Friday the 13th

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Today was a rest and recover day. After today though, I think Dave might need another one. Our Garmin continues to be uncooperative ...which means that we are navigating using a combination of Garmin when she is willing, road signs and google maps. Manual map reading - Let's be nice and say that reading maps is a dying skill and German roads are not very well marked. In fact, I am not sure how they get mail here ...neither the roads or houses are reliably marked. But we eventually found our next apartment and spent the day looking for the beach. First the apartment ... it's in an industrial park - not an ideal location, but nice apartment. Emily and I had to track the owner down ...using my best bad German, we were remarkably successful finding him at his office and getting to the apartment. Next was lunch. We saw a subway sign, and decided that would be great for lunch .... Alas, no subway, but we did find a burger joint. You might be thinking that was bad, but it was actually a good thing because we looked up the beach again and found we had missed some important directions. The fact that there were two beaches ... A textile beach (with clothes) and a clothing free beach. Mindful of my promise to Emily's parents to take care of her, we decided we would swim at the clothing beach. Well, Emily and I decided to swim ... Dave decided a nap in the sun was his best bet. The water was initially cold, but we did swim around for awhile. Next we needed a laundromat, and we finally found one, with a very helpful attendant. This could have been the worst and best laundromat we have ever found in our travels. The worst .... There was not a washing machine that was whole - every machine had something wrong with it. The best .... But the attendant gave us his best washer, and 40 minutes later we had wet clean clothes ready for the dryer. We did the super spin to get the clothes as dry as possible for the dryer, and then put them in for the hour dry cycle. Stepped out for a bite to eat, and then ....no attendant when we went back - but he did leave a note that he would be back at 9:30. We spent the next 30 minutes in a park ... Disappointed that we couldn't play life size chess because the chess pieces were locked up and worried that Grandmother and Connie were waiting at the apartment ... In a different town all alone and probably wondering if we skipped the country. We tapped out an email to Connie that we were slightly delayed, but had dinner, and were coming back as soon as we could. Then ...back to the laundromat ...a little after 9:30 and no attendant.



Emily here. As you may or may not have read in the last post, we are trapped in a town, waiting for the laundromat attendant to get back from his untimely break. And grandmother and Connie are in the apartment... Which happens to lie in another town. Another problem is that we have the only key, so if they leave to try and get food, they won't be able to get back in... We are hoping that they can survive on Pringles and pretzels... In other news.. We moved houses today and went to find the beach, which was cold at first, then warmed up nicely, only Me and Aunt Jimmie went swimming. And right now, we are sitting on a bench in a park, waiting for our laundromat to return at 9:30.





Hmmmm...Dave was worried because the parking ramp closed at 10:00. We took a poll and decided that Emily and I would get the clothes; Dave would go get the car before the ramp closed. BUT the ramp closed early. Dave scooted under the wall door as it was closing though and was in. By this time, the attendant was back and we were getting the clothes. We met Dave just as he escaped from the parking ramp and we were on our way back. A couple of issues with the navigation and 30 minutes later we were back. Connie and Grandmother had read our email and were waiting for us. Emily relayed the adventure ...and everyone went to bed ready for tomorrow.



The only pictures we have for today are of the Beach and the Guinea Bunny we spied ... We are not sure what animal it is ..bit very cute.



Tomorrow is Nurenburg and Furth ... Wish us luck with our technology.

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Photos

The Bunny Guinea
Is this cute or what?