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We left Amsterdam today and drove to Germany... happy to be leaving the country where it costs money to go to the bathroom. Though we did encounter some very interesting toilets in the Netherlands, including one that cleans the seat by itself. I wasn't entirely sure I trusted it, but if I have to pay 50 cents, at least it's doing something.
We were on our way to Oberwesel on the Rhine River, home to Castle Hotel Auf Schoenburg... the medieval castle-turned hotel where we were staying that night. Angie and I had been keeping it a secret from Mom so we could surprise her. We made it to Oberwesel and though we were able to see the hill-top castle from anywhere in town, we had considerable trouble figuring out how to get up to it. Maybe this is how they kept the enemies out? After driving completely around the mountain to another town and asking three different people, we finally saw a sign that we had somehow missed, and managed to make it up to the castle eventually.
Our room was the Falcon Suite, with a view out the window down to the Rhine River. The safe was
hidden behind a picture on the wall, and two trundle beds were hidden in cabinets underneath a bookshelf. The castle was built somewhere between 951 and 1166. It was one of many "robber-baron" castles that were built to levy taxes on river traffic. The castle was burned by the French in 1689, and remained a ruin for two centuries until it was purchased and restored by an American of German ancestry.
After we settled in to the castle, we went off to find something to eat. As it turns out, Europe is closed on Monday. For some reason, most things shut down on Mondays. The castle kitchen is closed on Monday... unless you want to pay 45 Euros for a 5-course meal. Which we didn't... so we drove down to town and walked around trying to find someplace that would feed us. We walked into one restaurant for which we were painfully under-dressed, and then continued walking down the main road... alllll the way down to the end, seeing Closed sign after Closed sign until we happened upon a small Gasthaus that said the kitchen was warm until 11.
The owner was from Croatia, and didn't speak English,
so we relied on my sister to translate the menu, and then spent the rest of the evening just nodding a smiling and giving him the thumbs-up whenever he came back to the table and rattled off something in German. He thought something was funny about us, though I could never quite figure out what it was. He just kept laughing at us. Meanwhile, I was eye-balling the hot American at the next table who appeared to be backpacking his way through Germany.
At the end of the meal, the owner brought out three tiny glasses of Slivovitz, a Serbian liquor made from plums. I'm not sure if he was trying to tell us he liked us, or if he just wanted to see the looks on our faces when we tried to drink it. He and the Germans at the next table had a good laugh as we gasped for air. We were the last ones in the restaurant when we left, and he turned the lights out on us while we were in the ladies room... I guess he decided he had had enough fun and it was time for the Americans to go home.
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