Madrid, Spain to Paris, France

After spending another lovely, sunny day working (waaah! waaah!) I packed up and shipped out to the airport to catch my flight into France.

One thing I want to say about the Charles de Gaulle airport that first-time visitors may not be aware–if taking the public transportation, be prepared to get screwed. Although there’s a metro station inside the airport, it costs about $10 or so to go through the gate. (Even though individual Metro trips are about $1.25) For example, last year when I picked Brian up at the CDG airport, it cost me $10 to enter the airport because I came by train (yes, I paid $1.25 for the Metro ride, then $10 to enter the airport) then $10 apiece to leave the airport. Bogus, bogus, bogus.

Disneyland Paris is the same way. You take the regular $1.25 metro, and Disneyland is the last stop. However, to exit the Metro gate, you must pay an exorbitant fee. I think it was close to $20. Each person, each way. So factor that cost in to your travels. (One may be able to circumvent the system through one devious plot or another, but you can’t count on that. There are Metro attendants there to watch for such shenanigans.)

So, after dropping my stuff off in my hotel (which is a hotel/hostel on the Republique square) I took the Metro to Trocadero. The Trocadero stop not only has an awesome view of the Eiffel Tower, but also features vendors who sell a variety of hot, yummy crepes. I got mine with nutella–deelish! I also arrived just in time for the Eiffel Tower lights to go all sparkly and do their glittering thing. This was cool for me, since I’m usually fairly far away from the tower after nightfall and all my past photos of it lit up at night have been from a distance.

I asked some Americans if they’d photo me in front of the tower, which is how I got the horrifically blurry shot attached to this post. Imagine that’s me, with a hot chocolate crepe in my hand, and the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the background. =)

Erica

P.S. You might notice the bright straps on my shoulders in many of my photos. These straps belong to my backpack, known affectionately as the R.B.O.P. (Yes, my backpack has a name. Can you guess what it is?)

Tags: airports, travel tips

Madrid, Spain

So, last night Erin and Charlotte dropped me off at the Frankfurt airport and I flew into sunny Madrid. Blessed, blessed, sunny Madrid. How fabulous to be warm again! Which brings me to an inescapable fact–it’s impossible to pack for multi-country journeys. Last year, I packed my Florida gear, knowing that Madrid’s weather would be reasonably comparable to Tampa’s, and I froze to death in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. This year, I pack “autumn” style, which means I’m cold in Germany and hot in Spain. *sigh*

Today, I spend most of the day working (seriously–I spent a good 10 hours glued to my laptop) although I did escape long enough to make two trips.

One was to Plaza Mayor, which was a little disappointing. Now that there’s a big focus on safety and law-abiding, there’s police patrolling everywhere, which means the “vendors” I had counted on encountering were nowhere to be found. Last year, as soon as the sun set, the stone streets leading to the plaza were crowded with vendors hawking their wares on small (1 meter x 1 meter) squares of cloth, around which looped a length of yarn. When the police would show up (once every hour or two), they’d yank on the yarn, which would close the square of fabric into a little bundle, trapping their merchandise inside. The vendors would then scamper off, a knapsack on their back (or whatever). The plaza was the best place to get things on the cheap, from knock-off designer goods to souvenirs for a euro. Now, however, the whole place was empty, which took away from the carnival-esque vibe I’d remembered, complete with street performers such as clowns on stilts and mimes.

In any case, I hadn’t come to the Plaza to buy postcards and painted fans. (Which is a good thing, since I would’ve had to buy them in one of the zillion actual *stores*, at retail price!) Nope, I was in the market for shoes.

That’s right–shoes.

Last year, while in Spain, I couldn’t help but notice that all the women wore the same general style of shoe. I thought they were cute–they reminded me of ballet shoes with straps, and came in a variety of styles, colors, and materials. I meant to buy some and never did (thanks to my anti-shopping mentality) so this time I plan to rectify that error. Also, Erin was interested in knowing what kind of shoe I was talking about (since that description really doesn’t do it justice) so I promised to email her some digital photos and ship her a pair if she saw something she liked. For your viewing enjoyment, I’m attaching a few of the shoe photos here… although I can’t bring back shoes for everyone! (And men in the crowd: I’m afraid these only come in ladies’ sizes. Sorry!)

The other stop was for food, when I went to Pans & Co (pan=bread, not pan like a skillet) where I got the Greek bocadillo, which is a sandwich made of tomatoes, slabs of thick, fresh cheese, and bread that reminds me in shape and consistency of French bread, except that it’s only about a foot long and not quite as big around. The whole thing cost about two fifty–a bargain!

Keeping with that theme, I want your food stories. If it was cheap, delicious, bizarre, surprising, whatever–I want to hear it. (Reminds me of the Simpson’s episode, when Gramps comes home looking like he took a swim through through a toxic waste dump. Marge says, “What happened to him??” and Homer shrugs and answers, “He fell down at the Big Boy.”)

Tags: food, shopping

Frankfurt, Germany

Today I packed up and stuffed my bag into Erin’s trunk, and the three of us set off for sunny Frankfurt. Okay, okay, it wasn’t sunny. Not even close. It was cold and overcast until about 4 or 5 pm, when the sun inexplicably chose to come out and warm the place up for an hour or so before it was time for sunset. No problem… we had our coats and gloves. (Or, at least, I had my coat and
*Charlotte’s* gloves, since she was nice enough to loan me her spare pair, seeing as I forgot mine.)

Frankfurt was smaller than I had expected, but an intriguing mix of old-school German architecture and modern steel-and-glass skyscrapers. We wandered around the streets in search of the elusive walk-platz, and finally had to resort to asking directions from this cute German twenty-something in a suit. We didn’t approach him just because he was handsome (No, really! I swear!) but because Erin figured that since Frankfurt is a hub for international businessmen, chances were good that men in suits would be mulilingual. (She was right.)

We strolled up and down the tree-lined street, sight-seeing and people-watching… the two primary walk-platz activities, next to shopping, eating, and sipping coffee/wine/beer, the latter of which we also did. When my cafe au lait arrived, to my surprise it arrived in a glass cup (the kind you’d serve milk in). Like Erin always says, you never know what you’re going to get when you order food & drink in another country. At least I didn’t get runny egg on my pizza.

For dinner, we went to a German restaurant (for pretty much the first time since I’d been in Germany) and I ordered the Spinach Pancake (called the vegetarisch Panierter Schafskase mit Preiselbereren) figuring it was a different spin on the traditional potato pancake. Wrong again. It turned out to be something more like a crepe wrapped around a massive pile of cooked spinach and smothered with cheese. Even *better* than what I’d imagined!

Tags: food, lost

Rammstein-Miesenbach, Germany

Today we woke up nice and early and headed outside into the *freezing* morning air. Luckily, that was just for a few moments until Erin backed the car out of the garage and her mom and I could jump inside. Erin took us on a tour of the base (by car, so we could avoid that pesky hypothermia) and then dropped us back off at home so that she could go to work.

Charlotte headed upstairs for an anti-jetlag power nap, and I headed downstairs to do some laundry and to get some client work done. (I can’t ever forget that I don’t have “real” vacations like “normal” people–40% of my waking time has got to be plugged into my laptop!)

After all that excitement, we headed outside to do some hiking. I showed Charlotte the “path” to the lake… In other words, we made our random way up the hills in more or less the same wandering direction as the first time I happened to come across the lake. We then tried to make our way back via the paved roads, which totally didn’t work out the way we’d hoped. However, getting a little lost let us do some sightseeing we wouldn’t otherwise have done, and we managed to find our way back to Erin’s house on our own, without having to resort to direction-asking.

While in the woods, we did not come across any strange creatures (such as dinosaurs or snakebots) but we did make friends with a few horses. We also found a poster detailing the larger creatures of the forest, which appear to include a dozen variety of deer/moose/elk/bison/goats.

As to that topic, have you ever run across wildlife when out and about? I want to hear your animal-encounter stories! =)

Tags: hiking

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

No, that’s not a typo–today we went to Luxembourg the city, in the middle of Luxembourg the country, for our adventuring.

Luxembourg is a pretty mix of modern and ancient spread across rolling hills and decorated with bright-autumn changing leaves. It is also bitterly cold at the moment, but don’t let that deter you–grab a parka and come hang out. =)

Even though we arrived by autobahn, our first stop was the train station. High up on one wall is a large, famous stained glass window featuring a castle at sunset. (They even somehow managed a gradient effect to the colored glass–amazing.)

Afterward, we strolled around the center plaza and ended up lunching at an Italian outdoor cafe. We each got a pizza (because in Europe all pizzas are “personal” size.) Mine was fresh mozzerella, artichokes, and a few varieties of mushroom (which is neat, because in the States I’m typically served the standard generic mushroom.) Charlotte ordered a ham and artichoke pizza, and got a surprise when it was served with a (runny!) egg in the middle of it!

Once we finished eating (except for the runny egg) we headed over to the Modern Art Museum. The first time Erin was here, the walls were lined with small tracks spiralling from ceiling to floor. When you arrived, you were given a marble, and when you reached the top floor, you placed your marble on the first leg of the track and let it clatter around the museum over and over until it hit the ground. She was excited to show us the crazy marble exhibit, so imagine her surprise to find it not only gone–but the main center room filled with sand! (Yes, *sand*.)

The first exhibit contained a car and three paintings, and a good six-to-eight inches of sand. In fact, in order to get to any of the other exhibition halls, we had to cross past the car and clomp through the sand!

The museum is neat for several reasons. First, there’s none of the stereotypical “red circle on black background” modern art paintings. In fact, there were little to no paintings at all. Second, the museum is a revolving collection of exhibitions, rather than an unchanging, permanent set of any one thing. Third, the exhibitions rarely stay longer than 3 months at a time. This means you could come to this museum once every season of the year and it would be a wholly different experience every time!

If I could change anything about the museum, however, it would be to arrange things so that we could see the “real” walls rather than the temporary sheetrock. The bits we could glimpse were covered with frescoes and tapestries and ornate mouldings. But I guess the mind set in Europe is more like, “We have so many old, old buildings–who cares if we turn one into a Modern Art Museum?”

Later, we strolled about the town and in and out of the two main cathedrals. Both had pipe organs on the second story, and one had some kind of shrubbery growing in the baptismal basin. (We have no clue what that was about!)

On that note, have you ever come across something similarly inexplicable in your travels? I can’t be the only one running across runny eggs on pizza and bush-filled baptismal basins. Share your stories!

Tags: cathedrals, food, museums, trains

Heidelburg, Germany & O-Club

This morning, Erin and I arose at the-crack-3-hours-before-dawn and headed into Frankfurt. Her mom arrived in the airport at 6:30 from New York. Since she came from a non-EU country, she landed in a different terminal (1) than I had (2). Terminal 1 was under horrible construction, to the point where if you wanted to get from one part of the terminal to another, you had to go outside, circle the building until you found an entrance door to the area you were looking for, and then go back inside. Since the weather is *freezing* cold, these shenanigans are Not Fun.

Nonetheless, we got there mere seconds before her mom exited customs, so it was perfect timing. We piled her luggage into the car and drove to Heidelburg.

Heidelburg is beautiful, even though it was blanketed with thick fog until around lunchtime and never quite warmed up.

We headed straight to Heidelburg castle, and hiked to the top of the hill maybe 20 minutes before the gates were to open at 8 am. We took a few photos and gazed down across the countryscape until we could enter the castle grounds. Once inside, we went to ticketing and purchased the 10:15 walking tour (the first one in English) and went to do all the non-tour-guided free things.

As it turns out, however, nothing is open until 10. Not the apothecary, the cafes, the gift shops… nothing but the ticket booths. How weird is that?

With nothing else to do but wander around, we set to that task immediately and had a great time exploring the exterior castle grounds and gardens. We were also able to enter the winery (there’s always a winery! love it!) and see the massive wine barrel.

By massive, I mean *massive*. (Photo attached.) This wine barrel has held the Guiness World Record for *centuries*, as the largest vat to ever contain wine. There are staircases to get to the top of it, and over the barrel is a wooden dance floor. That’s right, you heard me–a wine barrel big enough to hoist a dance floor. As we later learned on the tour, the king would have the barrel filled with wine–any wine. Red, white, whatever. As long as it was wine, it was good enough to drink.

The tour was fun, although like many tours, seemed to linger in the least interesting rooms and zoom through the most interesting ones. (Either that, or I have truly bizarre taste in history and decorations.) Nobody really knows exactly how old the castle is. All we know for certain is that the first written record of its existence dates back to the year 800. (Not 1800–just 800. Wow!) As with most castles, it has been remodeled and added onto numerous times over the years. It also suffered destruction by fire twice in the same century. Part of the damaged area was reconstructed in the early to mid 1900s, but other parts will probably remain ruins for the foreseeable future. The combination of old and new made an intriguing experience.

After touring the town of Heidelburg, we headed back to Miesenbach to get ready for tonight’s Hispanic Heritage Banquet at the Officers’ Club on the Rammstein Air Base. Food included salad, tortillas with veggies (or meat), beans & rice, and cheesecake. Not sure that cheesecake is particularly Hispanic, but it was darn tasty.

The entertainment included speakers and dancers, the latter of which I absolutely loved. There was music and dancing representative of many of the Spanish-speaking countries, and even a group of African dancers, from which a lot of Carribbean music and dancing is based. I also got to see Brazilian Capoeira for the first time (live, anyway) which was cool. Capoeira is a style of dancing invented by the slaves in an effort to express themselves while in search of freedom. It combines acrobatics with dance and a coordinated sort of kick boxing.

Of course, the big joke is that I flew to Germany from Spain in order to see flamenco!

Have you seen (or participated in) any cultural dance performances? Let me know all about it!

Tags: airports, castles & palaces, festivals & fiestas, food, random facts & history, wine

Rechtenbach/Gleiszellen Germany & Wissembourg France

Today while Erin was at work, I hijacked her computer, installed a few programs, and spent the day working myself. But, when she got home, we packed up and shipped out on adventure. First, we headed to Schweigen-Rechtenbach. If you’re wondering if the town name is hyphenated because of a recent marriage, the answer is… sort of. Apparently, in this part of Germany, areas are called the hyphenated combination of the two closest (neighboring) towns. I guess this would be the equivalent of saying Tampa-Clearwater, South Bend-Mishawaka, Santa Monica-Los Angeles, etc. I’m just not sure why the towns can’t be independent.

So anyway, we first hung out in Rechtenbach, where there’s a winery (weintor) and pretty scenery. We gave ourselves a self-tour of the winery and climbed up to the top of a tall tower for the view. While we were up there, an older man climbed up the stairs and said something to us in German. Erin didn’t have any clue what he was saying, and since I have pretty much a 50-word vocabulary (plus the numbers so I can count change) I had no idea what was going on, either. He shook a set of keys on a pink keyring at Erin. Figuring someone had dropped them, Erin checked her purse, showed him that she had her keys safe and sound, and said “No” a few times. That had little to no effect because, as it turned out, he was the caretaker trying to lock up the tower without trapping us inside. (Ohhhh.)

After we realized our mistake (with much good-natured laughing on the caretaker’s part, too) Erin and I descended the stairs and decided to snack on some flammkuchen. And wine. (It’s a winery! You can’t not have wine in a winery!) Erin tried to explain flammkuchen to me prior to me laying eyes on it, but like any food item, it’s difficult to explain. I’ll do my best. Imagine the concept of pizza. (Easy, right?) Not pizza itself–but the idea of an open-face breadish susbstance covered with toppings. The breadish thing is thin like a tortilla, but not that flimsy, although not cracker-crisp either. The style we got was Vegetarianisch (I probably killed the spelling on that) which meant it had red peppers, sliced pepperoncini-type peppers, chunks of fresh cheese (not sure what kind), and a bit of garlic for spice. (No pizza sauce, because it’s not pizza. It’s flammkuchen.) I thought it would be small, but it came on a large, rectangluar wooden oven paddle. (They’re baked in flame ovens. I know there’s a better word than “flame oven” but I can’t think of it right now.)

Once we were done eating, we got back in the car and crossed the border into France, where we were detained by seventeen armed guards, three tanks, and a helicopter. Actually… Open EU borders means open EU borders, and if there hadn’t been a sign, I would’ve had no idea we crossed into another country. There were no guards, no checkpoint, no nothing. Easy peasy.

We cruised around looking for Wissembourg for a while, and although we did find it, there wasn’t much going on since the main strip was under construction and the detour pretty much detoured us around the whole town. So we came back across the border in search of Gleiszellen-Gleishorbach, where a wine fest was going on.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to find G-G (as I’m calling it, since I’m a lazy typist) so we drove around looking for someone to whom we could ask directions. Erin says, “We need to find someone who speaks English.” To which I said, “Or French. If they speak French, we can get directions, too.” She made no return comment. (Bear with me and you’ll see the significance in a moment.) We head up a residential hill and see a man with a water hose in his yard. Erin pulls over as I roll down my window.

[pardon the spelling below because I speak it better than I can write it.]

“Sil vous plait,” I call out. “Ou est le festival du vin?”

He puts down the water hose. “Bitte?”

Since I’m a moron, I fail to catch the significance of that single word. So, I rephrase. “Je cherche le festival du vin. Est-ce que vous connais ou ca est?”

He makes a crazy face and starts spouting off gibberish. (Or it could’ve been German. I really need to study up.) He then motions over his wife, who cuts across the lawn to join the conversation. (If you can call it that.)

Once again, I launch into another version of “Do you have any idea where we can find the wine festival?” and both of them chatter back in German.

Erin says, “Forget it.” We wave our thanks and take off.

“I can’t believe they don’t speak French,” I say, semi-outraged.

“Yeah,” Erin agrees. “We’re less than 2 minutes from the border.”

I start looking around the neighborhood more closely and my jaw drops. “Hey,” I say. “This is crazy. Even the *signs* around here are in German!”

At this point, Erin stops the car, levels me with a look, and says, “Erica. We’re *in* Germany.”

Ohhh.

I had completely forgotten. No wonder the Germans spoke to me in… well… German.

And that, my friends, is what happens when you combine ADD with open borders. Absolutely no clue what country you might be in or what language you ought to be speaking at any given moment.

So, we drive around the next corner or two and come across two younger (twenty-something) guys with bikes. Erin says, “Ask *them* for directions.”

But now I’m feeling so idiotic that I can’t fathom forcing my French onto another German. She convinces me that the younger inhabitants are multilingual and that we should give it a shot.

We roll up and I ask if they know where the wine fest is. To which they crack up laughing (luckily not at my French-in-Germany) and respond, “Il-y-a beaucoup des festivals du vin.” (There’s a gazillion wine fests.)

Oh. So they ask me which one in particular we’re looking for, and of course I don’t know. I throw out G-G’s town name, and they happen to know which one I mean and give us directions.

Finally, we arrive at G-G where the wine fest is hopping. We park in a field with the other cars and buses and saunter up the streets, decorated with strands of hanging lights and lots of flowers. Clusters of local food and wine vendors line the streets, and the jovial crowd bustles inbetween.

By jovial, I mean *jovial*. The band struck up a tune and everyone starting singing and swaying to various German drinking songs, and even in the winding streets where the music could no longer be heard, groups of people spontaneously burst into drinking songs and chants and whole tables would sway together and join in the song. At times, it was so loud Erin and I couldn’t even talk. The great thing was that everybody was in the spirit, and there was absolutely no censoriousness. If older people passed by a table of rowdy youngsters swinging and swaying, they just grinned and raised their glasses.

Erin and I tried two different wines apiece. Her first one was OK, but a little warm for white wine. My first one was bubbly, kind of like a would-be asti but not quite. (That’s an awesome description, isn’t it? I should totally get a job writing wine labels.) My second wine was bizarre, but surprisingly delicious. It was apple flavored (which makes sense, since apples are in season and orchards are everywhere. Vendors fill the walk-platz with their bags and baskets of fresh apples.) The second wine came in a souvenir glass, which I could return to the tent for my deposit back, or choose to keep. (Naturally, I’m taking that baby home.) The glass is neat–it has a picture of the local vinyard/winery where my wine came from, and the year that the wine was first produced.

Have you visited any wineries or wine/beerfests? I want to hear all about it!

Tags: festivals & fiestas, food, lost in translation, wine

Miesenbach, Germany & Kusel, Germany

This morning I wake up, get around, do some work, and head outside to go hiking. Erin told me about a lake with trails about a 7 minute walk from her house, just past an apple orchard. So, I head off in the direction she’d pointed out with my backpack and a bottle of cranberry juice (I didn’t have bottled water) and set out on my merry way.

Seven minutes go by as I traverse the winding road, followed by another seven. No lake. The twisting road forks. Twice.

Erin hadn’t mentioned any forking going on, so I randomly pick a path and continue walking. Another seven minutes of no lake tick by, and I begin to suspect that the lake was really a “lake”, a trick designed to be rid of me forever, a la Hansel and Gretel.

Wandering on the edge of a dense cabbage patch, I hear a strange sound, kind of a metallic rattle, and double-check my camera (which hangs around my neck in true tourist fashion.) The camera was off, but I might have left it on, since it turns itself off automatically.

Shrugging, I continue on and in a few more steps… again, the mechanical rattling. I realize the sound is not coming from me or my camera, but from the tall, tangled grass alongside the muddy pathway. Another five or six feet later, the rattle is accompanied by movement within the underbrush.

At this point, I’m convinced that rattle snakes run rampant throughout the path to the “lake”. Robotic ones. Vicious, evil, snakebots.

Then up ahead I see the edges of what could conceivably be called an apple orchard, although there were only a couple rows of sparse trees. Assuming the lake is on the other side and that Erin merely counts to seven in some weird new way, I stride resolutely down the dirt trail, doing my best to ignore the warning rattle of the animatronic snakes hiding in the overgrowth alongside the path.

Seven minutes later, I’m past the apple trees and into the woods. No more mechanical snakes, but still no lake. Curiouser and curiouser.

A watery trail snakes into the woods, and I roll up my pant legs before sloshing down the spongy dirt path. The lake must be on the other side of the woods, I tell myself. I’ll just follow the trail to the lake, and *then* I’ll be seven minutes from Erin’s house. No problem.

Seven minutes later, the trail forks, one path climbing up the hill, the other curving around below. Deciding I’d be better off taking the high road (ach, Loch Lomond) so I’d have more of a bird’s eye view, I tromp gaily along the path until it, well, ends. Not to be deterred, I continue making my way through the trees until I rediscover the path. Or, “a” path, since I cannot be sure whether this continues the trail I’d already been on or was part of a different trajectory altogether.

Another, oh, say, seven minutes go by. No lake (of course) but what I do stumble upon (thank goodness not literally) is a fly-laden pile of animal excrement, so massive that it covers the whole trail and I have to pick my way through the moss and the grass to get around it.

Snakebots are the least of my concern, now that I realize the woods contains elephants, or maybe dinosaurs. Erin totally didn’t mention that the trails led through the original site for Jurassic Park and that I ought to watch my back for the occasional Tyrannosaur.

The next few times the trail twists and forks, I pick a path completely at random because hey–if there are velociraptors gadding about, what does it really matter?

So now I continue along, marching to an internal recitation of Frost (the woods are lovely, dark and deep) and wondering if maybe I should’ve chosen a different path on one of the many forks I’d passed.

But at the foot of a cluster of trees, I come across a giant marker, affixed with a poster of woodland critters and their names. The whole thing was in German (of which I mostly know words like “und”, “grosse/kliene”, and the conjugation of “to be”) but based on the pictures, there are neither robotic snakes nor ankylosaurs.

(Allegedly.)

Luckily, in another seven minutes or so, a break in the trees affords a view of houses and a horse farm, and once the path leads out of the trees I do in fact come across water. Yay!

A bridge bisects the picturesque lake, and various people walk around its circumference, jogging, pushing strollers, walking dogs, smoking cigarettes, etc.

One corner of the lake even has a paved road, which a quick peek determines that it leads to a four-way (paved) intersection. One of those streets must lead back to Erin’s house. But which one?

A quick glance at my watch tells me I have 25 minutes until Erin gets off work and heads home. If the seven minute trail truly exists, that should be plenty of time to return before she has a chance to worry about where I might be. Of course, since I didn’t *arrive* via the correct path, I had absolutely no idea which road I should take. And as I walk around the lake, I realize that almost all of its “corners” lead to roads with further intersections. If I took one, I’d either get back quickly… or get really, really, lost.

So, since I’m of the “always be prepared” mentality when travelling alone, I fish in my backpack for the sticky note on which I’d written the name of her street before leaving the house. All I had to do was ask someone which direction to go, and I’d be home free.

However. (You knew there’d be a however, didn’t you?)

Not only had no one by the lake even heard of Erin’s street, the question I most frequently got in return was, “Well, what town is it in?”

???

“What town?” I manage. “What do you mean, ‘what town’? What town are we in right now?”

Come to find out, we weren’t exactly in a town right now. The lake occurs at the intersection between various towns and is shared by them all. Depending on if I wanted to go to this town or that town, I should head up this hill or down that hill or around that corner or along that field.

Since I, in my infinite wisdom, had utterly failed to write down more than the street name, I had no idea how to get back except… back through Jurassic Park, up the hill, past the cabbage patch and the snakebots, and through the serpentine neighborhood streets to Erin’s house.

According to my watch, I wouldn’t make it in time. As it turned out, my watch was right.

Erin was home and changed by the time I got there. (I, at that time, learned that we were in Miesenbach. Good to know.) She said she was going to give me another 15 minutes before driving around looking for me, which would have done neither of us any good since I was nowhere near any paved streets.

All’s well that ends well, of course, so we piled into the car and headed to Kusel to visit the castle. (The Kusel Castle? I sound like Dr. Seuss.) This castle is cool for several reasons beyond the basic all-castles-are-cool foundation. First, it’s right in the middle of a semi-residential area (unlike, say, Neuschwanstein) so there’s an intriguing vista of old and new mixing together. Secondly, it houses a restaurant in which you can (and we did!) eat dinner.

We had a great time exploring the grounds and climbing up the winding steps to the top of the tallest tower and looking out the windows at the panorama below. Castle towers always have such amazing views. Since I like to read books set in Medieval times (OK, I read novels set in basically any time period) I had fun imagining how it would’ve been like to live there, with the people bustling about and rushes covering the floors and so on. (I’m pretty sure that the view from the top at that time did *not* include a two-lane highway.)

Fun photos attached of our adventures in the Kusel castle (later discovered to be called Lichtenburg castle). Link to more info: http://www.burglichtenberg.de/en/index.htm

Tags: animals, castles & palaces, hiking, lost, travel tips

From Spain to Germany

This morning I woke up, scarfed down a croissant (OK, two croissants), snapped a photo of the lovely construction view from my balcony, and headed for the Madrid airport. The airport is massive. I was in Terminal 4, which has sections A through K (maybe more, I was in J so that’s as far as I went) and each letter has a slew of… I don’t know the word. Every time I come to Europe, I forget English. A slew of… places where you board a plane. (Gates?)

Anyway, I bought my ticket online from home. I unfold my printout from the web site confirmation and the printout of the emailed e-ticket, and suddenly I happen to notice that both items, in big, bold, capital letters, say: “Credit Card used in this purchase MUST BE PRESENTED in order to receive boarding pass and board flight.”

Oops. I totally didn’t bring that card. It charges me massive international fees for every overseas transaction (I found this out the hard way last year, once I came home and saw my account statements) so I left it at home. Naturally, I need to board this airline 4 different times… <>

So, I go to the ticketing counter, full of trepidation, but the guy serving me is so blessedly clueless, he doesn’t even ask about it. He did ask whether I preferred window or aisle, I said window, he said window, and printed me a ticket for aisle. I can only hope to have similar help the next 3 times!

The plane ride was uneventful, for the most part. Air Iberia gives out free newspapers, which was cool, but you have to pay for your own food and drink if you want water and peanuts. (They do have other offerings… It’s a whole food cart that comes down the aisle at least twice.) Being both poor and cheap, I just sat there, reading my paper, and chewed a piece of gum.

In this paper (which, bizarrely, used *other* newspaper articles as its primary sources) there was an article about how 1 out of every 10 British 20-somethings and 1 out of every 20 older British adults are eager to have credit card chips implanted under their skin so they don’t have to mess with a purse/wallet and the potential for identity theft and pickpocketing. According to El Universal (the paper), already testing has been underway for some time, using dogs and cats and horses. (Who, I’m sure, are big shoppers and appreciate the experiment.)

Once I arrived in Frankfurt, I zipped through to baggage claim (intra-EU flights don’t have to go through customs, although–also bizarrely–this was set up as honor system, with one line for people going through customs and the other for people not wanting to go through customs) and met up with Erin. Yay!

We drove the ~1 hour south to Kaiserslautern (known by the locals as K-town) near the Rammstein Air Force Base. I dropped off my luggage in Erin’s spare room, and we wandered around K-town for a couple hours, sightseeing and just generally hanging out. We rounded out the night in a restaurant called Himalaya (nothing says Germany quite like Indian food!) where I got saag paneer (my favorite) and Erin got what the menu described as “typical Nepali chicken”. We have no idea what that means, but she said it was delicious. So there you go.

Tags: airplanes, airports, food, random facts & history, shopping

Madrid, Spain

Still in sunny Madrid this morning, although the weather is not quite as warm as yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to look it up, but I’m guessing low 70s F. I actually wore my fleece this morning on my walk to the Metro, but not much throughout the rest of the day. I’m guessing I’ll get more use out of my wintry clothes over the next couple weeks.

So, today I started out with a hotel-provided breakfast of croissants and cheese slices. I forgot all about the cheese slices on a plate until I saw them this morning, and it made me laugh. It’s some kind of cheese that I don’t know, sliced in a square like Kraft Singles but it’s the color of Swiss (minus holes) and cut super thin. Next I went to the Atocha train station to reserve my tickets and then realized I hadn’t brought my Eurail pass with me. (oops.) So I came back, swung by El Corte Ingles to get some band aids for my ampollos and then up to the room (4th floor) to get my Eurail pass and my mp3 player.

At Atocha (which looks like Jurassic Park inside–very cool) I stood in a long, long line, but not as horrendous as last night, which is good. I was able to get most of my tickets except for Italy and a couple for France, so that’s one hassle mostly hurdled. I then decided to walk to el Museo del Prado and spend all day looking at art with a rented audioguide, but… on my way I passed the sidewalk sale. Those of you who know me well know that I’d rather stick my head in an oven than go shopping, but this was a sidewalk sale of *books*. Books, I tell you! I absolutely, positively, cannot be trusted around books. I think I bought some from every single vendor. I had to throw out all my clothes just to pack them in my suitcase, and it’s only the 3rd day. (OK, I didn’t throw out all my clothes… but that’s the choice I would’ve made if it came to that.) How could I pass it up? Some English-language authors like Robin Cook and Stephanie Bond (translated into Spanish of course) and a ton of Spanish authors, and some from other countries.

So, when I finally made it the half-mile or so to the Prado Museum, my shoulder was already weighed down with more or less my body weight in books. (Or at least it felt that way.) Instead of spending all day at the museum (the beginning hour or so of which was spent book browsing) I stayed until about 5pm (rather than 7:30) before I gave up. I’ll come back in a couple weeks, maybe. (It’s free on Sundays, although more crowded.)

The weird thing about being in Madrid is that although I’m toting the camera everywhere I go, I’m hardly taking any pictures. I’ve been pretty much everywhere (and documented 99% of it on film previously) so there’s no real reason to take yet *another* picture of XYZ statue or ABC fountain. I did notice that the entire city is under major construction (Retiro Park says they’ll be done in 4 months, not sure about the people re-bricking the streets) so I’m interested in coming back in another year or two and seeing the upgrades. I did get to ride in a brand spanking new Metro train, the sort where you can see from one end all the way down to the other end, rather than boxed off cars.

I met some people from Oregon who were in Madrid by way of Ireland, and who told me that people from Edinburgh call people from Glasgow “soap dodgers” (which is a hilarious insult) due to their alleged stinkiness, and that Glasgow is the 2nd most likely place in the world to get stabbed. (#1 is some place in South Africa.) Apparently, gang members in track suits strap machetes to their thighs and stab people–rival gang members and ignorant tourists alike–who wander into their ‘hoods. And these ‘hoods aren’t your typical ghetto… they’ve been razed and replaced with government housing in the form of the tallest skyscrapers in Ireland. So the people on the street basically don’t go near tall buildings, because if they do, they’ll be stabbed. (If I decide to tour Glasgow someday, I’m guessing I better not pack a track suit.)

After all that fun, I came back to the hotel and did some work because tomorrow morning I get up nice and early so I can fly to Frankfurt to see Erin!

Tags: books, food, museums, trains, travel tips