinner and a movie. Night at the Museum 2 in a sold out theater with a few hundred American families was great. Too bad Taco Bell was shut down due to catastrophic mechanical issues. The guards even let us bring our car onto base, so the whole family could enjoy. Maybe July 4th will turn out better this year?

Since we had no Mexican, we went to our Mexican restaurant off base, Cucina Mexicana. Good food, but a bit spendy. Dos Equis with dinner.

I brought a bug home wth me from my trip. I have felt awful for a couple of days. My east German buddy Olaf in grad school said beer made you better. It is not helping so far. My buddy Steve told me in grad school that pint night at the brew pub would cure what ails me. I had emergency surgery for appendicitis the next day. Thanks for the medical advice, Doctors.

Dos Equis - Normal Mexican beer, fine wth chips.

Tripel Karmeliet - Another stron Belgian in a little bottle. Decent taste for 8.4% beer.

San Marino?

So my titanium watch finally died. I replaced the battery twice this year. The second time, it stopped less than a week after the new battery and the band broke! It's dead, Jim.

I feel naked without a watch. I always have worn one. My grandma (mother's side) bought me a nice big heavy watch when I was just a kid in elementary school that I loved. Having a big analog watch as a little kid set me apart from the others, and I have just continued wearing those kinds of watches over the years. My last watch was a titanium watch from Eddie Bauer, but they don't carry them any more. I did manage a decade of service from that one.

So we did a little watch shopping in Andorra. I found a titanium one I liked, but we did not know the brand and the man at the counter was not quick (with two customers ahead of us) so we left. I did a little internet sleuthing and found the brand, Festina. It apparently is a nice Swiss brand, so they should be reputable. But the store I found is in Italy, in San Marino.

San Marino is actually another European micro state. I had heard of Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, and Monaco. Everyone knows the Vatican. I think I had heard of Andorra. I even know about Sealand. But I never knew that San Marino was a separate country. Wikipedia says it is the oldest sovereign state (from 301 AD) and the oldest constitutional republic still under their original constitution (1600).

But the killer is, we drove right past it in Italy back in the Fall. It is a few miles from Rimini Beach, south of Venice. We drove along the shore near Rimini and saw the Italians on the shore, but never thought to hike over to see San Marino. Maybe next time?

Fischer - From France. Big bottle, nice color. Interesting tast, not bad.

Herrenberg Traditional Festbier - Not great

Eichbaum Hefeweizen - Not my favorite hefe, but ok. Maybe my taste is off with this illness?

Herrenberg Traditional Festbier

Eichbaum Hefeweizen at the Stuttgart Biergarten

Fischer

Socialized Medicine -

Amazingly, I have not been sick at all this year. Today I woke up with Pink Eye, so I had to find a doctor. Andi was able to find a eye doctor nearby and I was able to get in and out in a little over an hour! And they only charged me about $60.

The amazing part was the doctor was willing to write me a note to get out of work for a week. For an eye infection. 45 days of holiday a year plus a week off when you get sick. I have also read about "the cure" whenever you get too stressed, a week or two at the spa paid by socialized med. Crazy.

Anyway, I finally got pics from our summer trip online. Ten new folders! I have gotten to the point that I can manage photos pretty quickly. We now have about 140 folders from our year in Europe. Which is pretty consistent, 52 weeks x 2 days + 30 holidays + 15 set vacation days is about 150.

I also counted the number of photos we took. We are approaching 40,000 pictures on the D40! And we have posted nearly 10,000 online, so you only see the "good" ones.

Desquiles - Tequila flavored beer from France? 5.9%, not too bad.

Desquiles in a can

Maginot Line -

Our trip was scheduled to end on Friday, but since we were in Paris and having a good time we extended it over the weekend. Instead of one day of museums, we did two. The kids were pretty good (considering all the art they saw) so we broke down and took them to Eurodisney just outside of Paris on Saturday.

Essentially, it is good but not like Orlando. We started off badly, parking next to an asinine Frenchy that could not get his car in his spot. Then the entrance queue was a total mess (under a building is not a good place for a pushy crowd). Then the first few areas we went to did not open until after noon. We waited an hour for the race cars, and just as we got to the cars they doubled capacity by opening the other lines. We did Small World and Buzz Lightyear (twice) and rode the train before going to their version of Hollywood. At Hollywood we saw the Animagique show, rode the Lightning McQueen ride, did the backlot tour, and saw the paratde before they closed.

They open at 10 and this day they closed at 8 for a "special even". Looking at Disneyworld hours, in May they run 9-10 on Saturdays with an extra hour in the AM and three in the PM for hotel guests. We noticed that you could not see any suited charachters, we only saw them during the Hollywood parade. Disneyworld runs Mickey almost nonstop (I think they have three in parallel) and they always have a few people at the front of the park. Again, it was good, but not magical. Don't waste a day near Paris going there when you have other options.

Anyway, today we drove home. We tried to stop and see some of the Maginot line, but the first place (Hackenburg) only did 2 hour tours in French and we would have to wait another hour. We drove on to Simserhof, where we also had to wait and the tour was also in French, but we were not scheduled to be underground for two hours (just 20 minutes). Acutally, they show a nice film then put you on a bus for a drive through the fort, including a couple of neat multimedia presentations inside the fort itself. Not bad, and the kids were great. Maybe we could have done two hours underground at the first fort? I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, the whole family is asleep already. I drove them all day, letting them rest and I am the one still up.

Mönkshof Original Pils - Fine for a pils. Nice bugel top bottle.

Mönkshof Original Pils

Paris -

So this is our last trip in Europe other than a double conference trip later in June. We decided to swing by Paris on the way home, as it was not too far out of the way. Andi found a cheap museum pass. I wonder how many of the sixty sites we can hit in two days?

We had to get back to the Louvre since we missed few things in January due to terrible crowds and awful kids. We got up and out so early, McDonald's was not even open (opens at 7:30) and made it to the Louvre over an hour before they opened. Luckily, the Louvre had a McDonalds and they were open.

We saw the Mona Lisa and you could actually see it. When Paul and I finally waded through the crowds to the room, we were stuck twenty deep taking pictures over heads. It was awful in January. Never go tour Paris on New Year's eve.

We managed to see maybe a quarter of the Louvre, which is pretty good considering how huge it is. The crowds were nothing. In some of the rooms, we were the only people. It was great seeing the kids next to some billboard sized art. Crazy. And we saw some really old (6,000 year old) statues. Too bad we won't get to Egypt...

We then went toward Notre Dame. We tried to get in the Sainte Chappelle but the line was awful for security. Instead we hit Conciergerie where they jailed people during the French Revolution, including Marie Antoinette.

Then off to Notre Dame, but we had to eat lunch at Subway first. Thankfully, Europe has plenty of McDonald's, Burger Kings, and Subways to keep the family fed cheaply with something they will eat. We still get out there, but sometimes it is nice to have easy and cheap.

Notre Dame was easy to see this time. In January, the line was a block long. We did not do the treasury or the tower, but we did do the crypt with some of the old ruins.

Next we went up to the Pompidou, the Paris modern art museum. The building was awful looking on the outside, but they did have a huge modern art collection. We found strollers and the kids got a little bit of a nap while we pushed them around. This modern art museum had the decency to put warning signs on rooms with questionable content. I still remember the Stuttgart gallery with the two men done in neon that were pleasuring each other...

After the Pompidou, we hit the Metiers, a museum of science and industry. It had a little of everything. Standards, chemistry, models of industrial works, cars, planes, communication and computing. Pretty much everything you would expect to see and all pretty approachable. They had a few of those silly airplanes that never flew, I guess the French can't get over the US with their airplanes. They also had a few rockets and probes, some of which never flew either. I guess they can't handle our space program either. They did have US computers (Cray 2 and old IBM) I guess they could not even find fake French computers to put in.

We found some dinner at the Europe Fried Chicken shop. Classy. But the kids eat nuggets and we were in the wrong neighborhood for food and the natives were getting restless. Then, two blocks later we stumbled into a bunch of restaurants. Just our luck.

Finally, we did the Arc de Triumph. Very nice view.

Strollers are useless in Paris if you use the metro. I carried Ellie in a backpack all day and it was killing me. I always wanted to backpack across Europe and now I am. Just not the way I imagined it.

So, thirteen hours out and about in Paris. Seven sights seen. Not too bad for a days efforts. The family held up pretty well, but we all need some sleep.

No beer. Maybe tomorrow.

Update: Friday was also fairly busy. Top of the Eiffel tower, lunch at Planet Sushi with McDonald's cheeseburgers for the kids, Rhodin museum, Museum d'Orangerie (Monet and others), Museum d' Orsay with a lot of good stuff as well. Lots of art, maybe we should do somethign for the kids...

Update 2: Forgot that we spent a day in Lourdes, France checking out the Catholic healing shrine. We also did a nearby cave with a neat boat ride and train ride inside the cave. We found a place with good cheap pasta. I also tried a beer they had, Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Maximator 11.6% - Not great, but definitely strong.

Amsterdam Maximator

Andorrian Ale -

So after the Monaco Grand Prix practice round, we went to the Cannes Film Festival. We saw no stars, but I did see a few Ferraris and a nice Rolls Royce. I think you have to be there later at night, the stars don't come out for lunch.

We drove down the coast in the afternoon while the children slept. Past Miramar we stumbled into Saint Raphael. We had planned ahead with our suits, so we went swimming in the Mediterranean for a bit then had Italian. Saint Raphael is a neat little town with a nice beach, arena, and shopping area.

The next day we drove to Barcelona. We managed to see the Gaudi church that is still being built (pretty amazing) and we saw the magic fountains. At 9:30, they run the fountains with lights and music, so we sat around for a while waiting for this. Amazingly, all the music they had was in English! One of the major landmarks of Barcelona and they do it in English? Crazy.

We went up to Mount Serrat and saw a statute carved by Saint Luke. We also walked down to the cave where shepherds found the statue in 880 AD. That afternoon we drove down the Spanish coast and ended up having dinner in Calafat, a little over an hour down the coast.

The next day we drove to Lourdes, France. We stopped off in Andorra, another small country in the Pyrannes between France and Spain. It looks like all you can do in Andorra is shop and ski. They had some snow there, even this late in May. More amazingly, they had cheap booze. I have never seen a 3 liter bottle of Jack, but they sold them for 45 Euros, about $60. Other stuff was much cheaper, like a liter of Absolute for $10. I could not find any beer from Andorra, but I did find one in a blue bottle from Argentina.

For those of you that are not Trekkies, Andorian Ale is a blue drink that is favored by Andorians, the blue skinne people with little antennae...

Quilmes - Not great, but probably would tast better if it were colder. Best Argentininan beer I have ever had. Also the worst.

Quilmes

Seven countries, seven hours -

So Germany "celebrates" two obscure Catholic holidays this week and next. Add a couple of vacation days, and you have time for a nice little trip.

I looked into doing Formula 1 racing because they stopped doing it in the states. It was prohibitively expensive, but Andi found practice day tickets that were more reasonable. So we drove down to Monte Carlo. This took us through or very near:

• Germany
• Austria
• Liechtenstein (technically we only saw it)
• Switzerland
  
• Italy
• France
• Monaco (technically we just drove past it yesterday)

Also, technically it took more than seven hours since we had to stop for gas, food, and the potty.

Monaco is the smallest country in Europe outside of the Vatican. I think Andi said it is one square km, very tiny. We did not see much of it today, just the train station and a bit of the track. Maybe one day we come back without kids, wear a tux, and go to the casino and pretend to be James Bond.

The Monaco Grand Prix is simply amazing. I have never been to a NASCAR race, but I am sure it is exactly the same. :-) The cars were super fast and super loud. We had double ear protection for the kids. Our seats were in stands right by the water, so we could see all the multi-million dollar yachts watching the race across the track from us. Behind the stands is the longest straightaway, where they really get going. The technology is amazing. We saw two 90 minute sessions, so we probably saw more Formula 1 than on race day. They had other training sessions running as well for other races they run this week. The other neat thing is they run it just on normal roads, so the F1 cars are driving over parking spaces and past bus zone signs. We wandered around and could get different views and right up next to the railing. The second session we spent in the front row where you could see the cars for about 300 yards and about four seconds.

It was moderately hot and we ran out of water, so I had to buy some inside the track. I had to pay 2.70 Euro for half a liter, which I think works out to $28 per gallon. For water.

Peroni on tap near the race - Very good.

Catching up -

I had a quick business trip to DC. I managed to not get synced up with US time, so jet lag going and coming was not too bad. Thanks to a friend for giving me some Melatonin to help me sleep. It was nice to be back in the states, even if it was only for a minute.

I had a few hours at Dulles. If you ever have a really long layover there, you should go to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Hangar. They keep many items that won't fit in the museum on the mall at this location. They have the Space Shuttle Enterprise, a SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay (that nuked the Japanese) and a JSF F-35. You can walk the whole place quickly in an hour or spend the better part of a day. But watch out for the shuttle schedule back to Dulles, it seems to only run every hour.

I promised to catch up on beers.

Rockbottom Brewery Ballston Brown - Very good.
Rockbottom Brewery Red - Pretty good.
Rockbottom Brewery Oatmeal Stout - Decent, but not great.

Note, Burger King was giving away toys with the kids meals promoting the new Star Trek movies. So of course, we ate more Burger King than usual for a couple of weeks. And we all ate kids meals. And I also realized it looks like a lot, but these have been piling up in the queue for quite a while.

Martins Pale Ale - Ok, but not great. From Belgium, I think.
Watson Tripel - Fine, but not as good as some other Belgians. Very strong.
Hofmuhl Weissbier - Ok. Snuck this in on Andi, told her it was Belgian and she was ok with it.
Grand Cru - This Belgian was awful. Andi said it should be named Grand Crud.
St. Bernardius Prior 8 - Don't remember
Schwartzbrau Pilsner - Think this was ok
Rodenbach - Don't remember
Paulaner Hefe Weissbier - Surprised I have not done this one yet.
Palm - Don't remember
Gunzberger Hefe Weizen - Think this was ok.
Erdinger Dunkel - Surprised I have not done this one either.
Autenrieder Urtyp Hell - Had Autenrieder Weizen at Legoland, could only find this in the store. Ok.
Alpirsbacher Klosterbrau Monch - Went to this brewery in the Schwartzwald. Nothing spectacular.

Grand Cru, Hofmuhl , Martins Pale Ale, RB Ballston Brown, RB Oatmeal Stout, RB Red, Watson Tripel, St. Bernardius Prior 8, Schwartzbrau Pilsner, Rodenbach, Paulaner Hefe Weissbier, Palm

Martin's Pale Ale with Kirk and Spock. They even speak in German!

Watson Tripel with the Enterprise and a Bird of Prey

Hofmulh Weissbier with Kirk

Scotty and Uhura with Grand Cru



St. Bernardius Prior 8


Schwartzbrau Pilsner


Rodenbach


Paulaner Hefe Weissbier


Palm


Gunzberger Hefe Weizen


Erdinger Dunkel


Autenrieder Urtyp Hell


Alpirsbacher Klosterbrau Monch

Lazy Saturday-

Saturday we woke up and went to a green house owned by a friend and colleague. They were busy for Mother's day, but the kids had a chance to run around and Andi had a chance to take pictures of flowers. Plus we could pick up some flowers for Mother's day. We did this back on Valentine's day too, so maybe Andi is catching on...

Then we went up to the local castle ruins, Burg Reußenstein. This 700 year old castle fell into disrepair 350 years ago. It was situated on the top of a cliff in the Scwabish Alps. Beautiful!

Then we went to a nice little place for lunch, Gasthof Rossle. Most of the food was made by the family locally. Terrific stuff. And a Kaiser Hefeweizen. We picked up some fresh bread and sausages to take home.

Then we hit the Maerklin train museum and shop. Maerklin is the German company that makes model trains. It was not as big as the one in Hamburg, but it was still fun for Drew. He really liked running the trains around.

The kids slept for a while while we drove back to town and did a little shopping. The weather cleared up, so we hit the local park in Stuttgart. They have a mini-diesel train that takes you around the whole park in about fifteen minutes. Finally the rain hit, so we ran home.

Kaiser Hefeweizen - Did not tast good at first, but it went very well with the food. Andi said she could cook with it.

Gutmann Hefeweizen - Tasty, but nothing spectacular.

Grimbergen Dubbel - Belgium, tastes a bit fruity. Not bad, but other Belgium beers were a bit more tasty.

Gutmann Hefeweizen

Kaiser Hefeweizen

Castles-

So the weather looks awful for the next week or more. We saw a nice day on Thursday, so I took off to go see castles. Don't worry, I have a deadline next week and I will be plenty busy this weekend trying to get ready...

We went down to Hohenzollern, which is about an hour away. A lot of kaisers lived here, but I don't really know because the tour was in German. A nice crown and lots of good armor on display, plus some good rooms to see. I found out today that the family still lives occasionally in part of the castle. Externally, the castle was pretty neat as it would be impossible to assault I would imagine. Luckily, the bus was running so it was pretty easy to get to.

Then we tried to get to Hohen Urauch. We started up the trail, but we must have taken a wrong turn. We turned back after about a mile, but never made it up. Plus, Ellie had a little accident because we did not have three dimes to open the toilet in the little bar at the base of the mountain. Silly Germans and their pay toilets.

Then we headed to Burg Hoen Teck. Again, they don't have a road up to the top that you can drive, so we just had to take some photos. That was a neat one because we saw five hot air ballons lifting off over the Schwabish Alps. But again, we missed out on exploring the castle as it was getting late.

And we were planning to hit Neidlingen as well. 1/4 accomplished, 3/4 seen. No too bad, but we could have done better. Not awful for a quick afternoon.

Herrnbräu Hefe Weißbier Dunkel - Andi says "Nice". I like it a good bit as well. Solid for a dark wheat beer. I think this is from near Munich.

Altmühltaler Hell - Forgot to review this one, but I don't think it was memorable.

I also found some pics from older beers I never posted. I will try to list them and something if I remember what they were...

Altmühltaler Hell and Herrnbräu Hefe-Weißbier Dunkel

Munich-

Today we hit the Audi museum. I had head good things about it, but it really was not that great. The building was nice, but nothing seemed to work. Sound, video, computers all were dead. They did have some cool cut out engines that were moving so you could see all the parts. And they had some cool cut open cars to look at. But really, it was not that great. Andi said it was also dirty, but I could not tell.

We did our final trip to Munich. We stopped at the Olympic park where they were having some kids festival. It was typical liability free German: they had kids rolling giant inflatible balls down a hill, crows working on tightropes (just a foot off the ground), and various other things that were not organized or supervised. Crazy. We also saw the Sealand on our Legoland pass. We have really used them a lot this year.

Finally, we had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. We have been by there a couple of times, but this was the first time we had awful service. The waitress was even bad by German standards. And the kids were really tired from not sleeping much the day previous. Not a great day, but ok.

Hofbräuhaus Origninal - Good as always.

HB Original and some wurst. We had the "wurst" service ever.

Giant Bretzel.

Waist high stainless steel flush "sink" with floor drain. This place is set up for serious drinking.

May Day-

May first is a holiday in Germany (one of about 15 fixed ones). We slept in a bit and left the house at 10:30 headed for a little adventure.

First we hit a Renaissance Fair near Heilbronn at Burg Stettenfels. It was super crowded and somewhat expensive, so we just looked around and left. We had already walked around that caslte once, but it was neat to see the people dressed in period costumes with tents and stuff around a real castle.

Next we hit Nürenberg. As we came into town, some protesters were protesting so the cops detoured us. The leftist/communists/socialists/europeans love to protest on May 1. We toured the castle and saw the deep well demo, then walked downtown a bit. Then we went out the the Zepplen field that was Hitler's rally spot. You know this one from the big Nazi symbol that was taken down in WWII.

Then we headed over toward Munich to the oldest brewery in the work, Weihenstephaner in Freising. They had a nice little beergarden terrace with good food and great beer. We liked the food and I liked the beer.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier : tasty, one of the better ones. Andi says "Not too memorable, not a standout, not my kind of beer." I say it was fine.

Weihenstephaner Dunkel : Ok, but nothing super terrific. Andi says " It was wet" whatever that means. "Not dry, thirst quenching, and wet" ???

Weihenstephaner Original Helles: Ok, but the hefeweissbier was better.

Weihenstephaner, the oldest brewery in the world.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Bretzel

Weihenstephaner Dunkel

The brewery was really not much to look at from the outside.

Weihenstephaner original Helles

The hills are alive-

So we finally went over to Austria (intentionally). If you know to watch for the border and pay $10 for a 10 day pass, it is not so bad. Salzburg is just past Munich, and we managed to get there by 10 AM on Sunday.

We started out in the old part of town, parking in some big bomb shelter / fortress under the mountain. We walked through a few churches and saw some gardens from the Sound of Music. The kids fell asleep so we drove a bit further into Austria to see the the Sound of Music wedding church and some lakes. After dinner on a nice little nearby lake we found our hotel on a hill overlooking Salzburg.

Of course, we could only see the new part of town. The Altstadt was hidden by a big mountain. And we could not go swimming, the pool was the worst looking thing I have ever seen. But in general the view was great.

This morning started off well. Andi freaked out as we were leaving the room, "where is the camera!" and she had it strapped right around her neck. I figured that out when I was 10 playing T-ball and could not find my baseball cap one inning. We finally got out and did the castle, one of the biggest in Europe. Very nice view of downtown. Then we did the theater (three theaters in all) to see the one from Sound of Music. After that, we went to Heilbronn to see the trick fountains (that spray people on surprise). The best part there, Andi was trying to get Drew sprayed, so she encouraged him to go get up in the front row for a organ / moving toy display, then the water came from behind us all! It got here right in her rear, all over.

Some stuff looked familiar from when we were there 20 years ago in high school with the band, but it is amazing how faded that trip is now. Oh well.

After the water fountains, the kids played on the playground. We got in the car and hit the McDonalds. Only later did I realize that I never looked that the gazebo they had on display for the sound of music (I am 16, going on 17). Andi played all the songs from the movie for the kids on the way home and then they slept the rest of the way without a nap at all on Sunday.

Great trip overall. Amazing what you can pack into two days!

Forgot to write up last Sunday. We had a beautiful day in Stuttgart and went to a local castle on top a mountan near Neuffen. I realized that in South Carolina we really don't have enough 800 year old partially ruined castles overlooking cities with a nice beer garden and medieval themed falcon shows. Something to work on, I guess.

Recently, we saw a funny Gutman clip where he mentions a German news story saying it came vrom "DER SPIEGEL" in a funny strong Germanic voice. We have taken to this one, as it seemed funny at the time. Drew will run around saying angrily "DER SPIEGEL". Well, the Salzburg beer is Stiegel...

Der Stiegel - Not that good, but ok after you get half of it down.

We also stopped in an Irish pub and had a pint of Guinness. Andi has me ask about Murphy's in every pub we see. Those Irish are prolific, they have a pub in every city.

Guinness

Stiegel

Seven days, seven countries-

Well, we survived. We drove back from Brugges through Brussels to stop at the Atominium (world's fair 1958 display) and to see the statue of the boy taking a pee. We saw Waterloo, just south of Brussels. Then we drove a little out of our way to hit Luxembourg and France on the way home. Seven days, seven countries. Technically, we left on a Friday and returned on a Friday, so it was eight. But we basically started our trip from Hamburg on Saturday morning... We considered driving over to Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Italy today to go for 11 countries in eight days, but even we are not quite that nuts.

Friday and Monday were both holidays. I had some stuff to do, so I was in the office all of Saturday to catch up. Too bad the weekends are the good times to work when nothing is there demanding attentions.

We did stop in Brussels and pick up a case of fine Belgium beers. Andi likes them now, so she will help me do some more reviews (I hope).

St. Bernardus Abt 12: Andi says: "Some aftertaste. Stringent. Not as good as some others we tasted." Fine, but not great.

Amsterdam and Belgium-

So we got to the Netherlands late in the afternoon on Monday. We were in a resort (empty this time of year) north of Amsterdam, near the canal. So what do we have for dinner? Chinese food! Very good.

The next day (Tuesday) we got up and drove down to Keukenhof, the giant Amsterdam flower festival. Seven million bulbs planted, plus bulb farms surrounding the gardens for miles. Andi picked the right time of year to do this, everything was blooming farily well. The Daffodils were getting spent and tulips were about right. Some were dying and some were still getting ready to bloom. We hoped to be there at park opening, but we were delayed by two closed McDonalds. Luckily, the tourists only show up around noon. The morning was pleasant, but the afternoon was awfully crowded.

Wednesday we had planned a rather short drive over to Belgium, but traffic in and around Amsterdam really got us. We had hoped to drop in on Antwerp, but we ran out of time on the road. Instead, we went right to the hotel in Bruges. Andi found a "reasonable" rate at a hotel-castle! Moat and everything! Actually, it is only a little over 100 years old, not a classic medieval castle, but still pretty amazing. Wednesday afternoon we went in and walked around Bruges and had dinner on the Markt square at a nice restaurant.

Thursday was a classic tour day in Bruges:

• Parked
• Google maps passed us doing street view imaging!
• Diamond Museum closed until 10:30
• Bathroom Emergency! No problem!
• Funeral at the church where we need Michalangelo Statue Pics
• Dimond Museum
• Get more Michalangelo Statue Pics
• Canal tour in the rain
• Lunch at sandwich place
• Beer shop 2BE
• Walked up the tower in Markt Square
• Chocolate Museum
• Blood of Christ
• Rides and ducks for the kids
• Beer Museum (Closed, but had a round)
• Dinner at sandwich place
• Walked back to the car

Andi likes these Belgium beers, so she helped me taste test a bunch of them. Comments below. The Halve Maan Brewery is the only brewery operating in the town center and it traces it roots back to 1564. Bruges in general is a neat town, with a lot of medieval stuff since their economy started tanking around 1600 (so it stayed untainted by moderninzation). Some neat stuff to see overall, with lots of canals.

Wednesday:

Zok in Half Yard - Tasty, but expensive.
Westmalle Trappist Dubbel - Not so great, a bit off.


Thursday:
Zot Dark Unfiltered- Good. Andi says: "Full flaver, smooth, no aftertaste. Good."
Zot Blanche Unfiltered - Good and tasty.
Brugs Witbier - Andi says: "Cloudy but yummy." 4.8%
Maes - Ok, not great. Andi says: "A little too sharp." 4.9%
Brugges Tripel - Tasty and strong. Andi says: "Like a champagne. A happy beer." Lots of bubbles. 8.7%
Tourtel Malt Blonde - Andi says: "Strange. No aftertaste. Not sticking to my tounge. Clear tasting. Wierd. I could drink this all day." Funny fruit smell. 0.4% HA!
Leffe Blonde - Andi says: "Interesting." Lots of flavor.

Zot at the Brewery unfiltered, light and dark.

Wall of Beer near 2Be

Beer Cellar in 2BE, four rows of this!

They sell it packaged like champagne or a nice whiskey.

Zot in half-yard

Westmalle Trappist Dubbel, Brugs, Maes, Brugge Tripel, Tourtel Malt, Leffe Blonde

Sweets with the Swedes?

I type this as Andi tries to get the car to go over 100 MPH, 160 KPH on the Autobahn. And Audis still pass us over and opver...

Easter Sunday we woke up in Sweden. The easter bunny found us and delivered baskets with standard chocholates and a few small towys for the kids. At breakfast, we watch 4-5 bunnies playing in the nearby field.

We then "hopped" in the car and drove 3 hours to Bilund, Denmark, home of the original Legoland park. We have been using our annual pass a lot, but mostly for the Legoland near Stuttgart (also for some aquariums and Madame Tussuad's in Berlin). This park opened in 1968 and I have wanted to go visit since I was a kid.

Overall, it was a nice park. It is more established than the Germany park. They have hills, older trees, and waterfalls. They also have a huge miniature land where they recreate buildings from various countries. The one in Germany was expansive, but this seemed even bigger. The rides are mostly the same, but this park had a few new ones. One was a fire truck thing where you have to physically pump the truck to move it and get the water flowing (tiring). They also had an old mine train that definitely was not ADA approved. The rest were standard for legoland, good for smaller kids but lame for roller coaster enthusiasts. We were worried about crowds on Easter, but it was not bad. Maybe they were all in Church?

This park does have a nice looking hotel attached to the park. Literally, one border of the park was the hotel. However, it was like $400 per night to stay, so we stayed just down the street. We could have slept in the car, the kids were so tired after running around all day at Legoland. Andi and I were dissapointed in the Legoland shop. I had hoped they would have "pick-a-brick" with a wide selection of parts (technical, hard-to-find, and duplo) but no such luck. We have a better selection in Germany, and that is not too great. So while nice, I am glad we did not plan a whole European trip just to do Legoland.

BTW, Denmark has a lot of windmills. And a lot of wind.

Of course, the Germans have Good Friday off. A three day weekend being insuficient, they also get Monday off. I guess they call it Good Monday? Maybe they need to recover from their easter hangovers? They could not be burdend to take one of their 30 personal holidays, or maybe one of their liberal sick-days either. Anyway, we are headed down toward Amsterdam to see some flowers.

Just from our cursory visit to Hamburg, Copenhagen, and my previous trip to Stockholm, northern Europe looks "nice". The towns are meticulously clean, the building look old and stately, there is no grafiti and they have limited businesses. You don't see doner kebab shacks or gentlemen's clubs like they have just off the main drag in Stuttgart / Munich. Maybe they push the dirt further out into the suburbs? We spent some time wandering around an exit in Denmark looking for an ATM and even the "normal" areas seemed quite nicely done.

BTW, ATMs are rare in Denmark. They take credit or the silly EC card everywhere. Even pay at the pump! (Not found in Germany now) We did find a ATM at Legoland. They have coins with holes in them, that was pretty neat. The Danish lady at the hotel spoke english perfectly, I assumed she was British but she was actually a local. The scandanavian kids are very very very blond, I saw a couple that could have been albinos. I have never seen white hair like that.

Driving to Sweden was an experience. They have a couple of long water crossings to get there, rivaling the long bridge in the Keys and the Macinac bridge in Michigan. Amazing structures.

Driving around up here, I am glad we canceled our crazy trip to the Arctic circle. Once you get to Denmark, things are pretty sparse. Stockholm was a good ways away from Malmo, and the Arctic circle would have been 6-7 hours north of there. Google says Stuttgart to Malmo is about 10 hours, which we did over two days. Google also says Columbia to Cleveland is abougt 10 hours, a trip we have done on a Friday afternoon...

No beer again. Maybe in the Netherlands tonight.

Danishes with the Danish?

We woke up early and hit the miniature world in Hamburg, the world's larges model train display. They are still building it, so in a few years it should be twice as big. If you ever go, go early before the crowd really shows up. It was 5-10x bigger than the Chattanooga Choo-choo, if you know that model railroad display. Really nice and worth a couple of hours.

We drove on two giant bridges to get through Denmark, then wandered around in Copenhagen a bit. We saw the famous mermaid statue and some marble church and found a mall for dinner. We ended up just over the border in Malmo, Sweden. Northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden all appear very nice and clean, but everything is also very expensive.

Tonight the Easter bunny comes and tomorrow we head to the real Legolan in Bilund, Denmark.

Pripps Bla- Not too bad. Fairly tasty.

Pripps Bla displayed on Easter Sunday!

Hamburgers in Hamburg -

Yesterday was Good Friday, so all of Germany heads for the hills on this national holiday. We had decided to cancel our crazy road trip to the Arctic Circle, so we are headed in that direction but not so far. We started off stopping near Stuttgart in Schorndorf, a small town with lots of Fachwerkhauser and their main fountain is decorated with eggs for Easter.

We drove north to Goslar. The countryside was really nice, with nice rolling hills. It looks like Kentucky, or the foothills of the Appalachians where I grew up. We stopped in Goslar, a former seat of the Holy Roman Empire. We also stopped near Hamburg at an artificial ski slope, 300 meters long. Amazing!

We found a good hamburger place in Hamburg, but we had just been forced to stop to eat dinner. When our crew gets hungry, you have to stop very soon or else...

BTW, I always wondered why they put Z rated tires on the Mercedes back home. Those tires are rated for 140 MPH sustained over an hour. Yesterday, we got the car up to 100 MPH sustained for a while on the empty Autobahn, so it is useful in some places.

Legoland -

We had to fly home Saturday AM to get the cheap German Wings flights. They really have amazing fares in Europe if you have rather flexible travel dates. I think the four of us round trip to Greece was around $500.

After we had returned the rental car, Andi confessed that she had read Athens has the highest rate of auto accidents in the world. I could believe it, they were crazy there. The double parking, the lack of signals at intersections, the poor lane markings, the crazy mopeds and motercycles, the pedestrians, etc. It was nuts. She held off telling me to make sure she did not jinx us and it worked.

Even the subways were crowded, no matter the time of day. Packed to the edges, standing room only. Getting a stroller on was a chore. However, the people were the nicest and most polite I have ever seen on a train. We had ladies jumping up to make room for our kids. Maybe nobody is stupid enough to take kids on the trains? We never saw any others.

Anyway, we returned early enough to rest up a bit Saturday. I sat down to eat frozen pizza and tried one of the last beers in a plastic bottle. Graffenwalder Malz. It was so bad I gave up after only two or three sips. Then I realized it not only tasted bad, it was alcohol free. DNF.

Sunday, we felt good enough to take the family to Legoland on their second day of opening. We could say we strategically waited a day for the grand opening of "Bob der Baumeister" in the 4D theater. You may know Bob from his famous catchphrase: "Yes we can!" Anyway, it started rainy but ended up nice (and crowded). We also picked up some more Duplos for the kids. Luckily, Legos weigh almost nothing so we should be able to ship or carry them home easily. For lunch, we had pizza at the park and I had a Autenreider Hefe Weissen. Andi and I both thought it was terrific, so good we stopped to look (unsuccessfully) at a local gas station to get more. Beer is very regional here, so you get a different selection just an hour away. And you have to love a kids theme park where you can buy beer at the same price as Coke.

Grafenwalder Maltz - Awful, nearly the worst so far, DNF.

Autenrieder Hefe Weissen - Great, nearly the best so far.

Riots-

We woke up early and tried the Greek national museum. They have some amazing stuff. A lot of the gold they found at Mycanae site is there, including the mask of Agammemnon. We were there for a long time before we saw something from the ADs, everything else was either old or really old.

We promised the kids that we would take the double decker tour bus, which we managed to find. Thankfully, they will do all the driving for you in this crazy town. The 90 minute bus ride circuit was nice, until three hours in we had only managed a little over half of the route. The Greeks were out rioting over something downtown, so traffic was even worse than usual. We found out later that they were striking at the airport (mostly the greek lines) and striking in the ports (so our thoughts of getting to an island would be a disaster). I remember thinking it odd that a Greek colleague was so worried about angering the students and inciting them to riot. now I understand. We managed to jump out and grab chips, cookies, and drinks for lunch on the bus since the bus was not going anywhere.

When finally we got off the bus, we saw the old stadium that seats 50,000 from 300 BC. After that, we played on a little playground nearby. Then we walked through a neat area with some giant columns and Hadrian's gate. We tried to get into one of the theaters at the base of the acropolis, but the old bitty would not let us in. They close at 3 and we were 10 minutes early. That is plenty of time for touring with kids! Too bad I do not know any good Greek swear words, although we did voice some displeasure there. The Acropolis and the Agora areas were also closed at 3. We saw the tower of the wind where the whirling dervishes were, the flea market during the day, and finally got back to Victoria square for dinner. The kids were beat after no naps, and we are pretty tired as well.

It was sunny today, cold in the shade with wind yet hot in the sun. Some people had coats with fur lined hoods on. I was in shorts, sweating bullets as I carried Ellie down from the Acropolis and I saw a lady sitting around with a coat and fur earmuffs. I cannot imagine how terrible it would be to come in summer.

Dinner in Victoria square was good again. It was fun to watch the street vendors pack and run when the cops showed up. Now that we are leaving we finally know how to order for the most part.

I read that 70% of the beer in Greece is either Heiniken or Amstel. They have two major nationals, Mythos and Alpha. I have not found Alpha.

Lowenbrau on tap with dinner. Fine after a long hard hot day.

Comedy of errors-

So we set out to see the sights just west of Athens.

We got to Corinth. I assume this is where fine Corinthian leather comes from, but I never saw any. We totally missed some Corinthian canal we were supposed to see and we ended up on a street filled with double parked cars. Not 3000 years old. Thanks GPS!

We finally realized ancient Corinth was down the road. Doh! Along the way, we missed ancient Corinth and ended up at Acro Corinth, an old fort on a hill. This was one of the best things we have seen, it was truly awesome. But we only got halfway up the hill. After we came down, we read you can see the whole isthmus from the very top. Oops.

After a quick lunch near ancient Corinth, we toured the ruins. Nice temple columns, lots of rubble. Since we were lacking sunscreen and the kids were fussy, I had us skip the back 40. Come to find out later, we missed the big theater where they had mock water battles in a flooded stage. oops.

Then we went to Myacea. This place is really old. It makes the Acropolis look brand new. Something like 1500 BC. We hoofed it all the way to the top, but again I cut us a little short. We did not hike down into a cave to see the cistern, which is probably best when dealing with little ones. oops again.

We did see a cool underground dome, the treasury. Apparently this was the biggest dome on earth for a thousand years. Basically a big hole in the ground.

We drove on as the kids slept toward some big old ancient theater. Epidavros or something. Once we got there, it was closed for reconstruction. Peering through the gate, it looked pretty lame anyway. Nobody was there but us and a horse. And some chickens. It did have a nice view of the ocean. Or sea. Whatever.

Tonight we find out we missed the theater. The one we were looking for was much much much bigger. oops. How many ancient theaters can there be in one crappy little greek town? We thought we followed the right signs... oops.

On the way back to town, we saw the canal. The interstate runs right over it, a deep cut in the ground to cross the isthmus. Pretty amazing, but not much else. Apparently not cool enough for some little brown historical signs.

We also managed to get near the acropolis at night. Then Andi says she wanted to go up again, since our ticket is good for seven days. Of course I never expected to hike back up that god forsaken hill again with two little kids, so I left the tickets in the hotel room. oops. Actually, I think they close at 8, so we will call that one a draw. We took a couple of pics from below.

Driving in this city is a mess. Total mess. Parking too. May be worse than Rome and Milan.

Overall, the day was terrific. It just sounds like we missed some stuff, but we saw a ton. And it was truly amazing. Drew was a total champ, and Ellie screamed her head off every time she thought she saw a bug. Camping will be fun with this one.

No beer, just some wine in a box with a screw top. No corkscrew...

All Greek to me -

We took some time to take a quick trip down to Athens, Greece. Flying in Europe is really cheap, especially compared to flying from the US to Europe. So Tuesday morning at 3 am we were getting ready to catch a 6 am flight. I love that my wife must be two hours early for flights...

We told some Germans that we were headed to Greece for three days and they looked at us like we were totally crazy. Why go that short? They like vacation in 2-4 week chunks. Crazy. But ours are not really vacations, they are tours...

We arrived in Athens and got the car, all before noon. We brought Mandy, but Andi had not actually checked to see if Greece was in the GPS. "It has all of Europe." Except eastern Europe. We did rent a GPS from the auto place, but it was a disaster (Nonio?) So we used the WiFi at our hotel and paid to download the Greece maps to Mandy, then returned the other GPS POS. TomTom is the way to go. When you get down deep in a city, you can lose the signal. Mandy has some inertial sensor so she can usually navigate tunnels and other areas pretty well (without freaking out too much).

So we hopped in the car and went out to the temple of Poseidon, on a great cliff about an hour outside Athens. I discovered Ellie hates bugs, she screamed her head off like someone was pulling off her fingers over a ladybug. The temple was great, but the weather was a bit gray. We drove back along the coast. A lot of Greece could use a touch of paint and some litter removal. It looked like Jamaica or Puerto Rico. And the parking/driving in town is crazy.

Today we got up and did the Athens ruins. There is a lot of neat stuff near the temple of Hephestus, which then leads up to the Acropolis and Parthenon. Again, the day was gray so pictures will be just ok. They had cranes all over the Parthenon and the museum is closed for rennovation, so we just walked around and saw the old stuff. Pretty amazing. It really is up on a big hill, very impressive considering how old that stuff is. Lunch at a little place right in the shadow of the acropolis. We saw some more stuff nearby but did not have time to go in the park, the kids were wearing out.

Later today after naps we got online and picked football tickets. Very important! We should finally have decent seats. The last few years we have been too close to the game, having to stand on the seat to see the jumbo tron. Now, we should be right on the 50, about 5 rows from the top on the home side. This will put us in the shade for afternoon and night games. We may even be under the pressbox a bit to keep out of the rain! I think we will also have a good view of the fair and city skyline. I am excited!

Tonight we found a nice place for dinner in nearby Victoria Square. It seems like everyone we meet knows passable English for the most part. Victoria square is a little sketchy, but it seems safe enough overall. But the parking is really horrible. Luckily, our hotel has a garage.

Forgot to mention a funny story from Drew: Last week at the Getrank Markt, I had some trouble talking with the clerk. Drew said: "Daddy, your German is nicht so gut." He has learned a lot in just a few months.

Had a beer at lunch by the acropolis in our little eatery.

Mythos - Fine pilsner, nothing fancy or extremely memorable.