Oh crap, another Autobahn!!

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We finally got the Jeep today from it's overseas shipment and we were anxious to explore outside of our small radius. So far, everything we have seen is either from riding the bus, walking, or jogging. We wanted to find the large electronics store "Media Markt" which is across the river from where we're staying. It's in the "Hafen" area...hafen translates to 'port.' We looked at a Google map before we left and knew the general area in which we had to travel.
This is how our excursion went: we drove in a complete circle at first, with Andrea merely following signs for Hafen (and repeating the word Hafen out loud each time!), then we realized we needed to get on the Autobahn. And holy crap was it kinda scary being passed by Audis and BMWs at incredibly high rates of speed!! When they say the Autobahn has no speed limit, they're correct. The Germans have a 'recommended' speed of 130km/hr (roughly 80mph) but from what we saw today, they just drive with the pedal to the metal!! We exited the Autobahn but turned the wrong way. Drove around an industrial area for a while before getting back on the Autobahn, determined to get off at the very next exit. (All the while, Media Markt was just across the road from us!! We could see the bright red sign but couldn't figure out how to get there!!) We exited at the first exit and realized it lead us onto another Autobahn!! You guessed it, "CRAP!!" So we thought, we'll get off at the next exit. We did and after driving around the rotary...twice...we made a bad guess at which way to go, U-turned on yet another Autobahn on/off ramp, and headed finally back in the right direction. We maneuvered our way back through the mess of Autobahns and eventually found Media Markt. We drove by and made it home with amazingly little difficulty.


Here are our observations:

• roads here are narrower than in the States
  
• Autobahns do not have street lights
  
• Germans do not leave traffic lights on after certain hours to conserve energy (YIKES!)
  
• Jeeps are not well equipped with km/hr on their spedometers...I never really knew how fast I was going, only that everyone was flying past me!!
  
• Autobahns directions are given with regards to the next city...not cardinal directions (N,S,E,W) which makes it almost impossible for us newbies to know where we're going!
  
• Exit signs say Ausfahrt (it's said to be the largest city in the country because it can be reached from any Autobahn exit. haha, funny yet very confusing at first when you keep seeing arrows for "Ausfahrt")
  

So you can see that our excursion today was pretty eventful!! Hopefully we'll have more luck in the daylight!!!

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Comments

[Rasa Dawson]

Jeep on the Autobahn!
Ha Ha!!! I've been waiting to hear about your first trip on the autobahn. Your rotary experience sounds like when Lewis and I were driving around Portugal, we must have gone around the same rotary 6 times, I felt like Chevy Chase in National Lampoons European vacation! Keep the updates coming, I love them. Miss you guys!!!