DATE: October 2004
Location: Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany
Time is really flying by. I can’t believe it is already October. I guess I’ll start where I left off with my last letter in July. I went home for my sister Kate’s wedding, and drug some British friends along. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was huge party that won’t soon be forgotten. Our Friends, Paul and Alison seemed to have fun hanging out with “middle class America”. What an insight into a country…for better or worse. I wish I could hang out with a middle class family in whatever country I visited. I think we had as good of a time showing them around as they had being shown around. You know when you actually live in a city you never do the touristy things? Well, we went all out. Space Needle, Whale Watching, the Olympic Mts, Pt Townsend, Mt Rainier, My uncle’s house (okay, so his house isn’t a major tourist attraction, but he has a killer deck on an Island where you can watch the sunset over Puget Sound). We also took the “duck” tour where you ride on WWII landing craft (nicknamed ducks) around town, then drive into the water and boat around for the rest of tour. The most bazaar part is that as you drive around the city, everybody on the street quacks at you. Seattle is not normal. We also took them to a seedy hick bar near Mt Rainier and introduced them to Jimmy Buffet and Ray Stevens.
Once back on the continent, I had exactly 24 hours to rest before the arrival of my first guests…my sister Julie, who had just taken the Washington State bar, and was suffering from bouts of what we’ve termed “post traumatic bar syndrome.” It consisted of lots of unexplained crying. If you know her, this is a complete 180 from her normally composed behavior. It was actually pretty funny. Her boyfriend was with her. He deserves a medal. Their tour started in Amsterdam, and ended in Prague. We got them for the middle part.
We all piled in the new Volvo Station wag….I mean Volvo ESTATE and drove up the Mosel River Valley, winding along the water with steep vineyards on every side. About every third village had a castle perched on the hill. It has to be one of the most picturesque roads in the world. We found a small hotel in the medieval town of Cochem, which straddles the river as it rounds a curve. We set about a day of wine tasting, followed by dinner with wine, followed by more wine. We had some Jaegermeister too. Dinner was on the patio of a second floor restaurant overlooking the river. We had Schnitzel, but you knew that, didn’t you? After dinner we got ice cream in the shape of food. Man, I love the Germans. For such a stereotypically serious race, they do some crazy stuff. My ice cream looked like white asparagus (vanilla frozen yogurt) covered in pesto (kiwi sauce) with fried eggs (two dollops of whipped cream with peach halves in the middle). Paul had spaghetti (yogurt) with bolognaise sauce (strawberry sauce with berry bits) and parmesan (coconut). Julie has a citron gelato fetish from when she did a law program in Florence, and wouldn’t be a sport and order the ice cream lasagna plate. Greg went for chocolate fondue.
After dinner we had to take a walk. And we walked right past the Choo-Choo tavern, a dingy local bar. We thought the proprietress had called us into the bar as we peeked in the door. What a friendly place! We later realized she had actually been calling for the dog, but it was still a friendly place. My sister's boyfriend was a bar tender, and even though they couldn’t understand a word the other said, he and the bartender had a special relationship going on. She even put on American music for us. It was 1950’s American music, but it’s the thought that counts. It smelled funny in the bar, so we left and found a wine bar. Inside was an old Dutch couple. They didn’t speak English, but wanted to talk to us. They were 80 and completely blotto. They weren’t married, they told us, and giggled. They ordered us more wine (which we didn’t want, and they didn’t need) and they kept repeating all the English they knew, which consisted of “I love you”, “What is your name” and some song lyrics. Anything especially important they wanted to tell us, they called over the bar tender to translate. He wasn’t amused, and started ignoring them. After yet another bottle of wine, they stumbled out the door. We watched them weave across the walkplatz and felt like we should walk them home. We asked the bar tender, and he assured us they would be fine. This is popular overnight stay for river cruises, and he said he sees it every night. Okey-dokey.
A week after Julie left, my next sister, Kate, with her new husband Jeff flew into Paris. I met them for the weekend. They did all their sightseeing the day before we came, so all we did was eat and shop. We threw in the Rodin museum and Sacre Coeur for good measure. The boys had espresso with every meal before noon, and wine with every meal after noon. Wow, they were a real riot. After the weekend, and with the Volvo full of cheese, wine, homemade raviolis, and bread, it was back to work, and Kate and Jeff headed to Normandy. They showed up in Germany Mid week. They wanted to go to Switzerland, so we all jumped in the car again and headed south.
First stop was Lake Konstanz where we stayed in a town called Rhein–am-Mein. It was amazingly picturesque…but what isn’t around here? The second night we had some trouble finding a place to stay, and accidentally ended up in Stuttgart during the middle of their annual wine festival. Darn the luck. It really stank; we couldn’t even go 10 yards without accidentally walking into a tent falling down on some wine. Whoever thought up wine fests was a real masochist. They serve it up in tumblers, and there is nothing else to do. We at least made sure we ate something at every other tent. Brats, spatzel, waffles with berries, berries with crème. After “sneaking” more wine while Kate and I went to the bathroom, Paul and Jeff decided to call my mom on our cell phone. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for our phone bill, they couldn’t figure out how to do it. I’m really not sure what they would have said to her, but it would have amused everybody including the waiter who sat down with us to talk about…..um, I can’t remember, but he was funny. Yes, it was a rough day. At dusk we sat on the grass by the fountains and smoked some good cigars. The next day the honeymooners had an early plane to Athens, which must have sucked. Getting up early...not Athens...although frankly I do think Athens sucks.
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