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.

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

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.