Back in Germany

Aug 27: Today Jorg picked us up and we went shopping for roof materials. Eric is going to help Jorg tar the roof because it has been leaking. Randy is going to put a new roof the next time he is able to come back.

Aug 28: I think it rained today (can you believe it??????)

Aug 29: The weather is much better today, actually a little warm! Eric and I worked on a path behind the guesthouse in the back yard. Another neighbor brought us some tiles and we broke them to make something like a mosaic looking pathway! It was fun working outside, and hopefully the weeds will not grow there anymore. We hope Randy likes it!

Aug 30: Today is Roof Day! Jorg came over in the morning with some Brotchen (bread rolls) and fresh homemade strawberry jam for breakfast! Then it was time to cover the roof with tar (not the most fun job in the world). It was a little dangerous up there since the roof is soooooo steep (that is why I just stayed on the ladder). It took about 8 hours to finish the roof with three people (although I didn’t do as much as the men).

Sept 1: Now that all the roof work is done, Eric and I went on a hike towards a town named Tahl. On the way we found Tropfsteinhohle (this was a mine as well as a cave)! So we decided to take a small tour of the mine and caves. We had to wear these bright blue hats as I later found out were for safety (since I hit my head on the ceiling). It was a long way down and I started getting a little scared. The mines were cool, but most the caves were too hard to get too and not viewable unless you wanted to crawl (more like shove your body through very small openings) between huge rocks on your stomach for 200 or 300 meters! This was a mine for some kind of heavy metal used in the medical field. I have to say that I was a little relieved when we came up out of the mine, but it was a very cool experience.

So we continued our hike to this old tower (I think remaining from an old castle) at the top of a hill in the small village of Tahl. We walked around for a while trying to find the path up. Finally we made it to the top! The tower had been renovated in the early 2000’s so we climbed all the way to the top to enjoy some scenic views.

Later in the evening Sabine (and her sister) picked us up to go to a wine festival in downtown Eisenach. There were many different booths with food and wine from many different wineries! There was a band playing all kinds of music… even a little salsa with dancers (we thought of you Scotty). We ate, drank, and danced all night until we were very tired. It was a very cool evening hanging out with Sabine and her friends!

Sept 2: After waking up a bit hung over and queasy from the night before. We went next door to learn how to make a Thuringen dish called Rouladen with our neighbor (another Sabine) Sabine. This is our favorite traditional meal but it is very hard and time consuming (of course) to make. First you take very thin, long pieces of beef. You roll up the beef with mustard, onion, speck (bacon fat pre cooked) and pickles inside! Then you boil it with some water and herbs. Then you make the red cabbage (with onion, apple and more speck) and KloBe (the “B” is like a double “ss”), which are like a potato dumpling. The KloBe take a long time to make, first you peel the potatoes, and grate them (very dangerous, just ask Eric) into a mush. Poor Eric had to use 3 Band-Aids to stop the bleeding that was caused by catching his fingers in the grater! Then you use cheesecloth to squeeze all the liquid out! Next you are left with the dry grated part of the potato. You add boiled potatoes (1/3 of the total potatoes peeled) and mash and mix them into the dried grated potatoes. Anyway, then you put a crouton in the middle and roll them into balls and boil them till they float! Whew! It is hard but soooooo tasty. It is served all together with the beef roll, red cabbage, and KloBe all covered (or swimming) in the beef gravy! Yummmy! We will try to make it at home for everyone to try. After a while we were able to kick our hangovers and enjoy a great lunch with the neighbors.

Sept 3: Not sure what we did today!

Sept 4: Eric and I had Reggie, Connie, Sabine, and Michael over for dinner. We made good old American Cheeseburgers. I made some German salad and Reggie brought some baked beans and champagne! Sabine brought over some cherry liquor and a few different jellies. And to top it all off, we had fruit parfait for desert. It was so cold here so we decided to come back inside. It was a great night with many funny stories of Reggie and Connie’s trip to California!

Prague with Scott Mike and Dan

Aug 20: Eric and I got up early to catch our train to Prague…. Mike and Scott were catching a later train. We met a couple from Argentina on the train. They were the nicest people and convinced us that we want to visit Argentina some time too! They were studying in Spain and were traveling with friends during their break. We were heading there earlier to meet up with Dan since he had an early flight in from Amsterdam. True to Dan form when we arrived he was sitting out on the terrace, sipping his tea and chatting it up with a couple of British ladies staying at our B&B. Once settled, we decided to walk down towards the city’s center (about 2 miles). We saw the Dancing House (Frank Gehry-designed modern building), but we turned around to walk back before we reached the heart of Old Town Prague. We soon learned how to take the 15-minute tram ride downtown. Dan, Eric and I had dinner at recommended restaurant down the street. Mike and Scott had a little trouble finding the Bed and Breakfast, and unfortunately it was pouring down rain! Needless to say, they were drenched once they finally found the place. Mike and Scott went to the same restaurant that we went to but the kitchen was closing and all they could get was fried cheese! Welcome to Prague. Leslie went to sleep fairly early and the rest of us ended up staying up BSing fairly late. Obviously about nothing too interesting but it was good to have the crew all together again and in Prague. Dan did manage to break down Mike’s timeline to prove he indeed found sightseeing in New York City to be a priority over emailing or contacting us waiting for him in Berlin, good laughs!

Aug 21: I wouldn’t necessarily say we got an early start today. Between everyone still adjusting to the time change and the fact that our ‘apartment’ contained one bath or shower or shower without a curtain that you can’t stand up in because the roof was in the way…whatever it was it didn’t help get everyone ready too quickly. Sometime after noon we headed toward the subway to get city transportation tickets for everyone for the week and then headed to Castle Quarter. Castle Quarter was filled with two main churches several streets and entrance gates manned by guards…probably mainly there for the tourists sake. We would learn the favorite picture taking technique developed by Mike and Dan during their last visit to Europe. Basically one person lies on the ground in front of a giant church, building, statue, something old…whatever and takes a picture looking up at the other person in front of the site. I’ll have to give it to them it actually makes for pretty cool pictures. After a few small group photos, Mike broke out one of his sandals, the camera timer and after several tries and few laughs from onlookers we had a perfect picture of the five of us in front of the St. Vitus Cathedral. After a fruitless search for a brewery tour, Mike and Scott headed down toward Little Quarter, and the rest of us stopped at a ritzy little café where Dan ordered a $20 soup and an $8 cappuccino…unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last one of those for him on this trip. The view was great though (as well as their ice cream) and we had a good time catching up some more.

After lunch we walked back down the hill into Prague’s Little Quarter. After stopping in some stores we came to the famous Charles Bridge. This definitely reminded me of something out of the mid-evil times. I am sure the thick layer of clouds rolling in helped with the mood as we were walked across taking pictures. Luckily we were meeting up with Mike and Scott as the winds started ripping through the streets like in a movie. Mike and Scott had bought some souvenirs (for Mike this was of course a T-shirt). Mike had mentioned that he doesn’t pack many shirts because he likes to buy at least one from every stop on his journey (he even had time to buy a New York T-Shirt when stuck there on the way to meet up with us in Europe). We jumped on a cable car back to our cozy little apartment. We stopped at a great little neighborhood restaurant called Josephine’s. At this restaurant we ate like kings and queen! I am being serious… Scot and Mike shared a mixed meat plate (made for two people) along with ordering their own meals! After we washed our meal down with two bottles of wine the check came to about 15 bucks a person (ok… maybe Mike and Scot paid a little more for their two meals each). Once again I went to bed before the guys so that they could have their manly time together (this usually consisted of Dan giving Mike a hard time and talking investments).

Aug 22: OK another early start, post noon, we are off to complete Tour de Mike of ‘Old Town’. We make it to Old Town and our first site we only have 40% participation, Mike and I (E) forked over 2 bucks each to see Bethlehem Chapel, the church where Jan Hus had preached and began his movement for reform in the Catholic church, arguing for religious autonomy and that the word of God did not have to be spread solely through the Vatican. This was met with much adversity and he was eventually burned at the stake in 1415. His predecessor 100 years later, Martin Luther, finally ended up being successful although through much strife of his own in successfully breaking away from the Catholic ideals. Although the chapel was fairly plain inside, it was an interesting place to visit and had a lot of info on Hus’ life. We came out to find everyone sitting at an outdoor café although only Dan was enjoying a drink. Apparently the service was poor at best and Dan was enjoying his second $8 cappuccino in Prague, this is just bad luck by now. Once Dan forked over his Korunas we headed to a bar around the corner that Mike and Scott had found in the meantime. They had Budweiser there…sweet glorious Budweiser…well I believe we were ready to go after one or was that five and a couple of hours later. Leslie, Mike and I left there and tried to finish the major sites in Old Town. We raced to The Church of St. James where they had hung the arm of a thief hundreds of years ago above the entrance and its crusty remains hang still today. The story goes that a thief tried to steal the Madonna Pietatis from the inside of the church, when his arm was frozen as soon as he touched the statue. His arm had to be cut off to release his grip from the Madonna; it was then hung above to stand forever as a warning. We didn’t quite make it so we rushed to the Old Town Square to see the ringing of the Astronomical Clock at the top of the hour…once again we missed this because we were trying to see the arm. Well we did see the Old Town Square, which couldn’t close on us and we found out the ringing of the Astronomical Clock was kind of overrated. We met up with Scott and Dan later, grabbed a quick bite to eat and checked out a club. Leslie and I took off early and went back to the apartment.

Aug 23: Today we saw the arm in St James Church! This was our first task of the day that we completed without getting distracted by the many pubs we passed along the way. We left and headed for Old Town Square once Mike was finished taking pictures inside the church. We walked through the Jewish Quarter and saw the huge metronome perched above on the hill created to send the message that for every power there’s a time to go. The metronome was erected during Prague’s centennial exhibition. Mike and Scott went into the old Jewish Quarter, including the old Jewish Cemetery (there were many deaths with only a small plot of land to bury their dead resulting in so many old stones sticking out of everywhere.). Dan, Eric and I were in search of a painting that we had seen a couple days before. Dan bought a colorful abstract oil painting of a naked woman (it was very nice). We met up with Mike and Scott a little early since Mike’s train was leaving around 9 PM. We all went to our favorite restaurant and ordered another feast of Pork Ribs and desert! As the waiter brought our desert, Dan said “Mike what time does your train leave because it’s 8:15PM”! As much as Dan just wanted to sit there with his mouth shut waiting to see if Mike would realize on his own the time, he didn’t! The problem was that Mike had to walk back to the Bed and Breakfast, pack his belongings, walk to the subway, take the subway about 7 stops and catch an overnight train to Poland! Amazingly enough he finished his desert in a couple of bites and made his train (I can only guess with no time to lose). The rest of us went back to the apartment (wondering if Mike was going to show up later:-)

Aug 24: This morning Eric and I went back to Castle Hill and toured the inside of the St. Vitus Cathedral. We also climbed up the 250 stairs to the top of the bell tower for some magnificent views of the whole city. Next we visited the Little Quarter in search of the John Lennon wall. This was a wall that was covered with peace sayings inspired by John Lennon himself during the communist era! You can imagine that the government did not like it and covered it up every day because when they cleaned it the next day it was back as if they hadn’t cleaned it. After the fall of communism it has been left here as is so that anyone can add his or her graffiti. The next place we visited was the Monument to Victims of Communism Who Survived (long name, but very interesting). This monument started from a far with parts of a man, but as the image of the man got closer the more there was of him (hard to explain but check out the pic). This just resembled all thought people who had to recreate who they were after such a repressive governing body.

At 6 PM Eric and I met up with Scott and Dan to attend an orchestra concert at the Basilica of St. George in the Castle Quarter. It was very cool, they nine member orchestra played classics from Mozart and Bach (there were other composers to). Later in the evening we went out to a club (once we found it)! About 1 hour later and asking 3 different people directions, we finally made it! The club scene wasn’t very crowded but it was pretty cool. The club had a roof top deck overlooking part of the New Town area. After a few drinks, Eric and I headed back to the apartment for some shuteye!

Aug 25: Eric and I went to New Town today to do some shopping. This is the only place that the currency is about at the same level as the dollar. The Euro has continued to climb (as the dollar has fallen) while we have been here in Europe. So Eric found some white pants (very Euro) from Energy. I wasn’t really able to find anything so we headed back to Old Town for a little while. I bought a sketch of a ballet dancer that was done by a Russian artist (it is very good, no so cute looking like in the States, but really technically good). It seemed like the last day here went so fast! This has been such a great trip hanging out with friends! We hate to see it end…

Aug 26: Eric and I caught our train this morning after saying goodbye to the guys! We were sad but can’t wait to see everyone again back in California. Scott and Dan were meeting Mike in Budapest later today. Just another ordinary travel day, but I do love traveling by train!

Berlin with Scott and Mike

Aug 17: Eric, Scott and I woke up early to catch our train to Berlin. Of course the train was packed full of people after we told Scott that we wouldn’t need a reservation. Luckily we all found seats, just not necessarily together. The seating only further complicated things when we all got off the train and we only had two suit cases??? Since Eric has such good manners he had forgotten that he had carried my bag onto the train and placed it behind his seat. So he jumps back on the train in search of my bag… after a few seconds Scott starts heading for the door of the train to find E! Just as Scott is about to board the train again I see Eric coming out the door on the other end of the wagon. Luckily Scott heard me scream that E made it off so he didn’t end up stuck on a train headed for Copenhagen.

Our first day in Berlin was great. We visited the remains of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church just up the street. This is a reminder to Berlin of the destruction of the second World War. There is a new wing with 11,000 little blue glass windows covering a modern building… depending on the time of day the lights glow on the inside (from the sunlight) or from the outside when it is dark (from lights within). We went inside the new church and listened to the organ music.

Next we all headed to the East! I wanted to go up in the renovated, both modern and historic, parliament building. On our way there we passed through the Brandenburg Gate. There is a glass dome on the top of the parliament building with spectacular views of the city of Berlin. You are also able to look down into the legislative chamber inside (with the message that there should be no secrets in government). I made Eric and Scott wait in a long line with me to see this. They were such good sports!

Aug 18: After a good night sleep we went to a photography exhibit of Helmet Newton’s life work. There were many naked people but all in all it was pretty good. I think Eric really likes photography so he really enjoyed this exhibit! As we were headed to the S-Bahn (train/subway) we saw many people dressed in their soccer garb! Yes, there was a “football” game today in Berlin against Stuttgart. We all decided pretty quickly that we wanted to try to get tickets to see what all the fuss was about. After a little nap (and waiting for Mike to show up…. We will talk about that later) we showed up at the stadium. They had cheap tickets for sale at the ticket office so we were in luck. We went inside and Scott bought us some rather large beers (that is an understatement). I have to admit that I hung with the boys drinking my liter of beer just a quick as they did. That just meant that I had to pee 3 times as much as them, and I was about twice as drunk! OK… back to the game, Berlin won after Stuttgart took an early lead! The fans were so fun to watch down below us. They were constantly chanting and singing songs! It was a great experience… and a little contagious (Scott, Eric and I were singing along even though we had no idea what they were saying in German). The stadium was amazing… I believe that it is where the World Cup championship was played a year before. It was built during the Nazi era for the Olympics and the 1,000 year Reich. There is so much history in this city. It’s a little hard to believe it all took place here!

Meanwhile we headed back to the hotel expecting Mike to be there (late as usual) but there is still no sign of him?????? I think we all start to worry a little bit considering he was to be here by noon today. We grabbed some dinner then went out for the night. We left a note for Mike because our hotel was really a pension that closed around 7 PM… so if he were to show up late he would not be able to get into the building. Then we went to the East for a night out on the town. Scott asked a girl on the street where we should go, and we followed her to an underground Reggae Club. It was very cool… the modern music was all mixed with a little Reggae beat. We stayed until 3 AM when it started to get really crowded and smoky then headed back to the hotel…. Still wondering if Mike would be asleep on the sidewalk waiting for us to get back:-) Although there was no Mike when we returned to our hotel. Really worried, Scott went to an Internet café to see what he could figure out. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to figure out anything.

Aug 19: Today we woke up and there was still no Mike????? It was so funny when he arrived around 11 AM considering he was a day late. Turns out that Mike got stuck in New York because of bad weather and had missed his connection. It would have been nice to know just because we started getting worried. Turns out Mike was busy touring the City of New York and forgot to send us an email:-) Anyway we figured that a night sleeping on the floor of the airport was enough punishment for one trip!

We decided to take a bike tour of Berlin in the afternoon. We wondered around the East for a couple of hours before our tour started. We passed through the Topography of Terror (where the SS and Gestapo headquarter were located), which was right by a rather large remains of the Berlin Wall. We met up with our tour group and jumped on our beach cruisers (mike got stuck with a girly bike:). We visited the remaining sites in Berlin during our tour: Reichstag, Wall & Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Potsdamer Platz, and the spot were Hitler’s Underground Bunker was located! Our tour guide was very informative and energetic. He was about 26 years old, from Central California, sold an on line business, and is now traveling the world for 5 years (he studied world history in college too). The bike tour was about 5 hours long so we decided to get some dinner afterwards. E and I went home, but Scott and Mike went to a local bar to grab a beer since Mike hadn’t had the chance to go out in Berlin.

Back in Germany and Scott Arrives

Aug 7: Today it rained! E read his book and I worked on my drawing.

Aug 8: It rained again!

Aug 9: Guess what???? It rained all day!

Aug 10-11: Can’t remember, but I think it rained again?

Aug 12: Our neighbors, Gerd and Sabine, invited us over for lunch. We hung out for a while then went to Sabine’s to use the computer. Sabine made some plum cake and coffee so we ate and talked for a while.

Aug 13: We went with Sabine in the evening to play beach volleyball in Eisenach. She plays every week (as long as it doesn’t rain) with some associates from Bosh. Eric and I had a great time playing again, even though it was a bit of jungle ball. The court was very nice… located in a park up in the woods just outside of Eisenach. We were very happy that Sabine invited us and gave us a ride!

Aug 14: Scott arrives today, so we are off to Eisenach to meet him at the train station. Everything worked out well, he made it to Eisenach without any issues. We quickly jumped on a train to Wutha and then walked home from there. We stopped at Tegut to pick up some groceries then Scott had the chance to drag his bag the rest of the way through the town past the chickens, cows, goats, rabbits, you name it and someone has it in their yard here. We caught up on all the south bay news, then met up with Sabine later that night for food and beers at the Eisenach Irish Pub, where she holds an English speaking open table once a week. We had a good time there and talked about the differences between our cultures. We met a guy Tobias who spent some time in Detroit and complained about how many questions we are asked in the US when trying to order food…How do you want that cooked?, What do you want to go with that?, What kind of dressing do you want on your salad?...Germany is more on the order of the “I’ll have the #9”…ok good next person…

Aug 15: Took Scott to Eisenach today, we tried to take a tour of the Eisenacher brewery, but after going in through the shipping entrance found out all they had to offer was a smokey office, with a couple of glasses for sale, a bikini calendar and a German speaking German lady that had no idea what the word ‘tour’ meant…well so much for that. We were off to the Wartburg castle. We took a bus up to the castle then walked around and as always beautiful views of the countryside can be seen in every direction. Scott spent 15 minutes trying to take a picture of a green pasture off in the distance. After a few minutes of discussion we agreed with Scott that it was ‘the greenest pasture ever.’ We also stopped for lunch downtown and had one of our local favorites…rolled beef, red cabbage and dumplings…ask Scott it is a lot better than it sounds. We finished the day off with a barbeque with Gerd, we made German vegetable salad and bratwurst! We had a great evening and it was our first opportunity to act as interpreters, it is definitely a good thing this happened now and not when we first got here. The conversation was pretty basic but I think we did a pretty good job.

Aug 16: Sabine Probst invited us over today for making pancakes (more like crepes) and a South American mixed drink along the lines of a mohito…it started by smashing a bunch of limes, after a couple I can’t remember what else went in them. We hung out there for most of the afternoon and enjoyed lots of conversation. We rode our bikes home, made more bratwurst and I finally started packing for our trip to Berlin and Prague at about 10 o’clock. I don’t know how I manage to always screw myself like that.