We stopped at a Bäckerei (bakery) and a Metzgerei (butcher) for lunch fixins before we left town. The 2-hour drive into the Alps was beautiful, of course. One interesting thing about Bavaria is the farms all seem to be small family operations, and it's common to see actual farmers actually farming as we drive by. Neuschwanstein is Neuschwanstein. What more need be said? We had to wait three hours for our guided tour, which afforded us time to eat and nap and plenty else if there had been anything else to do on the side of the mountain, which there wasn't, so pretty much just nap. While we waited, Ramona & Horst sneaked away to a local Käserei (cheese shop) and stocked up on highly aromatic items for our 2-hour drive home. ;) After Neuschwanstein, we ... read more

Here we are in Deutschland (Germany), and as expected, being a parent-esque figure to a kid is hard. :) "Nun sind unser zwey" is the inscription on Nördlingen's Narrenspigel, the "Fool's Mirror", a carving on the side of the old town prison building. As you look at the image of the fool in the "mirror", he says: "now there are two of us"! Both the idea of two, and the idea of the fool, seem apt for my adventure bringing somene else's eight-year-old on a monthlong trip through Europe. :) This week we're staying in Nördlingen, a charming medieval town on the Romantische Straße (Romantic Road) in Bayern (Bavaria). Our hosts point out that the Stadtmauer (town wall) in Nördlingen is intact and can normally be walked all the way around, which they say makes it ... read more

The Nintendo DS Lite appears to be the only one of my many rechargeable gadgets whose charger is NOT dual-voltage. This means a simple plug adapter won't cut it... a step-down transformer is necessary to prevent DS fryage. Step-down transformers are almost literally bricks to carry around. They suck. And for one appliance? Some posters in online fora say that buying the European adapter from Nintendo works absolutely fine for charging a US DS Lite, but Nintendo's support website actually says you'd be better off buying a whole 'nother DS Lite game console in Europe. I can see where Nintendo might have nefarious corporate reasons for suggesting such a thing, but I'm also not confident in online gamers' having any deep understanding of how electricity works. This is a tough decision, especially since the DS Lite ... read more

In ten days, I embark on my second epic tour of Europe: Deutschland, Czechia, 500 meters' worth of France, and perhaps 45 minutes of Austria. Three years ago, I visited an old friend and made several new friends. Now, my 8-year-old goddaughter and I will connect with all those old-new friends and will meet a high school classmate of my mother's as well. My friend's kids are older, so it'll be great to catch up with them and get to know them all over again. We're also taking my friend's daughter with us to Berlin. Sole guardian of two other-people's-kids, one of whose primary language is not English, in a foreign country... seemed like a good idea at the time. :) My last trip was fast-paced -- 15 cities in a month, half of them solo ... read more

SeaTac Airport's relatively new Terminal A is nice. I was irritated by wi-fi problems, but impressed by all the shops, cafés, power outlets, and comfy chairs and benches. Wow! Long, flat, padded benches... perfect for sleeping during a long layover. I've never seen such a thing. I'm sure in my pre-9/11 youth they created all those awkward rows of chairs with armrest dividers to prevent transients from sleeping in the airport... for better or worse, that's not an issue in today's permanently secured areas. And the guy ahead of me in line at the x-ray had to throw away his tube of toothpaste. Speaking of permanently secured areas, D/FW is a crazily pre-9/11 airport trying to make it in a post-9/11 world. Huge, extravagant, mall-like shopping and restaurant centers in each terminal... but every single venue ... read more