these weeks in the odyssey
11.1.99 -- 11.15.99
edinburgh, dusseldorf, cologne, rhine valley, wiesbaden, zurich, garmisch-partenkirchen, munich, dresden, prague

On the Road Again

Did you know that the Office Odyssey is completely ISO 9000 compliant? It's true -- we've implemented strict policies ensuring a Total Quality Experience for our readers each and every time they browse our way. For example, there's our rigid Anti-Profanity Policy, a particularly important policy ensuring that no F-bombs will ever be dropped in these pristine pages. It's a damn important policy. Equally important, though far less heralded, there's also the No Pictures of Sid In His Underwear Policy, a policy that has saved many an unsuspecting reader from a nasty surprise during their daily web surf. Also, though you might not even think we'd need a policy for this, there's the No References to Newt Gingrich Policy, a policy that we violate in this sentence only to demonstrate the level of security from unsettling images we provide here on the Odyssey.

Most importantly, however, there's the Triple Redundancy Extreme Telecommuter Safety Policy. Just as large corporations require that no more than three executives occupy the same flight (to avoid the mayhem that would ensue if that plane went down, leaving junior employees no option other than to scavenge the office supplies of their departed superiors), our commitment to Total Quality here at the Odyssey requires that Kristanne and I never share the same flight when crossing the North Sea in an easterly direction. Oddly enough, this policy has never really come into play...until now. You see, the time had come to leave Edinburgh. Time to fly on over to Dusseldorf, a place in Germany that definitely lies in an eastward direction from Edinburgh, right on over the North Sea. That's why that picture at right shows me heading out to Dusseldorf by way of Brussels instead of sitting next to Kristanne on her flight to Dusseldorf by way of Birmingham. You just can't be too careful when it comes to office supplies.

As comprehensive as our Total Quality policies are, they still don't guard against every eventuality. For example, there's the fact that Kristanne tends to become deathly ill when confronted with any trip longer than that required to get more potato chips down at the 7-11. No matter how many policies I put into place to prevent this from occurring -- the forced diet of weak broth, soda crackers, and vitamins during the three days before our scheduled departure, the warm milk baths, the nightly deep-tissue massages accompanied by me gently chanting affirmational slogans -- you can still count on Kristanne waking up and projectile vomiting on the morning we need to leave. You can practically set your watch by it, though I don't recommend that you do -- Kristanne tends to get a little ornery if you set your watch while she's throwing up.

Ordinarily, this is not such a big deal. Since we usually share the same flight, I can help Kristanne through her sickness by consoling her, holding her hand, carrying all her luggage, upgrading her to first class, hand-feeding her expensive Belgian chocolates, buying her a watch from Cartier, all the usual sorts of things husbands do for their wives when they're feeling under the weather. This was different, though. Thanks to the Triple Redundancy Extreme Telecommuter Safety Policy (and, well, the fact that Kristanne was able to get a much cheaper student rate on a different airline), I would not be there to ease her burden on this flight. Simultaneously worried ('My poor sick darling is going out to face the world by herself, brave girl!') and relieved ('Thank God I don't have to sell more plasma to buy her another Cartier watch!'), I tucked Kristanne into the folds of her jacket, tied a little sign reading "If Lost, Please Return To Sid" around her neck, and kissed her on the forehead with reassurances that we'd soon be together again in Dusseldorf, sharing the last of the day's sun as it glinted off the gleaming derricks and construction cranes. Hey, Dusseldorf is not exactly the easiest place in the world for creating romantic images. "We'll always have Dusseldorf?" "I love Dusseldorf in the springtime?" "From Dusseldorf, with love?" "Dusseldorf -- putting the 'dorf' back in the 'Dussel'?" See? It's harder than it looks.

Fortunately, Kristanne was feeling much better by the time we rendezvoused at the rental car office in Dusseldorf, her mood improved, no doubt, by the gleaming Cartier watch she'd managed to sweet-talk out of some rich businessman on her flight from Birmingham. She's a very cunning sick person, I tell you. Wasting no time with Dusseldorf, we promptly saddled up our trusty rental car and pulled up stakes for points south. Actually, since our rental car was not a horse (I know -- I checked) and we hadn't really pitched a tent in the Dusseldorf airport's parking garage or anything, perhaps it's more accurate to say that we "put the key in the rental car's ignition and turned it, thereby causing the internal combustion engine to internally combust, allowing us egress from the parking garage and ingress to the highway." And people say that technically accurate writing is boring...sheesh.

During our initial planning for this little jaunt, we had allowed five days to reach Dresden from Dusseldorf. Curiously enough, this planning consisted entirely of Kristanne asking me, "so, whaddya think, five days to get to Dresden?," and me replying, "yep." Sometimes, we're not really very detail oriented. Upon our arrival in Dresden, we planned to take a train to Prague, thereby avoiding both all the people in Prague who want to steal your rental car as well as the stiff drop-off fee associated with renting a car in one country and dropping it off in another. We may not be very detail-oriented, but we do like to avoid carjackings when possible.

Five days left us scant time for derring-do in Dusseldorf, so we promptly hit the highway south, bound for levity in Leverkusen. "Leverkusen," I hear you saying to yourself. "What the heck is in Leverkusen? What are these dumbasses up to now?"

Ignoring your combative tone there, o Captain Crabby-Pants, allow me point out that Leverkusen is, in fact, the birthplace of undoubtedly the most famous professional basketball player ever to come out of a German town on the Rhine River. I speak of none other than the Leverkusen Levitator, the Hooper from Hessen, the Dusseldorfian Dunker, the Germanic Gymrat, the Terrible Teutonic Tower himself, Mr. Detlef Schrempf. So, that's what these dumbasses are up to in Leverkusen -- paying homage to relatively obscure NBA greats. Satisfied?

Actually, now that I think about it, there's a lot more to Leverkusen than just Detlef Schrempf. Yep, lessee -- there's cul de sacs, industrial parks, and, umm...did I already say cul-de-sacs? Okay, so maybe Leverkusen wasn't such a great idea. After an entertaining half hour spent playing Whose Turn Is It To Find The Dead End Now, we eventually stumbled our way back on to the highway, bound for Cologne.

Cologne is a beautiful old university town, split right down the middle by the Rhine River. In addition to being beautiful, Cologne is also quite near Leverkusen, so Detlef Schrempf undoubtedly spent some time there. Whether Detlef Schrempf ever spent the night in the comfortable little gasthaus we found on the old market square is still open to debate, though I'm definitely of the opinion that he did. Detlef is a man of discerning tastes, as I'm sure you know.

Famished from our long day of travel, we quickly moved our belongings in to our room and burst out into the cool night air, longing for sustenance, nourishment, something to fill the gnawing hole in our bellies. We had a deep-seated hunger, the kind of hunger brought on by two months worth of sausage-free living in the U.K. We needed wurst...in the worst of all possible ways.

NOTE TO READERS -- Rest assured that Mistress Kristanne and her Five Fingers of Really Bad Pain have already exacted a terrible toll on Sid's punning self for the foregoing atrocity. No need to send any hate-mail, or anything.

Kristanne's family is ever so slightly manic when it comes to sausage. They all show basically the same symptoms when they're about to indulge after a prolonged interlude -- the dilated pupils, the vacant stare, the sweat on the upper lip, the spasmodic flexion of the forearm, as though it were repeatedly jackhammering bits of sausage into their gaping, masticating maw. It can be a little bit frightening. That's why I knew exactly what was going to happen when I saw the menu for the restaurant we eventually selected. There weren't going to be any petite portions of rindswurst, no middling cuts of kielbasa. Not tonight. There weren't going to be any veggies, any appetizers, any desserts, any of that truck. No. There was only going to be one thing on our plate -- the Big Boy. The Grandaddy of all sausages. The Meter Long Bratwurst, fresh from the grill and served for two.

Conversation became difficult once our order had been placed. Kristanne began to rock back and forth in place, arms on the table, knife in one fist, fork in the other. This was not nearly as disquieting as the repetitive chant she struck up of, "Crack me open one of them bad boys...crack me open one of them bad boys," disturbing our neighbors somewhat. Oddly enough, these were the same neighbors who upon perusing the menu were heard to remark, "Meter long bratwurst? Who would ever order a meter long bratwurst?" Naturally enough, it was just about this time that the bad boy in question arrived. Checking in at just over the advertised meter, our bratwurst was coiled in a giant circle on a wooden platter roughly the size of Madonna's ego. Big. Real big. A somewhat nauseating twelve fork-flying minutes later, it was all over. The bad boy had been vanquished and we were left with nothing more to do other than lick our lips and head off into the night, sated at long last.

Three feet of sausage can weigh a body down, so we decided to recuperate with a nice walk down the banks of the Rhine before retiring for the evening, visions of sausage dancing in our heads. We slept the sleep of the conqueror and awoke with a smile on our faces and a slightly sickly feeling in our guts. Still, there was a city out there to see, so we headed down to see Cologne's massive gothic cathedral (pictured at left), a truly unbelievable structure straining towards the heavens.

Cologne was beautiful, but we couldn't stay long. Today was to be a giant of a day. We planned to drive down the scenic Rhine river valley (check the picture at right if you don't believe me, o Skeptical Sue), stopping at castles along the way until we eventually arrived in Wiesbaden. Kristanne went to high school in Wiesbaden and had many a cherished memory from this drive. She was almost uncontrollably excited as we got into the car, imploring me to "drive faster, numbnuts!" Sometimes Kristanne expresses her excitement in strange ways.

Our first stop along the way was in the ancient town of Andernach. Andernach is perhaps best known as the birthplace of noted dirty old man and infamous poet/author Charles Bukowski. Which is to say, it isn't all that well known at all. Still, as Detlef Schrempf will undoubtedly tell you (if you can ever find the guy), I'm a sucker for any connection to people whose work I've ever liked, so we stopped in Andernach and took a stroll through its winding, cobblestoned streets. This turned out to be a great idea -- not only was Andernach a most enjoyably scenic town, we also got a really tasty jelly donut. I really like jelly donuts. In fact, I like them so much that we darn near decided to stop our trip right there in Andernach when we saw an advertisement listing a furnished apartment in the old town for rent at a ridiculously low rate. Upon further inquiry, however, it turned out that jelly donuts were not included as part of the deal. Also, the apartment was already taken. So, back in the car we went, eager to enter the heart of the Rhine valley.

We didn't have to wait long before we arrived at our very first castle, Marksburg, rising from a rocky promontory high above the Rhine. Marksburg was great, if only because it fed what has rapidly become a complete addiction for me -- stickers. Bright, shiny, tourist stickers...oh, how I love them! Shiny mylar badges of joy! Little adhesive narcotics I can affix to my guitar case! Glittering with hope amidst the drudgery of new cultures and new experiences, how glorious they seem to me! Tiny totems of accomplishment, neatly distilling an experience down to its essence -- one more place checked off a list and carefully placed in my past. You have to ask yourself, if you didn't buy the sticker, did you really even go there?

Actually, maybe that's just the tiniest bit over the top. And don't get me wrong -- I can quit this whole sticker business any time I want to. I don't need it, or anything. I just like to do it. Just don't try to take 'em away from me, if you know what's good for you, ok?

After an hour-long guided tour of Marksburg (a tour I spent alternating between wishing I had just one more damn sticker and -- because I don't speak a lick of German -- staring at things the guide wasn't even talking about), we doubled back across the Rhine and headed down to our next castle. Driving down the Rhine was simply fantastic. We had been blessed with a gorgeous day, complete with sunshine and blue skies. The fall colors were out in all their grandeur, the ample vineyards bedecked in their orange and golden best. It was glorious. This part of the Rhine valley is so completely stuffed with castles that it would take you at least a week to see all of them. We did the best we could with our one day, though, stopping next at the impressive Rheinfels castle (a small part of which is pictured at left).

Rheinfels perches on a cliff above the Rhine, looking across to the Cat and Mouse castles (Katz und Maus; you can just make out Maus in the left background of that panoramic shot two pictures ago) and the impressive Loreley rock outcropping that looms over a giant bend in the Rhine. In addition to its splendid physical setting, Rheinfels also boasted a dizzying array of stickers, three or four of which I was only too happy to cram in my pocket while Kristanne wasn't looking. Gotta feed the jones. Also, though I can't really prove it, I got the distinct feeling that both Detlef Schrempf and Charles Bukowski have visited Rheinfels at one time or another. You could really feel their presence. On a whim, I decided to mention my premonition to Kristanne, just to see if she was feeling their presence as well. Also, would she like to see my new stickers?

Oh, no. No. Please, no. Apparently Kristanne was just about full up on all my talk of stickers, Detlef Schrempf, and Charles Bukowski. In fact, I'm betting that you're probably feeling just about the same way, aren't you? You're probably openly rejoicing in my pain in that picture over there at right, probably downright jubilant about the fact that my own wife slapped me into the stocks until I could, as she put it, "start talking some damn sense, you hillbilly freak." It's not easy being married to someone who's stronger than you, I tell you that much.

Once Kristanne let me out of the stocks, Rheinfels turned out to be a fantastic castle to explore. When we first walked into the castle's main courtyard (me still rubbing my raw wrists), we were met head to head by three stony-faced German tourists silently approaching us with a grim set to their faces. Each was carrying a candle. This was slightly surreal. After all, how many grim-faced candle-bearing German tourists do you typically encounter during your average castle visit? This was a first for us. Without a word, they carefully pressed their candles and a box of matches into our quizzical hands, taking their leave with a small, weary shrug of their shoulders and shake of their heads. To me, these head shakes spoke volumes. They said things like, "flee now, ere it is too late," or, "silly kids, you know not what awaits you." Of course, I didn't understand these head shakes at the time since they were shaken completely in German, a language in which I was once very nearly beaten up for reportedly telling a waitress that she had the "feet of a cheese-fed sow," when I meant to say "how much for the schnitzel, sweetstuff?" Actually, I probably should have been beaten up either way, now that I think about it.

Though somewhat unnerved by the head-shaking, stone-faced Germans, we remained steadfast in our resolve, pushing on into Rheinfels' crumbling interior. It was a huge castle, filled with long, narrow corridors once used by troops to defend the perimeter of the castle, running down these corridors from gunslot to gunslot. Many of the corridors were completely darkened -- you needed the candle to stumble your way from one end to the other. Throughout, no signs were provided, no special route prescribed -- you found your entrances and exits, your cubbyholes and secret passageways, and meandered along as best you could. It was great! One particular corridor went down a slope at about a 45 degree angle, pitch dark except for our flickering candle light (that's Kristanne amid the darkness there at left). Fortunately, you couldn't fall from side to side since it was all you could do to fit your body between the narrow walls. Forward or backward falls, however, were definitely within the realm of possibility. After about 100 yards of careful walking, the corridor abruptly appeared to dead-end. Further inspection, however, revealed that an even narrower passageway led off to the right, and, eventually, out. Phew! Though decidedly not for the claustrophobic, Rheinfels was a thorough blast to explore. Just mind you don't end up in the stocks. Those, I must hasten to add, are not too fun to explore.

Rheinfels was wonderful, but if Kristanne and I stay out of the rental car for more than an hour at a time, we tend to break out in hives. Not knowing the words for "calamine lotion" in German, we decided it was in our best interest to get back on the road and head south for Wiesbaden before we had a major outbreak on our hands. As we left town, though, we passed the curious sign you see pictured there at right. "Faustball?" What the heck was Faustball? We pictured two teams dressed like the "Sprockets" characters from Saturday Night Live kicking a rubber "soul" (was this what the Beatles were talking about?) towards a goal at either end of the platz, one guarded by the Devil, the other by Yahweh. Hmm...does Goethe know about this? I mean, sure, we've all heard the tales about Germans -- how they take their games a little more seriously than most, imbuing them with near life and death significance -- but this was just ridiculous. Life and death is one thing, but you don't want to be messing around when it comes to your eternal soul. We thought about sticking around to check out a game of faustball, see just what it consisted of, but ultimately decided against it when we saw a player heading towards the field wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed, "Faustball: The Game You Play With Your Soul." Yikes.

On to Wiesbaden! Kristanne has been talking about this place almost since the moment I met her. In fact, the second sentence out of her mouth when I first met her (right after, "You're standing on my foot, oafus-brain.") was, "Did you know that I went to Wiesbaden High School?" Kristanne likes to get the basics taken care of right away. Understandably, then, Kristanne was just about delirious with excitement as we drove into the Wiesbaden city limits, eager to find a hotel and get out there to revisit some of her old haunts. Unfortunately, "delirious with excitement" gradually turned into "despondent with gloom," as it became readily apparent that there are actually no hotels in Wiesbaden. None. I guess we should have known this since "Wiesbaden" literally translates to Without ("Wies") Beds ("baden"). Did I mention that I don't speak German?

After an unscheduled and unwanted hour-plus tour of Wiesbaden's impressive traffic (during which we got into a honking match with one taxi, nearly backed into a second, and asked if we could sleep in a third), we finally found a hotel that was miraculously (a) cheap, (b) central, and (c) didn't discriminate against technical writers. You'd be amazed what they discriminate against in Germany. Apparently, some of these folks still haven't heard about last summer's Million Technical Writer March on Washington.

Since it was already getting late, we dumped our stuff in our room and headed out into the streets to get some dinner and revisit some of Kristanne's favorite memories. After a twenty minute walk, it became apparent that some of Kristanne's memories are no longer where they were ten years ago. Really, I guess, whose are? Still, we eventually settled into a great German restaurant ('Zum Dortmunder') on the fussganger (not, as it sounds, a madding crowd of angry grandmothers, but merely a pedestrian street) and tucked into some more wurst. One a day keeps the vegetables away, as I always like to say.

Since we planned to spend two nights in Wiesbaden, we didn't overdo it on the first night, opting instead to conserve our energy for a full day of sightseeing on the morrow (which is a slightly more than pretentious way of saying, umm, "tomorrow"). First up was Kristanne's old high school, H.H. Arnold, home of the Warriors (that's Kristanne pictured under their sign there at left). Unfortunately, as the car drew ever closer, Kristanne gradually began to revert back into a high-schooler. It started small -- prefacing every sentence with the word "like" ("like, c'mon Sid...let's go") -- and rapidly deteriorated into full-blown adolescence. By the time we pulled up to the school parking lot, Kristanne was worriedly imploring me to drop her off in back so that the other kids wouldn't see me and think she wasn't cool. Well, at least that's what I think she meant by saying, "Like, I'm so sure, hubby-cakes."

As it turned out, Kristanne's worries about appearing cool were all for naught. By some cruel twist of fate, school actually happened to be out of session, only the teachers left in their classrooms to grade papers. Still, after checking with the principal first (to whom Kristanne introduced me as the boyfriend with whom she'd been "going steady" for five years now), we were free to roam the halls and see what had changed. High school never really changes, I guess. Still, I didn't exactly appreciate Kristanne threatening to "kick my ass" for walking over the "seniors only" area. Also, I'm pretty sure that we didn't need to avoid Mr. Roberts's classroom because of the term paper Kristanne didn't turn in some ten years ago. And really, did she absolutely need to shake down the two third graders we found on the playground for their lunch money? Clearly, we needed to get out of here before Kristanne completely flipped and asked the captain of the football team out to prom. So, after a little necking in the backseat of our rental car out at Inspiration Point, we did just that.

Though it is much smaller after the recent cuts in the U.S. defense budget, Wiesbaden features a large American military population. This is why Kristanne went to high school there -- both of her parents were teachers in the Department of Defense Dependents Schools, working as civilian teachers for the military kids. Though the Air Force base appears to be much smaller than it used to be, the Army is still there in largish numbers, so we headed off to the big American shopping center the US government provides them. This was completely surreal. Kristanne, of course, was totally used to it, but for me the prospect of seeing this American-style strip mall amidst all the traditional German surroundings induced immediate and total cultural vertigo. First off, there was the parking lot. Europeans don't really do parking lots like American do -- big, flat stretches of concrete as far as the eye can see. Once parked, the shocks continued -- American schoolkids acting like exuberant, boisterous American schoolkids, bouncing around, screaming, yelling, having their lunch money stolen by Kristanne. This was where the second surprise came. I don't know why, but I just assumed that they would use German money on base. Not so. There was an ATM on the premises dispensing good ole greenbacks. Weird. Still, if you wanted to buy anything here, you were going to need them, since they didn't accept deutschmarks. Also, don't look for pennies in your change. Reasoning that they were too much bother, the stores here didn't deal with them, rounding your purchases up or down to the nearest nickel. Again, weird. Just as I was about to go into a lock-jawed, knock-kneed, jaw-sagging stupor at all this Americana here in Germany, a voice called out to me as if from above. A glimmering beacon shattered my vacant stare and brought me into the here and now. A sign. A sign I hadn't seen in seven months but had spent many a cold and weary night dreaming about. What was it? What called out to me and shook me from my reverie? What cultural institution could hold me in such thrall?

Taco Bell. Mass-produced, assembly line Mexican food at prices you can afford. Soft taco supremes. Big beef nacho supremes. Seven layer burritos. I immediately knelt in obeisance and gave thanks to my friends at Pepsi\KFC\Taco Bell for seeing fit to grace us with such bounty. For her part, Kristanne burst into immediate, gratified tears. Though Europe is positively littered with McDonalds, Burger Kings, KFCs, and Pizza Huts, there are no Taco Bells that we've been able to find. And, trust me -- we've been looking.

Judging by the line, the folks here on base felt the same way that we did. All the other establishments in this no-fooling, mall-style food court were virtually empty. Not the Taco Bell. A line snaked back from the counter some twenty people deep. No matter. We were eating Taco Bell if we had to camp out in line to do it. Twenty minutes passed as we memorized our order, mentally weighing the merits of Mexi-Pizzas versus Gorditas, counting the number of hot sauce packets we would need. Finally, our time came and we gushed out an order that would make a sumo wrestler blush, spending a really quite incredible $14 on Taco Bell. Trust me -- when you go to a restaurant that once boasted a menu consisting entirely of items costing 39 cents, you need to do some work to order $14 worth of food.

When the food finally came, I was too agog with pleasure to say much (as you can see from that picture there at right). We disappeared into the usual blizzard of discarded wrappers, flying cheese, and mis-squeezed hot sauce for a gluttonous fifteen full minutes before pausing to wipe our mouths. It was actually more than a little disgusting. My advice to you is never to eat Taco Bell with someone who has been in Europe for an extended stay. There are dangers involved. And, if through whatever misguided miscalculation you do find yourself in that situation, under no circumstances should you try to sneak a nacho from their plate. As one unlucky kid found out, you're liable to lose a finger playing that game.

Unable to walk from our Taco Bell overdose, we logrolled ourselves out of the food court and back into the rental car. This time, we were bound for the cross country course where Kristanne spent many a memorable afternoon picking apples and chatting with her friend JoAnn while she was supposed to be running wind sprints. The cross country course was gorgeous -- a giant forest of autumnal deciduous trees glowing in the late afternoon sunshine -- and a walk was just what we needed after gorging ourselves silly on fast food. A walk would have been great, too. However, a forced death march around the entire cross country course (all five miles of it) with Kristanne barking at me to "pick up those heels, snail-boy," was not exactly what I had in mind. Lathered up to a sweaty froth, Kristanne eventually decided that I had enough. Silently vowing never to call cross country a "wimpy sport" again, I gently bent my aching bones back into the rental car and we headed off to do the town up for one more night.

Our next stop was Switzerland. Yes, that Switzerland. Though somewhat out of the way, we needed to go there to pay the people who are renting us our house for Christmas, lest they snatch it out of our hands at the last minute, leaving us with 11 people and no place to sleep other than what few taxi cabs we might be able to rent for the night in Wiesbaden (we've got some contacts there now). So, onto the highway we went, ready to chew up the asphalt and spit out the mileage markers. Given the way the average German drives, we figured we'd cover the three or four hundred kilometers in, say, about ten minutes. Fast. Very fast. Unfortunately, our calculations did not take into consideration the way the average German stops. Much as I admire the triple digit speeds they regularly achieve on the freeway, I have to say that Germans are the most nancified weenies when it comes to dealing with your average roadside distraction. Someone changing a flat tire ten yards off the shoulder of the road can cause a fifteen kilometer slowdown. If a deer happens to run across the highway, you're staring fifteen minutes of gridlock right in the face. Heaven help you if a German soccer team happens to be playing on the radio while you're driving -- if somebody scores a goal, they'll all stop their cars in the middle of the highway, jump on out, crack open a few beers and start high-fiving each other madly. You're lucky if you're rolling again within an hour. So, it was with a certain amount of resignment that we met our first complete traffic standstill some 75 kilometers into our trip. Like the good Germans surrounding us, we shut off our cars, took out the picnic lunch we had prepared for just such an occasion, and set about felling timber to construct a table on which to enjoy it. Meanwhile, after we elected a small town council, a focus group was charged with researching and constructing a small village square on the shoulder. Taxes were levied, fines paid, and utilities set up. Just as we finished salting the last of the game to tide us through the upcoming winter, the heavens opened and traffic started moving again. As it turned out, the folks up ahead of us had finally managed to locate the contact lens a local farmer had lost in his field adjoining the highway and everybody could go about their business again.

Though disappointed to leave my newly-created Town Alderman position behind, we were still happy to get back on the road, rolling into the medieval village of Rothenburg some 45 minutes later. Rothenburg is sort of a historical accident, a perfectly preserved village from the sixteenth century on a hill above a bend in the Tauber river. During the Thirty Years War, it was slated to be burned to the ground when a member of the local citizenry saved it by betting the enemy general that he could chug an entire 6-pint tankard of wine in a single draught. Happily, the man came through and Rothenburg has been a haven for alcoholics of all stripes ever since. Naturally, it's sort of a Mecca for college students, thousands of which make the pilgrimage every year to pay homage to the birthplace of the Beer Bong and the Chug-A-Lug.

In addition to boasting a proud alcoholic past, Rothenburg is also a big destination for Christmas-lovers. There are tons of shops bursting with homemade ornaments, nativity scenes, nutcrackers, and fat guys in red suits. There are also a lot of Santa Clauses. Kristanne, naturally, was apoplectic with unmitigated glee at such a scene. Faster than I could say, "Please, Miss Money Money -- don't hurt 'em!", she was out there mixing it up with the crowds, dashing in and out with a frightening glint in her eye. I managed to make it out of two such places relatively unscathed -- just a few pockets torn off and some disheveled hair -- but was not so lucky on the third. This was the biggest Christmas shop of them all. It featured a giant Christmas tree rising some 40 yards above the bustling shoppers, reconstructed villages with mechanical elves, and plenty of other things that just frighten the dickens out of me. I basically turned into a quivering mass of jelly and curled up on the floor until Kristanne came back to tug me by the sleeve out of the shop and back into the rental car. Phew.

Back on the road to Switzerland. Operating in direct contradiction to our usual principles of refusing to make plans, Kristanne and I had actually been thinking a little bit about what we needed to do in Landquart (the Swiss town where we would meet our landlord). Since our bank limits the total amount of money you can take out of an ATM in one day, we had been gradually accumulating the sum we owed during the days before our arrival. Unbelievably, we were on schedule. All we needed to do was change deutschmarks into Swiss francs at the border, pay one last visit to the ATM in Landquart, and we would be set. Cool. Changing money went just great -- no problems, even on a Sunday. On to the ATM! It was there that we met...the beast. The first ATM we tried in Landquart didn't work. Ominously, it was one that had worked the last time we were in Landquart. The second ATM didn't work either, and the third one, well, it actually began to laugh at me as I walked tentatively up to it, card outstretched. This is a bad thing -- in general you don't want ATMs to laugh at you. Other things you don't want to laugh at you include loan officers, aerobics instructors, and nude photographers. Not that any of those have ever happened to me, mind you.

This was a new and unforeseen development. We did not have enough cash on hand to pay our landlord. ATMs were laughing at us. Rain was falling on a dark and gloomy landscape. Detlef Schrempf was nowhere in sight. What to do? Reasoning that if you can't get money in the biggest banking town in all of Europe, then you're pretty much not going to get any money, we headed back to Z-town, our ole buddy, Zurich. One hour-long and very familiar drive later, we pulled into Zurich and were met with the same disappointing news -- it looked like the entire Swiss ATM network was down. Resigned to our fate, we checked into a hotel in a very familiar location, right across the street from our old butcher shop and apartment (which you can see in that picture at left).

All in all, being in Zurich was not the worst of all possible worlds. In fact, it was rather like visiting an old friend. We had a nice dinner in one of our favorite restaurants, and, after a couple preparatory beers, decided to hazard another visit to the ATM. Boom! We were in, fully monied and ready to go to Landquart the next day.

After our initial missteps, driving out to Landquart and paying our landlord went seamlessly and we were soon on our way to Munich. Incidentally, if you ever happen to be driving from Zurich to Landquart, I heartily recommend a visit to the Heidiland Rest Stop. I've been there some seven times now, and each visit was better than the last. They've got really excellent gas and a great Movenpick restaurant (a restaurant, incidentally, which was not named after the basketball violation of the same name...rest easy). Tell 'em Sid (the guy with the tiny bladder) sent you.

Driving from Landquart to Munich means one thing -- Austria. Perhaps you don't know this about Austria, but there's something just the eensiest bit bureaucratic about their country. I don't want to say they make a lot of unnecessary rules but, well, just be prepared to have a darn good reason if you expect to go the bathroom there. Another good reason to avoid Austria is that they charge you to drive on their darn freeways. Oh, sure, there's the unbelievable alpine scenery, the vibrant culture of Vienna, and the charming small towns throughout, but you take all that away and what have you got? Albania with ski slopes, that's what.

Or maybe I'm just exaggerating again. Still, we didn't want to pay for any steeeenking highway sticker, so we decided to go on the backroads, biding our time and seeing some scenery. Once again, our cheapness paid off huge dividends. The Alps had just received their first dusting of early winter snows (as you can see in that picture at right), and we reveled in the glorious scenery as we drove (slowly) through Austria back to Munich.

En route, the road ducked back into Germany and we decided to stop off and see the fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein. Rising improbably from a snow-dusted peak like some Walt Disney mirage, Neuschwanstein looked like the place where Cinderella might have gone to the ball, had she not just been a character in some fairy tale. That picture at left doesn't do the place full justice -- the castle itself is bristling with turrets, towers, and all the other trappings of romantic teenage fantasies. Kristanne was practically swooning. We did the half hour hike up to the castle (refreshingly, you can't park up there), ate a bratwurst (we were running low), and were soon back on the road. After a brief interlude spent illegally traversing an Austrian highway sans required sticker (thumbing a nose at the Austrian authorities is sort of a misguided hobby), we eventually rolled into Garmisch-Partenkirchen, an unbelievably popular winter sports resort in the Alps, just over the Austria-Germany border.

Unfortunately, Garmisch-Partenkirchen has approximately zero parking spaces for the ten gazillion people that are there, so we just sort of drove through, stopping only briefly to make fun of a few Austrian tourists who'd made their way over the border, all dressed up in traditional garb. "Looooser," taunted Kristanne, sticking her head out the window to do so. "You suuuuck," I shouted, slowing down so they could get the full effect. What can I say -- we were starting to get a little punchy from all the driving. In fact, we were both getting so punchy that it was here that we had our first brush with what unfortunately is a recurring little personality flaw of mine. Let's call this little flaw, "Mr. Non-Intuitive." Mr. Non-Intuitive does not exactly have the greatest hearing in the world. In addition, Mr. Non-Intuitive naturally assumes that none of this is really his fault and that, in fact, you are the crazy one. It is because of this very phenomenon that Kristanne can ask Mr. Non-Intuitive, "Hey, don't you think we should get some gas immediately?" and Mr. Non-Intuitive will reply, "Ippy-deedly? That doesn't make any sense, Kristanne. Why would we ever get gas 'ippy-deedly?'" Sensing that direct questions aren't working too well, you might then start a conversation by saying, "I was really thinkin', Sid..." This would be a huge mistake. Mr. Non-Intuitive will just look at you incredulously, implying that you've completely lost your mind and say something very much like, "Release the kitten? Kristanne, I don't even have a kitten and if I did, I don't know why I'd want to release him. What the heck is wrong with you?" Not quite coincidentally, Mr. Non-Intuitive tends to get whacked upside the head with the Michelin Guide a lot.

Despite Mr. Non-Intuitive's worst efforts, we managed to roll into Munich an hour or so later ("Tunic? Kristanne, why on earth would I want to take an exit so I could buy a tunic?"), feeling approximately as energetic as a dirty pair of socks. Battling our natural instincts to crawl into bed and sleep for 36 hours, we managed to walk our way down to the Old Town and wander aimlessly about for several hours, eventually ending up at the world-famous Hofbrauhaus for -- yep, you guessed it -- some bratwursts and good-lord-that's-huge beers. We're real troopers, I tell you.

Next stop, Dresden. As I mentioned some 4000 paragraphs ago, Dresden was where we planned to drop off the rental car and catch a train to Prague. We were both curious to see Dresden since it enjoyed a fabulous reputation in the pre-World War II days as an artistic and architectural gem of Germany, nestling on the banks of the Elbe River. Unfortunately, during the waning days of the war, the Allies firebombed it to the ground, destroying over 75% of the town in two destructive nights (famously immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut's excellent novel, "Slaughterhouse Five"). In the intervening years before German reunification, Dresden was most definitely on the Eastern Germany side of the border, so we did not exactly know what to expect. Guidebooks tended to rate Dresden as a three-star (out of a possible three stars) attraction, but we didn't know if they were kinda just giving them a few gift stars to compensate for the whole 'firebombing plus 45 years of socialism' thing.

Before we could find out for ourselves, though, we had to get there. It's a fairly straight shot from Munich to Dresden, much of it covering the same road we toiled along during our epic drive from Zurich to Berlin a couple months ago. Would two months have been long enough for the Germans to develop an infrastructure? After all, they're a very clever people -- anybody who can build an entire roadside village during a traffic jam should be able to build a new freeway, right?

Wrong. The drive to Dresden was a bit of an ordeal, plagued by torrential rains, ceaseless construction, and a mercifully brief chorus of my old favorite, "Flaming Piece of Poop In the Sky" song from the original North American Odyssey. Now, that's a tough drive. Still, once we got there, we had high hopes for Dresden, the shimmering jewel of Saxony. Unfortunately, these high hopes evaporated rapidly as we saw that Dresden was very much a work in the earliest stages of progress. Socialist apartment buildings crumbling from neglect, covered in graffiti. Roads that hadn't been repaired since, well, they were built. Dirty, depressing, and dismal, Dresden, in a word, sucks.

NOTE TO SELF: Avoid summarily dismissing entire cities in future episodes. It tends to rub people the wrong way. Also, never mention the "Flaming Piece of Poop in the Sky" song again. People are starting to think you're weird.

Perhaps Dresden wasn't as bad as all that. If you look at it as a kernel of a city rather than a real city, it doesn't look so bad. Still, having seen the admirable comebacks from socialism that cities like Warsaw, Krakow, and Prague have made, Dresden was something of a letdown. Warsaw is probably the best point of comparison since it, too, was largely destroyed during the war, and really, there is no comparison. Warsaw is already a fully functioning city with a sparkling old town. Dresden, on the other hand...well, let's just say it's not exactly sparkling. To their credit, they are going about the tedious business of restoring the impressive baroque buildings that stood before the bombing (like that one pictured at right). Everywhere we looked, long rows of rubble were carefully catalogued and placed on racks, awaiting eventual placement in the rebuilt buildings. Right now, though, it still looks a bit like a disaster area. Money is definitely pouring in from the German government, though, so it's probably only a matter of time before Dresden recovers some semblance of its former glory. Unfortunately, though, it looks like they're having a hard time avoiding the temptation to build sprawling strip-malls on the outskirts of town instead of rebuilding the center. Kristanne was heard to mutter "stupid doughnut cities" through clenched teeth more than a few times as we made our way through town, searching in vain for a gas station so we could fill up our rental car before returning it. After an hour and a half of driving around Dresden (we did see a lot of it), we eventually got our gas, got the car returned, and headed back to "downtown" to get some dinner.

Of course, the bright spot in all this is that Dresden does still possess a magnificent trove of wonderful art. Much of this art has been lost to the Western world since the Iron Curtain went up. Now that it's back down, though, those of Dresden's museums that aren't in the midst of intensive renovation are once again open to Western visitors. We woke up early the next morning to check out just one such museum, the Albertinum, which was reputed to include a fabulous collection of German Expressionist Art. Man, I just looove German Expressionist Art.

If I love German Expressionist Art, let me tell you, Kristanne positively adores it. So, we were pretty excited to check out the Albertinum, getting there well before the doors opened at 10:00 AM. After elbowing a few unruly groups of schoolchildren out of our way, Kristanne quickly had us up to the front of the line and inside by 10:01. Don't get in Kristanne's way when there's German Expressionist Art to be seen. One of the real highlights of the Albertinum was that 'Dancer' sculpture by Degas you see pictured there at left. There are only two of these sculptures around -- the other one is in Paris' D'Orsay Museum and sits behind about ten feet of bulletproof glass, preventing people from taking a small pair of cuticle scissors and trimming off part of the Dancer's dress for their personal collection. Not that Kristanne did that. She didn't -- I swear. After a pleasant couple hours spent marveling at the Albertinum's wonderful collection, we were on our way back to the hotel ready to check out and head for Prague.

The train ride from Dresden to Prague was a real treat. The tracks paralleled the Elbe River the entire route, affording us excellent views of the strange rock formations and gorgeous old towns on its banks. These towns seemed to be relatively untouched by the whole socialist period, charming little vacation hamlets amidst lovely surroundings. The train ride was short, putting us in Prague only about three hours after we left. Apparently, we were to arrive at something called "Praha-Holesovice", which, naturally, we just sort of assumed was the main train station in Prague. I mean, shoot, where else could it be, right? How many train stations can Prague have? Certainly, there was no reason to do something rash and look it up in a book or anything. We'll just trust our instincts and assume that it's the main downtown station, cool? Cool.

We could not be more wrong. We could try, but we would fail. Praha-Holesovice turned out to be not really near downtown at all. We definitely suspected as much when the conductor informed us that we were pulling into Prague and there seemed to be no city visible outside our windows. Hmm. This was not exactly what we had in mind. After the conductor refused our request to "please take this train to the main station," we decided to make the best of our situation and see if we couldn't find our way where we needed to go. After wading through the thronged mass of would-be hoteliers meeting our train (I must have received and discarded 20 brochures for "charming rooms with private baths, just minutes from the old town"), we eventually made our way to the taxi stand. There, we promptly became a Prague stereotype by getting blissfully cheated by our taxi driver, paying the rate for a "two hour sightseeing tour" just to go the 15 blocks to our hotel. Fortunately, getting cheated in Prague is rarely going to cost you more than $5, since you can basically buy the entire country for what a down payment on a three bedroom condo in San Francisco would run you.

Actually, we had been warned to expect a lot of petty crime in Prague, much like you get in Rome. Even our hotel had a three page pamphlet full of tips on how to avoid common scams. Included in this pamphlet was the somewhat reassuring title, "Not Everything Shall Be Stolen." Cool. That's definitely good to know.

Seeing Prague again was a bit like seeing an old friend, especially if that old friend doesn't shower much, hasn't shaved in a while, has slightly bad breath, and looks nothing at all like Detlef Schrempf. Nonetheless, he's still an old friend, so you give him a hug, chuck him lightly on the shoulder, and take him out for dinner. Which is not to say that we took the entire city of Prague out to dinner. We didn't. What we did was simply go for a nice little walk before tucking into our own suppers and drifting off to sleep in our hotel room, blissfully happy to be together and off the road again. For at least a little while, anyway!

This has been the longest web page update...ever! Congratulations on making it through. Be sure to check back next week as we find an apartment, attempt to buy groceries, and try to weather the first snowfall of the season. See you next time on the Odyssey!

Last Week's Front Page Picture

As for that picture at left, that's Kristanne styling comfortably in front of what I'm almost certain is the scenic skyline of Rothenburg, a picturesque medieval village in Germany. Kristanne is ready for whatever the weather brings in her woollen jacket by Prada ($200, Prada of Italia), cashmere mittens by Barbour ($75, Barbour of England), and brown cotton pants by K-Mart ($5, Blue Light Special). Kristanne is also featuring her world-famous, wurst-eating grin (priceless, House of Wurst, Koln, Germany), a grin that says, "I just ate a meter-long sausage for breakfast and now I'd like a bratwurst for lunch, please." Kristanne is not your average clothing model, I'm sure you'll agree.