The Day in Brief

(All times local)

5:45am Wake
6:30am Breakfast
7:00am Be driven to Frankfurt airport
8:00am Check-in
8:15am Security check
8:30am Security check (2nd)
10:00am Flight leaves Frankfurt aiport (30 minute late)
2:00pm Arrive at Atlanta airport (10 hour flight; don't forget the time differential)
2:10pm Customs check
2:15pm Pick up baggage
2:20pm Customs check
2:25pm Drop off baggage
2:35pm Security check
3:00pm Check-in for connecting flight (gate change; mild chaos)
4:45pm Arrive at Gainesville airport
5:15pm Pick up baggage
5:45pm Be driven home
6:15pm Pick up dog ($420+)
7:30pm Pizza
8:00pm Unpack (partial)

Last Day

Time: 9:35pm CEST

Today, after the Uncle had his satellite repaired (damaged or something from the storm that knocked out the DSL), we drove to the graveyard in Giessen. Mom and the Uncle had to finalize their parents' grave site. Here, graves expire after 25 years of shall we say inactivity. The Uncle has been paying each year of the past 25 for "rent." In July, however, the plot will be cleared.

After that, we returned the car to Hertz. No news about a ticket. Maybe I got lucky or more likely the government is a little slower to dish out the pain. Ah well. I'm going to miss that little Audi. 1600 kilometers.

Mom made lunch today. Chicken and rice in cream of mushroom soup with cheese baked on top.

And finally, Mom, myself and Anka again took a walk around the fields just north of the Uncle's house. Windy, really wind, but nice.

That's it. Packed and ready to go.

That news about the Turkish airport doesn't help.

File under: I Did Not Know That

So on the flight in I noticed all the farm fields filled with this bright yellow crop. Driving through the countryside, we saw even more. Turns out it was "Raps" and is being used for the production of biodiesel. Now that I finally got back online, I was able to wiki it.

Canola is one of many selected cultivars of rapeseed bred to have a low erucic acid content. Canola was developed in Canada and its name is a contraction of "Canadian oil, low acid."

Back at the Uncle’s... still without Internet

Time: 10:20 PM CEST

So after Magdeburg turned to complete shite and many, many hours of driving, through the rain, I return to where I started but with even less Internet than before. Apparently the region also befell a violent storm and the Uncle’s satellite and Internet have been out. I played around with the DSL router settings but it’s still crapped out. Luckily he has a spare router, so tomorrow... maybe.

Right now, I’ll settle for my dog, a pizza and a dial-up connection.

So, Madgeburg, the town really intent on not making money. We had planned a full day: the Madgeburger Dom (old church... wait for it!), the Jahrtausendturm and the Kultur Museum and then onto Eisleben (birthplace and deathplace of Luther) and finally Kyfferhauser, the birthplace of Kiefer Sutherland. Are you paying attention? Okay, good.

So a bright and early start. Up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and oot and aboot at 8am.Yeah. Unfortunately, Magdeburg doesn’t open until 10am. We’d wanted to go to a shopping center to get us both another memory card since Mom’s was on the last few shots and I was O-U-T out of cards (3 Gigs in 6 1/4 days). Well luckily enough, a hotel waiter, told us about the mall in the center of the city.

We parked the car at 8:30am and went in. The stores were closed, 9 out of 10 at least. “Saturn” the electronics store didn’t open until 9:30am. So we walked, and walked, to the Dom, passing by the Cloister museum which looked closed for renovation. We reach the Dom at 9am, they’re open at 10am. Scratch that. We head back to the shopping center. The Cloister museum isn’t open on Mondays at all. We head to the Tourist Information center at 9:20am, closed until 10am. Back the shopping center right at 9:30am Saturn opens. We find the cards and... they don’t except any credit cards. This after a week of Mom attempting to and failing to get American Express Travelers checks exchange into euros at local banks.

And that was that for Magdeburg. It was a comedy of errors without the funny. Screw the sites, we got out of there.

An hour and half later we arrive at Eisleben, like I said where Martin Luther was born and later died. Crowded little town of cobblestones and narrow streets, again none perpendicular to one another. Parking is as organized as in other places. I find a spot and we walk, and walk, to the house. It’s closed for renovation until March of 2007.

And that was that for Eisleben. On to Kyfferhaus, site of what exactly, I didn’t know until I got there. Way, way up on a mountain is a monument to Kaiser Wilhem. The height was impressive. You get a 270 to 300 degree view of the countryside. The monument was impressive for a big-ass sculpture/tower. But that was it. At least it was open. At least the weather of cool, although threatening to rain. The walk up to the monument wasn’t arduous. So that was it. Last site of the vacation. It didn’t suck like the beginning of the day. Unfortunately I have to rely on Mom’s pictures. God damn Magdeburg.

The only thing worth noting after that and now was during the drive back we hit so many detours, “Umleitungs,” it was almost as if were on a moebius strip of spacetime. There was one incident where the first road was detoured for construction and then 20 minutes later the alternate route led through a town where the entire main road had been scraped off leaving pitted yellow sand. It wasn’t marked “closed” so we risked it and trudged our way through the muddy path. Poor little Audi. I missed my truck then and there.

Wittenberg -- Escape from Berlin (in progress)

Time: 5:47 PM CEST
Location: Ramada-Treff Magdeburg Hotel

Luther Haus, probably the best museum I’ve seen. Organized and advanced.

Berlin: Day 1

So the plan was to take the “City Circle Tour” bus “scheme” Mom had scheduled. The scheme was a set of buses circle the city stopping at 15 different points of interest. Customers can hop on and hop off at any site, a yellow, double decker City Circle bus stops by each 15 minutes.

Nice system, if it worked. This company doesn’t have any indication of an official stop. Sometimes there are yellow vans selling tickets. Sometimes not. Also the “tour” was a series of recordings through crappy headphones. We sat upstairs so we never saw when the bus had stopped at a Stop or just because of traffic.

Yeah, the traffic. Berlin is choking on tour bus traffic and construction.
When we finally got off the bus we were halfway through the tour. Schloss Charlottenburg. Big house, lots of rooms. It was pouring outside, so good that we took the tour.

Back on the bus.

Potsdamer Platz - couldn’t get to it because of a strike. Apparently doctors are striking because of working ours and today they decide to march through... yeah, Potsdamer Platz. So the driver had to turn around and head to Stop #4, which turned out to be also blocked off because of the march. We wasted so much time in the bus stuck in traffic that we bailed.

The street we bailed onto featured an outdoor museum of the ruins of the headquarters of the National Socialistic Party (nee Nazis). Half of the placards covered the Nuremberg trial.

Walking on we arrived at the street where Checkpoint Charlie was/is (apparently the original was removed and now a replica for the tourists is there. But first lunch. Falafel im Brot. Scrummy.

Berlin: Day 2

Freestyle, no tour buses

Deciphering the Berlin public transit

One ticket for all services came in handy

Potsdamer Platz

Reichstag

Potsdam -- don’t come late; bring an umbrella

Time: 7:12 PM CEST
Location: Park Plaza Hotel

Finally broke down and spent 4.5 euros for 30 minutes. eurospot 1126 down / 1440 up (on a Saturday if that means anything). Meh-heh-heh, 15 minutes to go and I burned through the 50 MB transfer limit. (Podcast downloads).

Time: 2:33 PM CEST
Location: Park Plaza Hotel

Back from Berlin tour (Day 2) -- Feet and buses will get you farther.

Time: 5:03 PM CEST
Location: Park Plaza Hotel

Just got back from the Berlin tour (Day 1). I swear, Mom and her tour buses.

But first I will finish with Dresden.

Okay back to Thursday afternoon. Der Zwinger. (Remember, pronounce W’s like a V and the V’s like an F). Um it’s a courtyard and um it was pretty and the clouds where getting dark. (Literally not figuratively). Inside the Zwinger was a porcelain museum (procelain museum: clink). Vases, plates, dishes, animals and statues. (Okay, actually the statues were impressive).

Outside of the Zwinger, we had lunch and then it began to pour. Asparagus salad (green & white with lettuce and surprisingly good strawberry hollandaise sauce), a tiny Pepsi and... plum cake and milchkaffee (moca-ish coffee).
And finally die Sempraoper (sp?) It’s an opera house. The line was long and the presentation was wordy and we were running late. It was around 4 and I still had 2 hours of driving to do.

I had to get gas for the first time, well, diesel actually. 60 liters @ 1.23 euros per liters = 74+ euros. So quite your bitching about $3 gas.
Damn, Berlin is tiring. Later on that.

Time: 6:13 AM CEST
Location: Park Plaza Hotel

So yesterday was Dresden after driving out of the countryside of Görlitz. The GPS decided to show every street from Görlitz on out for some reason, on the way into Dresden, nada. Later on the way to Berlin it also failed to show anything until I set a specific target. So there’s a bug or setting that got garbled.

The sites to see are grouped together in what was called the Alter Stadt, the Old City, which meant they were all within walking distance. Walking on cobblestones that is. After parking, we first went into Die Frauenkirche (old church: ding!). The church was made of a mix of some old but mostly new brickwork because the church was practically destroyed in the ’45 fire-bombing. For the first time there was a huge long line at a site. People went inside and sat at the pews or they could go downstairs into the basement. Nothing was labeled because you’re supposed to buy the guidebook (or the audio tour thingy) before going down. There’s a huge granite (?) altar/baptismal in the center.

Moving on, the Catholic Cathedral (old church: ding).

Der Schloss (old castle with a museum inside: clang). There were rooms and rooms full of goblets, statues, jewelry and brickebrack made of ivory, mother of pearl and/or gold for the royalty of the area between the 1600s and 1700s. Man, no wonder this democracy thing kicked off. Hundreds of craftsmen, thousands of hours for the bejewelment of an elite... jesus George has got go.

Welcome to Berlin... that’ll be several hundred euros

Time: 7:58 PM CEST
Location: Park Plaza Hotel

I begin this post completely pissed. On the way into Berlin, I think I got captured by one of those speeding cameras (100 kph in a 80 zone, I think). Well god damn. 16 years of non-ticketed driving and I finally get one in Germany, you know, the place where speed limits don’t mean anything... until they do. Blargh!
Anyway -- no wait God DAMMIT!!! -- um, wait, okay Berlin. We came in from the southeast and a lot of traffic. The hotel was overbooked, so tonight we’re staying a suite (two bedrooms separated by half a wall. Apparently there is a tradition that says Internet access is a means to rob you blind.

• 1/2 hour (lobby only) 4.5 euros
  
• 2 hours (lobby only) 9.5 euros
  
• 24 hours 29.95 euros
  
• 7 days 99 euros
  
• 30 days 189 euros

Why 7 days seems like a steal... or theft. Erfut (via T-Mobile was way cheaper) However, I won’t spend 4.50 to get online only to get the U.S. T-Mobile number to bitch about what was 3 days ago. I’m getting the feeling that I won’t be able to connect until the 22nd back at the Uncle’s.

Coming up next: a summary of today at Dresden -- under construction since 1945.

Görlitz -- Center of the Universe

Time: 6:19 PM CEST
Location: Still way the hell off the map!

Okay not at all but this small city a stone’s throw from Poland actually has a great deal of history. After a quick stop at a store selling Birkenstocks (cliffnote: actually more expensive than in the U.S.) Anna, the student, drove us to Görlitz. There’s a lot of clean renovated buildings but often we saw some that had been abandoned for years if not decades.

First we stopped at small zoo. In short, zoos suck. Monkeys, goats, cows, yaks, donkeys, pigs (Chinese variety), camels, swans, mountain deer, storks, owls and birds, birds, birds. All in okay condition, but still not anywhere near their natural environment. What pointed this out to me the most was the pair of macaws in a cage really too small for them. One of them clung in one top corner and occasional said, “Hello.” Those guys live for years. What was his story? How did he end up there?
We saw a church, well actually it was two churches one on top of the other and a metaphorical reconstruction of the Christ’s tomb. (Old church. Ding!) We walked back through the city and ended up in a cafe run by the student’s uncle. Mom had two pieces of cake and a couple of cups of coffee. I had two cups of coffee, an omelette with tomatoes with a salad(!!) and glass of tomato juice. (Yes, I was tempted by the cakes, but I wanted Lunch lunch).

Then came the interesting bit. We had arranged to meet a tour guide. Now don’t think of a Disney-fied sing-song recitation. This guy, dressed in black, long, brown, wavy hair combed back and with a long beard, was born and raised in the city. In short, he knew a shitload and knew how to tell it. Architecture, regional politics, 12th century history and so on. We walked around a city block and on to a cathedral. (Old church. Ding!) An incredibly impressive presentation. 90 minutes for 25 euros and two numb feet.

Throwing stones at Poland

Time: 6:29 AM CEST
Location: Way the hell off the map!
Mood: Not sleepy enough to go back to sleep (went to bed @ 10-ish)
Internet availability: What is this thing called the InterWeb?

Okay, so the story left off in Erfurt, location of churches, churches and this house Martin Luther stayed at. Getting to these locations meant more driving through the city. Yea! All right, not yea. How about yikes! Apparently part of socialist city planning included explicitly not putting signs on the streets you’re going to turn on only the street you’’re on. Meaning, if you’re on Johannesstrasse at an intersection and you look up at the street names, you will only see "Johannesstrasse." It’s the way Karl Marx wanted it dammit!!

So the little-GPS-that-could helped, but no street names and some more premature turns led us astray for a bit. Not the least of which was an Eisenbahnstrasse. What is an Eisenbahnstrasse? Well Eisenbahn means train and strasse is street. It’s a street where the inter-city streets runs and people can walk, but the only cars you see are commercial vans and trucks. Now, we didn’t get any obvious, bug-eyed stares as we desperately tried to get back on a more normal street but still, to repeat, yikes.

Okay, so underground parking, Church A, walk to Church B, get a little lost because Mom didn’t bring her handy city map and then walked back to the parking, deciding to drive to the third locale. That drive went a little better in particular because the parking garage we were headed to was the one we had driven around earlier when we were lost. See? Everything worked out!

On to Weimar, featuring buildings owned or occupied by Goethe. Again, no city map, so when we left the state road we had no clue to where to go until we saw some signs. Yeah not the Autobahn, but the smaller state road, which turned out to be a mistake, once we got behind a guy towing a mobile fish stand.

I wish that was a joke, but it was some guy towing an apparent fish stand really slowly.

Once in the city, finding parking was pleasingly insane. There were signs and the first time around we obediently followed them right to the point where the stopped. The second time around the block is where I noticed that the entry was underground. Steeply, sharply down. You’d think they’d give a clue like an arrow pointing downwards or something. The complex was huge, by the way. An entire city block dedicated to two stories of parking under a nice, green park.

Down the street was the main park. Very nice. The garden house of Goethe was... a garden house. The main residence of Goethe... was a house (with a major Greek fetish going on -- multiple white plaster busts of Greek so-and-so’s, three foot in diameter decorating the interior).

And finally a long drive from Weimar, past Dresden towards Görlitz, but turning off just before into Reichenbach.

Going deeper into in the East on the Autobahn, we saw a lot of construction. In Jena was a tunnel into nothing. By that I mean, alongside the current Autobahn was what I took to be a replacement, but it drove into and under at least 3 kilometers of concrete archway. This was half up a mountain side so they weren’t going to build anything on-top of it. It just appeared to be a covered roadway for no good reason. I’d like to come back just o see what the hell the final result will be.

Anyway, past Dresden. The people we’re staying with in Reichenbach are the grandparents of one my Mom’s students. (The student is in her early 20’s, the grandparents are Mom’s age -- yeah that bugged her). Now, Wolfgang, the grandfather, said he'd park by the road after the offramp from the Autobahn and wait for us. Now I thought that was a little weird. Until we met him and he drove us to his house, past... well, you can’t even call them towns, but teeny-tiny groups of houses. This is where the term "Dorf" is appropriate. So we’re deep in the countryside here. Some of the buildings are very new, others are much older, probably the original farms of the area. The settings of Lovecraft stories came to mind as we drove past them.

Have you noticed that my writing is longer when I’m off the InterWeb? Hm.

FYI

Time:10:44 PM CEST

The hot water from the Erfurt hotel bathrooms can get scaldingly hot and the cold water is freezingly cold.

Thought you’d like to know.

Back in the DDR!

Time: 8:48 PM CEST
Location: Ramada-Treff Erfurt Hotel
Mood: Nackered, but still want to write a long ass post.
New on the Shit List: T-Mobile

Okay, first all, the rental car turned out not to be a Mercedes Benz C180. It’s an Audi A4 2.0 TDi! (diesel). Wheee, so I got my vroom after all. (Maximum speed: 140 kph / 86.9 mph). So while I was averaging 120 kph / 75 mph, other guys (some were stationwagons!!) were blowing past me at 200+. It was frightening and exhilarating, even though we got lost on the first turn on the Autobahn.

The first stop was Eisenach, a sleepy little town famous for Die Wartburg, a castle way up on a mountain top. Winding roads and then lots of steps. A decently organized tourist trap: entry fee, shops on the way up, you can walk about or take the hour-long tour for a fee, if you want to take pictures during the tour... tiny extra fee, videos? Big extra fee. At the end of the tour was a shop and a place to eat was back on the way down. It was 2:30-ish, so we had lunch. Mom had a vegetable soup... with sausage in the bowl (Natch, it’s Germany). I had a Bratwurst with fries (over-salted/seasoned).
So back on the Autobahn to the outskirts of Erfurt.

A brief aside about the GPS. You need at least three satellites to get your bearings and that, so far, had been difficult to get unless you are outside and see the horizon in at least two directions. In Eisenach, we were driving in a moderate valley and only got 1 satellite. Also (ahem) I kind of didn’t bother to load the map that spanned in between Giessen and Erfurt. (The thing only had 56MB of memory and I knew we need the extreme east portion and Berlin. So Eisenach got the cut). So as we were driving along, we couldn’t use the GPS, but it was the Autobahn so there were plenty of signs and it’s fairly straightforward going... until we hit the outskirts of Erfurt.

So the GPS is just showing a dot with “Erfurt.” And we only had an address of the hotel. And we didn’t have a city map of the place. So we’re kinda just driving towards that little dot and not knowing where the capital-F Freak we’re supposed to go after we hit Le Dot. Or rather... Das Dot. Der Dotte? Whatever.

And then the map for Erfurt kicked in on the GPS. We crossed over from non-mapped space to mapped space and there were street lines everywhere. I quickly punched in Find and pointed to the hotel’s waypoint that I had programmed before the flight. It did its little thing and I followed the instructions. We got lost a couple of times. Not because of the device, but from me preemptively turning. Street signs are small or non-existent. Intersections are Monster Clusters, six directions and none of them perpendicular to any other. (And no, it wasn’t a traffic circle).

It was mid-way through downtown Erfurt when the little GPS told me that I was on Karl Marx Platz and to turn right on Juri Gargarin Ring, that I made the comments to the effect of, “Holy Hell, has this thing taken us to Russia?!”

Mom: “Well we are in what was East Germany.”
Me: “We are? Already!?”
Mom: “Of course!”
Me: “Since when!?”
Mom: “Since Eisenach.”
Me: “Really!?”

And the rest of the conversation was me being stupid.

So anyway... we made it. Science triumphs over poor planning.

The rooms are nice (and smoke-free), although the hallways are tobaccorific. Strangely, Mom the ex-smoker is more sensitive to it.

We went down to Globus (think two story Wal-mart minus most of the evil). The bottles of water in the rooms cost 2.20 euros. F that. Water, limeade, pretzels, nuts, crossword puzzles (Mom) and soap (because I didn’t pack any).
Dinner at the hotel restaurant: Mom had herring salad with potatoes (do not think large glop of fish in thick white sauce). I had herb mushrooms with sliced bread dumplings. There was an entire separate menu card for asparagus dishes (said vegetable being the local crop).

Okay that it’s. Core Dump Complete.

P.S. Oh the shit list thing. The first week of May I added “T-Mobile Hotspots” to my plan ($20/month) thinking wireless access in the hotels might come in handy. T-Mobile certainly alludes to tens of thousands of hotspots around the world (!!!) on their sign-up page. And whaddayaknow, T-Mobile is in the Erfurt hotel. Yeah, except I had no freakin’ clue what my username or password is. (It’s not any variation of my phone number, that’s for sure. And why the hell isn’t it?). It was supposed to have been emailed to me. Never did.

So I used the pass-as-you-go option (2.00 euros for 15 minutes, 8 euros for an hour, et cetera -- yikes) so I can at least log into my T-Mobile account and find out my credentials. No luck.

I broke down and called T-Mobile support. It was the European help line. I spoke to a guy who knew craps-worth of English (I chose the English help line) and he told me that T-Mobile Hotspots for a U.S. account has nothing to do with those in Europe.

Uh-huh. ‘kay.

I might spend another 2 Euros to find the U.S. customer support number and either get it straightened out or get a refund.

DDR = Deutschen Demokratischen Republik the former East Germany

The Itinerary

Time: 14:32 PM CEST

Tomorrow the driving starts.

Here's the trip presented to you by .Mac calendars

Here's the trip presented to you by Google Maps:

1. Giessen to Eisenach
   
2. Eisenach to Erfurt
   
3. Erfurt to Weimar
   
4. Weimar to Meissen
   
5. Meissen to Görlitz
   
6. Görlitz to Berlin
   
7. Berlin to Potsdam
   
8. Berlin to Wittenberg
   
9. Wittenburg to Madgeburg
   
10. Magdeburg to Eisleben
    
11. Eisleben to Schöffengrund

Saturday... that's it, just... Saturday

Time: 10:43 PM CEST
Location: the Uncle's house, Schöffengrund

A relatively quiet Saturday winds down. The sun's up at 6 and down around 8:30 at night.

Breakfast: cornflakes (bought especially for me) and bread with cold cuts.
Lunch: curry chicken, rice (semi-cooked) and white asparagus with a salad (meaning lettuce with a thin, white dressing)
Dinner: bread with cold cuts

And as for doing things rather than eating things, I continued to work getting the Uncle's train-wreck of a music catalog in order and trying to get some songs on his cell phone ('Handi'). Three different media players plus DRM'ed WMA files that I eventually had to burn to a CD and then re-import. Ugh. Would everybody just please swallow the Kool-Aid?

Also the Uncle and I dropped Mom off at the 50th anniversary class reunion.

P.S. The drive out finally gave me the opportunity to use the GPS. Science!

Hey, try doing Windows XP tech support in a foreign language!!

Time: 11:15 PM CEST

Uncle’s wireless fixed! 478 kbps download / 127 kbps upload

Dinner

Time: 7:00 pm CEST

cold cuts and bread

Okay, that doesn't sound spectacular but the the Uncle's family do hot lunch and then cold dinner. Also, the meats are better and the bread is great.

Nap time

Time: 2:30 pm CEST

Zzzzzzzz

Lunch

Time: 2:00 pm CEST

spaghetti and (watery) meat sauce

Back at the Uncle’s...

Time: 12:23 CEST

Well that was 9 1/2 hours of fun. Or not.

The noise of those engines for that span of time is horrendous. I survived because of my in-ear headphones. I kept them in even when I wasn’t using the iPod.

Also, the plane was a Boeing 767, as opposed to the 777 we flew last time. The 767 didn't have the power jacks the 777 had. So the laptop lasted all of an hour.

The uncle’s network isn’t working, so guess who’s the nearest available IT guy. Yeah.

Lunch at “Images”

Portabello Mushroom Panini with fries and teeny, tiny portion of cole slaw. Not bad but the place was incredibly busy.

CNN on the TVs, but Bush is bushitting at a commencement. (ITMFA, WPE!!)

Down safe in Hotlanta

Wireless at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is teh suck. Not that they don’t offer it, they just charge you a lot and T-Mobile isn’t one of them.

The flight was a wee bit bumpy.

Gainesville Regional Airport

Raining, which delayed the flight ahead of us.
Fox News on all the TVs.

And now for 6 hours of (mostly) waiting

Free wireless Internet access at Gainesville Regional Airport. 158kbps down/530kbps up. Not bad for free.

Off We Go...

(The object tag is apparently broken in Safari. Linky).

99% Packed

...because there'll always be something you forgot.

• Canon Digital Rebel
  
• Canon 10-22mm lens
  
• Canon 24-70mm lens
  
• Canon PowerShot S410
  
• Garmin GPSMAP 60CS (for those "Where the Hell am I?" moments)
  
• Apple Powerbook (on it's 3rd hard drive)
  
• Sony PlayStation Portable
  
• crapload of PSP games
  
• external firwire drive with Smallville, Lost, Alias
  
• various other accoutrement

...and that's just the carry-on