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Published: March 10th 2008
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Falling behind already with updates. Know that all my loyal readers (okay my mother) have been waiting to see something new. Picture uploading ability currently on the fritz, so may or may not add pictures at a later date. For now, you'll just have to close your eyes and imagine the stuff I'm talking about. Sorry...
3 Mar- Walked out of the house in the morning with the intention of scouting out supplies for my upcoming trip. Spent the day shopping around for tents/campstoves/etc. Shopping for a tent is an interesting insight into your life. Do I just need a two person? Am I planning on having other people accompany me on my trips? Or, if I am going to drive on the trips, is there really such a thing as too big of a tent. So, am I going to actually hike/backpack with it? After a moment of realization that I am putting way too much though into this, I settle on all of my equipment and decide to come back the next day to make purchases.
4 Mar- I walk out of the house into a blizzard. Okay, not a blizzard, but definately our hardest snowstorm of
the year. I decide to put off the camping temporarily, at least until the weather becomes slightly more predictable. Spend the morning drinking coffee and lamenting the loss of the sun. Expressing my dissapointment to my friend, he mentions that he and his wife would be interested in going along whenever the camping actually happens. So from a silver lining standpoint, the expedition has gained people. On the other hand, his mention that they don't have a tent, and a question of whether my tent is big enough for them to stay in also adds another wrinkle to the tent buying problem, because a realization hits that I probably wouldn't want to share a tent with other people, family and significant others excepted. Especially a married couple. It'd be a little odd. Plus, I snore...
8 Mar- Not quite a travel blog worthy entry, but an strange realization that hits me: My German is not getting any better. The people I have met while traveling are so good natured that I really haven't had an opportunity to improve. I will try to speak the language, but usually they will answer me and speak to me in English. Maybe, rather
than an indication of how friendly the people are, it's an indication of how bad my German actually is. Not quite sure. On the other hand, my Italian is improving. I live above an Italian restaurant and Mama, the older of the waitresses in the restaurant has been helping me learn Italian, as I help her with her English. I made it through my first meal completely in Italian this weekend, so I was pretty proud of that. My only hiccup was a pronunciation issue when asking for the check. There is still something incredibly odd about this to me. I lived 21 years in an area that predominately spoke Spanish, and I learned German. Now, I live in Germany, and I'm learning to speak Italian. Life is funny sometimes. After dinner, I make plans with friends, Thomas and Shannon, for a day trip the next day. We decide to travel down the Rhine to Bacharach. They haven't visited the area, and it's one of my favorites near my home.
9 Mar- Weather is a little worrisome as we depart for the trip. Cloudy skies and a fairly stiff wind are never a good sign, and it looks as
if it may start raining at any point. We decide to take back roads rather than the autobahn for views, but everything is still a little gray and gloomy along what is normally a pretty road once the leaves are out. We pull into Bacharach around noon, and all of us are in extreme need of a public WC. Unfortunately, the one I know the location of is closed. We walk through the city gates into a town that looks as if it has been deserted. Apparently, the weather scared everyone else away. The locals are all tucked away in cafes and homes for lunch, and we decide that sounds like a very good idea. We choose a nice little cafe whose name escapes me, and find that the waitress speaks no English. I am excited at the opportunity to practice my German, and I order drinks for the table before we all take turns filing down the stairs to the restroom. When I get back, it's time to order lunch, and I find that our waitress has been replaced by a young man who speaks better English that me. I decide to stick with my friendliness of shopkeepers theory.
Otherwise, I'll be forced to admit that my German must just be horrible. We have a great lunch and some local wine while we watch a football match in the back of the restaurant. Afterwards, we decide to explore the town. We hike up the steep path to the castle, regretting that last glass of wine, and listening to Thomas mumbling about smoking too much. After wandering around, and taking our obligatory shots of the Rhine from the castle, we decide to head up the road to St Goar. The sky is still cloudy, but the temperature is nice, and the wind has stopped. We park by the river in St Goar and hike up to Burg Rheinfels. More muttering about smoking, then a brief discussion about the fact that there is a parking lot at the top of the hill, a fact I have left out since I like the walk up. The weather has scared off the usually large numbers of tourists that you would see at the castle on a weekend day. There are just 10 or so die-hards wandering around, and it really has the feeling that we have the entire castle to ourselves. My guidebook
states that the mine tunnels surrounding the castle are impossible to visit without a flashlight or candle, and we take this as a challenge. So, we traverse the entire length in the dark, with only the assistance of cell phone illumination in the stairwells. A fun challenge, with the one hiccup of a high passageway I went through too fast. The beam was about 6'3" in the air, and Thomas missed it. Unfortunately, I'm 6"5" and didn't. Ouch. As a whole, the day went well though. We had a nice day. None of the places were too crowded. I got sunburned?!? Oh well.
The camping is still a pending possibility, though it might be put off for a while. Stay tuned for more.
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