The Fringe

I've been really bad about posting recently! Soon my blog will be like Zach's--only updated once a quarter. We've been busy, though, so that's my excuse.

Last night we went to a really great sushi restaurant near Dupont Circle. To get to it, we had to walk past the Iraqi embassy, and I know they're having problems at home and all, but I think they could at least spare one person for one hour a day to clean up their lawn. It was about 6 inches tall and full of weeds. Maybe they don't know about lawn care, since I doubt they have too many lawns over there.

After sushi, we saw a great play--The One Man Star Wars Trilogy! Charles Ross acted out all three original Star Wars films in 1.5 hours. No props, no costume changes, no sound effects (other than his own singing and light-saber noises), and no other actors. It was hilarious--I highly recommend going if he comes to your city! I was lucky to get tickets for our group of 6--all the DC shows sold out. The show was part of the first-ever Capital Fringe Festival (happening places like Edinburgh have been having them for years). I went to one other show with my friend Anne last week, a three-person play, 4.48 Psychosis, about depression. Star Wars was much funnier. Anne's a big fringe fan, and aside from these two plays she also attended a few others, including one about WWII French prostitutes. That one was staged in a public swimming pool. There's a reason these are part of the "fringe"!

In other news, our other car will be here soon, and we're selling a gently-used 2001 Jetta...know anyone who wants to buy a Jetta? Also, for any of my civil engineer peeps who actually read this blog (not likely--I think 75% of my readership is my mom, my dad, and Zach's mom), my employer is going to hire another person to do the same job I do. Let me know if you're interested. Who wouldn't want to go to Nouakchott?!?!

I still have to upload pictures from Stacey's wedding and write up the remainder of our Germany trip; hopefully this week will be less hectic than last week!

Bamberg

The Saturday after we got to Germany, we drove up to Bamberg. Bamberg is a cute little Bavarian town with little cobblestone streets and cute old-world buildings. It was one of the few medieval towns in Germany not destroyed during WWII. Zach's sister and her boyfriend both used to live in Bamberg, so we met them up there so they could show us the town. Our hotel, the Hotel St. Nepomuk, was formerly a grain mill and actually hangs out into the river running through town. The room was a little old, and warm (see previous post's discussion re: no air conditioning), but it was clean, reasonably priced, and included breakfast. Plus, you couldn't beat the view!

It would have been hard to find the hotel, if not for the GPS software Zach bought for his PDA. It kept telling us to turn onto increasingly narrow streets until we got to a dead end. Turns out this was the entrance to the "parking garage" at the rear of the hotel. I doubt we would have found it any other way, since all other approaches to the hotel are pedestrian only--GPS rocks! The garage was ridiculously small and had lifts so they could stack cars two high. Our car fit into a space with inches to spare. Zach had the attendant park it, and he and another hotel guest directed. I swear it took them about 10 minutes to get the car perfectly positioned. I stood outside; I couldn't bear to watch! Later that day, we moved the car to a municipal parking garage that was a 5-minute walk away; better to have a short walk than a bleeding ulcer everytime you park!

Bamberg had its share of World Cup fever (some games were played in nearby Nuremburg). Flags from all the participating countries were strung across the street near the marketplace. Germany was playing Sweden that afternoon, and we saw some folks escaping the heat of the indoors by bringing their couch, tv, oscillating fan, and coffee table (oh, and some extension cords) out onto the sidewalk to watch the game! After walking around Bamberg and a quick trip to America (AKA the Army base shoppette for water, a couple toilettries, a couple plug converters, and an ATM), we had dinner outside a little Italian restaurant. Right before dinner Germany won over Sweden, and pandemonium erupted in the tiny streets of Bamberg. During the whole two hours of our dinner, we were treated to an impromptu parade of cars and motorcycles honking, yelling, singing, and flag waving. Even the polizei got into it (normally, honking your horn for no reason is a ticketable offense). After dinner we walked to another cafe and watched Mexico lose to Argentina. I was rooting for Mexico, but oh well. I also drank a Rauchbier, the local smoked beer. The other Stephanie described it as "ham in a glass", and it kinda was. Not undelicious.

Pictures here. Next entry: Nuremburg.

Munich

No, I'm not going to write about the recent movie with the very hot Eric Bana...unfortunately...but about our time in the city! After an exhausting 5 full days back at work, I'm finally ready to write about our trip. It didn't start out well: we got to Dulles Wednesday afternoon with 2 hours to spare before our flight departed, but because of ridiculous lines and inept United Airlines, we almost missed our flight. We ended up literally running to our plane, and I think we were the last people to board. My mood was unimproved when I realized that not only would I start the 8 hour flight all hot and sweaty, but Zach and I weren't even seated together! Fortunately, the girl next to Zach was flying alone, so she traded with me. None too soon, because the couple with a baby seated next to me was going to try to talk me into giving them my aisle seat! As if!!! The flight was otherwise pretty comfortable, and I had free alcoholic beverage tickets thanks to a coworker who's a double-platinum-elite-diamond-encrusted frequent flier.

We walked around a little on Thursday and just got acclimated to the time change. Our hotel was nice, but hot. I called the front desk to tell them our air conditioning was broken, and they told me that's because there is no air conditioning, but they could bring us a fan. I found out later that it's extremely rare to find a hotel, restaurant, or store in Germany with air conditioning! Note to self: future trips to Europe (or really anywhere outside the US--why are we the only ones who appreciate the frigid gloriousness of air conditioning??) will not take place between June and August. It was in the upper 80s most of the time we were there. No wonder the Germans got cranky and tried to take over the world twice. Why else would Russia look enticing? Eating outside is almost mandatory, because it's just too stifling inside. At restaurants, the indoor dining room would be deserted, and all the customers would be eating on the front patio. Oh, and none of the hotels we stayed in provided washcloths, but prior experience in England and Italy prompted me to pack my own!

Our first German food was a tasty dinner in a restaurant under the Munich Rathaus (town center), the Ratskeller. The big selling point for us was that it was supposedly air conditioned. The next day we learned that you're not supposed to eat the giant pretzels on your table, because they're not free like chips in Mexican restaurants. They are probably also recycled from the last customers that didn't eat them.

Friday we picked up our car. The guy who showed us all the features and explained driving regulations was the quintessential charming German. If we hadn't just bought a car, we totally would have bought one from him, even though he wasn't selling them. He explained things like the glow-in-the-dark release handle inside the trunk (cut it off first if we planned to lock anyone in there) and how to turn out the headlights for mafia meetings. We also met another pair of Aggies who were picking up a car! The male did post-grad work at A&M, and the female graduated the same year as we did. They got the same car we did, but in black. After getting briefly lost, we had a little picnic lunch near a small lake we stumbled upon. Car pictures are here.

That afternoon we met Zach's sister, Stephanie, and her boyfriend and did a doubledecker bus tour of the city, walked around, looked at some churches, watched some guys in lederhosen performing a dance with whips, drank some beer, had dinner, and drank some more beer. We went to the famed Hofbrauhaus, and it was pandemonium because of all the world cup fans (oh yes, and like all indoor spaces, very very hot). There was always some group bursting into song or doing a group cheer. Such national spirit and crazy attire! It was a United Nations of sorts, where we saw a representative from Mexico (sombrero) chatting with the representative from Sweden (flourescent blue and yellow business suit). The Italians who sat across the table from us were friendly. My three words of Italian came in handy, as I was not only able to greet them, but also to say goodbye. They looked somewhat shocked and disappointed when their Weissbrauten arrived looking exactly like two bloated white sausages in a pot of hot water (I tried some later in the week, and it's actually very good).

Pictures from Munich are here. Tomorrow I'll post about our next destination, Bamberg.

Home Sweet Home

It's been a fun past few weeks, but I sure am glad to be home. We just got back from Texas, where I was in Stacey's wedding. It was funny to be around so many people (Stacey's family) who refer to me as "Bob" (there's a long and surprisingly boring story about the nickname coined when I was in 7th grade). Now that I'm done traveling for a while, I will finally have some time to post reminisces and pictures of where I've been. I can even put my suitcase away for a while! Yay! Stay tuned this week for pictures of Germany and Stacey's wedding!