Day 2 cont.

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So, after the hotel we went to Germany, which conveniently enough is 5 minutes away. Tim's Uncle Andy and Aunt Sylvia had planned to cook out for Tim, me, and the gang. Andy and Sylvia are the parents of Valerie and Nadine. Valerie is married to Toby; and Nadine is with Michael. (pronounced me-shell) Tim and I kicked it with them on night 1 - more about that later. Anyways, they cooked up one hell of a meal for us. Meat, potatoes, and salad. Toby cooked the meat and nailed it, we had chicken, bratwurst, chicken kabobs, sausage, and bacon. It was definitely to much to eat, but he did such a great job that no one could stop. The salad was perfect as well. It was lettuce, mushrooms, and krauter dressing which I can't really describe other than simply saying it was amazing. While they were cooking lunch I got to look around the house and began to realize that I was in an adult Smart Toys and Books store. Andy has better toys now, than I did as a kid. A massive train set, a Microsoft flight simulator, puzzles, 3 pet rabbits, and two pet turtles. It was pretty impressive, but more funny than anything. Following lunch, we made plans to go swim down the Rhine River. Nadine's boyfriend Michael lives in Basel, so we headed to his part of the town. (side note: we walked down a secluded staircase to get to the river and had to walk through a gay, nude beach. extremely off putting. I guess we had to get the full effect of Switzerland though.) He had 3 water proof bags, so we packed towels, shoes, and dry clothes in them and jumped in off of a fairy dock. The water was absolutely freezing, but very refreshing. It immediately washed off any remaining jet lag I had. We began drifting down the river, and the water proof bags acted as floats so, as usual, I grabbed one so I didn't have to worry about a thing. The river was a lot faster than back home the current made it impossible to swim up river. It was perfect. We probably floated 2 miles down river, passing by the younger crowd of Switzerland on the river walk. There were a lot of people laying out and enjoying the weather. eventually we fought out way through the current and got out, to walk back to the car. Toby drove us back to the hotel and we passed out for a few minutes before going to dinner at Waldis favorite pizza parlor. Thin crust pepperoni pizza for dinner. After dinner we went to meet up with Tim's cousin Bjoern and his girlfriend at a local bar, for "a few" beers. Lorrach is very concentrated, so you can walk everywhere. It's very convenient. We met up with Bjoern and a few of his buddies. He ordered me a wheat beer that looked somewhat like Blue Moon. It was amazing. I typically shy away from wheat beers, but this one I loved. It was sweet and not to heavy, or dark. A few beers turned into Tim and I closing down the bar and walking home. I'll try to keep this as G rated as possible, but I knew it was time to go home as we were walking out and I was trying to explain to the bar tender that she was beautiful and I loved her in German. Bad idea. She was laughing though and Tim was cracking up at my stupidity. We made our way back to the Hotel and crashed for the night ... after making a few late night (or late afternoon depending on where you are in the world) phone calls to America. All in all it was a great day, never a dull moment. By the way, I apologize mom, we ran out of internet minutes at the hotel. I'll make it up to you later tonight. Much love from Lorrach, Germany.
P & T over and out

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