Date:         Thu, 18 Apr 1996 23:58:51 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         busgirl@netcom.com (Martha)
Subject:      Europe trip report (HUGE FILE)


Sorry for the size of this - I guess most of you know how to
delete..  :)

---


As promised, here's the report from Bradley's and my recent 
trip to Europe.  I want to begin by apologizing to several of 
you to whom I promised to send postcards:  as luck would have it, 
whenever I had cards, I was lacking stamps - and vice-versa.  
This was compounded by the fact that official places closed 
for 3 days I hadn't exactly planned on for Easter holiday 
over there, so the result was that no one received any snail-mail 
from me at all.  That isn't to suggest my e-mail contact was any 
better - read on.

I had hoped to keep in contact with most of you from Europe with 
frequent e-mail progress/trip reports.  What I had failed to 
understand was that Europe (or at least Germany) hasn't yet 
adopted the notion of free local phone calls.  NONE of their calls 
are free to place initially.  And what's more, one is charged per unit of
time one remains on after making the call (I think every 12
seconds or something like this, and this varies greatly in
price depending on the time of day of the call, or maybe even which 
day of the week it is).  Under any circumstances, the calls 
were not cheap.  Further, every time I did get on the 
computer and tried to telnet to my account,
there was unbelievable lag.  (This last problem was particularly
painful to Bradley, who had left his inflatable gumby party doll
at Kautzes a few days before departing for the trip.  He was very
concerned about it's well-being, and  it wasn't easy trying to
find out  :)  

Literally about 90% of the time, I was forced by
default to have to give up logging on - just from this telnet 
problem.  Often, the window simply froze and/or
disappeared completely.  As if this all weren't bad enough, in many
regions there is still pulse dialing, and the speed of this
began to infuriate even me.  So, few of you even received a virtual
post-card, and I'm sorry for this.  Hope this report will help
to make up for info you were looking for but missed.

First, I want publicly to thank list-member Sami Dakhlia.  He
and his wife Maria and their new daughter Julia met us at TWA in
St. Louis - both coming AND going on the trip.  Not only was this
a great way to pass the 4-5+ hour layover each way, but it was
a pleasure to see Sami and his family, have them show us around,
see the local sites, try the local special culinary delicacy of
fried ravioli en route, and on the return trip, Ted Drewe's ice creams.  
In fact, I shouldn't even mention at all what great hosts they are,
because otherwise they may be bombarded by list members demanding 
to be entertained.  Seriously, we had a great tour about town,
got to check out their camper (GREAT Volvo front seats with
the bun warmers), and see their abode.  Listie Albrecht Jander
was even able to join us for a beer on the loop during our first
meeting.  Thanks to the St. Louis contingency - we owe you! 

So I don't forget:  no, I didn't take that many pictures.  I started
out with good intentions, but the trip spanned into so many places,
that soon to document it all, I would have had to shoot at least 
a dozen rolls of film.  Not being anything other than the typical
point and click amateur photographer, I decided early on that the idea
of taking that many pictures would soon be a case of diminishing returns.
I decided if I was really serious about getting a picture of something,
I'd come home and call up the tourist/trade bureau for that country,
and order a REAL reproduction - for free.  :)

The plane trip (both directions as a matter of fact) was rather
uneventful.  Can't say much for TWA food, but then didn't expect
much either.  As an exception, it seemed actually quite good upon our
departure from Paris to coming home, for some strange reason  :)
We tried to sleep, ate too many meals, and saw a few movies, then
took advantage of more free booze.  I get kind of claustrophobic
on long flights, and even though ours had the stop-offs and lay
overs, I got kind of punchy, so I was glad to be out of there as fast
as possible.

Our first stop outside of the country was London, where neither of
us had previously set foot.  We were amazed by several things:  of
all countries, we expected this to be the least likely place where
we'd have any problem understanding the language, but it turned out
to be the most difficult of the trip.  (Later on we went to France;
I don't speak but 10 words of French and had no trouble whatsoever
there, but I couldn't understand most of what was being said in
England.)  This came as quite a shock.  I suppose British media English
is in fact quite different from what is common spoken there, with
the dialects and slang and so forth.  We were also surprised by
how many people smoke, at least in the Gatewick airport.  Neither of
us do, but after being in that building for 20 minutes or so, all
our belongings sure smelled like we were tobacco addicts.  We would
encounter this elsewhere on the trip, too - I guess Americans have
really cut back smoking more than I had realized.

We were picked up in south London by a pal from IRC from the 
internet - Paul Inman (aka bughead on irc channel VW) who let us 
spend the nite there at his family's place in Lee London.  He kindly 
indulged our whim to be taken out to a "real country pub," and I have 
to say this was a major highlight.
They served meat pies and warm, not-very bubbly stout.  Bradley of
course broke some record with the bartender/proprietor there, ordering
more beverages than anyone ever had previously in one night  :)  The
decor of the place was as you'd imagine in your dreams - very rural,
English country - beautiful brass and wood ornamentation, dried flowers,
etc. - very charming.  

On the way back, we coerced Paul into driving
us quickly by the famous sites in London - Westminster Abbey, etc.  I'm
sorry to say with all the layover time and the jet lag, that we very
embarrassingly slept--even snored--through most of this.  It was really
pathetic.  :(  But, Paul, I had a great time, and thanks for your
super hospitality.  Paul's mom fixed us a wonderful British
breakfast the next morning and P. drove us to the bus to take us
to Dover, where we caught the ferry for Calais, France.  Before I forget,
yes it was totally strange for me as a passenger to get into a 
car on what would be here the driver's side; or to ride on the left 
side of the road, etc.  I doubt I'd be very successful at switching, 
since I drive so much on "automatic pilot."

Paul had lots of interesting (especially to us) British VW magazines,
which we enjoyed perusing.  

Then, just when I had gotten used to these strange, new things in England 
called "roundabouts" (traffic circles going clockwise in one direction)
we had to accustom ourselves to them going the other way:

In Calais, France we rented a car.  Being the frugal sort, I asked for
the economy class, or more pertinently, an auto which would get
good fuel economy, since I was keeping in the mind gas costs
in Europe.  We lucked out in both - got a diesel Peugeot, 4-dr.,
which, although diesel, was hardly wimpy at all.  And it's 40
mpg was a big help on fuel costs.  It was a 5 speed.  We immediately
picked up some fresh baguettes, which I must confess tasted truly
great.  Think we looked for a store to buy drinks, but not
knowing any French between the two of us, didn't find one, and
decided it might be better to exit France until later.  

We proceeded to drive thru Belgium.  I should have realized early
on - this trip was to become one beer tasting orgy after another
for Bradley  :)  The Belgians really excel at
unusual beers - I love their fruit beers, flavored with the likes
of raspberry, cherry, etc.  

As it was getting late in the evening, we decided simply to drive
quickly thru the famous cities in Belgium - to see what they looked
like at least from the exterior, and to be able to say we'd been there.  
In this manner, we passed thru Brugge, Brussels, etc.  Perhaps the
most unusual part was where we got lost on the road (the first
of many times to happen later on, and naturally it was when *I*
was driving), and we got swept into a forest.  Finally, on the other
side of the woods was miraculously a sign pointing us in the direction
of the next country we wanted to tour in the middle of the night:
Luxembourg.

What can I tell you about Luxembourg?  It's so small, you hardly
notice you've been there.  When we stopped to get gas and buy
a snack there, they strangely were prepared to take nearly
every type of money - other than Luxembourgian money.  I'm
not sure whether this is/was a good or a bad sign, but it all
looked very odd.  We tried to placed a phone call to Munich
to say we'd be arriving about 12 hours later than planned, but were
unable to get through successfully, so we proceeded on to Germany.  

I felt a little better to be in Germany, because I can get along
in the language, whereas in Luxembourg nothing at all I tried worked
language-wise, and this threatened to be a little frightening.  In
Germany, the first task was to try and remember the mentality which
erected their highway and directional signs.  Firstly, none of them
are lit, and secondly, if you see a sign which says "Stuttgart," it
can mean any of the following:

1.  you are about to enter Stuttgart.
2.  if you stay on this road, you will eventually get there, but it may
    take you days and days, and there may be better/faster routes.
3.  Turn here, and you'll experience one block of Stuttgart.
4.  This road will take you there, but not in a very efficient way,
    and you'll pass thru several, even bigger cities on the way, but
    we won't bother you now by telling you their names.

It took me about 10 days to get used to this sort of signage.  Finally,
I learned that blue means freeway, and yellow means highway.  Later, when
I had imprinted that firmly on my brain, I got all confused to learn
that GREEN means freeway in Switzerland, and blue means highway.  Arg! 
In addition, our maps listed major arteries by number, but none of
the locals seemed to be aware their Autobahns had numbers.  They speak
of them instead as the Munich-Augsberg Autobahn, in the direction of
Munich.

Further, the lines in the middle of the asphalt can be confusing.  Sometimes
one color meant two lanes in the same direction, and later, that same
color could mean divided highway.  Oops.  :)  This got even worse
when we changed countries and what you thought you had learned suddenly
was no longer valid!  But fortunately, we often drove at night when there
was not much competition for lanes.  Too, one has to remember not to 
assume that what is allowable here is ok there - like turning right 
on a red light when things are clear to do so, etc.

I finally came to a theory about why none of the German freeways or
highways have street-lights:  everyone drives BMWs fast on them!  
If you have the kind of blinding headlights BMW's have, you don't need streetlights, and you go so fast, you're only on the freeway a 
few minutes anyway - no matter where you are going in Germany.  We quickly
learned that a blinking left signal on a fast car in the left lane
of the autobahn meant "stay out of my way."  It's illegal to pass
on the right there, and is stiffly fined.  (By the way, many German
cars have a neat feature, speaking of turn signals - if you turn
your signal on, then turn the car off while parked, it leaves that
one side's parking light on, drawing low amps, and you can stay
parked that way in the dark all night without draining the battery,
but slightly calling attention to the fact your car is parked
there--so it won't get hit--in the dark.  Another TERRIFIC feature
is their low-beam adjustable headlights.  They feel these should be
user adjustable based on the weight of the load, but I found this
feature very handy just for determining depth of field lighting,
regardless of load.)    

I don't think I have to tell you what sort of metamorphosis occurred
in Bradley once he crossed the boundary line into Germany.  I've
never seen the lack of an upper speed limit change a person so.  Now's
a good a time as any to make my public apology, Bradley, about
screaming so loudly.  As I told Gerry and Schwarze, I spent most
of my passenger time in Germany huddled in fetal position, screaming
at 110 decibels, with my fingernails embedded in the headliner of
the car.  I learned lots of things:

1.  cars don't flip while U-turning at speeds in excess of 120 kph.
2.  go.  if you don't, someone else will, and you may die.
3.  try to kill them before they kill you.
4.  if Bradley is the one driving, sometimes it's just better not 
    to open your eyes until you reach your destination.

In B's defense, I must say that he is really a very good driver; he
has the fastest reflexes of anyone I know.  If I have to be in a
car going those kinds of speeds, I guess I have to admit I'd
feel safer with Bradley at the wheel than anyone else I can think
of but I think my problem is that I simply just cannot
assimilate my surroundings at 160+ kph speeds. - out of habit I suppose.  I
often drove him crazy with my hysteria over this, and I fear he
suffered equally having to ride when I was driving - at what I'm
sure were by comparison dull, boring speeds like 100 kph.  Fortunately
for him, he could sleep while I was at the wheel.  :)

Speaking of moving violations, I found the German system of dealing
with them quite interesting.  They don't send out patrol cars, and
in fact, you'd be hard pressed to find one, either on the city
streets or the autobahn from what we saw.  Instead they have installed
at strategic points super, high-quality infrared cameras which simply
"photograph" you while you perform your various acts of traffic
indecency.  We were told that the Germans didn't like the old system
of ticketing people, having to have them appear in court, and then it
was their word against the authorities, and there was too much
room for error.  With the photograph, the evidence is solid.  They have 
the system down pat:  the camera records your license plate, they track
down the registration of your car, the pictures arrive in your mailbox
indicating what you did and where and when, and you simply pay up.  Yuck.
Once I learned this, I began to have visions of just HOW many pictures
were going to arrive in my mailbox with Bradley's face in the middle
of them.  :)  

I'd like to comment here on the wonderful system most countries in
Europe have of rest stops.  There seems to be 4 varieties: one
just for stopping to rest (with no other facilities), one just like
the above but with a bathroom (nearly always quite clean, btw), one
with all the above plus gas, and one with all the above plus food.  These
are strategically placed and very welcome - especially when everything
else seems foreign.

By the middle of Germany we were SO tired of driving, I personally
began to hallucinate while on the road, and decided we should pull
over and sleep in the car.  This is not very easy in an economy rental,
but we were so zonked from the jet lag, the strange hours, the unearthly
amount of time being on the road, etc., that we managed to sleep for
a few hours - first I think off the road, and then later at one of
these rest stops.  

As we approached Bavaria in the early hours of the morning, we 
suddenly started seeing signs which sent us into fits of laughter.
I can't remember the wording exactly, but it was something like:
"Bitte Abstand halten - mindestens halber Tacho."  We later came to
understand that this was a warning to keep adequate braking distance
between you and the car in front of you (like if you're going 120, keep
60 (half a tachometer's worth) of distance in front?), but to us, of
course, it looked as if the German authorities felt that half a taco's
length would be sufficient.  And judging by the way some of the German
drivers proceed, I'd say they read it the same way.  :)  All we could 
think of, was how sStones would have translated this, and we laughed
every time we saw the sign, no matter how old it got.

The more we encountered them, the funnier German road signs seemed.
Unlike in the US, the Germans are quite careful about announcing
when something takes effect, but also when whatever was in effect
suddenly ceases.  This can be confusing if you happen to enter
a street in between the two signs, because you then risk not 
understanding what the "take the previous thing away" sign is referring
to.  We would often encounter circles with diagonal slashes thru them,
meaning to us:  "don't...?," but we weren't always sure what it was
we weren't supposed to do - only that there was "something."  Another
sign simply contained an exclamation point in the middle with
nothing else, and we learned upon asking that this meant "danger,"
but no further details.  We tried to be careful, but were never
sure of what.

The funniest of all was the sign with the exclamation point, and
under it, 3 frogs.  Someone explained that there are some aggressive
green frogs which come en masse out on to the autobahn during certain
seasons.  As odd as this sounds, it is apparently such a problem that
they grease up the freeway once flattened by speeding cars, and
then make the thing unsafe to travel on because it has become so
slippery.  The most profound example of this we once saw in Austria:
I kid you not, the picture of the frog was SO big, we were wondering
if they were talking killer size.  Affectionately, and sometimes in
tears of laughter, we termed this sign:  "slippery when frog."  :)
I suppose one might call them:  toadsigns.

The other proliferation we encountered was scores and scores of these
boat- or box-shaped carriers one fastens to the top of the car rack
to carry items overflowing from the car.  It seemed everyone was on
vacation, and to look in our rearview mirror, you'd think we were
being advanced up by an army of these things - quite a spectacle.

The reason for Munich as a destination point is that Bradley's brother
lives and works there, at least on weekdays.  Bradley had visited 3
years before and was therefore familiar with the lay of the city.  I'd
visited several years ago, but not this section, and so all seemed 
unfamiliar.  After a brief tour of the city, B found his brother's 
place in the Westend, which I might add, is about the most difficult
part of the city to maneuver - every time you find the street you
desire, it invariably goes the direction you desire it not to, and 
absolutely nothing is parallel or perpendicular, unless of course
you find yourself in the part of the city you were trying not
to be in.  Corollary to Murphy's Law, on travelling.  

That afternoon, we all took the subway to a nifty electronics store,
where, as many of you know, Bradley happened upon these great Hella
universal- and DIN-cig. lighter plugs.  This store had everything
geeks could ever want:  B's brother was outfitting a tyke-trike
for his 2.5 year old son, and it would soon be complete with horn,
lights, key, etc.  They carried in that store something I'm not sure
if works here - a radio controlled clock - in other words, it somehow
picks up signals in the air, and knows how to set itself.  Does anyone
know if this exists and will operate in the US?

For all of you listies, we tried to note unusual VW busses and vans.  
It wasn't long before this got WAY out of hand.  There were single
and double cabs on bay windows and vanagons and eurovans galore.  Some
had two doors in the back (like B's brother's diesel eurovan, which 
was plenty powerful btw).  Some had high top campers so tall, they 
comprised a full 1/3 of the height of the vehicle.  This feature
was obviously not limited to VW's, but was certainly prevalent among them.  
We only saw one split window - in Britain as I recall.  Some of the bay
windows in Germany were painted as you might imagine in Bezerkeley -
very psychedelic, etc.  There were some extended wheel-base, large
versions we never got here of the vanagon.  Can't remember if I 
saw one with more than one sliding door, but I'm sure they exist,
and probably on the eurovan, too.  Saw the new VW Sharon, Polo, etc.  There
were not nearly as many old cars in Europe of the VW vintage as there are
in California, perhaps because of rust (winter salting, etc) problems.  We
did see a lot of beautiful old, teeny Fiat cinquecentos, and some
very elegant Citroen 2CV's.  What lines those cars had!  By contrast,
the whole time we were there, we only saw one Ford Mustang.  Sorry,
Schwarze  :)

Europe seems to have the best cars - this drove me crazy with
jealousy after awhile.  All the cars we used to remember here
from the past like Opel, Fiat, Citroen, Peugeot, etc., are all
still there and flourishing.  I fell completely for this teeny, eency,
weency Subaru, called the Liberro, which is like 3/4 the size
of an old Toyota van, seats 6, is available in 4WD with 2 sunroofs, 
could be a small camper, and yet costs only about $13,000, and
gets 30 mpg in the diesel version, I think.  I picked up the sales
literature on it and its clones (made by Suzuki and Dihatsu).  Now,
I want to move to Europe JUST so I can have access to unusual
and cute cars like this.  Btw, he coolest of the cool was the itsy
bitsy GM electric car we saw days later in Austria.  Appropriately,
it was a raging, bright yellow color.  I peered under the
gas cap and found where one plugs it in to recharge.

Because we were trying to be frugal, we rarely ate out, and often
went grocery shopping.  This was something worthy of its own
trip report.  The daily quest for fresh bread and pretzels became
a near culinary orgy.  And did you know that German beer
is cheaper to buy than water?  Or that Germans feel it unhealthy
to drink anything particularly cold?  I bought a diet coke once
when really thirsty and got it - luke warm (yuck).  Try to buy
ice there - one friend told us he hadn't ever seen it for sale
in his whole life.  Strange this country sells water, but
no ice.  I considered seriously for a moment moving there (for
the cars, of course  :), and trying to make my living selling
ice to Germans.  (This would have constituted the ultimate irony - 
my own paternal Grandfather migrated from Germany in the early
part of the century to the US, where he carved out his living carving
out chunks of ice from frozen Lake Chautauqua in upstate New York -
selling it to the locals before the era of refrigeration.  Would
he roll over in his grave to find his granddaughter setting back
his progressive efforts by nearly a century?)  Later on, we solved the
ice problem by freezing things that were to be thrown out anyway when
we left, using them in the foldable cloth ice-chest I'd brought along,
or simply by having Bradley kick snow and ice off fresh fall or glaciers
in the alps to fill the container.  I found myself beginning to obsess
about food spoiling and trying to get drinks cold enough to please
me.  While I'm on the rant - don't bother trying to order tap
water or anything with ice while in Germany.    

I thought about that grandfather of mine more an more
as the trip went on - he was a sausage-maker from the beautiful 
medieval walled and perfectly preserved city of Rothenburg on the 
Tauber river.  I don't know HOW he endured eating so much fat!  
Like the next American, I try to do my best to try and eat low-fat 
food, at times even achieving non-fat nirvana for a meal or two.  
Needless to say, that all went to the dogs after
about a day and half in Germany.  The Germans idea of low fat is to
remove the animal fat from something and replace it with plant fat
of equal amount.  Or, to advertise that something is lower in fat
(than you might expect) because they try to use leaner meats.  They
don't have things they call low-fat or non-fat - they are instead
called:  fat-poor.  :)  After about 3 days, I began to feel as if
I hadn't even eaten anything unless it was of the character of brie
cheese or liverwurst.  I soon got addicted to doing things even the
Germans cringe over - pan frying white sausage after 10 in the morning
and eating it with a mixture of sweet mustard and curried catsup on
the side.  Most locals made retching noises when I described this -
eating this particular sausage this way is I think against
their religion.  :)

I grew terribly fond of Johannisbeersaft - black current juice, and soon
needed daily fixes of the stuff, combined with the other delectable
single-juice boxes they have there - passion fruit, pear, etc.  What
a taste sensation: more reason to move to Europe!  Also very quickly
remembered how much I liked their dairy speciality called quark.  Not
fair that one country should have such good cars AND such good
juices and milk products.  At the grocery store we spied 
"party schmaltz."  Don't ask me - I didn't try it.  Probably never will
either, at least not in this lifetime.  They have a stunning array
of lard there, I must say - everything the fat enthusiast could
conjure up in the wildest dreams:  beef lard, pig lard, etc.  Quite
an oasis for Jack Spratt's wife.

We often amused ourselves listening to the radio - surprisingly
stations often played  popular techno-rave stuff.  This
as you may know, is done largely with sampling.  They simply sampled
things from their culture.  One second it would be punk, and the 
next yodeling.  Quite weird.  Also, they recycle tunes.  I heard
melodies from 15 or 20 year old American pop hits being reused -
with new lyrics, a new style, etc.  Made me feel like I was in
the twilight zone.  Then, there was the Swiss station (ever try
to decipher Swiss German? - most Germans can't even do it very
well - be my guest) with 2 minutes of completely unintelligible
speaking, followed by the WORST country western and easy listening
tunes America has ever produced.  And the Swiss commute to work
listening to this schlock!  No wonder they invented the cuck-coo
clock.  :)

One of the most popular hits playing in Germany was a song I've
since heard here - "Magic Carpet Ride" by the Mighty Dub Kats, from
England, also known as the Ring-Ding-Ding song, and heard constantly.
In the last week, I heard it made number one on the charts there. I
bought a copy of this for my 13 year old daughter on a single - called
there a CD Maxi, and she was most pleased.

Also popular all over turned out to be some of what I consider to
be the worst elements of American culture:  MacDonalds, Burger
King, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Blockbuster video.  Even tiny villages
have some of this stuff, and it really sickened me that the "old"
Germany I remembered seemed to have disappeared. :(  I began to 
discard Dorfs immediately if I saw any signs of this overt
commercialism, and it wasn't long before I was crossing most all
of them off my list.  Along with this seemed to go, I'm afraid,
an interest in other parts of American culture - Levis, at up to
$120 a pair, use of all kinds of American slang in the German
vocabulary, and last but not least:  donuts.  Yes, donuts. They
sell them at MacDonalds, where one can also order beer.  The
cool thing seemed to be to go to MacDonalds and order the two
together, simply because on cannot order them in America that way.
The Germans (students particularly) seemed to think the donuts
were the latest and greatest, and a few we knew were going out
for them like at least once per day.  Mind you, they don't
eat them just for breakfast either.  They also have figured out
which disposable containers from MacDonalds will hold just which
computer-related materials.  For example, the box from a single donut
apparently holds 10 micro-floppies perfectly, never mind Schocko-kringle
grease on your magnetic media.  The styrofoam from a Big Mac will
nicely contain the larger floppies.  Wow.  Also at MacDonalds was some 
sort of Samurai burger we thought was maybe mystery cat meat  :)  Beware
if you eat there - most of these places charge EXTRA for ketchup
and mustard in those teeny packages.

We did only a few typical tourist things in Munich:  the Deutsches
Museum, where I gushed over an old Unimog and a REAL Schwimmwagen,
plus old bugs, and one of the last VW vanagon Westfalias off the
assembly line (that model camper was called the "joker" there).  Volx,
we TRIED to get parts for you, but it was just too difficult -
being in the museum and all.  :)

One really touristy thing we partook of was the proverbial
trip to the Munich Hofbra"uhouse.  Bradley was enthralled to
discover that they were still offering their triumphitor stark
beer - made especially for a festival the week before.  In this
institution, you don't order daintily - the minimum common order
seems to be about a quarter gallon, and believe me, he had no
trouble consuming this happily and quickly.  After, there's an automated
machine where one can plop in a mark, receive a straw, and blow
into a device which measure the level of alcohol in your system.
No comment  :)

The other sort of touristy and slightly shameful thing we did
was ride up and down 2 of the 3 prostitute-ridden streets in
Munich.  The interest was not for the obvious reason, but rather
for the fact that these "girls" all sported highly cool 12v
fluorescent black lights in interesting shapes illuminating
their faces and ... uh, well, you get the idea.  Woolworth's
in Germany even had one of these such lights in use to detect
counterfeit money.  If you haven't ever put one of your major
visa or mastercards under such a light, do so - you'll be
amazed at the things which magically appear!  One can learn
a lot about life just by hanging out on these types of streets, 
after all.  :)

We visited a Unimog store about to close for the day near Kempten,
south west of Munich, out in the country.  There was a beautiful
old Unimog there from I think the '50s - for sale for about $3,000
as I recall.  What a steal - but it would probably be a nightmare
trying to find parts  :(  We also visited a camping store nearby 
to the Unimog place.  Got a catalog
from them, and for those of you interested, they will ship to
the US and will take a check from the US as payment.  They can even
be faxed.  They have some neat things - like a thermostat-regulated
12v immersible heater, which fits into your water tank, and heats
up your water to shower temperature.  Ask me if you want further
details.  

B and I regretted that we hadn't brought any Rain-X with us.  We
heard that they had a distributor in Germany, but never found any
for sale there.  Did pick up a few German VW magazines.  In general,
we saw far fewer air-cooled cars that we are used to seeing in 
California.

It never worked out that we could hitch up with any of our list members
in Europe - we were unfortunately always at the wrong place at
the wrong time, and usually at 3 a.m. without warning, so I apologize
to all of them who so kindly invited us.  

I must say that Germany has changed a lot from the last time I
visited it for a serious length of time.  The infusion of many
cultures from other countries as well as the assimilation of
former East Germany has changed the character of the country
to the extreme.  I'm still not sure how the older generation
reconciles living with the newer, but they all seem fairly
peaceful and happy about it.  We saw a lot of punk-style.  In
one area of Munich, I felt in fact that Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley
suddenly seemed quite pale by comparison.  A treat was to see
the proficient, in-line skaters rollerblading up and down the
stairs near the center of the city.  The hair colors were neon
and fluorescent when they wanted to be.  Everyone is now into
recycling, and with typical German attention to detail, this
system seems to work beautifully.  I mean every last bottle cap
has a place to be stowed and is tended to.  By the time you
get rid of what has to be recycled and what is left to the compost
pile, there is basically hardly any garbage - what a wonder!  I
know I've been recycling a LOT differently since returning,
after how thorough I saw the system could work over there.

At any rate, the infusion of all this extraneous culture has made
for some very interesting food choices.  Highlights were definitely
unusual things like donner-kebap, bosnian curried sausage, etc.

Shortly after starting to eat massive quantities of fat, we got
into the chocolate thing.  This also soon got out of hand.  I
think we personally tried every major brand of chocolate sold
in Germany (how else were we to decide which brands to bring back,
huh?), and I finally decided on 37 bars of this delectable coffee-
cream filled fantasy at about 36 cents each to amass in my suitcase.
Never mind that the thing couldn't be lifted thereafter - that's
how I began to feel, too, after eating chocolate all day long.
Pretty soon it was brandy-filled chocolates with espresso for
breakfast, sausage for mid-morning, mocha chocolate for lunch,
brie and fresh bread for an afternoon snack with some exotic
juice, and then more chocolate and liqueur-filled chocolates
for late afternoon thrill. By dinnertime, I was too sick to eat 
any more.  :)

I should explain that we were able to spend approximately half our
time at Bradley's brother's apt. in Munich, and the other half at
the place his brother spends with his family on weekends - out in 
the country, in the Allgau, in southwestern Germany, quite near the
intersection of the boundaries of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,
and very near Lake Constance (Bodensee).  We would often go between
Munich and Burgberg, depending on what we wanted to visit that day,
and as my primary interest lay in the alps, both locations were
favorable if not ideal for day trips.  We did 2 loops down thru Switzerland,
and another down thru Austria.  Side trips included Italy and
south-western Switzerland, and another loop up into northern Bavaria, then
over to the east of same to see Nu"rnberg, Regensburg, etc.  Again, we
would do this in crazy, 18 hour-long jaunts, often arriving in a city
at 3 a.m.  Oh, well - really helps cut down on the traffic.  And many
of the old city center areas don't even allow cars thru them unless
it's not during daytime hours, so this schedule actually ended up
being to our advantage at times.  

The most wonderful thing was the unusual freak snowstorm.  As I
detest temperatures over about 40F, this made me deliriously happy, and
if I'd custom ordered the weather I'd preferred, I couldn't have been
any happier.  At times we were snowed in, got stuck, needed chains,
etc.  It was a veritable winter fairyland, although strangely enough,
this climate didn't prevail much outside of the German borders and into
Switzerland, where I expected to see the most fresh snow.  There was
lots of snow there to be sure, but it was from previous storms.

I must interject (before I forget) a word about the spectacular
European home coffee making machines.  Bradley's brother's family
has one in the office and one at home in the country.  This thing is
incredible - beyond your dreams.  It grinds the beans, adds the water,
cleans the thing, dispenses the coffee, steams and froths the milk, and
then resets itself to make another cup, automatically dumping the old
grounds into a disposal area.  Don't have to tell you it wasn't long
before we got seriously addicted to having truly great cappuccinos
several times a day.

Back to the driving.  One evening, we had the whim to go visit the area of mad King Ludwig's castles.  In good weather, this would be about a 40 minute trip from where we were staying in the country in Allgau.  Suddenly, to
my great delight, it began to snow - heavily.  To make a long story
short, we got stuck several times and needed chains (which the car rental
place had neglected to provide, despite my specific request for them,
and unfortunately, it hadn't occurred to me to check to make sure they
had in fact carried out that request, but I'll know better next time).  We
saw piled cars, cars off the side of the road, tow trucks, skidding and
slipping this way and that, etc.  Bradley--being the stunt driver that
he is--at one point seemed to be actually having fun deliberately swerving
around in 180 degree turns across ice.  I asked him why he was doing this
and he said:  "how else are we going to learn how a car behaves in this
type of situation/  I've never driven before in the snow!"  Oh, God.  This
was like free, unlimited candy to a 3 year old.  I guess it turned out
ok:  I'm still alive  :)  Anyway, that little jaunt to Fu"ssen, where
the castles are, ended up taking about 5 hours round trip.  By the way,
Disneyland used the big castle (Neuschwanstein) as a model for their
castle.  I guess you know they are fond of the Matterhorn there as well,
so Europe definitely has had its imprint on American culture, even if
most are unaware of the source location.

On another evening in the Allgau, we went out to dinner with Bradley's
family even more into the rural area and had a super meal of local
specialities such as Semmelkno"del (bread dumplings with gravy).  Going
into the entrance of the charming old farmhouse/restaurant, which was
very antique, we saw a vestige of the old Germany I'd been seeking -
an open fire pit with huge piece of meat roasting on the spit/rotisserie, 
about to be served to hungry waiting customers inside.  Many were dressed
in dirndls and it was all quite charming.  Also quite charming was
Bradley's nephew, whose been raised to be bilingual.  As he
is still yet so young, he cutely often mixes the two languages he
hears his parents speak, and at one point turned to me after his
folks had put him in the stroller and announced:  "du nicht pushen!"  :)

I mentioned that we did a few trips into Austria.  Finally seeing
Innsbruck and Salzburg was quite a treat.  Both were huge in comparison
with what I had been expecting.  We did not get to Czech. - the timing
was never right, and we were not allowed to take our rental car in there.
We also thought it would be helpful to have some German friends along
with us, but could never match up schedules.  Next time!  We were 
enthused about this, too, because we heard things were VERY inexpensive
there, like beer for 20 cents, nice dinner out for a big group for under
$20, breakfast rolls for 6 cents, etc. - but it was not to be.

During the two trips into Switzerland, I begged to see all the famous
snowy places.  Notable were:  Davos, Klosters, and St. Moritz, which
is practically in the Italian-Swiss alps.  We almost got lost there,
due to bad maps, and the fact that neither of us could read Italian,
plus the fact that most things were closed due to the holiday.  We
couldn't even change into any Swiss Francs at the only place in
town possible to do so at the late hour - until one nice railway
worker took pity on us.  The time change to summer-time (daylight
savings) had confused us, and we arrived past open hours.  For awhile,
I had visions of having to fork over mucho dinero to spend the night
in St. Moritz; phew.  

Leaving that area was next to frightening (although
I give the south of there an A+ for interesting and beautiful residential
architecture).  We went over a pass, called I think the Julier, which
was open, but with 6 feet of snow on each side.  At the top, it was
dark, completely shrouded in snow, and too cold for anything to grow
in - quite desolate and rather like I imagine the north pole.  This
combined with the fact that we were lost, didn't see a car for long
periods of time, couldn't decipher the Italian signage, and so forth
made the whole place feel like the moon.  Even after
dropping down to civilized altitudes, we still encountered stone-built
ghost towns.  Could never figure out why they all were totally
abandoned.  Then, strangely, there would often be in the distance a 
lone light on a mountain, indicating electricity, but then the Swiss
trains go everywhere as Bradley pointed out, so I guess it's not
such a miracle to tap into the power supply even in remote places.
After a few hours of this, we returned back down to the area of
Chur, and I was kind of relieved. 

One of the most scary things about the above were these Swiss automated
gas stations.  NO ONE is in them.  You simply insert Swiss paper currency,
or any of about 10 designated credit cards, pump your gas, and you're
off.  Trouble was, it would accept any of credit cards it promised,
yet we had no trouble with them anywhere else.  Strange.  As we
were carrying little if any Swiss currency, and getting low on
gas, this got quite precarious out in the wilds until we were able to
find the nice man who changed money for us.  Cold, dark, and 
creepy there in the frozen tips of the planet.  

On the next jaunt to that country, we had a better time and were
better prepared.  Saw Grindelwald, Interlaken, Gstaad, etc.  This time,
the unattended gas station we visited seemed more friendly - as I
recall, it read the credit card properly, and the absentee owner kindly
left (as we began to see all owners did) a clean bucket, window
washing equipment, sponges, etc.  What hospitality.  And no one
steals the stuff - imagine!  I've never seen so many clean cars in
my life as I did in Switzerland.

Also, I must say that the Swiss excel beyond belief at neatly
stacking their firewood. This was so obsessive it became a real
joke with us.  I've not seen ANYTHING so well cared
for as their stacked, chopped logs.  It was unreal - like a machine
or a computer had done it.  At one point, we stopped to take a
picture of this in the middle of the night:  someone had built an
entire garage of neatly stacked wood and parked their car in it.  I think
they just used it up as needed, and then built another one right
next to it when the first ran out - quite a system.

Another amazing thing about Switzerland is their super long tunnels.
We went thru one we noted as being 15 kilometers in length.  Don't
think there's anything like that anywhere else that I've seen.  Some
even kindly have radio broadcast systems inside, so you don't lose
track of where you were in your favorite schlock American country-
western tune.

Especially noteworthy was our second venture into France, from where
our plane eventually departed back to the US.  In a tour book, we
discovered the "Cocoon" - an RV-sized teeny, tiny accommodation
at very modest prices RIGHT in the bottom of the De Gaulle airport.  We
simply drove the rental car in, returned it, put our luggage in
the elevator, and checked into this micro-miracle.  There's
barely room to put down your luggage, much less stand up, but each
unit is plasticized inside for easy cleaning, and includes bed,
tiny shower, and miniature toilet.  It nearly made my vanagon
seem spacious, but seemed a welcome alternative to having to deal
with the $300+ hotel prices in Paris.  This costs about $50-70
by comparison and we figured it was worth it alone for being able to
tell the story about how unusual it was.

If I had this trip to do over again, I'd change a lot more money
in advance and have been better prepared.  I was forewarned about
things being closed for the Easter holiday, but didn't expect the
situation to be as serious as it was - like there were days in a row
where we simply couldn't buy food.  Also, I had forgotten about things
being closed on Good Friday as well.

The second thing I'd do is learn how to better read roadsigns.  In one
instance, I was tired, not paying much attention, and drove clear
up to a Swiss alp mountain top only to find the pass there closed
(with about 20 parked empty cars, as if people somehow had mysteriously
died and evaporated from within them up there in the frozen area), because
I had failed to note the sign indicating that this particular pass was
still closed due to snow.  

The third thing was that I never remembered to seek out my one
TV show in German (Northern Exposure), which I understand is called
'Ausgerechneter Alaska" there, and I was looking forward to hearing
the overdubs/seeing the sub-titles by comparison.  Oh, well.
The fourth is that I wish I had remembered to bring an inverter.  I stupidly
forgot this, and couldn't use my modem in the London airport.  Doh!

All in all, it was a great trip:  we saw 9 countries and drove over
4,000 miles - no small feat considering the time allotment was
20 days.  I'm not even going to GUESS how much beer we drank,
though.  And, no, Bradley didn't start any fires.  :)