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Published: October 5th 2004
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Safe and Sound.
What a Blitzkrieg! But we are now at my friend Daniela’s beautiful home in the small village of Karlsbad. We arrived in Frankfurt with no airplane dramas and took a taxi to the RV depot 15 minutes from the airport. In a cool coincidence it turned out that the gentleman who rented us the RV owns a home in Central Florida and knows all the cities and attractions. What are the chances? We had a good time with this fellow and he gave us the grand tour trusty stead.
With all the buttons and levers he showed me it will be a miracle if I can keep this baby running the whole trip. The RV was way more advanced than we had anticipated and we both kept smiling at each other like a16 year old kids getting ready to jump into their first car. The RV is about the size of a small bread truck yet it has all the necessities of home. Hot showers, toilet, gas stoves, fresh water sink and a fridge that runs of the battery when your driving, off power when your plugged into the camp site, or propane when camping off
the beaten path (not quite sure how you can make a cooling appliance work by burning propane but it’s a nice feature.)
I hop in the drivers seat and without stalling I make it out of the depot. Unfortunately that was the only correct turn I made in the next 20 minutes. Rather than finding my way on the freeway out of town I was heading into a picturesque suburb of Frankfurt. As eye catching as the architecture was what was really grabbing my attention was the narrowing streets and the feeling like I was riding a hippopotamus through the lands of Lilliputians. After several trundling detours and city block turn arounds we got on track and headed south on the Autobahn.
I thought there was one world famous autobahn but the truth is all their major freeways are autobahns. Well we were on one and every BMW was racing by us at mach 2. The speed limits that are posted are for those who wish to be insured. If you drive over them you’re essentially not insured - from the whizzing automobiles to our left it is quite apparent that the Germans don’t think too highly of
auto insurance.
The drive was pleasant and it was neat to look off from the highway and see red roofed villages nestled in the hills with the tallest building being the church. The weather was a bit dreary but the cool weather was a welcome relief from Florida’s final throws of summer.
Once off the free way we headed down a little country road to her village - about 5 miles. Her village is very typical of German towns. Mostly white washed stucco homes and shops with dark read to brown tiled roofs. Tight narrow streets and cobbled curbing lead us to her home and up her driveway. We went up the stairs and her grandfather came to the door - I asked for Daniela and he smiled and said some things in German and point to the house in the back.
Her house is three stories. Like most German families, the parents live in the central floor (they call it the first floor - we call it the second floor). Once the kids grow up they build out the third floor into a sort of loft apartment which the kids inhabit for as long as need be, and the bottom floor is for laundry, storage, gymnasium, sauna and tanning bed.
Daniela took us to the super market to get some provisions for our trip and to get some food for tonight’s meal. Shops close early on Saturdays and are closed all day Sunday, so it was good stocking up now. While telling Kamrin an old story about Daniela’s Malaysia adventures we had an epiphany of what to call our RV. When I first met Daniela in Australia she had a very think German accent and call our van a “whan”. So in that spirit we have chosen to call our Winnebago “Whanny the Winny”.
We returned fully stocked and Kamrin and I had the opportunity to shower and change clothes. In all Daniela had 8 friends over for dinner. The second floor houses the kitchen and everyone was crowded in chatting and lending a hand with the preparations. Daniela kicked us out to give the serious cooks some room to work their magic and Kamrin and I spoke with the three or four friends who could speak English. On young man Jorg, had spent some time in Canada and Georgia. He had perfect English with a hint of a Canadian accent. He is a theology student in one of Heidelberg’s universities, hoping to graduate and become a high school teacher. It was interesting to get his opinion of American culture and to talk about a broad assortment of topics.
We also spoke for a while with Vite. He is an IT students and said he liked computers only when they were working, and that he was baffled by people who worked with computers all day and went home at and played with them. Ha ha that is me and Mark to the T. He was a pleasant fellow and of good spirits. Wish we had more time to get ot know these fine people better.
Dinner was an absolute event. We were all seated at one long table decorated with candles. The food was awesome. Vite laughed and said we live here in Germany and we never eat this German. They had made special traditional dishes Spatzel with chicken and gravy, a wonderful soup with Griesskloeschen (little wheat noodle balls), and Semmilkmoedel (kind of like Falafel). It was great, everyone was in high spirits and in all it was a wonderful way to spend our first evening in Germany.
Hurricanes and politics were topics of conversation. As well, I talked with Michael who works in collaboration with NASA and is Houston bound to work on establishing a particle collector on a future Mars mission. This guy is full on brilliant. He talked to me about particle symmetry, matter and anti-matter imbalance and a wild assortment of quantum and astro-physics. He has worked at the particle accelerator CERN that Dan Brown talks about in “Angels and Demons”. Anyway come 10 pm and Kamrin and I were like two zombies and were ready for bed.
We excused ourselves, saying good night and helping with the clean up a bit before crashing like sacks of potatoes for what turned out to be a 14 hour sleep.
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