LAST DAY IN EUROPE

Before leaving, we talked to the owner of this place where we stayed in the little village of Bornum...just down the road from Konigslutter. It turns out the owner had just gotten back from being in Clinton, Iowa for a 40th class reunion...he had gone to school there as a foreign exchange student. Such a small world.

Here's a picture taken from our bedroom window here this morning:


Here are a few more pictures from here. This part of Germany has a totally different feel to it.





I thought this was interesting. It's a building where the siding was coming off in quite a few places. Look at the interesting insulation:





Along the way we needed gas so got off on one of the exits. We drove for awhile and lo and behold we saw this whimsical place...where things are made out of pumpkins and gourds. There was a playground area for kids...really cute.

Here's a haystack Fraulein!



I love these things...just painted tree trunks and branches


This one is my favorite! It has a sign "Avery Strong" for one of Sara's Make-A-Wish kids who is having a bone marrow transplant today. She asked for people to send her photos with this sign...then she will get the pics to Avery's parents later today. This photo is perfect!


Check this out.....it's made entirely of small pumpkins and gourds!!!


This little burg is called Glindow ...you head out of Glindow and go towards Klaistow....it's a farm on the right. They are also know for their white asparagus around this area in the springtime. We saw lots of huge fields of asparagus..all gone to seed at this point.

So we kept going down the autobahn to Berlin to the airport to return our rental car. Dad is really looking forward to that! He's done plenty of driving. He was especially ready to give up driving after going through Berlin. What a nasty place...so much traffic and really rude drivers...honking and just being jack-asses. After a stressful 1/2 hour maneuvering from lane to lane to get to the car return place, Dad heaved a big sigh of relief.

We stopped off at Lufthansa at the airport and we got our boarding passes for all 3 flights tomorrow. If all goes well, we will be home around 8:00 PM. We had the information desk at the airport call the shuttle from the hotel where we are staying. We are staying at a place very close to the airport and it costs a bunch, but everything does around here. Ugh. We checked in and around 5:00 we went down to the restaurant here for dinner...well it was lunch, too. Since it's an expensive hotel, they have fancy folded linen napkins. A party hat!


Don't get too scared at Dad's 2 day beard. It's better not to enlarge this picture for that reason. His electric shaver is about to die...he forgot to bring along the charger for that. I told him to just use his shaver til it croaks, but his fear is that he will get half way through shaving and that will be it...a half-shaved face. Now we're talking about an even better picture! Anyway, his plan is to get a complementary razor here just in case it dies before he's done. I'm hoping his electric shaver makes it tomorrow morning at 5:15 when he's getting up. The toy razor they gave him at the desk here measures about 3 1/2" and comes with a tube of something that measures 2" and is shaped like a tiny tube of toothpaste. There must be all of 1 T. of lotion or whatever it is. Using a toy razor at 5:15 in the morning will not go over well.

We got some Berliner beer and had a nice dinner.


So when we turned in the car the mileage we put on the car was 5,164 kilometers...that's about 3,200 miles!! Wow! No wonder Dad was ready to turn in the car. We took one of our maps and drew with a green highlighter the route we took on this trip. We pretty much did the parameter of Germany, less the northwest, and a big chunk of Poland and then cut the corner quickly on Czech Republic. We've had quite a trip...even been to Hel and back! It was good to see the land the Sawatzki's came from and it was good to visit some of our favorite places that we have been to and love, and to find other places that are now on our "favorite" list...and just to be footloose and fancy free, having our cell phones turned off for the entire trip and never once watching TV.



Tonight we are in an air-conditioned hotel...the first one I believe the entire trip....so we have it cranked up taking full advantage of it! We are all packed and ready to go tomorrow. Dad is already sawing logs. I'm taking my shower tonight and will be ready in 10 minutes in the morning. Our flight takes off from here at 8:00 AM and we get into Lincoln at 8:00 PM...but don't let that fool you...there is an additional 7 hours difference...so we will actually be traveling for 19 hours. And we will be ready for our own bed.

Location:Berlin

ANOTHER SPA DAY!

Checked out of the pension this morning and went to Vita Sol Therme...the spa here. It was very nice and had a few different things at the spa. One thing that was different is that it had a "heisse wasser" small pool (hot water)...and by hot I mean 102 degrees. Right next to that little pool was the kalt wasser...cold water...71 degrees. That doesn't sound that cold...but believe me, it was.

We went into the hot pool and I watched to see what the protocol was...people would sit in the hot water for about 10-15 minutes, then head to the cold pool...straight down the steps...no hesitation, no one making faces of sheer shock from the ice cold water. They all just coasted down the stairs & quickly went neck deep & some dunked all the way under.

I sat there in the hot tub telling myself that I could do this without looking like a wimp. After all, while training for the marathon I sat in a bathtub many a time filled with a 20 pound bag of ice cubes. If I could do that, I could do this hot-cold thing.

I watched 2 women get up from the hot pool and enter the cold pool as smoothly and slick as greased butter...with no expression on their faces. So I stood up from the hot pool and methodically went up the stairs and out of that pool, took a few steps, & started my decent into the cold pool My arms were hanging loose at my side. I was playing it cool, as if I was used to doing this every day.

When the water was about thigh high I don't know what happened. My elbows were quickly drawn in close to my sides & my hands went up in the air as if I had puppet strings. My mouth formed a big "O" and my eyes bugged out. I looked up to see the 2 German women who previously had been expressionless, looking at me with big smiles on their faces, amused. Ok ok, so I'm a wimp! One lady started talking to me & told me that very soon it would feel very refreshing & she said that she really loved it and that it was good for circulation. I gave it some time & then agreed. I was hooked! I repeated the back and forth of the hot and cold another 2 or 3 times & it was GREAT! It was my favorite part of this spa.

Another different thing here was that they had a glassed-in area with a bazillion rain shower heads hanging down from the ceiling. You stand under it and it rains in torrents...and the water was salt water. Very different.

Most of the pools here are 2 1/2% salt (the name of the town is Salzulfen..."salz" in German is "salt"). The outdoor pool was great. The cool air outside was very invigorating. It had a big flume so we spent a lot of time in that pool. To enter the entire outdoor pool they had a small area indoors with a small pool. Then you were faced with clear glass doors. You push a button and the doors pull apart and open - the doors are in water, waist high. Then you just continue walking into the outdoor pool. Really slick! all the other spas with indoor/outdoor pools just have the hanging plastic flaps that you push aside to get through....it reminds me of a dog entrance.

The outdoor pool here also was 2 1/2% salt and after 45 minutes in that pool, Dad said he felt like a McDonald's french fry. After an hour he declared that he felt like a smokehouse almond. At that point we got out because I didn't want to hear about what else he might become.

We went inside and sat in the "inhalation" room...an enclosed glass room. It was very warm with a very interesting fountain made of small twigs, stacked perfectly 7-8 feet tall with water trickling down. All of a sudden some steam started rolling out of 5 or 6 containers hanging from the ceiling. I think it was the "inhalation", but I couldn't smell anything like eucalyptus or something. Dad was afraid it was cyanide.

Next we went to the other glass enclosed room...the moist suana...but it was really hot and so we didn't stay very long there.

We went to another pool that was 12% salt - one of those where you try to sit on the ledge in the pool, but you just float up to the surface because of the high salt content. This pool had underwater music and I enjoyed this again...it was very relaxing...but I held onto the little tiled ridge inside the pool...so I stayed in one place (you just lay on your back and float). Dad didn't get hooked up to the ledge or one of the underwater railings...so he floated around and bumped into people because he drifted...so his was not as relaxing. He did really good at the spa yesterday, though, where he took a nice nap floating in the water.

After we finished up we went to our lockers and got our towels. Oh...I haven't told you about the lockers. Most of the spas have these...it's really neat...as you pay to enter the spa, you are given a wrist band with a plastic circle on it. When you get to an open locker you just scan the little disc on your bracelet and the locker opens, then to lock it, you push in using the disc and it locks it. Very efficient.

Got dressed and went to the nice little restaurant here. We got a bowl with a baked potato, a LOT of quark, mixed with some sour cream & chives, a side salad, and strips of chicken breast on top. It was really good...perfect for lunch.

We headed off down the road onto the crazy autobahn. About 2 hours later we arrived in this little village....I thought I knew the name, but the sign said something different. I'll have to find out where we are after dinner. We are heading down now to the restaurant here to have dinner. I'll finish this later.

Wow! This place is amazing! I just happened to find it last night online...it looked like it might be nice but you never know. We just went down to the restaurant here and what a pleasant surprise. For being in such a small village, they have a really cozy, fancy restaurant with amazing food! The hotel and restaurant is run by one family. It has been passed down from their family and it has been operating since 1894. The bedroom is very modern and up to date, but the dining room has the character of the 1800's. Here are a few pictures from the dining room...and then our dinner:

Each table had a bouquet like this...they are real flowers!








Our usual beers:


So I ordered a creamy pumpkin soup. It was amazing! All the recipes here are family recipes and they don't list all ingredients in their food selections (darn!). I'm guessing this has pumpkin, carrots, onions, celery, maybe a little cream??, and then dark bread croutons. I thought the liquid brown on the top was balsalmic...but it didn't taste like it. So I'm not sure what it was.


Here's what I got for dinner...another family recipe that goes way back. It's homemade mashed potatoes topped with bacon bits (and I guarantee you they are NOT from a jar!) and then surrounded by cooked plums...cut in half but not all the way...and I don't think any sugar was added. It was a very interesting blend of flavors, but it was way too much to finish!


Here was Dad's salad...teller salat...with everything marinated...carrots, white radish, red cabbage, green beans. The colors are so pretty!


And then he ordered Jagerschnitzel with a mushroom sauce and potato croquettes. He couldn't finish his dinner either!


This little town is so quaint. We are going to explore around a bit tomorrow before we head to Berlin. I've noticed the German accent is different here...a bit harder to understand...and just when I thought I was doing better with my German!!

Hard to believe we are going to Berlin tomorrow to drop off the car, stay in a hotel, and then fly home on Saturday morning.

Location:Bad Salzulfen to an unknown little village

SPA DAY

Took a few pics of our room here at Lieber Augustin...I think I mentioned that it's not much to write home about, but we had to stay here because of the name. Anyway...I think we got the Go Big Red room!







We had fruhstuck and it wasn't much...but it was nicely presented. And the lady here is really nice. Somehow...the same area we had fruhstuck had been a lively bar/pub last night for the locals. This morning she had the tables covered with linen table cloths, fall leaves on the tables for decoration, and a pretty floral china service to eat off of.

I visited with her for awhile and then I was talking to Dad and she said to me in German...."so you speak English???!!!"...she was very surprised about that. Then she told me that my German was very good....ahhhh, that's nice to hear...and better yet to know that my pronunciation of the German language was without a foreign accent. Still, I fumble often for the right word and the correct verb conjugation. And sometimes I just don't have a clue what they are saying...but as time goes on here, I am improving...and I am having so much fun speaking German. Dad is picking up more this time than last trip, too. I think it helped taking that German class at SECC.

I think it is interesting, that people here (Germans) respond positively to a person that at least attempts to speak their language. They probably get tired of Americans in particular coming over and being upset that they don't speak English. But when you try to speak their language I think they have an instant (at least slight) respect for that. I think many times we have been treated better than we would have if we only would have spoken English. I don't think you have to be fluent, but it shows consideration for their culture if you at least know some basic words. I'm thinking that maybe that was the reason that the people in Poland and Czech Republic weren't so friendly. Just some thoughts on the matter.

Before we left Bad Orb, we stopped at the local post office to mail a package home. Here's the parking lot close by. It reminded us of Nebraska parking!! This is very unusual...cars here are usually jammed together into very tight spaces.



We went to the spa here and it was ok..but not on our favorite list. The light and sound room here wasn't as good as the other toskana spa..or as the one in Bad Krozingen. But it was still nice and there was a flume so we got some good exercise in salt water with the nice cool air in the outside pool....with the water nicely heated.


Here's one of the sights as we went down the road today. I call this "Marshmallow Fields Forever"...it helps if you sing it!




Also going down the road, we thought we'd give you an example of how some drivers here are just downright crazy...driving like bats out of hell. Here is a video...I hope it works for you. Dad is driving down the autobahn with no speed limit. He is going about 130 kph or just over 80 mph. Then you see a blur go by so fast you can't even see what kind of car it is! He was probably going about 135 mph...and to tell you the truth...they have passed us going faster than that! It scares the crap out of you and sounds like the Indy 500 as they go ripping by you! Sometimes I think we should be wearing Depends as we drive on the autobahn!!

I'd try to send a video of the even faster cars going past...but I can't get my camera out fast enought!!

Arrived in Bad Salzulfen and we are staying at a hotel/pension that is very nice...only one not-so-nice thing is that it is up 4 flights of stairs...and of course, no elevator. None of the places we have stayed have had elevators, except for 3...all in fancier hotels. Otherwise, it's lug the suitcases and bags upstairs!

We walked into the old part of town. Here's what the little streets look like:


We found a restaurant and ordered their daily special...schnitzel westphalien...or of this area. It was pork schnitzel topped with slices of bacon and then topped with 2 eggs over medium. It sounds strange...but it was really good. Of course we had our nightly beer, too.


I don't think I've mentioned a very strange phenomena here...so much of their food includes pork in one form or another...schnitzel, medallions, bacon, ham, specially smoked ham...and on and on. That's not the odd part. The strange part is that in all of the nearly 4,000 kilometers that we have traveled here, we have NEVER seen any farms with pigs!! Not once! Where do they grow them...in China??? Ich don't think so! It's very perplexing...somewhere along the way before we leave I need to ask someone where all the pigs are!! I just need to find the right moment and the right person to ask. I'll keep you posted.

After dinner we took a slow walk back to the pension


Dad wants me to tell you that we spent tonight washing out some clothes in the sink. We have had to do this several times as we have not seen a laundromat anywhere...and really haven't wanted to spend time looking for one. So we wash them in the sink using shower gel or shampoo or whatever is around...then we have an elastic stretchy rope that we string across the room and we hang our clothes on them and hope that they dry in the morning. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. The best thing we have found is if we have one of those towel heaters in the bathroom...we can drape our clothes over that, crank up the heat, and the clothes get dry every time! I'd take a picture of our handy-dandy clothes line, but no one wants to see Dad's Ghandis handing on an elastic rope!!

Location:Bad Orb to Bad Salzulfen

LOOK KIDS, IT'S BIG BEN!

Left the hotel here...glad to be going somewhere else...it's a bit too snooty here. I got the room for a good rate...but the people at the desk are a bit less than helpful and friendly...just sort of snooty. And at dinner night before last we got a bottle of regular "still" (without bubbles) water and it cost $8 !! I think they are just used to rich people around here. We would way rather be eating in a local eatery...with REAL people!

Anyway, fruhstuck was not included here...in fact yesterday when we went to breakfast, it cost $20 apiece!!! What a crock! And it was no where near as good as the place in Immenstaad...not even close!!! Anyway, as Dad said, we blew this pop stand (and did not have the rip off breakfast this morning)

Went to a bakery on the way out of Bingen and had a really nice breakfast of a piece of breakfast pizza (actually a mixed vegetable kuchen) and an apple and almond pastry along with a coffee. It was a nice change to the big breakfasts we've been having.

We went down the road to Baumholder...a US military base where I have been to quite a few times while in Europe in 1972. My friend Jeanette had a friend that was a teacher there and we used to go there to mail packages home and have an occasional good old American hamburger (when you travel for 9 months, you sometimes need a little bit of home!). Anyway, we stopped there to mail a package home..and it turns out we couldn't unless we were stationed there and on military duty...uh, no. Dad was able to get us on the base with his VA military card..but it didn't cut it for mailing the box. So we will have to go through a German post office...which could be interesting. The one off base and in the town of Baumholder was closed by the time we got there...closes at 12:30 every day. Oh well, we'll try tomorrow or the next day.

We then headed down the road to get to Bad Orb...a place where they have another amazing mineral spa...but we got off on a wrong road...and couldn't get turned around because the returning road going the opposite way was closed for about 30-40 miles...and we just circled back and around and ended up where we started in Baumholder after an hour and a half. Not good.

Then we got closer to Frankfort and then we got off the wrong way again...and passed about 7 exits before we again got back to where we started ...to the tune of another 45 minutes. Keep in mind we are on the autobahn going at the speed of light and it's hard to make a decision about an exit when you can barely see the numbers as you go flying by....with speed demon horses asses on our tail. It was not a fun day of driving. It should have taken 4 1/2 hours for the drive and it took about 7 1/2 hrs.

We saw this going down the road...a monster tear drop!!



So we finally got to Bad Orb and guess where we are staying?? A little gasthaus called:


Ach du Lieber!

It's not the best place but we had to stay here because of the name!

We unloaded our car and then walked down the street a ways to a little restaurant and it was great! Local people...friendly...cozy atmosphere...so much better than the fancy snot hotel. Here was the decoration on the table:




We of course, got a beer...a grosse bier (large one). It came in a really cool stein:





We had a great dinner...I had sauerbraten that was really good...but not quite as good as mine with the gravy, and Dad had goulash that he really liked. We listened to some of the locals playing music and singing in the back room...it was a special birthday party for some. But the people in the front of the restaurant where we were were all singing along with one of the songs that was being played. It was very enjoyable. At restaurants, people really seem to enjoy themselves...always talking and laughing and drinking beer and eating amazing food.

Came back to the room and sat up for while, listening to the chiming of the bells of the local church here...on the hour...so pretty.

Tomorrow we go to another spa. I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime...here's a link to the spa:

http://www.toskanaworld.net/web/de/content/content.php?areaID=4

Location:all over the place!

RIVER BOAT ON THE RHINE

Took off this morning for the ticket office close by to buy a ticket for a boat cruise up the Rhine. We got tickets...and just in time...we had only 45 minutes to spare! We left Bingen at 9:30 this morning and went up the Rhine to St. Goar. We got off there and spent about 3 hours looking around there and having a bite to eat for lunch. Then we hopped back on another boat and came back down the Rhine...back to Bingen where we are still staying tonight.

We really enjoyed our relaxed day. Dad enjoyed not driving for a day! Today's blog is mostly all pictures...but the weather here was overcast or raining for a good part of the day...so my pictures aren't quite what I'd like them to be...but oh well.

Here's the boat that we were on going up the river...actually we were going down the river...in that we were going with the flow of the river...but this is confusing because on a map we were going up...north!




These are some of the sights along the way...not much color because of the overcast and rainy day. The photos include both sides of the Rhine. It is lined with vineyards, castles, and quaint villages:












I think I might have stayed in this castle back in 1972...it is a youth hostel. I'll have to check my journal from back then...when I get home.





So while on the boat ride/cruise, it was chilly and damp so I got a cup of hot tea...herbal. As you can see from the menu...it cost 4.20 Euro...that's about $5.40.


So since I didn't look at a menu to order the tea, later we did look at a menu and found the mistake. I should have ordered a beer instead...it only cost 2.90 Euro....about $3.70 !! Go figure!!







So we got off in St. Goar and spent about 3 hours walking around and having some soup at a cafe/bakery. Here's what drew us into the place...this was taken from street side:





Once inside, this greeted us:


Here's our wonderful tomato soup with brotchen in the background:


We split this for dessert...a schwarzwald torte...that was on Dad's list...he can check it off now.


And on the way out, we chose to just drool some more....Sara, in the center of the case is bienenstick!






We got back on another ship to head back. This one was fancier than the one this morning.


More sights


The same youth hostel castle from a different angle:









It started to clear the last 1/2 hour of the cruise:


If you remember the last time we were here...2 years ago...we were at this little town. You can see the name on the bottom of the picture.





This is coming back into the little town where we are staying...Bingen.



Came back to the hotel and had a light dinner and just relaxed. It's been a nice day.

Location:Bingen