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.

Dinos and Drew -

We finally went to the Stuttgart natural history museum. I think it was even better than the Frankfurt musuem for dinos. Frankfurt had a big room with a few of the well known dinos (T-rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus) but not much else. Stuttgart was basically nothing but dinos. And a wooly mammoth. And more dinos. Lots of water dinos/lizard things. Scary giant aligators. Loch nest moster things. Water plants. Generally pretty neat, and close to home.

Saturday we had our fist night out with the new baby sitter. It was surprising how nice that was just to get out for a few hours without worrying about kids and their behavior.

The kids have been a little sick, so we took a pretty easy weekend. We picked up a couple of beers at Lidle. It is strange drinking out of a screw-top plastic bottle. But at least they were cheap...

Achalm Pilsner - Not great but drinkable.

Cobra - at the Indian restaurant on date night. Great just to be out, not a bad beer.

Grafenwald Hefe Weissbier - Pretty good, considering the cost and source.

Tuborg Pilsner - This time, you get what you pay for.

Achalm Pilsner, Grafenwald Hefe Weissbier, Tuborg Pilsner

Cobra

Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Wilhelma

Saturday we drove 1.5 hours to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a neat little Midevil walled town. We saw the moat, a few churches, some neat shops, and a lot of towers. You can walk around on a covered walkway inside the wall about 20 feet up. We were here before Christmas for their Weinachtsmarkt, but we did not get to tour much. It really is a neat little town to see.

Sunday we got up early and got to the Wilhelma, Stuttgart's zoo. Beating the crowds, we saw a lot of active animals. Once the kids got a little tired and the crowds got worse, we went to have lunch at the Hauptbahnhof and play some soccer in the nearby park.

Sigel Kloster Hefe Weizen - Very tasty and good.

5.0 Original - At the Hbf I had a 5.0 Original with lunch. Any beer that names itself after the percent of alcohol it contains is not very good. DNF.

Sigel Kloster Hefe Weizen

5.0 Original

Alps -

Saturday, we walked around the village a little bit. They have horse-drawn carriage rides, so we had a chance to see more of the town that we could by walking. Later, we had a great dinner in the little gasthaus I had scouted earlier. One of the common favorites here is Schweinhaxen, baked pig knuckle. Very tasty!

Our hotel was a quaint little guesthaus with maybe 20-30 rooms. It looked just like hundreds (thousands) of other little alpine hotels in Germany: white wals, dark wooden roof, with extra dark wooden accents. This one was recently remodeled and fairly nice (and not expensive). We found out that we were the only guests there on a Saturday! Apparently the ski season was over, even though they had 2 feet of snow on the ground.

We woke up to rain on Sunday. Maybe nobody was around because of the weather forcast? We decided to drive home through some of the German Alps, the Austrian Alps, and the Italian Alps. Going through a pass in the morning, the rain turned to snow. Luckily, it did not stick. After lunch in Lienz, the weather cleared up and we decided to try the Dolomite Road. Mandy (the GPS) said this was a dirt road. She was wrong: it was paved. However, the road was only big enough for one car in many spots. This was a beautiful small road through the alps, we had a great time while the kids slept. However, the weather got bad again towards Italy. After dinner, Andi drove us for a while through a lot of snow north of Innsbruck. It was was pretty messy, but very little was sticking on the roads. A good tour, overall.

I had two beers Saturday night at the pub.

Weininger Zwickl - Unique to the pub, but just a normal pilsner.

Weininger Dunkel Weisse - A lot of taste, more than any of my other wheat beers. However, not my favorite taste so far (but still very good).

Weininger Zwickl

Wininger Dunkel Weisse

Reit Im Winkl -

We liked the area in SE Germany so much that we decided to do a second weekend there before all the snow melted. As we drove up, we noticed there was not much snow, but as we arrived in Reit im Winkl the snow was plowed about 4-6 feet high on the side of the road and maybe 1-2 feet on the houses. We took the kids snow tubing on a nearby slope until the German came and crowded us out. Plus, the sun was getting hot, I think it was approaching 70 here! We forgot the sunscren so we may have a nice raccoon tan. So far, it was a very pleasant quiet weekend.

Last week, we entertained our friend John for the night. We did a restaurant downtown after the modern art gallery. The art was awful, but the food was fine. After dinner, we split a few beers. A couple were old favorite, but a couple were new.

Oettinger Schwartzbier - Very creamy and tasty. Not a Guinness, but may be the closes we get.
Oettinger Alt - Tasted like its namesake, old. Not good. DNF (Did Not Finish)

While the family napped, I wandered around town, scouting places for dinner. I found a nice gasthaus with an open biergarten.

Wieninger Helle Draft - Good, decent taste.

Weininger Helle

Oettinger Schwartzbier and Alt

Zugspitze-

Last Saturday we went over to Garmish, just south of Munich. You can take a train and gondola up to the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany. They have a glacier where you can ski all year and a igloo where you can stay overnight.

We tried to walk the ten minutes to the igloo, but we were met by a snow storm. Some might even call it a blizzard. After a couple of minutes, we turned back because the wind was pretty bad and Ellie was yelling "Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!" The people watching us from the cafe window 30 feet away must have been amused at our attempt. So we basically saw nothing that day. The gondola was not bad, even though the wind must have been going 30-40 mph.

The next day we left Munich and went to Altötting where they have a venerated Mary shrine. They also keep the hearts of the kings of Bavaria in jars in the shrine. Spooky, but neat. That afternoon we hit some alps SW of Salzburg. We found a nice sled run near Reit im Winkl and we may go back again this weekend before all the snow leaves.

I told a colleague we went to Zugspitze. He could not believe we drove three hours to get there, since it is so far away! I did not tell him we drove back from Reit im Winkl (a bit further) after dinner. The Germans don't really do road trips, I a suppose. It is a good thing the kids travel well.

Today I was downtown, walking along the main pedestrian zone before businesses opened. I saw a Vodaphone shop window that had been defaced. If you read this, you know we have had some problems with Vodaphone ($5000 bill for "all of Europe" service that is not "all of Europe") so I can understand their anger. It looked like someone had spread poo on the window of the shop. They put poo in the shape of a Nazi emblem, the hackenkreutz. However, this was the most mentally challenge graffiti I have seen. They had the pointy parts going the wrong way. And one of the four points was going the other way from the first three. If you are going to deface something, lock down your design first!

Last week I had two of the the .75 L beers with the champagne style corks. Not as explosive as some champagnes, but still a good pop when you open them.

La Goudale - Fine, tasty, not bad.
Jenlain Blonde - Similar, ok to drink but nothing special.

Jenlain Blonde

La Goudale

Liechtenstein-

We drove over to Liechtenstein, another country down! What a pathetic little country. Bill Gates should buy it and make his own little theme park. They seem to have nothing, but they did have a McDonald's so we could eat. After lunch, we drove to Domat EMS where Andi's company is based. Then we headed off to St. Moritz, but snow in the alps slowed us down and we stopped to sled with the kids. Then we drove down to Zurich for dinner. Traffic going into and out of Zurich was awful.

I did a little time on the Wikipedia:
South Carolina 31,100
Georgia 58,400
North Carolina 52,700
Total 142,200 sq. miles

Germany 137,800 sq. miles


I also looked at some travel distances using google maps.

From Columbia to (in miles) :
Charlotte	82			1 hr 30 min
Charleston	130			2 hr 20 min
Myrtle Beach	140			2 hr 50 min
Waynesboro	120			2 hr 15 min
Atlanta	230			3 hr 45 min
Gatlinberg	240			4 hr 20 min
Huntsville	450			7 hr 20 min
Orlando	450			7 hr
DC	470			7 hr 30 min
New York	700			11 hr 30 min
Cleveland	600			9 hr 40 min
Gaylord MI	920			15 hr
Boston	910			15 hr 10 min
From Stuttgart to (in miles) :
Frankfurt	130			2 hr
Munich	150			2 hr 10 min
Zurich	130			2 hr 20 min
Berlin	400			6 hr
Prague	320			4 hr 40 min
Paris	380			5 hr 30 min
Amsterdam	390			5 hr 40 min
Rome	720			10 hr 30 min
London	570			9 hr 10 min
Stockholm	1,020			16 hr 20 min

So it really is not that far to drive all around, but these Europeans don't seem to do it much. And with the exchange rate right now, Diesel is only $5 a gallon (lowest we have had in months!).

This week: Amsterdam from France. 11% Alcohol! Powerful, but it tasted awful.

Lost time-

Things this winter have been quiet. After my brother left in early January, we had a trip up near Berlin to Magdeburg. After business was done, we went over to Berlin and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Andi did not realize what the Reichstag was until after we had walked to the top of the dome. BTW, if you ever go, take kids. They let us sneak into a separate line to the top of the Reichstag.

That Saturday we woke up and drove toward Prague. We stopped at Tropical Islands, the world's largest building (by volume). It is an old blimp hangar converted into a water park. It looked spendy and we were not prepared so we kept on the road.

That afternoon we walked around Dresden and saw a famous art museum. They had a famous Raphael painting (with the two little angels at the bottom).

Sunday morning we toured Prague. What a city! Neat buildings and a lot of history. It was only six hours to drive home, but weather was bad so it took longer.

All the previous stuff was in a draft post I never published here, but it apparently got lost. Ooops. So I am not sure if I know what great Czech Republic Beers I had or what I thought of them. Maybe I have pics to dig up? We will see.

Anyway, February was pretty sedate. Everyone but me had a terrible stomach flu at separate times over the past few weeks. We had no big travels planned. One Saturday we went to the grand opening of the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart, one Saturday we went to the Altes Schlosß museum in downtown Stuttgart, another Saturday we went to an old Mill.

The old mill was in the family of a colleague. His grandfather lives and works there still. The building is 350 years old and the mill still works. The "new" milling equipment is 100 years old and they have working stones to mill the grain and a water wheel. The kids got to see chickens and pigs as well. More importantly, the grandfather had his own distillery and we picked up four bottles of the local schnapps. We were also the first Ameris the man had seen since the war. We also stopped at a great little guest house for lunch in this part of the Schwabisch Alps nearly to Ulm.

Yesterday we spent Saturday in Strassbourg, mostly shopping. The French have more American stuff than the Germans it seems. And their prices are a little better as well. We went to the Strassbourg cathedral during the day and took some great photos of the stained glass. We also wandered around a bit in Strassbourg pedestrian areas and saw one bum break a bottle over the head of another in the parking garage.

It has also been snowy here. They say that Stuttgart only had snow a couple of times last year. I think we have seen about four good stick-on-the-ground snows so far. The last one was about half a foot, but recently we have only had slush or ice or rain. A little colder and we could have had a real winter wonderland. The kids have had a great time playing in the snow and sledding, but sadly it looks like that is ending soon.

We also found a kid friendly spa. They have multiple indoor pools with water slides and a good kiddie pool. We have been a few times now and it is always fun. They also offer baby sitting and a real sauna, so maybe we can try that one day...

As for beer, I have been put on a diet. On the positive side, I have lost about 20 lbs. But I have drunk far less beer, maybe one a week. Maybe less. But we did recently buy some interesting looking French beers in .75L bottles with a champagne-like cork. Very odd.

Update: found some pics of beers we found in the Czech republic. All were ok, nothing outstanding.
Gambrinus Svetley
Sladkuv Mestan
Staropramen
BTW, Budweiser traces its origins back to the Czech Republic, from what I read. Crazy.

Neuschwanstein-

The sixth of January was the twelfth day of Christmas, another German holiday. We hit Neuschwanstein. We toured both the castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. Both are pretty amazing. It was a cold day, but you had to hike up a mountain to get to the castles.

The next day we hit Munich again. Residence palace, main church, Hofbrauhaus, and the Roccoco little chapel.



Neckarmueller Weisse - Paul says "Good wheat beer. Not too heavy. If I was going to drink a lot..." I think this is the bottled version of beer we had in a brew pub in Tubingen.

Grimbergenn Blond (French) - Not too memorable. Paul says "ehh."

Mauritius Zwickauer Bock Dunkel - Paul says "looks really dark. It is deceptively light. Strong flavor with some cinnamon aftertaste." I say it is strong.

Viva la France-

So my brother Paul is in town for a bit. We kept him up the first day by driving into the Black Forrest. We also did pne of the only things you can don on a Sunday, we went to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) since it is one of the few places open on Sunday.

Monday we took the kids to Sensopolis, a kids museum and fun park. Again, it is obvious the Germans don't know how to wait in line. I wanted to punch a couple of the line jumpers. It was a mess to get in, but the park was fine. They have a big 4 story padded climbing area with foam balls you can launch in cannons or put in various machines, they have a water area, a big castle, a giant rocket ship, various slides, and many of the normal kid science exhibits. Not bad!

Tuesday we drove to Paris. Wednesday we got up very early and saw the Arc de Triumph at 7 AM. We made the Louvre for the opening. What a mess! At least the French can wait in line. They must like to wait in line, they had so many people. Anyway, it quickly became a madhouse with too many people. Crowds were like being at a football game. Here, we met our first defeat: Andi never made it to see the Mona Lisa. The kids were melting down, the crowds were terrible, and I told her how you can't get within 30 feet of it and it is behind plastic. They really need a separate building or exhibit for the Mona Lisa. Oh well.

We saw the Eiffel tower during the day then went to take a nap so that we might see midnight. We got a late dinner then headed out to the Eiffel tower again. Things went well for a while, but the crowds began to get overpowering around 11:30. Plus the kids were getting sleepy, cold, and cranky. We were not sure how late the trains went, so we bailed early. We were all up for new years in Paris, but we were also asleep about 5 minutes later. Ce'est la ve. Defeat #2.

Thursday was New Years. Figuring nothing was open in Paris, we drove to Normandy to see the D-day beaches. It was a great trip. We saw both the Omaha and Utah beaches. We even found a little museum near Omaha beach that was open. Pierre, the man who ran the museum, had a real passion for it. The cemmetary was closed. It was nice to see where Grandpa landed in France over 60 years ago. Things were great, but we started the day late and never made it to the island castle of St. Michael. Defeat #3.

Friday we went to Versailles. What a mess! The lines and crowds were terrible. The kids were terrific, for the most part. We rushed through, although Paul wanted to take it slowly. The kids are on a timer, so you have to limit your exposure. Later we hit the Eiffel tower for a third time (this time during a clear day). We never went up the tower, the lines were just too long. We did make it to the tomb of Napoleon. This was pretty amazing to see, but the really amazing part was the French military museum with exhibits on WW I, WW II, and lots of old armor and weaponry.

Saturday was a long drive back through the French country side. "French country side" sounds romantic and exciting, but it isn't. It is like Indiana. Only a little more hilly, a few more trees, and older buildings. Many buildings were abandoned and falling down, so it had a third world feel to it. I really wonder why the Germans invaded this area. Twice.

We did stop at a Auchan (like a wal mart) and it was amazing how much like America the French were. Actually, during our stay everyone was very friendly and helpful. I had heard terrible things about the French being rude, but we never ran into that. They were always very friendly. Maybe not as friendly as the Italians, but more so than the Germans. We also stopped at Strassbourg to see the cathedral. We noticed a lot of police driving around, then we notices that they were having riots! Luckily we made it through the trip without having our car torched (they burned over 1000 in France on New Years).

We also found out that the fireworks in Paris are actually quite limited. They basically twinkle the Eiffel tower with strobes, which we did see. So maybe we call Defeat #2 a draw? I assume they played down fireworks since kids started burning cars in France?

So we survived Christmas in Switzerland and New Year's in Paris.

Beer: We had wine in Paris a couple of times. We picked up a couple of French beers on Satuday, so we will try them out today.

Update:

Wendelinus Biere d'Abbaye - Strong, big bottle (750 ml). Paul says: "nice and light-flavored. not too rich. ehhh. Was not especially memorable." Paul is verbose.

Biera Coras Pietra - Paul says "lemony". "Rich full-flavor with a lemony citrus aftertaste, but not too heavy." Paul is wordy. I say "ok".

Paulaner Original Münchner Hell - Not that great. Paul says "kind of bland. No strong flavor."

Dinkel Aker Privat - Paul says "wierd aftertaste." Something seems odd.

Jungfrau-

Friday in Switzerland was too windy for the train to go up the mountain to Jungfrau, the top of Europe. In the past, they had actually had one of these trains blown off the tracks in high winds. So we tubed some and hoped for the best on Saturday.

Saturday was our last day, so we caught the 6:30 AM train up with the workers. 2.5 hours later we up the mountain after a couple of observation post stops along the way. The Jungfraujoch is not at the top of Jungfrau, it is between two taller mountains. From there, they have multiple observation posts where you can look at the mountains and glacier. The top observation post, the sphinx, is a few hundred yards higher up through an elevator. The whole compound is basically drilled out caves and buildings attached to the cliff. Some of the outside observation areas were very chilly, but the glacier area was protected.

If you go in the summer, they run dog sleds out on the glacier. They also let you sled on the glacier. But not in December...

One of the more interesting sights was the ice palace, a cave drilled into the glacier with various ice carvings. It was really interesting to walk through a glacier.

On the down side, I had altitude sickness. I felt weak the whole time we were there and my heart started racing at the end. I guess it isn't a good Christmas present unless it almost kills you. After we got down, everything was fine. I have felt bad at altitude before in Colorado, but not this bad.

We made it home later that day. The next day, we picked up my brother Paul who is here for about a week for New Years.

Rugen Bräu - Local brew from near Interlaken. Not bad.

Bodingtons - British, one of my favorites.

Leffe - Belgium beer, very tasty.

Switzerland-

We could not get home to the US for Christmas, so we decided to spend the holiday in Switzerland. Andi suggested Interlaken, south of Bern in the Alps. Sounded good to me. Once we got here, she admitted she only picked it because she thought she had heard of it before, but she probably was thinking of Interlochen, Michigan near where she grew up. No complaints!

Our first day we settled in a bit. We drove over to Grindelwald, a ski area. We don't really ski, so we just wandered around and took pictures. Grindelwald has a 15 km sled trail (10 miles!) so we thought about trying it out. That afternoon Drew and I went tubing in a local hill while the girls slept. Our hotel is actually 20 minutes out of Interlaken in Beatenberg overlooking the city. We have a great view of the alps out our window!

The second day we tried sledding nearby. We paid for two days of gondola rides to the top of the hill and a day of sled rental. They call them sledges here. They even came with kid seats on the front of the sled, but no brakes. The only way to steer is to stick your feet down. That is also the only way to stop. Neither works very well. The hill was really steep and icy, so I am glad we did not kill any family members. After 3 km of that, we decided to not try the 15 km run. Later that day we went back up with our good camera and took pictures then went tubing again.

The third day we rode up to the top of Niederhorn (about 6,000 ft) and walked down. The trail was 10 km long with 750 m of drop. The whole thing was snow and ice with sledders and skiers occasionally buzzing by. Drew walked the whole way and I carried Ellie in her backpack. Overall, it was very tiring but very beautiful and memorable.

The fourth day we drove over to Täsch to take a train to Zermat to see the Matterhorn. The hippies in Zermat don't allow cars, so you have to take a train in and walk through town to see the mountain. The cool part about the trip was the train ferry through the mountain, just drive onto a train car for a 10 minute ride under the alps.

The fifth day was Christmas. Drew realized at 2 AM Santa had come, so we were up for a bit. We eventually got the rest of our gifts opened and had a lazy day. We had a little snow on the ground and we had a cloud sitting on us all day, so it was a white Christmas.

Tomorrow I get my Christmas present: a trip to the top of Europe. Jungfrau has the highest railway station in Europe at 11,500 feet. This is one of the three peaks we see out our hotel window (when the cloud is not there).

UPDATE: We never made it to the to of Europe. 50 MPH winds stopped train service, so we went back and went tubing again. We will try early early on Saturday to make it up on the way home.

We found a few Swiss beers, and few non-swiss.

Feldschlosschen - Nothing exciting.

Bio Bier - The local Coop (grocery) had this. Actually tasted ok.

Murphys - My wife loves this one. We found it in Ireland. It is the only beer she likes.

Cardinal Lager - Some aftertaste, not great.

Glühwein-

Glühwein is hot spiced wine. They serve it at all the local weihnachtsmarkt, Christmas Markets. Every little town seems to have a market. They set up little booths and decorate them in a Christmas theme and sell various wares. They usually have a grill so you can get Brats and a place to get the Glühwein. The Glühwein comes in coffee mugs with a deposit, so you can get the mug for a Euro or two. So far we have collected at least two mugs from all the weihnachtsmarkts we visited:

Stuttgart (with C&D)
Esslingen (with C&D)
Ulm
Köln
Aachen
Ludwigsburg
Rothenburg ob der Tauber

BTW, they also sell hot punch (Kinderpunsch) for those that are young or driving. They have a zero tolerance policy for DUI here (I hear) so we actually have not had that much Glühwein. We have also only seen Stuttgart's Market in a bit of snow, all the others were just cold or rainy.

So we have been busy. We had to go see a English speaking specialist in Ulm, so we had dinner in their Market right at the base of the tallest church in the world. Their market was smallish.

This week I had business in Aachen. We also found out Mark Miller was headed to Germany, so we could meet in Frankfurt. However, Mark did not show on the Airplane so we thought customs got him or he missed his flight and never told us. Apparently when Mark says Saturday, he sometimes means Sunday. :-) He did make it to Germany, and we met up in Köln on Sunday afternoon. Before he got there, we went to reconstructed Roman ruins near Frankfurt in Saalburg. We hit Düsseldorf, but there was not much going on there. We also saw the Köln modern art museum on Drew's request. With Mark, we saw the cathedral (but we did not climb the tower), the church treasures (including relics from the three wise men) and the Roman museum. It is amazing to see how the Romans were in this area 2000 years ago. We parked right under the Köln Cathedral, and they had a little marker next to the old Church well. This thing is over 1000 years old and just hanging out in a parking garage for anyone to climb on. The Roman museum was put together after they found tons of Roman ruins when working on the Cathedral. Amazing.

We went to Aachen, but did not see much of the town. We had lunch in the Christmas Market, but it was super cold and foggy. I will probably go back to Aachen so we will get a chance to explore more. On the drive home, we hit Luxembourg. We did not see much there, so there is no reason to go back. But it is another European country we have been to, bringing our total to 12 if you count Northern Ireland and Vatican City. However, Luxembourg does have cheap gas if you are ever nearby. I guess they don't do all the EU taxes?

Mark said we had to try some Kolsch beer, and I thought he said Grolsch. Grolsch is everywhere, but Kolsch apparently is only in Koln.

Kolsch Gaffel - Not great with some after taste.
Kolsch Reissdorf - Similar to the Gaffel
Diekirk - From Luxembourg! Again, nothing spectacular.

The Ludwigsburg market was one of the nicest we have seen. They had the most unique booths. Most markets pretty much have the same stuff. Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a little over an hour from Stuttgart. It was also the first Christmas Market Andi had ever seen and it is in a little unique little Midevil walled town. They had a small market, but the buildings were pretty and it was not too crowded (unlike others). However, they really are a tourist spot. I heard tons of English in the mix and saw a lot of Japanese tourists as well.




Diekirch from Luxembourg

Kolsch Beers, Gaffel and Reissdorf


Glühwein Mugs

Beer and Böblingen-

So our friends watched the kids for us on a Saturday afternoon and we took the opportunity to hit a bath in Böblingen. The top floor was all normal pools with warm water. We got stuck in a water aerobics class for a bit. The instructor reminded me of Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers movies. She was a bit militant, goose-stepping through the routine. She even singled me out with a "Schneller!" but no "Lies! ALL LIES!"

We went downstairs to the sauna area. 20 years ago I wandered into a German sauna and I was not prepared. This time I knew what I was getting into. And all the really old ladies stayed home today. The best part was the steam room where they turn off the lights and run a music light show every half hour. They seem to like cold with their hot, so they had a hot tub with cold water in it, a walking track with hot water on one side and cold on the other, and a patio where you can go outside in the freezing rain in the nude.

Before the bath visit, Derrick and I watched the kids while the girls shopped. This means we split a few beers and watched some TV. Tomorrow we are hitting another Christmas market in Esslingen to sample some Glühwein.

Friday
Weihenstephaner Kristall Weissbier - From the oldest brewery in the world. Very light, but not bad. No Derrick, they were in France.

Saturday
Schwaben Bräu Urtyp Export - Bitter, not very tasty. Derrick says "It was ok."

Hofbräu München Festbier - Tasty Christmas beer. Derrick says "It was pretty good."

Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu Weihnachts Bier - Another good Christmas beer from one of the breweries I have toured. Derrick says this was darker and he did not like it so much.

Scwaben Bräu Pilsner - A little bitter, not too tasty. Derrick says "It was pretty good."

Tourists-

So our friends are doing the local Stuttgart attractions. Ludwigsburg, Mercedes Benz Museum, etc. It is fun to watch them do the stuff we have done but they can do it faster and more efficiently sans kids. Our place has become a free hotel for them and we don't mind at all. We wish more people would visit.

Tuesday-

Schwaben Bräu Original Süffig Frisch - Derrick liked it. "Tasty and a bit sweet." I thought it had an aftertaste.

Schönbuch Horst Hell Lagerbier - Derrick thought it was "skunky" and "off" and "bitter". I thought it tasted like apples, in a bad way.

Oettinger Mixed Bier Cola - I finally found this mix in a bottle. Mostly like cola, not much beer taste. Christine says it was like a "watered down rum and coke." Derrick says it is a watered down cola with a peculiar sweetness.

Dinkel Acker Märzen - I don't like the Märzen. Derrick says "thumbs up" and "probably the best beer I've had." Dinkel Acker is a few blocks away from our old house, so I have to like it a bit.

Kloster Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel - Christine says it is "sweet." Derrick says "sweet but good." Andi says it has more depth and flavor and it is smooth. Christine has been to this brewery near Munich.

It is nice being able to split a bunch of beers with friends...

Frankfurt and Friends-

We made it to Frankfurt, but our troubles continued. Our SLR camera got dropped (not by me or the kids) and the lens would not zoom or focus. Good thing we did not upgrade the lens like we had planned! The replacement was a little over a hundred bucks and should be here soon so our pictures are limited now.

Frankfurt was not great, but we saw the dinosaur museum. Not many pictures there, however. We did find a big shopping market that Andi wanted to see forever. Since Frankfurt is a couple of hours away, they have different beers in that region so I have some new ones to try. We have almost exhausted the local varieties near Stuttgart.

We also had our first snow and took the kids out. We did not have sleds then, but we now do...

We have some friends in town so it gives me an excuse to try some new beers. Derrick is a beer snob, so he will be adding to my reviews this week.

Saturday:
Stuttgarter Hofbrau Weinachts Bier - Seasonal Christmas beer, higher alcohol content.

Sunday:
Kaiser Keller Pils - Ok for a Pils, not too bitter. Derrick was not impressed but says it was "fine".

Glaabsbrau Keller Trubes 1744 - Ok, but nothing spectacular. Derrick thought it was pretty good, much better than the Pils.

Erdinger UrWeisse - Still my favorite wheat beer. Christine liked it too. Derrick said it was tasty too.

Monday:

Mauritius Zwickauer Bock Dunkel - First real dark I have seen. I liked it. Derrick likes it too. "A little rich."

Glaabsbräu Export - Not great, but not bad. Derrick was not impressed. Sorta like a Heiniken. "Drinkable"

Glaabsbrau Keller Trubes


Kaiser Keller Pils


Stuttgarter Hofbrau Weinachts Bier


Erdinger UrWeisse

Back in the saddle again-

So we had our two week visit home. I had to work the whole time and the family had various appointments to keep with doctors, pictures, and shopping so we were quite busy the whole time. Not to mention two football games and a Halloween party plus family to see. We kept very busy the entire time, no rest for the wicked.

We "smuggled" 16 beers back to the states. Actually, you can bring 6 L per person we read. So I got some friends together for a taste testing party. Krombacher Pils and Konig Ludwig were two favorites. Altenmunster was not, although it had a neat bottle.

The plane trip back was not too terrible. Three hops so we could come straight into Stuttgart this time, and the kids were really great on the plane. Some screaming in the airports, but not so much in the air. However, we had a rough time getting back on Europe time this week. A couple of days were were totally out of sorts, but now I think we are caught back up.

So we tried an "easy" weekend trip to Munich to see if we still had our touring legs. Nope, not really. Things started bad when we forgot the video camera and had no juice for the still. No pictures!

This time it was not rainy in Munich! It was actually sunny. We went to the Deutsches Museum, the world's biggest museum of science and technology. What a snoozer! Scale models of old dairys. Antique looms. Old scales and weight standards. They did have a V2 on disply: great if you want to bomb London. And they had a cool electricity exhibit with a man in a cage with 200,000 Volts. But overall, we rate it two snores. The museums in Speyer and Sinsheim were much more fun and not so focused on education.

We did a drive-by on the Hofbrau haus. But no beer! We had to replace a mug one of the kids broke, and I picked up my first German souvenier, a HB mug just like my dad got when he spent a summer in Germany forty years ago. In a few generations, my family may have a whole set.

We did made it to the BMW museum in Munich. It is very new and shiny, but we were a little under impressed. The coolest thing they have is a kinetic sculpture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVhVClFMg6Y

It is two sections. BMW World was just a big showroom with some exhibits. Neat architecture, but confusing to navigate. The BMW museum section was nice, but also hard to navigate. You wander down hallways into a basement touring rooms off to the sides. Some were not stroller friendly. At the end, they have you walk UP a spiral to see a couple of new cars then escalate down (the new cars were covered for us?). MB does a better job overall in Stuttgart IMHO. But the kinetic sculpture was amazing.

Then on Sunday we did our sixth trip to Legoland. Gotta love a year pass. This is the last day they are open until March, so we stuck around for fireworks (something rare in Germany unless they are hosting a world war).

One beer last week-
Erdinger Urweissen- This is a new erdinger and I think it is now one of my favorite wheat beers. Very tasty. Looking over my list, I have had Kristal, HefeWeizen, Dunkel Weisen but I don't think I have had their standard Urweissen...

End (for now) on a low note-

So I caught some sort of bug at Octoberfest or the Volksfest. Apparently, this is pretty common. They claim the beer mugs are not thoroughly washed. I would guess it may also have something to do with the giant crowds of people. Either way, I was sick a couple of days and have been hacking for over a week. So I have not written anything for a couple of weeks.

We did manage a trip to Tübingen for the Enterennen (duck race). 5000 ducks were dumped in the river and we cheered for our entries. We lost. But we met some friends (accidently) and had a nice snack and beer at the local brewery. We also walked around the town a bit and saw the old castle. Apparently, Tübingen is a university town, they first isolated the nucleas of a cell there back in the day.

Another day we spent at Ludwigsburg at the Pumpkin Festival. We happened to also be there when they were weighing in the German giant pumpkin entries, some of the biggest pumpkins I have ever seen.

We did a drive out leaf peeping and checking out a few towns nearby (Herrenberg, Metzingen) and wandered over to Ulm where they have the tallest church spire in the world. Although they started the church in the 1300s, they put the spire on in the 1800s, so it is only 100 years. Ulm is close to Legoland so we did a couple of hours there on trip # 5.

Sunday we went to Speyer. They have another Tecknick Museum there (like Sinsheim). They have a 747 and a Russian Buran space shuttle. This one had more fire engines and trains than Sinsheim. They had the same scary do-it-yourself rides, so we did a few. While in Speyer, we also went to the local aquarium, See Land. Speyer is a neat little town with a nice main street.

So we head home for a couple of weeks tomorrow. Five months has gone by so quickly. Time flies when you are having fun. We are all excited to see friend and family.

However, four of the five last beers I had were terrible. I actually could not finish them. One was at the downtown brewery in Darmstadt (conference). This was actually the worst beer I have ever had. It smelled like the ocean, like the rotting salty smell. I only could take a few sips. The other three were also terrible, I actually threw them out after trying maybe a quarter. Maybe my taster is off because of the cold? However, Darmstadter (at another brewere) was fine...

Nekarmuler- Tübingen brewhaus, very good dunkel and hefe.

Schönbuch Ur-Edel - Awful, DNF.

Schwaben Bräu Volksfest - Awful, DNF.

Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu Spezial - Awful, DNF.

Darmstadter Dunkel - From the brewery near the Hbf, very good. Nothing wrong here.

Darmstadt Ratskeller Hefeweizen - Worst beer ever. Ever. Awful. Skunked, then soaked in dead animals, then skunked again. I love Hefeweizen, but this was plain terrible. Good thing they only sell beer in house so nobody else must suffer this stuff. Awful Awful. DNF.

Volksfest-

Sunday we had a friend arrive coming for a conference for a couple of days. To help keep him awake so he could try to sync up with the time change, we were tasked with entertaining him on Sunday.

We took him to the Canstadter Volksfest, the Stuttgart version of the Octoberfest in Munich.

We had heard that it too could be a big mess, so we went straight there from the airport. We got there around 10 AM and walked around a bit. Around 11 AM we settled into an early lunch of Pretzels, White wurst (veal sausages) and beer in the . There were only a few people in the tent at that point, but the band still played for us. We were in the Dinkel Acker tent, which is a brewery just down the street from the Underwear Factory where I work and close to our first apartment.

The tents are quite elaborate, considering they are only around a couple of weeks. I think the ones in Munich were sheds, so they are up year-round. Inside, they have wooden railings and the supports were decorated in wood painted to look like columns. The stages were elaborate and they even had some raised decks for extra seating area. Munich had bigger and more elaborate tents, but overall Stuttgart and Munich were very comparable. Munich had 2-3 real roller coasters (loops and all) but the overall amount of area seemed very similar. Stuttgarters like to talk about the two Ferris Wheels at Volksfest vs. only one in Munich. A lot of dangerous carny rides, a lot of fair food booths, a lot of kiddie rides. Judging from googlemaps, Stuttgart is nearly the same size as Munich with nearly the same number of big tents.

Stuttgart did have a nice section that was something different. One corner of the festival had booths that were decorated in a more traditional manner. The facades were done in wood and the roofs were wooden shingles. There were no rides in this area, just booths for food and goods. It had a much more natural feeling to it than the rest of the fair. They had a medium gazebo for beer drinking and a small rotating gazebo for beer drinking. This was definitely my favorite area.

Our perception of German liability was reinforced here. They have a lot of rides involving sitting in a chair chained below a rotating arm, some of which lift the swings up to maybe 60-80 feet over the crowds. I have not seen many of these in the states. We put our son on a kiddie sized bumper car, and they turned the machines on before he was belted in. I was still out in the middle dodging little kids in their bumper cars!

We got out around noon and the streams of people were just coming in. We made it out just in time! We also managed to see some of the parade, with marching bands and horse-drawn wagons. We got behind one of the horse-draw wagons on the way in, just slowly walking down the four lane highway. After the Volksfest, we went over to the Mercedes Benz Museum. There is a lot to see there, we have always been rushed through because of the kids. Later, we were a bit lost so we ended up walking the length of Königstraße to find the Hotel we needed to get to, so we had quite a busy Sunday.

Dinkel Acker Volksfest - Ok Pilsner, not my favorite. Anything in a 1 L mug can't be all bad...

Liability?

John, using my special 1000 mL lens.

Octoberfest-

We made it to München for the most famous of Beer parties, Octoberfest. However, I found out that the locals call it "the Wiesen." I had read enough to know what to expect when we got there, but it was a surprise for my wife. Octoberfest basically was like your big state fair in the US, but instead of tents full of 4H displays, local farm animals, quilts, and pound cakes they have giant tents full of drunks. Smoking, dancing on tables, listening to bad German bands, singing "Ein Pro-sit" every ten minutes, wearing Laderhosen and Dirndls. Or maybe it is like your state fair? I have only been to a few in the US.

We managed to walk around in the Hofbräuhaus tent before they started controlling access (around 11 AM). The inside was loud, smoky, very full, and really did not have room for the stroller so we sat outside for a few rounds. The kids were good for a while, but we eventually had to take them on some rides. Around 4 PM the crush of people was just too much, so we had to vacate. The kids got to see the traditional horse drawn beer wagons with festive dress, so that was fun. They also got to see a few people passed out in the gutter.

We did it and we never have to do it again. Just like New Years in Times Square and Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

One part made me proud. As we entered the Hofbräuhaus tent, a rowdy group was chanting U S A! U S A! The US was well represented by drunks at the Octoberfest. It seemed like every other person was American.

Hofbräuhaus Original- Decent beer, still like wheat better.

Ayinger Altbairish Dunkel- Not a wheat, first darkish beer I have seen here. Not bad, but not my favorite either.