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Ok, let's see if I can finish off Germany before I forget it. Speaking of forgetting things, B has 163 pictures up on her Shutterfly account if you want to see.

Thursday afternoon while I was in the beer garden at Hartmann, the best man Harald showed up with his wife Sabine and his super duper cute baby boy Valentin, who was almost 2 months old.

Eventually B arrived and we decided that we'd all eat over at the hotel Sonne we were staying at, since there were a lot of us and Hartmann was packed. I drank five 0.4l pils before and during dinner, which was spargle and bratwurst. Spargle is german for asparagus, and they have giant white ones there. (It's white because they either bury it or something, not like most US aspagus.)

After dinner a a bunch of folks helped the bride and groom fold the wedding programs and tie them with ribbons, but I didn't since I'm a spaz at detail oriented things like that. Eventually everyone called it a night and B and I went up to our room and watched a few more episodes of Coupling.

Friday, June 1st. B slept in for a while, we barely made the hotel breakfast time which was 8-9:30am. I felt kind of bad, since the cook and hotel manager were waiting for just us when we rolled into the restaurant at 9:15. Breakfast was rolls with jams and butter, a plate of cold cuts and cheese slices, and a hot fresh hard boiled egg, plus juice. I didn't have coffee since I'd been having it all week and I don't want to get re-addicted to caffiene.

The bride and groom were off in Bamberg doing their legal wedding at the town hall, Todd in a bavarian tux and Dani in a super cute red Bavarian dress. Only family was invited, but if we'd made it in time we could have watched them come out of town hall and parade up to Domplatz where they were having pictures taken. Since we missed that, we wandered around Bamberg, looking at all kinds of cool things, then wandered up to the Rose Garden near the Bishop's Residence where a celebratory lunch was taking place.

The view from the Rose Garden was awesome, and our meal was very nice. I had two half liters of the Bamberg tradional smoked lager, which was *really* good.

After lunch we agreed to meet Todd's folks at the parking garage at 4pm to drive them back since they didn't have enough cars, and we went wandering. We looked at two cathedrals, including the 1000 year old main Bamberg Cathedral, which was huge and darn cool. You could tour through the catacombs where they'd buried various VIPS over the past thousand years.

Bamberg is a super cool town. It's some world wide heritage site because it looks a lot like it did 800 years ago, and wasn't bombed out in either world war. Personally, I kept getting flashbacks to playing too many WWII first-person shooters like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, since the town looks 100% like the towns in those. I kept expecting snipers and MG42 nests in upper windows, and panzers on the bridges.

We accomplished B's goal of getting post card stamps at the Bundespost, and made it back to drive Todd's folks back to Wurgau, where to nobody's surprise I immediately returned to the beer garden at Hartmann, this time for the long haul.

As people arrived we'd move more tables over, I think we ended up with 5 tables together. I drank seven half liters of tasty Hartmann beer, three more Felsenkeller, two bock, and two helles. I also figured out that lamm is lamb, so when I read the menu and saw "lamm mit wasabi" I was all over that. It was really good, lamb encrusted with a very mild wasabi. Germans have delicious food, but never super spicy.

Ardis, Todd's mom, is learning german since her daughter-in-law speaks it and her grandkids will be speaking it. She tried to order a white wine "weisswine", but earlier a more english-speaking waitress had asked if she wanted a dry or sweet one, so when a not-so-good-english speaking waitress got the order for "dry weisswine", she got what she ordered, 3 white wines. (Drei is 3 in german). We laughed our asses off over that one.

The day before Andrew had asked if it was blasphemy to want some peanuts to go with his beer drinking, so when I was in Bamberg I'd bought a bag of mixed nuts for him to snack on, that was funny and a big hit when I pulled it out in the beer garden.

Things finally wound down around 11pm since we had a long day ahead of us. The tab for six hours in the beergarden with like 16 people ended up being ludicrously cheap, something like 80eu.

Saturday, June 2nd.

I woke up around 7am, and read for a while to let B sleep in. I wanted to get breakfast at 8am (no making the guys downstairs wait for us) and then go for a hike, but B decided we should hike first. We hiked up an access road to the forest we could see across the valley. The forest looked pretty typical, Wurgau is only a degree and a half further north than Seattle. There were some really giant snails on the trail, pretty cool.

After breakfast and showering I put my suit on, B got her dress on, and we drove to Hartmann where everyone was meeting for convoy to the church. We showed up early since B had a basket full of paper flowers that Dani's mom had mad, B used them to decorate the beer garden for the reception that afternoon. She told me in no uncertain terms not to start drinking, but since we had an hour to kill I went inside and had two half liters while I waited. I really like Dani, but I'm not about to watch any friend get married when I'm cold sober, let alone a full Mass.

Dani's maid of honor showed up with ribbons to tie to all the car's antenna.

Since I'd been drinking, B drove to the church, which was in Tuechatz, 4 or 5 villages away, about half an hour. The country roads in German have a speed limit of 100kph, or 62mph, and we were trying to follow Todd's sister in her BMW 5-series, but that thing drove like it was on rails, and if B wasn't a rally driver in a past life they'd have lost us. B was cackling like a maniac, having a blast. Germany sure is a fun place to drive.

The church was small but very cool looking. B and I both needed to pee, (I'd gone right before we left, but a liter of beer goes through you fast) but there were no facilities at the church. Going around back there was a room under the back that had just iron bars over the windows, filled with skeletons and dust. Whoa! That wasn't something I see every day. Apparently they just pile bodies up in there, or used to. Freaky.

Our need was dire, and we knew we were in for a full catholic Mass, so we went around the church to outside the back fence next to a field and peed there. Whew, I would never have made it otherwise.

The service was LONG. Uff-da. The mass was in German, and the Vicar was a little brown Indian dude. I wasn't aware there was much Catholicism in India, but I'm a heathen, what do I know?

Andrew was sitting two rows ahead of us, right next to and below a stairway that led up to a little pulpit, I guess for someone to do readings from. At one point in the service he slid over so the bottom of the stairs was right in his face, making a blind joke that nearly busted me up.

During the Mass a little boy was just wandering up and down the aisle, doing whatever he pleased, fiddling with the decoations... Very strange to me.

Hopefully Todd won't be offended by this, but man oh man, a service like that is all the proof I need that there is no God. Crickey, no God would want people to suffer through a 90 minute Mass. Sheepdogs. The choir was good, however.

B is catholic, but hasn't been to mass in a long time. She said it would have been easier for her to follow if it had been in Latin instead of German.

After the service we gathered outside the church, where all the village children gathered. Todd and Harald threw out lots of coins for the kids to scramble for, apparently a tradition.

Finally, we all got in our cars and formed up a convoy to head back. As soon as we got around the first corner in Teuchatz, there were two of the village kids with a ribbon across the road, extorting a toll from each car in the convoy. Little scamps had a racket going. All told, there were I think 4 such tolls. Nice work for the kids when they can get it. Apparently it's very uncommon for non-villagers to get married there.

When we got back to Hartmann's, half the beer garden had been arranged for a cake and coffee reception. There were something like 11 different cakes in the gazebo, but I went inside and got a beer. Some people laughed at me, but crickey, I was on holiday and in a beer garden, I wasn't about to drink champagne.

I met Todd's friend Achim, who was really cool. He'd missed out on the bachelor party because he'd had surgery that day, I didn't ask what but he had a few stitches on his skull. I'm glad to see Todd has such cool friends in Munich.

I borrowed Todd's friend Robert to do some translation for me. I'd tried to explain to the manager at our hotel that B and I were leaving at 4am, and we wanted to pay in advance so we didn't have to wake him up. Robert got that explained, so that loose end was tied up.

After my second half liter of the afternoon (4th for the day) I stopped for a while, drinking about a liter of water. I was heavily mocked for this by Harald and Achim, who were WAY behind me on drinks, but I was in it for the long haul and know the value of proper hydration.

Eventually there was a brewery tour by the owner's daughter. Harald was very kind and translated for me. The brewery has been brewing there since 1550. There is a mineral water spring nearby that they use to brew, and two fancy copper brew kettles. All in all a very clean classy setup. They also have a bottling maching that can do 9000 bottles an hour, it gets run once a week apparently.

Afterwards we migrated inside Hartmann to a back room that was set up for the dinner part of the reception. The food was excellent, but very slow. I don't think we got our entree until about 10pm. It was spargletastic, however, Sparglesoup, sparglesalad...

I got roped into playing a variant of musical chairs. They'd either stop the music like normal, or they'd say, "get someone's wedding ring". I didn't know where B was, so I used Todd's sister Lisa and her husband Andrew for this, and only lost because they use some strange phrase for cell phone that I didn't understand. As a result, I have to make a brunch for the bride and groom if they come to Seattle in the next year, and B has to make them a greek dinner. No problemo, we'd be happy to do that anytime.

All told, I had 10 half liters of beer, plus the two in the morning, for 6 liters of beer on Saturday. 4 of the Felsenkeller, one Weissbier, one Pils, one Bock, three Helles, and two Erbshanks. Well, the pils was a 0.4l, so 5.9 liters. At the time I thought I'd set a new personal best, but afterwards I remembered a Husky away game where three buddies and I drank most of a pony keg, about 1.5 gallons each.

About 2am I finally went back to the room, B had left at midnight. I got 90 minutes of sleep, then woke up and began 22 hours of travel home. Got dressed, packed, and we got on the road at 4am. B drove like a crazy weasel on the empty autobahn home, sadly there was lots of fog to slow us down.

Navi got us to the car rental place, we returned the car, went to the airport, and flew to London.

At Heathrow I went to World of Whiskies and bought two Lagavulins that aren't available in the States, a 12yr, and a 16 year double-matured Distiller's Select. I can't wait to try them.

B and I watched some more Coupling in the airport while we waited for our flight, then I watched the end of "Letters from Iwo Jima", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and "Venus" on the flight home.

I was pretty used up by the time I landed. Both of us were a bit jet lagged all last week.
posted 2:46 PM | link | 4 comments

Last Friday night B had a yet another henfest, this time for one of her friends whose husband finally got his PhD and they're moving to Toronto. No way was I sticking around for that, so after I got the kids to bed I skedaddled outside to water the plants and await WOPR showing up so we could go to the bar. I couldn't believe the laughing I heard inside, I swear it sounded like Isabel had a bunch of 6 year old girls in there from the noise level. Uff-da.

I got home a bit after 10 and went upstairs to crash, they were still at it, playing Wii, until 1am. We scored like 4 bottles of wine, but they did drink half a gallon of vodka.

Saturday morning I got up with the kids and fed them leftover party cake for breakfast, with some cheesey poofs for balance. When B got up we took the kids to a nearby grocery store parking lot where Children's Hospital had set tents in the rain to distribute bike helmets with fitting for $10 each. Most of the people in the queue were adults, but we got Isabel and Harry each one. Isabel is adult size small, and Harry is adult size large. We proceeded from there to the Farmer's Market to buy some cheese curds, then to Fred Meyer to buy some new training wheels for the kid's bikes. The fancy ones I'd bought earlier wouldn't fit on their bikes. Fred Meyer only had the fancy kind that didn't work, but they did have some Guinness jammy pants.

Saturday afternoon was Isabel's small birthday party, just 3 other girls for a Polly pocket-themed party. I was awoken from my nap on the couch with the mandate that I take Harry out of the house into the pouring rain. Sheesh. I ended up taking him to the Pacific Science Center, which has a brand new exhibit of dinosaur bones from China. Pretty cool. We did have a good time.

Saturday night we went to a potluck party at one of B's mom friend's house. She's got 3 boys, one of which is a good friend of Harry's, so it was kind of nice to go to one of Harry's friend's houses for a change. Man, they have a pretty nice place. The yard is truly massive for Seattle, easily half an acre. They also had a keg of Elysian beer, mmmm. It was the first place I've been to that also had a Wii, and they had an Xbox 360 with Guitar Hero 2.

My first ever exposure to Guitar Hero, I picked the song YYZ by Rush, on Easy. I got into a serious groove and did pretty darn well, totally NOT getting booed off the stage. It helps a lot if you know the song by heart. My second attempt did not fare so well, only getting about halfway through "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana. Oh well. I can't wait for Guitar Hero to come out for the Wii, I'll be buying it.

Sunday morning B got on my case about wanting to get started on the shed/fort/play structure, sigh. We took the training wheels that didn't work, went to GI Joes, returned them for ones that would work, then went to Home Depot. HD didn't have the 16' 4x4 posts I needed, but I did get 16 60lb bags of concrete, 4 bags per post, just shy of 1000lbs. Uff. Let me tell you, my truck rides like a limo with that much weight in the back, no bounce from the springs on bumps like when it's empty. We drove down to Dunn Lumber, where I should have gone in the first place, and got the four 16' posts, then headed home.

B took off with Isabel and Peggy to go shoe shopping, Harry watched me unload that half ton of concrete into the garage, then I installed the training wheels on the kid's new bikes, then took Harry with me to Costco. I needed baby back ribs for dinner, since we were doing Isabel's birthday dinner a week late and that's what she asked for. I also picked up a number of bags of dried fruit for snacks for my office, and got a new Costco card, since I lost mine stupidly at the Vegas airport.

When I got home I got the ribs started, then I got to work in the back yard, unloading everything out of the old shed so it could be moved out of the way of the new one. I wanted to keep it as a dry place for the mower until the new shed is done, then we'll demolish the crappy old one. However, I needed help moving it.

Some of our friends came over in the middle of the afternoon to drop their three kids off as part of a babysitting exchange so they could go to a movie. At least this time B didn't leave me with the five month old and the two year old, heh.

El Parquito and family showed up for dinner, and I tried to get him to help me move the shed, but he said it was unpossible, it had to be destroyed.

The ribs turned out OK, I think I'll cook them longer next time, they weren't quite as "fall off the bone" as I prefer them. The kids went at them like a pack of timber wolves, and Isabel was very happy with her choice, so all was well.

After dinner my brother Kurt showed up and we got the shed tilted over, shoved a 16' 2x12 under it, and then used a piece of 4x4 and some cinder blocks to shove it over a foot or so at a time until it was where I wanted it. The shed was built so poorly that it's now a LOT worse for wear, but it only has to keep the rain off for a few more months.

After that Kurt, B and I took the kids to Kite Hill with my kite and Kurt's new kit. Sadly, there wasn't very much wind, my kite *barely* flew, nobody else's on the hill would fly at all. Kurt has a massive new kit that needs a waist harness to fly, basically a cut-down parasail, he wants to get into kite skiing. Still, it was really good to see him.
posted 1:01 PM | link | 6 comments

First, I'll describe last night, then get back to Germany.

One of our friends asked us to join them downtown for the monthy(?) Art Walk, where people walk around going into various art galleries looking at ridiculously stupid art. A few pieces were cool, but not nine thousand dollars cool.

After doing that for a while, we moved to a basement martini bar, where they may have banned smoking, but apparently it's OK for bar management to burn a shitload of incense to make the place smell like a tipi full of stinky hippies. Ugh. Plus, as an added bonus, they had some crappy recorded music playing super fucking loud. I was asking where my cane was, because obviously I was too old for that place. I mean, I can understand loud live music, you're there for the music. However, what the fuck is the point of a bar where you can't hear anyone you are sitting with? The only thing I can think of is drinking solo. Geez.

Anyway, we went to the italian place next door, where I got 2 pints of Boundary Bay ESB. Good stuff. Near about the time B said it was time to go, the waiter came by and asked if I wanted another pint. On auto-pilot, my brain immediately said "Yes". D'oh! Oh well, guess it was a 3rd pint for me. Wooo! There were 8 of us there and we had a really fun night.

Ok, back to Germany.

Around 1am we wrapped up the bachelor party. I had succeeded in keeping everyone there and giving the groom more than the 3 pints he said he'd drink. Harald and I took a cab home, I'm not sure why, I was ready for the s-bahn. I'm still not positive I ever paid him the 6 euro I owe for my share of the cab, so if I didn't, I owe ya a few drinks when you come to the States, OK?

Wednesday, May 30th.

B and I got up, my brain felt pretty good but my GI tract was near systemic failure. After breakfast we drove out to Neuschwanstein, which is super-uber-cool.

We came back, and ended up going to Brunnwart again as the path of least resistance, at least partially because the menus in German are near impossible to figure out and we'd had such a good time there on Sunday. I had a pork roast, and I forget what B had. I had a half liter of maibock, which was tasty, and "Ein massbier, bitte", aka a liter of lowenbrau again. Mmmmm! I truly do love beer served by the liter, it's the civilized pour.

After dinner we drove downtown to Marionplatz again so B could souveigner shop, but most of the places were closed. We did some sightseeing and drove back.

Later that night B and I watched a few episodes of the BBC sitcom "Coupling, which is totally hilarious.

Thursday, May 31st.

It was time to call an end to our stay in Munich. We ate our last breakfast, checked out, went to the nursery next door to buy a hydrangea for the bride and groom's balcony flower boxes, and drove over to their apartment.

Todd's sister had a fancy new BMW 5-series wagon for the drive up to the village of Wurgau up in Franconian Bavaria, where we'd be staying. We were driving Todd's parents up, Wayne and Ardis. Wayne is 75 this year, and a total computer geek who I think used to work for Boeing. I remember back in college seeing the boxes of vacuum tubes he had stockpiled in his garage. They are both *serious* skier and tons of fun.

We drove up on Der Autobahn, but traffic was too heavy for speed runs, I mostly did about 160kph, moving over for people trying to go faster (and failing), but often traffic was going 120-130. :(

Before 1 we arrived in Wurgau. Ok, it's a tiny village of maybe 300 people. All the Bavarian countryside is ludicrously cute, all whitewashed houses and barns with red tile roofs, lush greenery everywhere, and tiny 100 acre pockets of forest. We went to our hotel, the Sonne, which was a 1960s abomination blue rectangular place that was the only building in the village that didn't fit in. Sadly, the Hartmann brewery and gasthaus where the reception would be only has 9 rooms, and they were booked solid. The Sonne was run by a really nice guy who spoke at least some english, which was nice.

As soon as I was checked in, I got roped into running errands into Bamberg with Todd. Sigh. First, he had to refinance his apartment in Munich. Good glub. I had to climb like 5 flights of stairs in a cool old building, then sit in a waiting room for ~20 mins while he did paperwork. At least there were wedding magazines in a language I don't speak for me to flip through. Apparently Bamberg's biggest industry is weddings.

Next, we had to buy a candle holder and, um, a soccer ball for his nieces, and kill me now, I was cold sober at 3pm. Oh man, the things one will do for a friend. I was in a craft store so he could buy ribbons for the wedding program, COLD SOBER. The humanity of it all.

Eventually, we finished, drove back to Wurgau, and I went straight for the biergarten at Hartmann. They've been brewing since 1550. Under their two old gnarly chestnut trees, I started out with three half liters of their Felsenkeller, a beer made with whiskey malt. Very very tasty. Andrew was there drinking with me, thankfully. B was napping back in the room, she'd gone with the bride to the dress fitting, and for some reason didn't know I'd be in the beer garden at all times if not physically restrained.

Out of time, more later.
posted 3:38 PM | link | 4 comments

One note on the Tube: It's tiny. Holy crap. I've been on the BART in San Fran, the subway in NYC, and the S-bahn in Munich, and all were about the same size, two seats on each side, plus a wide center space. The tube in much shorter and narrower, very claustrophobic if that bothers you.

After we got back to Heathrow we went to our terminal, but had to sit around for an hour before they would announce which gate we would go to. We found a pub and I had a pint of another bitter, I forget the name. I did find it strange that they don't know what gate a plane will be at an hour before take-off. They announce them at the last minute then there is a huge rush to that gate. Crazy old airport.

Our flight to Munich on Lufthansa was fine. They fed me a pretzel bun with butter and cheese, a nice snack. I'm learning that international carriers are much better than US ones.

We landed at Munich around 11:30pm, and the airport was practically a ghost town. They were super efficient at getting us through customs and passport control, however.

Wisely B had booked us a room at the Kempinski hotel that is at the Munich airport, right between the two terminals. Very nice place, with beefy soundproofing. It was so nice to just go straight to the hotel instead of dealing with the rental car place, then driving to a hotel. The hotel was out of non-smoking rooms when we checked in, so they gave us a suite instead. VERY nice.

The next morning (Sunday, May 27th) I got up around 7am, read for a while, finishing off the 12th and last "Flashman" novel. B was still asleep, so I went for a walk outside. There is this huge glass roof over an ourdoor courtyard between the terminals, very cool looking. Inside was a bunch of shops, including a grocery store with bakery and deli. I found a cash machine, got some euros (and for 150eu it gave me a 50, three 20s, two 10s, and four 5s. Not like the US where you only get 20s), and bought some butter pretzels and a 1.5l bottle of water.

After B woke up we got her some pastries, then I sat outside for 20 minutes getting the gps navigation system we'd borrowed to understand that it was 5000 miles away from the last time it was turned on, so it takes a while to search the sky for the satellites. We nicknamed the navi unit Navi.

We checked out, and called Thrify rent-a-car. They describe themselves as being at the Munich airport, but it turns out they're off-site. They did send someone to come get us. We'd reserved a mid-sized car, what the web page said was "mercedes c-class or equivelent", but what we got was a diesel Toyota RAV-4 six-speed manual. As an SUV it wasn't exactly the low-slung car I wanted for the autobahn, but with rental car companies you get what you get. It turns out that it didn't suck.

We drove into Munich and used Navi to get to my friend Todd's apartment in the Olympic Village. He and his fiancee live in one of the buildings built for the 1972 Olympics, but not the building where the Israeli athletes were. Apparantly people live in those actual apartments, but there is a plaque memorializing them.

His folks were there as well, they'd just spent 3 weeks in Greece and had arrived on Friday. We got to meet Todd's fiancee, Dani, who was super nice. We sat on the balcony and had a traditional Bavarian sunday breakfast, weisswurst with mustard and pretzels. Weisswurst is a white boiled sausage in a skin that you can't eat. You either have to peel them or you can suck the sausage out of the casing. Mmmmm! I was sad that I didn't get to have it for breakfast every day.

I also had two half liter glasses of dunkel with my friend Todd. Mmmm, german beer. We borrowed an old unlocked cell phone from Todd and stuck a prepaid SIM card in it, so we'd have phone access.

Afterwards we left to check into our hotel, which Navi found for us. It was sorta a letdown after the suite at the more expensive Kempinski, but it was fine. Clean and with a private bathroom, but very hot. The hotel claims to have AC, but our room didn't.

We were on our own for dinner. B and I went on a walk, but before we could figure out where we wanted to eat, thunderclouds were rumbling and it looked like it was going to pour, so we went back for the car. Not too long after we got the car it started seriously hailing, with 1cm hailstones coming down. We were worried it was going to damage the rental car.

For dinner we went to a beer garden called Brunnwart, which I'd recommend to anyone. The food was great, I ordered Kasspatz, which is a German take on mac-n-cheese, except the cheeses are some mixture of swiss and a blue, and it's covered with crispy fried onions. SO good. We're going to have to try it at home. B had some pork roast that was awesome as well. She didn't like the potato dumpling, which is a glutinous mass of goo.

I had a liter mug of Lowenbrau helles, very nice. It's a respectable brewery in Germany, unlike the US brewery of the same name.

After dinner we drove down to downtown Munich, near Marionplatz. Marionplatz is one of the main squares in Munich, if not the main one. It's got the old town hall, an ornate building with a huge glockenspiel. We went into the Hofbrauhaus, where they serve up 17,000 liters of beer a day to over a thousand people at long tables, but it was packed and I was exhausted.

On Monday, we got up and tried the hotel breakfast we were paying for. It was pretty nice, a spread of cereals, cold cuts, pastries, hot hard boiled eggs. I'd typically butter a pretzel, have cold cuts on a croissant, and have a bowl of granola with yogurt.

Next it was time for a drive to Passau. It was our first real experience with the Autobahn.

Talk about glorious. Traffic was fairly light, so I mostly cruised at about 160kph (basically 100mph) which felt very nice. I've never driven 90mph in the US, but after a few minutes it starts to feel totally normal, and you hate the sections where they slow you down to 120kph (74mph) for noise and pollution reasons near towns. It's a very active process, unlike the US freeways. Here, 90% of my brain is shut down, and everyone mostly drives close to the same speed. On the Autobahn, everyone drives the speed they are comfortable with. Everyone mostly stays in the right lane unless passing. You are constnatly watching ahead to make sure you don't need to brake, and behind to let faster drivers pass. After I got comfortable I managed to get the car up to 180kph (111mph) but then it got windy and full of traffic, so I never got to my goal of 200kph (124mph). (My actual pre-trip goal was 180-200).

Passau is at the junction of three rivers, the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz. They have an old cathedral there with one of the largest pipe organs in the world. Cool town. B bought and mailed some postcards, and bought a hat and some glass christmas tree globes.

For lunch we went up to the Andorfer brewery, one of my favorites. I had two half liters of beer, plus a tasty sweinehock for lunch, a pig leg joint roasted. B had some pasta. I also managed to return an empty case of Andorfer bottles that Todd had had sitting around for over a year, getting the 3.2eu deposit back for him.

B got to drive on the way back, and like I told her she would, she LOVED IT. She quickly got the hang of driving like a bat out of hades, getting on people's bumpers and putting her left turn signal on to tell them to get the hell out of her way. She hit 180, then at one point nearly hit 200kph (over 120mph). That diesel was at like 3k rpm at that speed in 6th gear, and it redlines at 5k, so that wasn't the top possible speed, just on that stretch.

That night we met up with Todd and his fiancee and parents in Marionplatz in Munich again, and went to a local beerhall for dinner. To get there we took the subway, or s-bahn. I bought two tickets, but couldn't figure out where to pay. We figured you pay when you exit. Nope, not there either. Turns out, the Munich S-bahn is on the honor system. I can't believe it myself. There are posts you use to stamp your ticket, that I'd missed. Huh.

I forget the name of the beer joint, but I had a triple-beef platter that was pretty tasty, and B had a spinach kassspatzle that was to die for. I drank a half liter of starkbeer, a half liter of eisbock, a half liter of weissbier, and a half liter of helles, trying all their beers. After that I was tanked up enough to say we needed to drink some more, so B and I followed Todd and Dani back to their apartment, where I had a half liter of Tegernsee Spezial Helles and some Rummerschnaps, made by Dani's father (last name Rummer). It's a pear schnaps, very good, but NOT what I needed. Ugga.

It was a maze getting through the Olympic Village plaza to the sbahn station, and B and I were lost for a while trying to find it, finally someone pointed us in the right direction and we made it back to the hotel.

On Tuesday we got up, had the hotel breakfast, and went back to the room for a nap. We were going to go to Neuschwanstein, but it was pouring rain, and had been since the night before. We woke up before noon, and drove out to Dachau. B was interested, I wasn't since it's depressing as hell and I'd seen it before, but I kept her company. If I'd been thinking I'd have sat in the car reading.

Tuesday evening B went to go with Dani to get Dani's nails done, and I waited at Todd's apartment while he finished up some work and we got ready to go out for Todd's bachelor party. Todd's sister Lisa from Seattle arrived with her husband Andrew, a hilarious British guy who is blind, and there two kids, Elizabeth and Samantha, ages 9 and 7. Just watching them deal with their kids added an extra enjoyment to our vacation without kids. :)

I had another half liter Tegernsee Spezial Helles while Todd and I went to his office to see the new place and he could print out some wedding programs. We came back, and Todd's closest friend Harald was waiting for us. Todd, Harald, Andrew, and I took off for the s-bahn. We went to Gunther Murphy's Irish Pub, at the request of the groom. It was a dank basement pub, very nice. Not very crowded. I had two pints of Guiness to start things off right, and followed that up with six pints of Kilkenny. I also ordered some bangers and mash so my stomach would have a solid base coat to work with. We were laughing our asses off after a while, it was a good time. Harald had to be at work at 8am, and Andrew had been up since 3am travelling from the UK that day with his family. Both said they'd bag out early, by 10pm at the lastest, and both were happily with us when we left at 1am. We started plying Todd with tasty scotches, a pastis made with Ouzo, and a shot of cognac. Oh, and I stupidly agreed to have an irish coffee with him. Blech.

Well, I think that's it for today, more later.
posted 10:54 AM | link | 6 comments

Last night I crashed at 7pm, and woke up this morning at 3am.

After the kids woke up and had breakfast, I spent 15 minutes getting the gps navi I borrowed to understand that it was 5200 miles away from the Munich airport where I last used it. B was going to use the van to take the girl she watches to preschool, but the battery was dead. After I got it jump-started with the truck, I figured out that the driver side map light had been left on for two days. Sigh. Why the heck aren't all those lights LEDs?!? They could be left on until the heat death of the universe and not wear the car battery down.

Anyway, the plan for the morning was to do a dad-daughter morning, like I did with Harry for his birthday. We went to the zoo, we went to the rose garden next to the zoo, and then we went for some pizza slices at Pagliaci in the U district. She was super well behaved, and talked up a storm.

I took a two hour nap after lunch, bad call t here. I've felt jetlagged as hell ever since.

Tonight we went to Target to buy Isabel and Harry new 20" wheel bikes, since the 12" one we've got is ridiculously small for them. Harry is right at the minimum size for it, but he's at the max for the 16" bikes.

My plants lived, all those annuals I planted are blooming like crazy, and my hops are now higher than I am.
posted 8:14 PM | link | 3 comments

Back. After 90 minutes sleep last night we traveled for 22 hours. I drank about 60 drinks, including six liters of beer yesterday.

Everyone should have an autobahn. After you spend some time driving at 100+ mph, anything less makes baby jesus cry.
posted 6:06 PM | link | 1 comment