The Terrible Catsafterme

As I walked the ramp from the airplane to customs on the morning of Saturday, July 5, 2008, the first thought that entered my mind was that Germany must be a dunghole. The whole area had been ripped apart for construction and it looked like I had just entered a third-world country. As it happens, this was the only area of the country that made me feel this way. Of the eight European countries I visited, Germany was the nicest of all. Ahead of me were two weeks of traveling via planes, trains, and automobiles (as well as boats, taxis, buses, and subways) throughout the European continent. I had finally popped the pond after 36 years of remaining on the North American continent.

It wasn’t long before I saw some friendly and familiar faces in Germany. The Wileys (Jimmy aka Big Jimmy, Kris, and Jimmy III aka Little Jimmy aka LJ), greeted me in the terminal not long after I had gone through customs, had my passport stamped, and picked up my blue suitcase. We hopped on the airport train shuttle to another terminal and then went back to the Wileys’ hotel room. They had flown into Frankfurt from Berlin the night before and were staying at a hotel adjoining the airport, so we went there to grab their luggage. We then went back into the airport and picked up the rental Opel at Europcar.

My first photo in Europe was less than inspired – the Wileys renting a car

I was immediately relieved to learn that mostly everyone we were coming in contact with could speak English…and was very nice. The Wileys had been in Germany since Tuesday and had already visited Berlin, Dresdin, and had briefly crossed over into Poland just to say they had been there. After nearly a week in the country, they concurred that they had come to feel very comfortable. Kris had converted some American dollars into Euros for me and handed me a few of them to get a snack at a little bakery in the airport called Kamps.

My first German food was a pastry called a puddingbrezel; it was shaped like a pretzel stuffed with a vanilla bread pudding substance. It was fabulous and I thought about it for my entire trip. One euro had cost over $1.50 in American money, so I was curious as to what a euro could buy you. I never really got a feel for the economy as everything seemed so inconsistent. At one point in Paris, a glass of soda cost eight euros, but the puddingbrezel was only 1.60 euros (in America, I would imagine it would have cost at least $3.00, and much more in an airport). In any case, it felt odd to spend my first euros, feeling like I was cashing in game tokens for a little prize and receiving smaller game tokens as change. But it was pretty cool, I thought.

I can taste it now

After devouring puddingbrezel and everyone else had finished eating, we headed out on our first day’s adventure. After we situated ourselves, determined who would drive, and who would navigate the tomtom GPS device, we were all set to go. That is, we were ready once we found the emergency brake, which at one point we actually looked for under the hood of the car. I ended up navigating the GPS from the back seat for the first portion of the trip.

The first impression I had of Germany, both inside the city and in the rural areas we drove through was how incredibly neat and clean it seemed to be everywhere. The roads were all impeccible and the street signs were bright and cheery like signs at Disney World. Of course most of the roads and cities were words that we couldn’t even pronounce, but we did all right with the GPS (which was narrated by John Cleese). So after driving about one hour west, we arrived at our first destination, Burg Eltz.

The majestic Burg Eltz…that is Burrrrg Eltz

At the entrance to Burg Eltz. Yes, I know I’m wearing the same shirt from the day before…but since I never went to bed, does it really count?

I’m sure the Wileys thought that they would be in for a long week with me, when I kept saying Burrrrg Eltz in my best John Houseman voice (after the Seinfeld line “Alec Burrrrg – sounds like a good John Houseman name – Alec Burrrrg.”) This would become the first of many of the trip’s catch-phrases. We had been forewarned that there were pickpockets and thieves all over Europe and that it was unsafe to leave anything in the car, so we were unjustly paranoid about leaving our luggage in the hatchback – even at this remote tourist location. After a while, that notion began to seem silly at best.

Burg Eltz was a medieval castle near the Moselle River, nestled in a huge valley seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. The majestic building was erected in the 1100’s and contained many ancient furnishings. Although it contains nearly 100 rooms throughout, we only visited about ten of them. Remarkably the castle has remained in the same family for 800 years and some of them still visit and stay at the castle to this day. We had a young freckled female tour guide with an adorable German accent giving us the lowdown on the location. Jimmy and I remarked that somehow it all seemed like a place manufactured by the folks at Disney rather than the real deal, although the real deal is exactly what it was. I bought my first European magnet in the gift shop at Burg Eltz. 

Getting ready to enter the castle

It was a nice long walk to get down to the castle (whatever happened to hilltop castles?), but it seemed infinitely longer getting back to the top. While Jimmy and Kris took a tram back to the parking area, Little Jimmy and I decided to show off and hike back up the massive hills. I was seriously hoping that my trip wouldn’t be cut extremely short due to a major heart attack – especially after a night of no sleep.

That’s the parking lot up there, right on top of the stoop

Please Lord, allow my humble heart to continue beating

Big Jimmy took the wheel as we headed toward our second destination – Bacharach, Germany. The ride was mostly uneventful…with two small exceptions. We stopped along the road to get a photograph on the road between our destinations and after getting back into the car, Big Jimmy exclaimed that the car would not go in reverse. This was no good as we were teetering at the top of the hill and couldn’t really move forward. Turns out the reason that we couldn’t go backward was rather simple. The car was off.

On the road from Burg Eltz to Bacharach

Later on while driving through the very tiny claustrophobic roads near Bacharach, Big Jimmy pulled over to the side of the road and ticked off a driver behind him. The car bleated out a thick honk at our driving folly and the driver flipped us off. Big Jimmy decided to retaliate and slammed on our car’s horn. The only problem was that our horn sounded like a kitten with a bad cold.

We had to go about 20 miles back west from Burg Eltz to Bacharach (which had enabled us to make the castle in time) and here we purchased a ticket to take a riverboat cruise on the Köln-Düsseldorfer ship down the Rhine River. Our ship was the Goethe. The cruise was nice and peaceful with lulling scenery, but the visible castles and structures on the banks (which were raved about by Rick Steve, author of several European city guides that Little Jimmy used to plan part of the trip – and hereafter referred to as Scuba Steve), were rather unimpressive. I didn’t care though. I was happy just to be here and pleased to find any photo op possible, even if it meant asking a group of Monks vacationing from Frankfurt to pose for a photo with me.

In Bacharach

Big Jimmy enjoys an ice cream bar before boarding our luxury liner

Cruising down the Rhine with a bevy of Monks

The boat took us to the tiny German village of St. Goar. We didn’t have much time to look around St. Goar because our boat ride had taken longer than anticipated and we needed to catch a train back to Bacharach to retrieve our car. The only interesting – and ironic – thing we saw was a little statue of our pals Laurel and Hardy on the stoop of one of the residences. We had a little more time to look around Bacharach before we took off toward our final German destination of the evening, Trier.

Laurel and Hardy in St. Goar, Germany

Back in Bacharach after the cruise, exploring

I sat up front this time with LJ and helped navigate toward the hotel. The town of Trier is commonly known as the oldest city in Germany, founded sometime before 15 B.C. The centerpiece of the town is the Porta Nigra, an ancient Roman city gate built between the years 180 and 200. After the Roman era ended, the Porta Nigra became a church for nearly 800 years, until Napoleon Bonaparte ordered to be restored back to its ancient Roman form during his visit to Trier in 1804.

 The gorgeous view from our window

 Me and the Porta Nigra

Me at the Porta Nigra (backside)

Our hotel, the Mercure Porta Nigra, was directly across the street from the Porta Nigra and we had an amazing view of it from our window. After settling in briefly, we took a walk through the arches of it, mostly in search of something to eat. We settled on the first place we saw, a restaurant called Theo. I went straight for the traditional German dish weiner schnitzel, along with french fries (pommes frites) and a salad. I quickly discovered that beer was actually cheaper than both soda or water, so I opted for a German wheat bear called Erdinger Weißbier (in case you’re wondering, the character ‘ß’ is pronounced ‘sz’, or a sharp ‘s’). I wasn’t sure what the weiner schnitzel was and later found out it was veal. It was good, but nothing special – at least at this restaurant.

At Theo’s for our first dinner of the trip

Jimmy in the midst of recording more than ten hours of footage from our trip

My cousin Rob and his wife Amber live just about 30 minutes from Trier, so we had originally planned to try and meet up – but plans had to change due to Rob’s work schedule – which was unfortunate.  

I was both happy and surprised to find that our hotel had a computer in the lobby, so I was able to send out a few emails before bed. Other surprises were that it didn’t get dark until almost 11pm in Western Europe; there was no air conditioning in the hotels so we had to open the windows – which had no screens; single beds were invariably almost always pushed together, usually with no room to separate them much (although they were not this way at the Mercure); the bed coverlet was one thick comforter encased in a bedsheet; and it got light at about 6am in the morning.

It only took me a day to realize there would be many things to get used to over the next two weeks…but I was more than excited and happy to do it.

I can’t read this thing

The trip will continue…

Bypass the trip and continue with 2008…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 6:18 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Historical Locations, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.