Bit By Bit

Scotland the Brave

00bitbybit00 — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:13:00 GMT

As we write this, our last missive of the days we spent in Europe, it has already been two and a half months since we've been back. That is just over the amount of time we actually spent travelling. Much has happened since our return, including our recent return to the exact same apartment number of the exact same apartment complex, this time freshly painted with new carpet. Not too many days go by without us looking at each other and saying, thoughtfully and carefully, because we are still homesick for the remainder of our adventures, "Where would we be now?" And we would go through our mental map, dot the trail to where we should be, and wonder what it would be like. A total bum deal, like Denmark? A time of rest and solitude, like Sweden? Or a smashing success like Rudesheim? A money trap like Cologne? Would the litter and grafitti be just as intense? The homeless just as broken and aged? Would the temperature have finally crossed over into 'warm'?

This message comes to you from Greece, which was intended to be the tail end of our original journey. If any of you recall, we had been planning the trip to Greece for a year with our sister Victoria and Rebecca's mother, in honor of Victoria's high school graduation. It had been paid for in advance, to assure that nothing would keep us from potentially ruining her time of celebration. We have arrived safely, and indeed already finished our first day of the Four Day Classical Tour. It was a long day. But we cannot tell this story, until we finish the last.

We did not see much of Scotland, but what we did was well worth it. We did not even venture from Edinburgh, and we spent five rather glorious days there. We found a place to stay in record time, as technology is very much in our favor, and the Scottish are a friendly and helpful people. With the assistance of our guidebook and an app on the iPhone a bus shuttle from the airport dropped us off in a rather central location. We stopped in at the Royal Scotsguard Hostel, but they were booked. The jolly old man that answered our ring took us to the connecting building, which was a club for the Royal Scotsguard - the basic equivalent of our VFW. He asked his buddy behind the bar where he should send us for a good rate. The buddy was so insistant on doing us right that he took us outside by his rolling brogue and pointed up the road at a possible place, repeating the directions with his thick tongue at least three times until we actually went full circle on his directions ("The white saign thar, ya seeatt?" "The white one behind that yellow one?" "Aye, that theer white one. Raight thar." "Oh, you mean the one to the left of the yellow one?" "Aye, that white sign to the lift, raight whar ma fainger is pointin'." "Mmm, so the white one behind the yellow?") It wound up being a good fit. The bathroom was in need of a serious re-do, and the carpet could have stood to be changed, but we got a special deal because we intended on staying four nights, and breakfast and WiFi thrown into the deal. Our host was a plump version of Michael Meyers, and talked just like him, his laughter often sarcastic and standing on top of an excuse. He was a grand host, and we would recommend the place, but he sure did know how to skirt around any issues. It was freezing cold in the room during the day, and turns out they turned off the heat from 10AM to 7PM ("This be ain auld Sca'ish home, aind the bricks hold in the haight during the daiy.") That hearty Scottish breakfast made up for any discomforts. Two fried eggs, two slices of toast apiece, some thick-sliced bacon, baked beans or stewed potatoes, some hearty rolls of sausage, coffee or tea. It sat in our stomachs as heavy as the tone in our ears.

We wandered the streets during the day, as we always did. There was a park in the center of the city, a bit of a valley, rolled over with deep, fresh grass, dotted with monuments and trees, a playground on one side, right by a cemetary, where the graves were roped off and hand-written signs warned about collapsing. An ampitheater was on one side, and on the other a steep incline reached up to the topmost part of the valley, which towered high above the city, the Edinburgh castle crowning its city. It looked down on full streets of shopping plazas, and the sea that was broken by islands. We visited the castle one day, and we went to the Camera Obscura as well, one of the few that is set up in the world.

On Good Friday we went to the St. John's church that sits above the cemetary of collapsing graves. We waited out in the cold for nearly an hour for the doors to open, and then listened to a sung rendition of the last few chapters of the book of Mark. At first we didn't know what to do, if we should skip out, because we were going to be bored to death. But the voices lulled us, the sing-song of the scriptures was enchanting, and the performance was absolutely lovely. Turns out we were supposed to stay in the rows until the chorus had filed down the center aisle, but we slipped out the back as soon as everyone stood. Rebecca tried shaking one of the priests' hands, voicing her praise of the performance, and he waved her on, real irritated like. The flash of red choir gowns behind us, stalking us through the door and down the front steps, told us our mistake.

On the day we went to the castle, we looked down at the minions below, scattered on the park, and chuckled to ourselves at a strange-looking group. "Are those Buddhist monks?" It turned out that they were practicing an outdoor Easter play, and we watched them for a while. We went back on Saturday, for the performance, and have never been so impressed. Our role as the crowd was to be exactly that, only we were transported back two thousand years to Christ's last days. We watched Jesus with a Scottish accent, and his disciples with an equally curious tone, as they trashed the temple. We traipsed along the hills of the park and felt more than the chill of the winter wind as Jesus wept in the garden of Gethsemane. We were meant to be swept in the cries for Him to be crucified, and we followed close behind as He carried His cross across the bridge and up the road to the top of a hill, where He was crucified and reappeared to His followers. The sound system and music made the whole performance, and must have taken a lot of work to get set up.

We went back to the Scotsguard Club at least two or three more nights, and we talked to the gentleman who had helped us originally, a man by the name of Chic, and we drank Scottish beer and watched football (which is soccer to Americans). The great thing about our time there was that we found ourselves invited to a piping competition which would be held on the final day of our tour of Europe. The competetion was between the number two, who came from Ireland, and the number three, who came from Scotland. Although we were shabbily dressed on game day, we were received with warmth, and ushered upstairs. We meandered into a small room with only a few tables, and found ourselves part of a very elite selection. There couldn't have been more than thirty other people. The pipes reverberated brightly in the small room, and for an hour and a half we listened and watched, the fingers fluttering over the holes, the smart black shoes tapping out a smart, marching beat. When it was done we voted for our favorite, and of course the Scottish kid one, but they all swore up and down that it was fair, and not favoritism. We ate a hearty dish of rice and curry chicken, and talked to the old man at our table, who wore a tweed suit and had mimed the pipes with his gnarled fingers as he listened. Turns out he had been playing most of his life, and was a teacher at the piping college in Clairmont, California. He urged Michael to go, to follow his dream, and gave us information. There was a raffle for some prizes, and amidst our confusion we wound up purchasing some thirty tickets, and were terrified that we would look like the arrogant Americans who just had to win all the prizes. Thankfully we only took home one, and Chic smiled with pride as Rebecca went to receive the bottle of wine. He told the tale of our journey from America, and was proud to bestow us with the memory.

We would have liked to see more of Scotland, the landscape, and perhaps a glance of something pertaining to William Wallace. But it was not meant to be. So we left Scotland for the States, and our travels were over.

Passport Control/ Norway to Scotland

00bitbybit00 — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 05:05:00 GMT

It goes without saying that it was more than ironic when we decided, on Aprli Fool's day, that we were going to head home. The decision was instantaneous, and powerful, and we talked about it for hours instead of wandering around Scotland. We discussed the details, the reasonings, our feelings about it, both towards each other and even what people would think. We would like to point out that nothing negative spurred us homeward bound. As a matter of fact, the travelling has becoming more and more easy and we were finally approaching territory we had a real passion to see. It was, one hundred percent, the exchange rate. For all of our planning before we left, there is no way to factor in a crippling exchange rate. The percentage depleted us of at least thirty percent of our funds, more leaning towards forty, which is a staggering number. And while our hearts cried out to continue on the wide open road, returning home sounded good in a lot of ways too. All in all, we made the decision to stop while we were ahead. We will still be joining Rebecca's mother and sister in Greece in June, as originally planned, which we built our entire European trip around, hoping to end there. So that's that. We told everyone we would be back before you knew it. How true was that? As long as it has seemed since we left, virtually no time has passed. But will it be enough?

So remember how we said, before we left, that we were going to be staying in hostel dorms and couch-surfng? And remember how we mentioned not too long ago that it wound up being cheaper for two people to stay in a double room, most often anyway, because a surprising amount of hostels charge for the use of linen, for breakfast, and for internet privileges? Well, Michael had gotten us set up for couchsurfing as soon as he found out we were going to be leaving, and it has yet to work out. We didn't start out pursueing a host as often as we did towards the last few weeks, but every response was a negative one. On our way out of Stockholm we received a message from a glad retiree who even offered to pick us up from the train station. We had just long enough to high-five each other before finding out it wasn't going to work because said host's mother-in-law had finally started dying after years of being a critical state. We admit to being a bit picky with our search, as in wanting to be hosted by a couple, minimum age of 26. The purpose was to be with individuals who are at least semi-responsible. Of course we could choose to stay with the 21-year-olds who praise the power of the strong drink on their profiles, quoting how they want to experience as much fun as they can while alive and loving to party. As time went on we adjusted our search to those over the age of 26 even if they were single, but we still gravitated towards those who are already bringing in the retirement checks. Not to mention, a good amount of people are of the opposite political views, so where would be the fun in that? We could imagine it being a 'sleep with one eye open' scenerio. So couchsurfing didn't wind up going that well. And if we never wound up staying with someone and it means we were saved a probable kidnapping and years in a basement or some sort of lead paint poisoning or exposure to radiation: that is fine with us.

There are two more blogs that will cover the remainder of our trip. This one focusing on some more random topics (such as our decision to return to the States), and our experience with the UK's security. The second being a surmisal of our time in Scotland, which was wonderful, and a truly amazing way to finish our tour.

As we previously noted, it literally took twenty minutes to check in our bags and go through security in the Norwegian airport. We more than made up for that later.

The first flight left at a little after ten and got into London about an hour later. We arrived in London, had a nice meal, and spent a good amount of time ambling through duty free shops and reading. When it came time to board our plane, we found out that we had missed passport control. Passport control was 'right down the hall', which turned out to be practically a mile of escalator sidewalk. Despite all of the walking we have been doing, that jog really had us winded. We then waited through three rows of people waiting in line for customs, only to find out we hadn't needed to go through that line at all. How can you work at the airport and not know where people have to go? One lady said we could just go back to our plane. Much disgruntled, we double-checked with another man who sent us to international connections customs. With a twinge in the back of the neck, and a sharp pain gathering behind one eye, we got in the line labeled US Passport Holders, and us being the only ones in line, the lady behind the shielded desk (the passport control officer, if you will be so kind) instructed us to get at the back of the other line, which was not so long but labeled for those with UK Passports. We told her, "We have US passports" and boy did we get some attitude on that one. So we move to the other side, because what are you going to do?, and we're talking about how we're going to miss our flight, when the people in front of us suggested that we just ask everyone if we can go ahead of them. Everyone was most gracious, and there only a few parties in front of us, and we found ourselves face to face with Miss Passport Control once again. However, she had already decided not to like us. "You need to fill out the landing form," she said. "We aren't landing, we're connecting," we insisted with emphasis. For some reason, this made her even angrier, and she said she knew but we still had to fill out the form. Fully convinced as to the loss of our flight, and completely voided of steam, we went off to the side to fill out the form, muttering under our breath, and got back in line.

On our second turn we were helped by Mr. Passport Control, who had apparently noticed his colleagues frustration with us. What followed was an interrogation that was more intense than the ones we underwent in order to receive our secrent clearances for the USMC. It went something like this:

"We need an address of where you are going to be staying." We don't really have one, we have just been going to the tourist offices upon our arrivals.

"You can't expect me to let you into the UK with no means of getting out." We have plane tickets leaving from Ireland to the Czech Republic on May 5th.

"How much money do you have access to?" "What do you do for work?" "If you are a student, why aren't you in classes right now?" By that point we were thoroughly irritated, but something moved between us, fingers playing on harp strings, and his exaggerated feelings towards our suggested incompetence bound us in a molasses of calm. We watched him with wide eyes, betraying no desire to win him over. We were serious business. We were wearing the black sunglasses and the trenchcoats. You think you are playing games with our heads, but you are just playing behind your desk. We knew that he could not keep us from entering the country. We did know that he could keep us from making our flight and, indeed, had probably succeeded in doing so. But when it reaches a certain point, what's the point in surrendering on behalf of anger and frustration? The answer to his last question was obvious, and Rebecca's compliance brought light to how dull his weapon had been: I did not sign up for spring classes because we were taking this trip. "What other countries have you been to?" "What are you planning on doing in the UK?" "What date are you leaving the Uk/and where from?" "Where are you going next in the UK?" For the third or fourth time he put down our passports, with a sardonic laugh of disbelief, and says, "So what you're telling me is that you have access to very little money, you are coming into the UK with no proof of when you are leaving. What does that sound like to you? What do you think they would say in the US?" In that moment, we shared a separate but simultaneous and enormous guffaw. Later on we joked about how great it would have been if we had looked at each other, laughed and thrown up our hands, and admitted with extreme joviality: we would let you come right on in, and pay you too! But at the time, we looked him square in the eyes, really trying to communicate that we knew how ridiculous he was being, and reminded him for the third or fourth time: Do you need us to print out our confirmation number? All we needed was access to the internet, and he could see for himself that we most assuredly had plane tickets. Finally, after more repeatings of the same nonsense that we didn't know what we were doing or why, Michael ended the whole session by stating plain and simple it was unnecessary for us to have an exact address as to where we were staying, and to know where we were heading next, as it seemed fairly obvious Europe got a lot of young people backpacking around. We had tickets out of the country, so if he needed a confirmation we could have it if we were given internet access. It was pretty much over after that. There was no more ammo. We all know about the young people who backpack Europe. Whenever we mentioned to friends that we were leaving for Europe, they would say, "Like backpacking?" And whenever we arrived in a new country they would say, "So you're backpacking?" Let's be real, Mr. Passport Control, if we can't at least be adults. He didn't seem to hesitate when he finally stamped our way into the country, but he did punish those little blue booklets. We actually heard the pages cry out in pain. Funny, how some of our only marks in the passports were dealt out like such a punishment. His wrist actually quivered, and it would have been no surprise to hear the bones crack and come slicing through his skin, pulverized under his severity. Yes, Mr. Passport Control, we see what you're doing. We realize that you are letting us in when you find it to be against your better instinct. We promise to not let you down, Mr. Passport Control.

Seeing as he let us go on the minute our plane was scheduled to leave the ground, we felt justified in assuming he had done it on purpose. Not to mention, another family from the UK was taken by the original lady in the US Passports line that we had been sent out of earlier. We wondered silently if she thought she was teaching us a lesson. Not to worry, Miss Passport Control, we know you have all the power, and we fear you and respect you for that. As a matter of fact, it makes us darn right helpless. And certainly not to sound ignorant, but to send home the reality of our interrogation, a very religious woman, covered from head to toe in black, right down to the gloves and slits barely making room for her eyes, was sent on through after a five second exchange. Miss Passport Control actually had time to take a break (apparently dealing with a UK family in th US line had really wiped her out), and was resummoned to verify the face of the religious woman, who could not be seen by a man, and to send her through.

Passport control opens to a place where you stand a yellow line and get your picture taken. Also, we are not sure in what order this transpired, but aside from our initial walk through security for our connecting flight, we wound up going through that same security twice more due to how everything transpired. It was actually getting to feel quite silly. And Rebecca, who had never worn so much cotton, kept setting off the alarm and requiring a patdown. The waterbottles also set off the alarm one of the times through, and while it did not cause any problems, we had to wait for someone to assess the situation and empty them. Once we went through all we immediately asked where we were supposed to go to get new tickets. The desk for our airline called baggage and told us that we had to go and reclaim our bags so they could be put on whatever flight we were going to be changed to, and it looked like the next flight left in an hour and half, but that we would probably be stand by. Great. Awesome. So, yes, this meant that we had to stand through the original customs line we had waited through and been redirected from earlier. And the funniest part of that was Mr. Passport Control had been transferred over to that station. We laughed to ourselves, the odds of getting placed with him, but it was the person in front of us who got the pleasure. It also felt silly explaining our situation to the man who checked our passport stamps, but he waved us on through.

We made it down to baggage, explained our situation, and a very exasperated baggage handler called up to the desk that had sent us down and very politely explained people who had missed their flights did NOT need to reclaim their luggage as it would all be handled through the system. He then called the main ticket desk for us and got us set up for another departure. How is it that someone in baggage can know the workings of the entire airport, and those with specific jobs can not seem to handle even that?

We almost stood in the wrong line to get our new tickets, but asked before it was too late and were redirected to Customer Service. Turns out the baggage guy really knew his stuff, as our seats were already reserved on that next flight (the ones we would have supposedly been standby for), and only needed to be printed out. By this time we were getting exhausted, but we still had to go through security. After all, we were back at square one. Well, we had bought some face washes and hair spray at one of the duty free stores on 'the other side' before everything had gone wrong, but when the man at security checked the receipt he said it wasn't valid. The receipt is supposed to read which terminal it came from. We were not going down without a fight. That man called another woman, and they both seemed rather confused at our insistance, as it was obvious we were lying and had bought the stuff at the drug store down the road. But insist we did, and while they were most polite, the man even swearing he believed us but still couldn't let us through, even trying to pack the stuff into those ziploc bags and failing, it was apparent that the woman was impatient with our lack of virtue. We insisted on someone from that duty free shop being contacted, and she disappeared. Right when we were about to throw up our hands and move on or risk missing our flight, she came sailing around the corner, waving the receipt, "It's the right store!" More apologies, and no hard feelings, she escorted us through security. We got our pictures taken again and we were boarded. By golly, we were on our way to Scotland!

Photos: Norway

00bitbybit00 — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:54:00 GMT

Photos: Berlin

00bitbybit00 — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:37:00 GMT

Norway (minus the Vikings but plus another a very important character)

00bitbybit00 — Sun, 4 Apr 2010 06:45:00 GMT

Our most successful overnight bus ride yet saw us into Oslo, Norway. Plenty of space, and limited stops. We slept most of the way. There is something about those extended rides, though, that makes one awfully thirsty. We had gotten into the habit of buying a bottle of wine before each journey, because we were unsure of another way to cope that worked out quite as well. So it seemed that the wine would lead to the thirst, but even the times we did not take some we woke up craving gatorade, scarfing what little gummy worms we had stashed at the bottom of a backback, clawing at our clothes, longing for a fresh breeze and a convertible top letting rain in.

Michael says that a few times on the drive he woke up terrified to find the bus careening down mountain passes with fog on every side and in front, making the world shapeless and void once again. He was so caught up wondering when our ride was going to fly over the edge that the only solution was to go back to sleep. Rebecca saw none of this, but she was the first to see the snow. Still the snow, on all sides. But what does one expect from Norway? Now, to see some Norseman, that would be great.

We got in a little before six in the morning, and couldn't figure out if we should show up at our room two hours earlier than the time we had put on the internet, or just wait in the train station. It didn't take us long to decide it would be better to at least give it a try at the Anker than to just sit in a freezing terminal, not yet open. Michael had started investing in finding places for us to stay before we actually got there, and it turned out to work exceedingly in our favor.

As we walked the streets, Michael leading us there successfully from the first go, we passed through a population primarily Middle Eastern. Turns out twenty percent of Norway's population is foreign, giving much-needed aid to the work force. Basically, we didn't get to see any Norseman. But what did we expect in a world fast becoming the same place everywhere? Suprisingly, as different as certain places can be, and with every country offering its own special something, everywhere is pretty much the same. It seems all men think the same, feel the same, and want the same thing, and this all has to do with what is best for them. So even though we were in Norway the building where we stayed was sandwhiched in a neighborhood full of kabab houses and places where women went to get their weave, christened such names as Angel's Afro.

As always, after a long night, we did not do much on arrival. We slept for a few hours, cleaned up, and hit the tourist office. We got set up with the Norway Pass, which is the card that allows free access to most attractions/museums, and public transport. Since we intended on seeing more in Norway than we had in the past, and it required much travel, the Pass was great. You can get them for every city, but doing the math to make sure they add up to what you really want to see is advisable. We even got a twenty percent discount at some restaurants. We also got set up for the Norway in a Nutshell tour, which consists of twelve hours of train/bus/ferry rides that take you through the mountains, and along the famous fjords, where waterfalls pour down from the peaks into the water below. While the journeying didn't sound that fun, we had to make the trip across the country anyway, so why not get a good eyefull while we were at it?

From the tourist office we walked to the Nobel Peace Center. It had barely come into sight before we comtemplated turning back. The fifth ever exhibit had been chosen to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama in tandem. It was called: From King to Obama. "I have a dream...This is our time". The displays were highly praising, reading headlines such as 'Rosa sat so that King could dream, King dreamt so that Obama could run, and Obama ran so our kids could fly'. We found this to be particularly humorous, especially in our current situation, as the private/corporate flight industries have all but gone under and it's virtually impossible to be a small business owner anymore. After the months of not being involved in politics, coming back into the scene just as the health care bill was passed, we struggled a lot with even wanting to return to America. Naturally, our family is in the States and there is no point in being separated from them, but every place we stopped along our journies became a prospective home. The exhibition was a salt on our wounds, making all of the sacrifice given on behalf of the country a waste, stripping pride from the title. How many times on our trip had we been embarrassed saying we came from America? The sympathetic shrugs we got from people, the unapologetic admitting that nobody wanted to visit what had once been the greatest nation on earth. Said nation which now lies in the shadow of a forgotten history. We want no part in it, but how do we get those years back? The redeeming moment of our time through the halls came in a few short lines from Hugo Chavez. A wall was set up with comments on Obama's nomination for the Prize, and the most rewarding was from a man Obama had spent months catering too. Mr. Chavez himself said that Obama didn't deserve it, he hadn't been in office long enough, hadn't done anything to deserve it. Thank God for one moment of sanity. Too bad it came from a communist. What does that say about our own leadership?

Having removed the political soapbox, we went from the Nobel Peace Prize center to the City Hall. Norway has more city halls than churches, claiming to be a government in love with its people. The City Hall in Oslo is one giant canvas, each wall, each ceiling, covered with bright colors, full murals reaching out towards each other, joining to tell ancient Norwegian legends and stories from history.

We visited the Viking Ship Museum the next day. It consisted of some glass cases with artifacts and three Viking ships that had been excavated already a hundred years ago, preserved in some spectacular blue clay since the first century. We learned about the shallower structures, manned by fifteen sets of oars, for leisurly travel on still waters. The more rotund boats, manned by sixteen sets of oars, were for the high seas. The Norseman were genius at boat building, and they were large and fearless people. They stole and plundered what they needed from others less fortunate, and ruled the seas. (As a side note: Viking is a term for any such seafaring folk from all of Scandinavia, while the Norseman are those Vikings particularly from Norway). All three of the ships we saw had been buried fully equipped with tools and riches for the dead who had been set up on their decks, ready for passage into the next world. It is assumed that the chests bearing the money and riches were broken into by grave robbers. We saw fine silk garments, thousands upon thousands of years old, preserved in that blue silk, and the only Viking cart in existence today.

As a side note, we have decided that children under the age of seven should not be allowed through museums. Their level of disruption, whether they are trying or not, is unbelievable. Who wants to pay an arm and a leg to go through a musuem to have youngsters literally running between the exhibits, pushing past people that are simply trying to do the musuem thing by actually reading the plaques and examining the artifacts? Who wants to listen to the toddler repeat the same thing over and over, and have it reverberate off the high ceilings and granite walls? It's understandable that parents want to see museums too, but the options are just not the same for those weighted down by their kids. First of all, if they had the decency to have some control of their offspring, that would be one thing. But you can only do so much to stop the crying baby, and any child older than that would hate the boredom! So a daycare system would be brilliant, or just leave them at home. We don't pay good money to be subjected to your family. Plus, why do people even take their kids on vacation? Okay, so the Carolinas is different, where you can play on the beach and have all sorts of fun as a family. But the historical kind of sight-seeing vacation is just not for the young ones. You might not agree, but be fore-warned, it takes a single little one to ruin an entire experience. And if you still don't agree and it winds up being your little one, than be fore-warned that every single silent individual is secretly judging you and hating your precious child.

From the Viking Ship Museum we went to the Kon-Tiki Museum. Although we had never heard of it before, it wound up being a very special place. It was founded in honor of a Norwegian by the name of Thor Heyerdahl who devoted his life to cultural and environmental experiments. Thor started out with his wife when they were freshly married, in their early twenties, being placed on a uninhabited island with no rescources in order to gather certain samples. They learned to survive off of the island itself, existing in a literal paradise for over a year. It came to an end when the natives learned how to brew beer, and the previous friendship was disrupted by drunkenness. The couple was actually forced to hide out on the beach for weeks until they spotted a passing ship. After much studying, Thor embarked on an expedition to Easter Island, which the natives from his paradise island had told him about. They had spoken of legends that intrigued Thor, and he set out to prove that individuals from South American could have crossed the sea on balsawood rafts and had cross-cultural interactions long before originally assumed. The balsawood raft he and his crew used is on display at the musuem, a marvelous sight, and what a feeling of accomplishment it must have brought. They lived on that raft for 101 days at sea, all of them from different religious and cultural backgrounds (another experiment to see if men from all backgrounds could work together and be friends). The raft was called Kon-Tiki, and it was Thor who brought about the TIki craze in America during the sixties and seventies. He and his crew spent some time on Easter Island, the least populated piece of land on the earth, and together they learned about the culture and practically became part of the tribe. They took casts of the Tiki statues with tons of dental cement, and even built one themselves, walking it across the island with rope like the ancients had done.

While this might seem to be unimportant information, the coolest part about Easter Island is the egg hunt. Every year there was race on the edge of the cliff, where the birds kept their nests, to see who would find an egg first. Whoever found that first egg had obviously been chosen by the gods to be the next leader. See the connection yet? It's the Easter Egg Hunt! Naturally, it would be done on Easter, because of Easter Island, which was named Easter Island because it was discovered on Easter day some time ago. Funny, we never wondered where the Easter Egg Hunt came from, until we learned about it.

At one point in the museum there is the option to take two ways through some mock caves, and Rebecca decided on the smaller, more frightening looking one. You can't see past the opening, and once you gather your breath and force yourself to take the first step, you have just enough time to become comfortable with the new surroundings, your eyes adjust to the dimmer light, and a machine sends a blasting hiss behind you, scaring the daylights out of you. So Rebecca gave a small outcry, and then beckoned Michael. She couldn't hear him very well, but he was chuckling nervously, trying to convince her they would meet on the other side. She berated him, insisting he join her, and not giving in to his request as to the cause of her fright. A few seconds later she saw a tentative white box floating before her, and she realized it was attached to an arm. A few more seconds and Michael's pale face followed, cast in the light from his iPhone. Despite his trepidation, he wasn't nearly as effected by the hiss as his wife, but she was still glad to have something to tease him about.

Anyway, Thor continued to hold more expeditions, and we are intrigued to read his books when we get home. As always, feel free to google this info as we are pretty certain something in our narrative is probably out of timeline, and could even be totally fabricated due to excitement in retelling one man's crazy and adventurous life.

We cut across the street from the Kon-Tiki Musuem to the Polar Expedition. It held the ship which went on three polar expeditions in the early 1900s. The museum was actually built around the ship, which had been pulled onto land. The building was about as cold as the polar regions, and we did not stay long. We only went to use our passes. Once again, we had an easy evening, relaxing for our long day on the morrow.

The Norway in a Nutshell tour was one hundred percent aweome, but the pictures we took really didn't turn out that well. The first five hours were on a train, full of skiers with all of their gear who got on and got off at the small stations we stopped at along the way. It was a winter wonderland outside, the snow blowing and coming down fast and thick. We stared out of our window at those standing on the train platforms, their hair quickly aging with the snowflakes. We watched the cross-country skiers, marveled at the random homes spread throughout the hills, half buried in drifts. We got off that train for a smaller one, particularly for the Nutshell tour. It took us another hour through the mountains, and we passed over tiny villages, fields outlined in rock walls which looked like they had been plotted by holding a string and dropping it over the territory. We went through tunnels that ran us along the clearest rivers and streams, fed by the many waterfalls. In some places the frozen-over falls were electric blue. At one point we stopped to take pictures of one particular waterfall, which had actually frozen over, but the snow hung in the air in large flakes, and it was enough to make us dizzy, make us wonder if we were upside down or right-side up, or inside of a snowglobe. It was the most beaufitul kind of snowfall, and not quite a snowfall at all, but where the snow came down from the clouds and came up from the earth and hovered in space, with us breaking up the most symmetrical kind of dance. In every portion of valley, or on any jutting of precipice, were the little towns, or clumps of pine trees. The truest of greens, those pines were, and the grass the most majestic of golds, everywhere complimented by the smudge and frame of the black cliffside, of the red house and barn. Those rivers that cut through the towns, shallow and slow moving, were of the clearest aqua marine, and you hoped with all your heart that they were full of children in the warmer days. Our two hour ferry ride us took us along the fjord, fed by waterfalls which dropped from teh cliff faces on either side of us.

We took an hour long bus ride to our final train. We were tired by then, and most people napped. The rest of us stared out the window, not getting quite enough. The trouble set in after we waited an hour for the train, and then when we got on the train we waited another hour, and an announcment was made that some woman was nice enough to interpret for us. Apparently all of the trains in the country had stopped since they had all lost radio communications. So this meant they were sending in emergency busses and we had another hour and a half on a bus to get to our hotel.

Well, we got there, and slept in late, and took another five hour ferry to the city of Stavanger, where we spent the night and got up at the crack of dawn, even before that, to get to the airport. It tooks us no more than twenty minutes to check in our bags and go through security, and we marveled at the efficiency of this foreign airport. The marvelling stopped there...

Stockholm, Sweden

00bitbybit00 — Thu, 1 Apr 2010 18:33:00 GMT

At six o'clock in the morning, with the sun high in the sky, the streets bustling with people. we pulled into Stockholm. Another overnight bus ride. As a side note, people in the bathroom in these European countries do the nastiest things. It never fails that we always go in behind someone who left behind a carcass, or there are the rare and shocking circumstances of nasty evidence that is barely distinguishable but just so enough to be haunting. So it was not a surprise when, on the way to Stockholm, someone chose to sit in the bathroom of the bus for over forty-five minutes. We established it was more than likely because they did not want to sit next to a stranger, and would rather inconvenience the entire bus, because anybody who was sick would still not be locking themselves in the only public restroom for almost an hour. Rebecca promised herself and her husband that at two-thirty she would confront the bus driver if the bathroom was still in use, and at 2:25 someone else asked him about it. By the grace of God, at 2:28 we pulled into a designated pit stop at a gas station. Filing out of the door, we mentioned to the bus driver someone had been hogging the facilities, and as we raced to the ones in the gas station we saw him heading into the back of the bus with his keys. The same selfish individual did not resume their post when we started again.

There were no tourist offices at the central station in Stockholm, but signs hung up everywhere offering tourist information. Turned out they were just pointing in the direction of computers that were hard to use. We decided to hole up in the nearby McDonalds, and used their wireless internet and ate a hearty breakfast for a good two hours. Michael did some research on places to stay and copied it to his phone. Of course we wandered around for our usual lengthy amount of time, with rain coming down, and when we had gotten frustrated enough to turn back to the train station we came up with the great idea of buying a map along the way. Which we did, that led us much more true than the GoogleMaps copied to the iPhone.

We arrived just wet enough, and thoroughly exhausted, to find the doors of the place locked. It was almost a terrible time in our lives, when the hostess suddenly appeared from the back door. The first thing she did upon giving us our room key was also give us the code to the door. She was a delightful soul, giving us hot tea and even taking Rebecca's 'trousers' to the wash with her stuff because she saw they were wet up to the knee. We had no intentions of going anywhere that day, and we held true. We got situated enough to throw something on to watch until we passed out for a long and unbroken nap. When we did wake up we went to the tourist office, a decent walk away, short enough to be very convenient and long enough to make us glad when we got there. We would have walked past it, had it not been for Michael noticing the ugly pillows that look like the signs warning for moose crossing. Scandinavia is obsessd with moose, and also with an ugly troll-looking creature. Michael figured that something so pointless as that moose pillow could only be sold at a tourist place. Of course he was right. We looked into hockey games, but no luck in that department. We gathered up handfuls of brochures. When we were satisified with our material, we walked out of the door and looked to the left and the right.

"Shall we eat at that place?" Rebecca pointed. Which turned out to be a TGI Friday's, and we did a jig for joy and thanked the heavens. The rest of the evening was relaxed and uneventful. We slept in our room with no windows, and we awoke to pitch black and a clock that said it was almost 9AM.

That first day after our arrival we went to Skansen, which is Europe's largest folk museum (basically being the equivalent of Hale Farm from Ohio, or Greenfield Village in Michigan- although Greenfield Village takes the cake by far). We began by eating a meal consisting mainly of french fries due to a miscommunication, accompanied by a few genuine Swedish meatballs. Stuffed with 'fritas', and smelling of coffee, we paid our way into the park. While the brochure annotates that the folk museum is open year round, it fails to mention that it means the main gates, and not the cabins and shops, which are supposed to be bursting with life and hosted by people dressed in traditional garb with stories to tell. We were led astray by the first home we passed into, which was actually a duplex shared by two families who were tenant farmers, and the friendliest man was there to tell us all about it. He was the first and last host we saw. But that did not stop us from having fun. The park was virtually empty of people, so there was no inconveniencing by a population that has proved itself, thus far, as extremely rude and selfish. We pet the horses and poked the cows, grunted at the pigs who blinked at us beneath their ears, which hung over their heavily-lashed eyes like palm branches. We plodded through the muddy trails, and took pictures of the red church that is the most married in. At the back of the folk museum are Scandinavian animals, pretty much a zoo. And the seals were actually out, one otter stood at attention, very much wanting a snack, and we saw two wolves curled up for rest. The bears were long gone, so was the wolverine, and the lynx was napping. We learned about the reindeers, who were the most active creatures in all of the park, and how the Swedes would follow their migration, much like the Native Americans following the buffalo, moving from one camp of tents and lean-tos to the next. Our tour ended in the more towny part of the park, with an exciting blast of good old-fashioned glass blowing. The guy was a real hoot, in the total opposite sense of the word, and he wasn't even wearing a costume. We soothed our disappointment with a Swedish pastry from a plump baker with red hair wearing the white hat with flour on his cheeks. We did not get to see the kitchen, and the book binder was closed.

We take this time to tell you the sad tale of one of the first buildings we stopped at upon our arrival, filled with those howler monkeys (or maybe some kind of lemur? The black and white ones with long hair on the tails). The environment was intended to be natural, so the monkeys were caged up with black-cheeked lovebirds, and we delighted in seeing the close relations to our own friend we left behind (Chuck, we will return to you!). The monkeys were particularly playful, and our eyes followed one who jumped to the ground, sitting on a flat rock. To our horror, we saw a pitiful specimen of a lovebird, the saddest, scrawniest, sickliest little Chuck that ever was, no feathers but those on his head. He sat on the flat rock, next to the panting monkey, until the monkey looked down and saw him, and then patted him roughly on the head. What happend next is not for the weak of heart, and Michael eventually had to drag Rebecca from the room. The monkeys collectively ganged up on the inferior creature, chasing it around the cage, allowing it only barely to land before leaping after it, knocking it off its perch, chasing it around and around. There was no intent to harm it other than the slow torture they were performing. It would have been easier to watch the feathered head ripped from the featherless body. Later that afternoon, when it came time for us to leave, we passed the same building and Rebecca asked Michael, "Should we do it?" "Not a chance!" he insisted, knowing that she was suggesting they check on the wellfare of the bird. But Rebecca was beside herself, wringing her hands, crying out about the injustice, pleading with God for mercy on His poor defenseless creation. Michael suffered himself to return to the wretched environment, and found the bird sitting on the flat rack once again, undisturbed [for the time]. Had there not been the chance of a language barrier we would have acted on behalf of Chuck, even though mostly everyone in Scandinavia spoke fluent English (minus the cashier who rang up our lunch as mainly french fries, and then gave us more when we tried to set it right). Instead we left it in the hands of the care-takers, who would have to know that one of their charges was suffering so. It was as if the bird was sitting on that flat rock, in wide open view of the window, completely exposed, as his last, desperate attempt at salvation. Surely, he must be thinking, one of those faces will see me. But, then again, if he was already so ill-looking, would he ever be noticed?

On our way home from Skansen we picked up some cheap pad thai and liked it so much that we chose it for the other two nights we were in town as well.

We spent the entire following day in IKEA. Yes, IKEA. For those from the midWest, who do not know IKEA, it is the very epitomy of home decor. The store was actually founded by a Swede when he was only seventeen years old, and what resulted was a chain spreading across the world. Only the midWest is unfortunate enough to not have them. The buildings are large and spacious, signature for their bright blue exterior, emblazened with the block capital letters of IKEA in yellow. We supplied our entire kitchen for only sixty dollars from the IKEA in California. Half of our furniture is from IKEA, costing little over a couple hundred bucks, including our first table with four chairs (which is what IKEA is famous for, being the ready-to-assemble kind, mostly consisting of veneered particle board, but the more expensive stuff being good solid wood). Now, the thing about IKEA is that it is cheap. Hence, the cheap prices. But not everything is the fall-apart, oh-my-gosh-why-did-I-spend-the-money-on-this-piece-of-crap. Sometimes you get what you paid for, but the design isn't to collapse so you have to go out and buy another one. As a matter of fact, we have never needed to replace an IKEA product of ours thusfar. Both of our bookshelves cost forty dollars, and are still going strong. They couldn't support a small child, or stand up straight without the brackets screwed into the wall, but they do a darn good job at being bookshelves. Our set of silverware was somewhere around ten bucks, and while they will rust if left in a puddle too long they have lasted us years so far. We got a twin, down comforter for thirty dollars, and all of the rugs in our home combined cost less than that. Needless to say, they put Wal*Mart to shame as far as prices go, and even offer their own line of bathing products and luggage. The best thing about IKEA is the set-up, consisting of display rooms where you go through and read the tags and write down what you want. The last part is a huge warehouse where you pull the stuff off the shelves, instead of trying to maneuver large carts throughout your shopping experience. This leaves you free to imagine yourself the proud owner of one of those neatly decorated and perefectly harmonious rooms (the smaller stuff can be carried in supplied bags). It took us about three hours to go through the entire building, as it was the largest in the entire world. All we had to do was wait at a bus stop for the free IKEA bus, which came every hour on the hour, taking everyone the thirty minute drive in a big blue bus with the yellow letters IKEA on the side. On every half hour the bus made the return trip from the store. We started the early afternoon with a one hour lunch at the famous cafeteria. Despite its renown for afforable prices on quircky decor (a lot of it leaning towards retro), IKEA is just as famous for its food. Certainly not the best, but in plentiful supply and cheaper than McDonalds. The cafeteria at the largest IKEA in the world, in Sweden, was nothing short of a bustling metropolis of food stations manned by pleasantly efficient chefs in the double-breasted jackets with nametags. We ordered more Swedish meatballs, that came with boiled potatoes instead of a mountain of french fries, like the last time. We got the salad bar which included a roll and butter for the equivalent of fifty American cents. The entire meal came with a fountain beverage and coffee. We were riding on the wings of fat happiness, endorphines flowing freely, by the time it came to hit the displays.

Our last day in town was a bit of a failure, but we were fast learning that while Stockholm was an amazing-looking city, sitting on fourteen separate islands, chock full of glorious architecture, it was not the most exciting. We had originally pretended that we were going to get up at six in the morning to catch a ferry going out to one of the famous fishing villages (called the archepilago, of which Sweden has the largest portion in the world). But after Skansen we were worried about the 'open all year' advertisement, when it was primarily a summer attraction for bathers and and sailors. So we insisted on getting a solid sleep before our upcoming overnight bus ride into Norway, and spent the few hours upon waking trying to find something to do. We settled for a one hour boat tour that served us a hearty dose of bile and electric sparks as full-grown adults shamelessly cut in line to get a good spot, despite those of us who had been waiting for twenty minutes. We did get to sit on reindeer pelts up top, and they were surprisingly warm, and shed all over us. It was cold and windy, and we could not hear the tour guide, so we have no fun facts to tell you. Only, perhaps, that Stockholm is in sore need of apartments, and old mills and industrial buildings are currently being converted for that purpose. Also, the princess is marrying a common man, the first in their line of royalty to do so. The best part of the trip was the 'grog', wam wine, nutty and sweet and piping hot, with almonds and raisins at the bottom. Careful, though, you won't realize you're almost sick on the sweetness until too late, despite the miniscule servings.

The tour was only an hour long, and we still had about four until our bus left, so we decided to throw everything out of our minds and go see the movie Alice in Wonderland (in its original language, with subtitles). We are noticing that all of the foreign countries seem to have much better systems (minus their failure to designate lines for the waiting), and at the movie theater we were given assigned seats. The movie was great, crazy and humorous, and we definitely enjoyed the respite (although, we're sure, the pocketbook did not).

We wondered about our time in Scandinavia. The currency had been frustrating and bewildering, and so far the land had not been what we hoped. Would Norway make it up to us?

Something About a Wall and a Place of Krones

00bitbybit00 — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:47:00 GMT

As we said, we left Munich without going back to Dachau. We did not regret this decision.

We spent the day in the train station, at a coffee shop, with wireless internet where we downloaded pictures and just did a bunch of nothing. After such an all-over-the-place couple of weeks it was amazing. The only thing that could have made it less than perfect was the prospect of a crappy journey ahead of us. Which we had. Throughout the time of our stake-out in the coffee shop Michael took random breaks to go and check the train times leaving for Berlin. Hoping every time that it would be new, something different. We were eventually forced to lock into tickets that would surely wind up being the worst yet.

We left around 5PM, were on the train for three hours, did a quick jump onto another hour train ride, had a half hour layover and then another little-over-an-hour train ride. We got to our four hour layover at midnight, at a train station completely closed down besides the custodians, security, and the McDonalds. Not even the bathrooms were open (you can imagine where that left us). We were required to wait four hours, and we did. Michael was generous enough to lay out a nice sheet on the bench for Rebecca as her bed, and we piled on the layers. We then proceeded to have a good old-fashiond and lengthy conversation, primarily centered around our times in boot camp. Halfway through our time we moved our little hobo set-up to the very end of the terminal, and proceeded to try to stay warm. We climbed into Michael's pre-sewn sheet, which we brought with us in case any of the beds in the hostels looked nasty (not to worry, Rebecca was the one to wake up with some bites way at the beginning of the journey, and neither of us has suffered the same since). When the train pulled up it was half past three, and we snuck on board, although the lights were not on. It was dark and warm, a caccoon of safety, and Rebecca promptly fell asleep. That was an hour train ride, and we needed still to jump on another hour train ride.

We arrived in Berlin shortly after seven, and waited outside the doors of the tourist office for it to open at 8AM. Once again, it was amazing how desperately people want to be the first ones inside of a door.

By the time it was all said and done, we were walking into our prospective hostel some time shortly after nine. The Generator, it was called, a large place, many storeys, and very, very hip. Designed to look industrial, with a large cafeteria, plenty of internet (although not for us, as our computer would just not log on), and also plenty of high-schoolers getting drunk because they could. We were lucky enough to see a fight break out among some French students who must have been there for some school trip. It was actually a pretty big deal, involving the police and everything. The funny thing about the situation, though, was that on our first night there had been at least three security guards, all big and burly and heavily pierced. The second night, which was a Friday (and we were learning adolescents in Germany liked to go to hostels and get wasted because the bartenders just handed over the pitcher of beer with a straw in it), there were no security guards.

But the Generator, for us responsible adults, was a great place. The price was nearly half what was advertised (some promo), very well set up, and cheap food! Definitely the best deal by far. And the great thing about Berlin: cheap train tickets, and everything we went to see was free. Not so great thing about Berlin: it was the nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest city we have ever seen, and, quite possibly, on the planet. Any amount of graffiti we had previously been impressed with became nothing more than scribbled poster board compared to the canvas of Berlin. There was not a train car that had not been tagged, the tops of buildings all the way down to the earth they shaded, even chain link fence. The amount of garbage along the road was staggering and repulsive. We have thus far been impressed with the street-cleaning crews throughout Europe, which might be why people feel more inclined to spit out their gum on the sidewalks, allow their dogs to do their business in the same vicinity, and generally just drop anything they don't feel like holding/find themselves to be done with. There were no such crews in Berlin. In another fifty years, the entire city will be another couple feet above sea level due to all the trash.

So of course we went to Berlin to see the Wall, right? Right. And while we hastily and unashamedly admit we knew nothing about the Berlin Wall, we quickly learned much. For instance: did you know that the Wall was way more than just a wall? It was an entire barricade, thought out by obsessive tyrants, leaving people desperate enough to build tunnels underneath the city, jump into firemen's nets from the tops of buildings hoping to land on safety's side (many died this way, including an eighty-year-old woman), and even try to cross over the Wall where the soldiers were given free reign to shoot. The Wall was just the first part, because after the wall comes a set of spikes (and yes, people even decided to land on those spikes), and then a wire fence that detects movement and sends a signal to the guard tower revealing the exact location of the disturbance, and then a strip of dirt which was daily combed that would reveal any footsteps or signs of escape, and then vehicle barriers, and then the other side of the Wall. Oh yeah, there were flares too, and trip wires, and German shepherds. We cannot promise we listed this in the correct order; as always, we encourage research to be done. The odd thing about the several places of the Wall that we saw, was there was very little footage on the tearing down of it. Plenty of footage on the homes that became part of the Wall, and were boarded up and eventually demolished to keep people from escaping through the windows. Plenty of footage on the church that wound up being sandwiched in between the Wall and was blown up mere months before East Berlin was vindicated because it was an obstruction for the soldiers in the guard towers. But practically nothing on the Berling Wall's coming down, just that it was hard-put to convince the people to save enough for the memorial (of which there is plenty).

The chapel we visited was built as a memorial in the exact spot of the church that was destroyed, made of clay fortified by the crushed brick of its predecessor. The bells, which had been removed prior to destruction, were placed in their previous location. Looking down through glass in the floor one can see original steps leading into the original basement, even a bomb that was found which had never been detonated. We decided that as terrible a thing as it was to happen, it was very rewarding to see what people had put together to commemorate the loss in their city.

We went to see the famous Checkpoint Charlie, and it was a total madhouse. The streets were packed, and the checkpoint was lame. Old-school war vehicles were driven around to impress, and a cocky-looking soldier in uniform swung a sign reading a charge of 1 euro per picture. Would definitely recommend going a little further north and doing the Documentation Center stations (there are about five within a few blocks of each other, complete with memorials, portions of the Wall, and centers with free video and oodles of material). The good thing about Checkpoint Charlie is we found the fur hats we have been looking for since France. Ironically, there was table after table of these street vendors, selling more fur hats than we could have imagined. We holed up at a coffee shop at the corner of the checkpoint, and got so involved in our conversations gratis of the WiFi that we didn't realize the entire place had closed down around us. Thankfully, there was someone in the back to let us out.

Trying to leave Berlin on another night bus held its own adventures, including Rebecca getting left behind at one subway stop while Michael carried on. "How far are you gonna go?" he asked her, testily, when she hopped out to make sure they were heading in the right direction. We both realized the doors were closing a second too late, and we stared at each other as the train drove off. Rebecca took a few moments to pray for her safety upon her husband's return, and when the train came back in the opposite direction and she saw him toting all of their luggage through the throng of people, she gave up a hesitant offering of a smile. He did not find quite as much humor as she did. "It was bound to happen at some point or other!"

The bus was supposed to arrive at eleven-thirty PM. We got the first seats, which was perfect, and after driving for three hours we waited another one to be put on a ferry. The ferry was nice, complete with expensive food for our famished bodies. It was then that we were introduced to the krone (of which all of Scandinavia uses, in their own Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian kinds). Rebecca dismissively read a meal priced at over 130 on our entry into the dining room, and just figured it was for the rich folks. Turns out, that is the normal price for a meal. And imagine spending fifty anything on coffee for two. While the currency winds up evening out (although Scandinavia is more expensive than the rest of Europe), anything that reduces the value of the American dollar even further from the Euro is just plain agony.

Well, turns out the hour we waited for said ferry was not factored into the equation, so we found ourselves wandering the streets of Copenhagen well after midnight. We had read in our guide book how the streets were pleasant at night, full of friendly people, and as we broke into the city we found ourselves in the midst of many [illegal] transactions. We weaved in between shifty characters shouting out to one another across the streets, passed working women as they scoffed at the men who proposed a bargain, and even encountered a half-rusted, much-demolished electric wheelchair. The confusing part of our search was that we were along a street that intersected another, all four corners and sides completely decked out with hotel after hotel. And nice ones too. Nice enough to keep us out of them at such a late hour in such a neighborhood. We became even further confused by Copenhagen as the friendly hotel receptionists donated maps and directions to cheaper accomodations, and just two streets over from the portal to Hades was a very nice and well-populated district.

Our wanderings were not so terrible that night, and we wound up stopping at a nice-looking place which was offering the promotion of a double room for the price of a single (still, try handing over seven hundred for one night with no breakfast). We realized quickly that the theme must have been something along the lines of 'ocean cruise' because our room stopped short almost as soon as we walked through the door. Two bunks on the left side, with a trundle bed that actually elevated to become a double with the bottom bunk, which we didn't figure out until we read the directions on the wall twenty minutes before our check out two days later.

Copenhagen was really nothing special. We hate to say something so narrow-minded sounding, after all, we were in Denmark. But there was nothing that caught our eye. We took a picture of the sign over the 19th century amusement park called Tivoli, which has become very modernized. We wandered through the Ripley's Believe It or Not that connected with the Hans Christian Anderson musuem, which was cute but consisted of no more than a few creatively set up displays and some narratives of his fairy-tales. We ate some KFC, had Hard Rock Cafe two times because it was reasonably priced, and planned our next move.

Photos: Dachau (1st Concentration Camp)

00bitbybit00 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:00:00 GMT

Photos: Rothenburg (Medievil Walled City)

00bitbybit00 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:40:00 GMT

Never Again

00bitbybit00 — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:48:00 GMT

We left the family on Monday evening, around four o'clock. We were scheduled to get into Munich at around 8. One of our connecting trains was late by fifteen minutes, which wound up compounding the other three connections and meant that we would be getting in over an hour later than we had hoped. So when we were about two hours away from our final destination, we just got off the train, made sure our tickets would be good for the next day, and headed to the tourist office. We were not playing games that evening. We wanted a room, no running, no searching, no going to the outskirts of town. The tourist office got us set up, and we proceeded to do what we normally do. Go the wrong direction until a ten minute walk becomes close to four times that. We did make it to our room, and had a strong internet connection. Turns out some people had thought we might have landed ourselves in jail, so it was good to get the word out that all was well, we had just been paraded around by foreign family and forced to consume so much that it blocked out all other priorities.

On the 13th Rebecca's sister, Victoria, celebrated her 16th birthday, and while we couldn't be there we were able to see her open her presents via Skype. Mom Feudo sure knows how to pick 'em out. Amidst all of this was a joyous family gathering, and about three toasts were held in her honor during our fifteen-minute conversation. Long live Victoria! Health to the famliy in USA! Hurray for Victoria!

While we were sad to move on from a warm and secure environment, we also discovered that we were not given the choice, we were going to return. And while at first it seemed that we were going to have to communicate that we couldn't return, we had places to see, we suddenly realized that we wanted to. And it winds up working out quite well. One of the relatives will meet us in Prague, where we fly into from Dublin on the 5th of May, and then take us back to all of the family about 500km away. We will see a few more things that time did not permit the first go, before continuing the tail end of our journey. If they ever let us go...

We made it to Munich on the morning of Tuesday the 16th in good time, and once again had no problems finding a place right off the bat. The tourist office was next to the train station, and when we asked about how far we would have to go for cheap accommodations we almost fell all over each other when we were told there were not one, but TWO hostels right around the corner! Never had we been so fortunate! And on top of it, the first one we tried had free space for us, the internet, and a clean and funky environment. That was a good night. But as soon as we got into the room we unloaded our stuff and headed out for the reason we had come to Munich. A concentration camp.

Now, it seems very historically acceptable to go visit a concentration camp. After all, why would we not go to one, being in Germany? There had been evidence of the Second World War in the other countries we had visited. We knew it had nearly leveled France, and of course we saw The Hiding Place in Holland where the Ten Boom family had assisted in the smuggling of Jews (again, we encourage further research on that as it is a remarkable testament to God's faithfulness and reality). But there is something so terrible about a concentration camp, that even just walking in the streets of a city that had been so ravaged by war pales in comparison. Europe breathes history, it is seeping from the tops of the hills and reverberating from every stepping stone and blade of grass. But the energy hovering three feet up from Dachau work camp is enough to stop the heart. You don't want to go in, you want to run away. How could you not, seeing the pictures of all those that had been led forcefully through the gate, and then released on a death cart?

Dachau was the first concentration camp, and became the model for every one after it. It was not a death camp, though, but a work camp, and the reconstructed gate you walk through reads the same missive it read for everyone that was taken there from 1933-45 against their will: Work Sets You Free. We do not like to go into the history of it, as it can never be summed up in a mere paragraph. We will only tell of our short time there, and hope that you take the time yourselves to do some research. Anyone who was forced behind those walls deserves the few minutes of recognition.

We started out with only one of the audio guides, and had to go back for another as the volume was too pitiful. There are stations set up throughout the camp, and although they are not numbered we were given a map along with our audio guides. Aside from the topics designated for each area, you could feel free to explore further by choosing to listen to those that went into greater depth, and even first-hand accounts of the victims in their own languages.

It was cold outside, and we were hungry, terribly so, but it felt good to be so cold, and so hungry. We do not know how anyone could go there and desire comfort. We do not know how people laughed and posed by the memorials with broad smiles, proud of being there, "I went to a concentration camp, I don't know how to pronounce it, it was sooo creepy" they will go home and tell their family and friends.

We learned about the barracks, which ones were designated as the hospital, which makes no sense as they received no medical care, were fed even less than before, and daily taken out to be paraded during roll call as an example. We learned about the barracks where the workers lived, and how they changed over the twelve year span of the camp so that more and more could be packed in, until the rooms that had been previously designated for an acceptable amount had grown to two thousand. We tried to realize this number. Rebecca remembers being evacuated to a warehouse during Hurricane Ivan, when she lived in Florida, and there were only one thousand people there, barely two feet in between each cot, all across the floor. We gave up when we realized that we would never be able to picture it. The barracks had been reconstructed, and that helped some. We do not know how we could have gone in if those walls had really seen what their ancestors did. None of the original barracks were left. They had been torn down, but their locations were outlined and filled in with stones.

We listened to the meanings behind the memorials, and posed next to them for size reference. We watched a twenty minute video in the museum, which had been a work building and the kitchen and other such facilities, such as bathhouses, for the residents. It was all live footage that the SS had taken, and while it is one thing to see the few carefully selected photos in history books, it is a whole new world to watch the video, to see the pictures that make the sign outside the museum reading "not advisable for children under twelve" a necessity. From the video we went to a guard post, where lay a portion of the Death Strip, the ditch around the camp which gave the guards free reign to shoot if anyone tried to cross it. Many people did, to be put out of their misery, even making it to tangle themselves in the electric fence. The largest memorial is a tribute to those who sought suicide in such ways. It was then that Michael looked over at Rebecca and realized she was going to puke, and this is brought to light because you aren't just going to a museum when you go to somewhere like Dachau. You are inviting that horror, those images, that reality, to come into your life, and you almost think you hear tired feet dragging along the gravel, that the wind in your ears is covering over the harsh sounds of agonized living. Living which isn't really living at all. As surely as any genocide is a terrible thing, there can't be anything compared to the suffering those endured during Hitler's rise of power.

While Rebecca did not puke, and managed to keep from having a full-blown anxiety attack, we had yet to visit the crematorium. The memorial closed at five PM, and we had already been there almost two hours but had still not yet seen the back of the camp, where the crematorium and religious memorials were set up, or anything of the museum except for the video. We walked quickly, and it was good to be rushed. The care that had gone into the preservation of the camp, and then the dedications, was humbling. The headstones set up for the thousands who had died, the plaques on the walls, the theme being Never Again.

A gas chamber was attached to the crematorium during the last year of the camp, as they were all required to have one, although it can be confirmed that it was never used for mass murders (it is unknown, but assumed, that it was used for smaller killings). After all, Dachau was not a death camp, and anyone who had not succumbed to illness or starvation or brutal punishment and was condemned was usually sent out to another camp, such as Auschwitz. The gas chamber was set up as a shower, in order to convince those going in that all was well. But at that point, they must have surely just been going through the motions, because it does not take a genius to realize it is too convenient for the new showers to be connected to the furnaces. The shower heads that were used as props have since been removed.

Coming out of a beautifully wooded path that winds around the back of the crematorium, lined by memorial after memorial for those thousands slain, rose bushes planted along the length of the execution range, where mostly Russian soldiers had been put to death, you walk into the back of the crematorium. The first thing you see are small closets with hooks hanging from the ceiling. For a minute you falter, wonder if you can go on, should go on, and then you hunker down and brave yourself to actually listen to the audio guide and learn that those rooms were actually used for disinfecting clothes. It's the ones inside that are the worst. There is the room for those to undress before going to 'shower', the room where the fake showerheads used to hang, and the next designated for the bodies that would result. Those were built onto the crematorium, which housed six burners, each capable of holding four corpses. They burned night and day, until a coal shortage during the last year forced the bodies to be removed and put in mass graves. When the US liberated the camp in 1945 they found over three thousand dead bodies. They then brought in the people of the city of Dachau, forcing them to walk through the rooms and see the bodies piled there, forcing them to realize what they had ignored in their very city. Hangings were conducted from hooks in front of the ovens, and the next room was also for bodies.

It was close to closing time when we had seen the last of the grounds. We had not gone through the museum, but enough was enough. We knew that Dachau was a work camp, had seen the video of those who went in and what they looked like when they went out, we knew that low-pressure medical experiments were conducted there, and that it was the first and had stayed open the longest. We talked about returning the next day, but we didn't. We ate two bowls of steaming hot chili from the cafeteria, and it felt wrong to be so happy with food, a sacrilege. Everything reminded us of the live footage we had seen.

We were glad to leave, and while history should be pursued, and those that lost their lives due to the camps should be remembered and honored, going to one of those places is the same as watching a horror movie. Rebecca can not even fathom the suffering her own family went through during the war, in Europe, but as she walked those perimeters she thanked the Lord over and over and over for having mercy...

Mit Familia

00bitbybit00 — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:47:00 GMT

Our return to Baden-Baden was easy and relaxed. We arrived at the train station and hunkered down on the internet in order to figure things out about the bathhouse we intended to visit. We put our belongings in a locker and took off.

Baden-Baden, when correctly interpreted, means Bath-Bath. It is famous for it's bathhouses and location on the outskirts of the Black Forest. Friedrichsbad is a Roman-Irish bathhouse from the 1800s, with tall ceilings, a Beauty and the Beast staircase, and the smell of soap and warmth. It houses the only remaining steam sauna that is fed from the geothermics in the heart of the earth (which was probably the best part, in all honesty). So, yeah, of course we were nervous! I mean, a bathhouse means bathing means no clothes, and who were we kidding: we come from America and people don't sunbathe naked on the grass in parks like they do in Germany. Americans care a lot if someone catches a glimpse of the unshaven leg, the pasty-white flesh. But, we told ourselves, we're going for a cultural experience. We denied the fact that maybe we were going overboard, that it was, perhaps, cultural overkill. We had heard first hand accounts, true and living testaments of people who had been there, sworn to its amazing powers, and come out better human beings, if only cleaner. For everyone's sake, we will not go into detail (who wants details on this kind of thing? Although if you do, feel free to ask...). If you would like to know the layout of the place, as the idea is to go from station to station, there being seventeen including two separate dry saunas, room temperature pools, showers, and all that good stuff, Google Friedrichsbad bathhouse in Baden-Baden, Germany as we have mailed home our pamphlet and cannot get on line to get the link for you ourselves. We will say it was well worth the experience, and actually once the clothes were discarded it was like they had never been there in the first place. We started out afraid to leave our lockers, because did people did really do this? I mean, if we walked through the door in our birthday suits, would we be plunging into an environment of modest and covered individuals, and would silence reign and would they stare at us with mouths agape like who are these people and what on earth are they doing? But all was well. There are days when the men and women can intermingle, but we drew the line there and went when the chambers were separated. It was not crowded, and there was no oogling. We were definitely the youngest inhabitants at the time. And, if we were really put on the spot, we admit we would definitely go back. Thinking that perhaps it would be very cool to have bathouses in America, the idea quickly faded. Perhaps it was so easy because we knew that we were only parallel to the other bathers, not speaking their language, barely dipping into their lives before we faded into the next. Don't know if it would be so easy if visiting with fellow soccer moms, grocery store clerks, and little leage coaches. Let's let the Romans have their 'when in their Romes', and just say and do when and where appropriate.

If anyone happens to know a Russian, or a German, it goes without saying that they are powerful and intense people. While Michael and Rebecca were sleepy and wafting the warmth of geothermics to the winter air, riding a train to meet up with the first of Rebecca's foreign family, it was a blessed and necessary thing they had been so pampered and relaxed mere hours before. We were nervous and we were tired, but excited to. These were Rebecca's grandfather's siblings, him being the only one to have left for America. Before the war they had moved from Russia to Germany, and were sent back to Russia at the start of it. Over the past twenty years they made it back to Germany. This going to say that while they live in Germany and speak it fluently, they are 100% Russian. They speak Russian to each other, and German to us, and they shout at each other and push each other around and laugh and make toasts of vodka to health until their own is in jeopardy.

We had a wonderful time with them for five days. We were celebrities. Pushed and shoved, pulled into submission, hollared at from all sides, force fed for seven hours at a stretch, showered upon with gifts, and demanded to sing, to dance! The days were a whirlwind. Rebecca discovered she could understand much better than she thought she could, and with some knowing miniscule English we were all able to communicate quite joyfully. However, the strain on the brain, all of that concentrating, all of that internal calculating, took us to bed exhausted every night.

We will spare the details, as they are purely family related and will take a while to actually record, and we want to become current with the blog again. However, we might decide to post it later. The important thing to know is that we went back and forth between family for five days, fed until the point of collapse, and every moment up until we locked the door behind us for the evening shower was chaperoned. It was a blessed time, and as they said, America to Germany is too far for family, one day (per each clan) too short.

Photos: Rudesheim am Rhein

00bitbybit00 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:06:00 GMT

Photos: Amsterdam, Haarlam (The Hiding Place)

00bitbybit00 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:01:00 GMT

Photos: Amsterdam, Netherlands

00bitbybit00 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:52:00 GMT

Small Days in Small Places of Central/SouthWestern Germany

00bitbybit00 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:08:00 GMT

If this is going to be an honest relationship, which is the only working kind (and of course honesty is bred from communication, because how else can one be honest if there is no exchange of words?), than we must start this missive off by being honest. We had a bad couple of days once we departed from Rudesheim.

Our guide book warns to take vacation from vacation if it is the extended kind. They warn against culture shock and lack of satisfaction. Well, after Rudesheim we hit the proverbial brick wall.

We left with the intention of heading for Rothenburg, the only medieval and walled city remaining in Germany with absolutely no modern buildings. It turned out to be a crazy debacle. We left Rudesheim, where there was no one at the train station to guide us. The route we were supposed to take accoding to the ticket machine required that we exchange trains about three or four times (which wound up being correct. The smaller towns/cities in Germany all require this). We didn't realize that when we stepped off the train for our final connection, or so we though, that we were stepping onto a platform consisting of only one bench and a ticket machine. We stood there for a moment, and another train whizzed by, blowing snow in our faces. It was cold and the day would soon be drawing to a close. We tried heading down the road, but there was nothing with promise in site. The area appeared to be completely uninhabited, all the shops closed, all factories asleep. It turns out, after the help of an older couple walking by, after we had returned to stand at the train station again, that the station we wanted, bearing the same name, was actually 2km further up the tracks. Well, we waited another twenty something minutes for the final train going through, and a city it was not. It was another sleepy town, children sliding down the iced cobbled roads on their sleds, stepping aside for the occasional passing Mercedes Benz. We wandered the roads, scoffed at the price of the only open hotel, and got back in line for the train. Via this train station we were supposed to get to Rothenburg, but there was absolutely no indication of what to do on how to actually make it to the hugest attraction of the Romantic Road. No clerks at the train station, as it was a Sunday. It was getting colder, and the sun was falling away. The train took us one stop further, and it appeared to be another of the same sort of town. Sleeping. We were able to find a place, though, and a good one. The price was decent, as they worked with us (why not just give a discount sometimes? It would be more money than if you turned us away sticking to the regular one...).

We arose early the next morning, getting breakfast and showing up at the tourist office at nine. It turned out they knew how to get us to Rothenburg, and it was actually still four hours away, another four train connections. By the time we arrived it was late afternoon and we felt cramped and tired. But we had lost an entire day to travel, and a flight leaving from Norway on the last day of March for Scotland requires we keep moving. So we dropped our stuff off at a well-priced pension owned by an old lady, smelling of age and equipped with all acessories that makes one think of grandparents, complete with available house shoes and the instructions to the hair dryer. It took us only an hour to really get our fill of the medieval, walled city. It was truly magnificent and charming, but we weren't out to pay to get into the crime museum or the oldest house. We just wanted to walk the wall, and the streets lined by typical shops.

After we ate, and by the time we got back to our room, the temperature had dropped dramatically. The wind blew inside the walls, swirling snow with them, hurrying us home to warmth.

We were up early again to return to the famous Christmas ornament shop by Kathe Wohlfahrt in the hopes of finding something good. While certain tourists enjoy collecting fridge magnets from the places they have gone to, we like to find Christmas ornaments. It goes without saying that magnets are in great supply, and ornaments are not. Before the one we purchased at Kathe's store, for Germany, we had only found one other, and that was in Spain and make-shift besides- a miniature of the Sagrada Familia church. We will have to tie a string to it. Amidst an insane number of ornaments and Christmas decorations, some priced at over two thousand euros, we did find the right one. Only our second souvenir, including the mini Sagrada Familia. Both equalling twenty euros. To send them home more than compensates for the agreeable price.

We were already irritated by the time we left Rothenburg. The prior two days had not been a treat, and far from fun, despite the charm of ancient preserved. We were grateful to see it, of course, but that didn't make us any more agreeable to hitting the road again.

We arrived in Baden-Baden four hours later, famished and unwilling to walk up and down the winter roads. We followed the instructions from the internet and took the bus to the tourist office, a cramped bus full of loud teenagers and baby strollers, and the tourist office was a joke. No pamphlets, only one promise of cheap accomodation. We had to get back on the bus and retrace halfway to the train station, and then we realized we did not have a street map. While this was just as much our fault, we like to think it was more the representative at the tourist office. We had so far not needed to actually purchase a map, as they had been free, and it did not register to inquire about the one she indicated on. She did not offer it. So when we got off at the bus stop, we realized that a seven minute walk could start in any of four direction. It took at least twenty minutes and three of those directions before we found someone who could tell us where the street was that we were looking for. And it wasn't so much a street as a hilltop.

By the time we had reached the peak, winding through a normal suburbia, even getting further affirmation of our direction from a woman unloading groceries from her station wagon BMW, we were hot and breathless. Our energy was nil, and so was our desire. The youth hostel was fully booked, and we cursed the organization. We had signed up for the cards before we left America, and have thus far not used them. No atraction has accepted the discount, and the one or two of the related hostels we have tried to stay at have been booked. Being a world-wide organization, we figure it is just too elite for those who have no idea where they are heading next and when. Also, we have not received any stamps in our passport- not counting the one from Germany during our layover on the way into Portugal. We are in our sixth counry, and they just don't care when you take the train/bus in. This is majorly ironic. What is the point of a passport?

Baden-Baden was expensive. We remained stubborn, walking around looking for somewhere to stay until it was totally dark, freezing cold, and had been almost twelve hours since our last meal. We were forced to give in eventually and settle for one of the hotels. Sometimes we dream of opening our own hostel, but if anyone knows Kalamazoo they know you can stay at a Motel 6 for forty dollars a night, all amenities, right next to the hockey rink and a Denny's, and you don't need much else because Kalamazoo is Kalamazoo. Nice place to live, but why be a tourist when Chicago is three hours away and Detroit two (if retracing the steps of a rapper is your kind of thing)?

Our evening in Rothenburg with the old lady did not have internet- we didn't even ask. Our evening in Baden-Baden had the best connection we have had yet, and our computer would not access it. Michael tried for the better part of two hours, and there was no hope. We turned in gloomy and out of sorts. We wanted to wake up the next day in our own bed in our own apartment back home, as if Michael had never lost his job. But we did not, and we left for the train station unsure of where to go. We were due to meet up with Rebecca's German family on Friday morning a city over, about two hours away, but that was still not for two more days.

A man behind the ticket desk at the train station helped point us in the right direction, setting us up with a nice town in the Black Forest where he comes from, and while waiting for our departure time we hunkered down at the coffee shop and hooked up to the WiFi. A quick and reassurring talk with Rebecca's mother was all we needed. We explained our weakness to frustration, both of us becoming short-tempered with each and every bump in the road, as if it is such a personal jab. We know the truth of reality, that the world does not revolve around us, but neither of us can clear from our heads the obsession that if we all worked together, practicing self-awareness and selflessness in general, the world would turn for everyone pretty well. We were reminded by our dear mother that this trip represents several things in our lives. Not only is it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, it was designed to be a purging of sorts. To leave the stifling environment of a country we had defended and in the past few years has become unrecognizable, to see how others are made and the well-fare of their own people (although at this point we will refrain from becoming any more political). To leave the black clowd of unemployment and uncertainty about purpose in life, and hope to find it, and at least see things if we don't. To sort through those things that seem to take the most hold on our lives, separate ourselves from them if it is better and return refreshed. Mostly, to experience Jeremiah 29:11-14, and really believe it, practice it: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from captivity."

All of this makes our journey a perfect battleground, and our devotions from the previous night had encouraged us to learn how to defeat the defeat, instead of succumbing to it. While this is not something that can be done overnight, and must continually be mastered throughout life, we hope to have the upperhand soon. We have been given everything we need, we just need to use it. A garden will not grow while the tools are still in the shed. We cannot be disgusted when we have not lifted a finger and there is no harvest...

Sadly enough, even after our much needed pep talk, it was the same thing in Frieburg. We followed the signs from the train station to the tourist office, where the woman was most helpful. She must have gotten out four different maps for us. She told us where the hostel was, and how to take a train to Titisee, because you haven't seen the Black Forest if you haven't been to Titisee. The ten minute jaunt to the hostel became many, many more. Streets going every other way, crossing over a larger creek and then a smaller one, intersections like starfish. When we came across it we were not relieved. The environment was completely flower power and green and global warming. The ceilings were high and the walls dirty and the smell of an herb we can not remember, but not what you are thinking. Crushed clover, perhaps, from childhood with the striped and blocky leaves.

We stayed only long enough to drop off our things. The day was getting late and we still wanted to see the Black Forest. It was all around us, to be sure, but we desired to be in the midst of it. We had only that one day, and on the next we would head back to Baden-Baden. It had been worked out with Rebecca's mother. She very much wanted us to experience Friedrichsbad, the Roman-Irish bathhouse she went to when she visited Germany thirteen years ago with her parents and sisters. She would treat us to the experience, since we were going out of our heads with the amount of money Europe can suck out of an individual, not to mention two. I imagine it would be way easier, and plentifully cheaper, if one were to travel solo. By the time a hostel dormitory times two, bedding times two (as most of them charge for the service and you are unlucky enough to not have your own sleeping bag), and breakfast times two and WiFi per hour, you are spending just as much as you would for a simple room in a two or three star hotel- most of the time. But the plan was to return to Baden-Baden before heading to the neighboring city where we would be picked up an evening early by the German family- next post we will do our best to discuss details and lineage.

Our train ride further into the Black Forest was rewarding, even after our day of travels. The cars shimmied between mountain on either, over precipices that dropped to the highway below. The trees of the Black Forest are tall and skinny pines, the tops of them a dark grey/green, and in the cloudy day they truly looked their name. Their trunks reach high before the needles begin in a solid tuft about two-thirds of the way up. Peering through them to the automobiles below was like looking through hair in the eyes, and we climbed still higher. We passed through the most narrow part, with a cross mounted on one side, a deer on the other. They tell the story of a hunter chasing his prey, who had leapt to safety on the other side. The hunter did not see the gap, as it was so small, and plunged to his death.

Titisee was silent and freezing. The sun was setting and we walked briskly through the streets, stopping often in shops to warm up. Twice we reached the outskirts of the town. We took pictures of the landscape and smiled lamely. We walked past a man who stood in the middle of the road, trying to get the perfect photograph of a street sign with a car behind him, trying to use the way he blocked. He was unaware of the Prius two feet behind him, and pursued the most perfect angle, the best lighting, the steadiest hand. It was funny to watch, and only when the car was put in reverse and drove around him did he realize his mistake. Ah, the silence of the hybrid. We decided that was reason alone to have made the trip. We ate some soup and headed back down, forgetting all about sampling some genuine Black Forest cake...

Photos: Brugges, Belgium

00bitbybit00 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:18:00 GMT

Photos: Brussels, Belgium

00bitbybit00 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:03:00 GMT

(if any of these appear to be repetitive, they are probably part of a panoramic)

Miniscule Update for Family and Friends

00bitbybit00 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:32:00 GMT

Hello to all!

This last week has gone without any word from us, and we do send our apologies in regards. However, as we update over the next few days, we are sure you will understand why (do not worry, there was no trouble and all is well, but last week has no doubt been the most busy/intense of our time in Europe so far).

Please look forward to a few posts covering the previous days, and don't give up on us! We hope that the internet will be more readily available than it was in certain places before the weekend, providing us with easier access to more frequent postings- we don't like to forget stuff in between trips!

Also, be prepared for many pictures. It will take much longer to get those up to date, but they will be on their way.

Thank you for your patience and, as always, your support. We miss you all...

Rudesheim is Sleeping

00bitbybit00 — Sat, 6 Mar 2010 05:57:00 GMT

So apparently we thought the time-frame in between the previous two posts was longer than it was, and it turns out that this will be our biggest gap yet, but the chronology is only good in its entirety.

From Cologne we took the train to Frankfurt. The tracks ran along the river Rhine (Rhein, here Germany), and we enjoyed our view tremendously. The river is lined by small towns, all of them white-housed and church-steepled, with fields growing up the side of the hills. The tracks ran along the water’s edge, two lanes of road next to that, the houses beginning next. They sat behind each other until the base of the hill, but when it starts getting steep, the grape vines take over. The Rhine is famous for producing its grapes that become its famous wine. Wine and castles, which brought the wine. Apparently it was the Romans who started buliding the castles along the river, taxing all who passed by, bringing the grape with them. Which must be why the farmers continue to grow their crop on such an incline, forced to harvest their produce by hand and tend to them the old-school way. Some of these castles are from the 13^th century, and they look it, but none of the intimidation has been lost. We watched all of this passing us by, on our way to Frankfurt, falling in love with it. Ferry boats chartered across the water, taking people to one another, so close but just far enough. We wanted to stay, to become grape farmers, to look at the Rhine every single day. “Let’s get off here,” Michael said, as we pulled into one of the little towns.

But the train does not wait for those who are contemplating homelessness and hunger, and our tardyness cleared out inspiration. We had not seen any hotels, but of course as soon as the train pulled away we passed four of them right next to each other. We vowed to go back. Michael copied down the name of the station, and we hunkered down for the remainder of our trip.

What followed completely wiped out the romanticism of living on the edge, whimsical decisions, and utter independence. The attempt at closing the half hour trip back to the little town of Rudesheim completely undid us. We needed to connect at a neighboring station, and that alone took an hour and a half. Every last train bound for Weisbaden was delayed by fifteen minutes, then ten more, and we were going crazy. “What is going on with Weisbaden?” But information insisted there was no problem. “We were just standing there and the Weisbaden destination became another city.” No, couldn’t be, they told us. I saw it with my own eyes! No, no, Weisbaden in fifteen minutes.

Well, we made it to Weisbaden, finding out that we had forty-five minutes to eat some lunch/supper. And when it came time for our train to arrive it did not. We both took turns asking the information desk. “Rudasheim?” Michael’s response was the shaking of the head and the waving of the hands, a dismissal of sorts. Rebecca’s response was ‘bus’. Bus? I bought a train ticket! We sat on the bench on our previously-designated platform and waited. A train wound up arriving. The power shut off, the conductor came out. Michael chased him down. “Do you speak English?” he asked, desperately. The conductor did. He explained that there was a storm that had knocked out the power to the trains. We were satisfied with that news, as it brought about some explanation, and we left the station then. Outside it was windy and overcast, that bright dark blue-grey that comes with massive storms, the fluffy white clouds wrestling over one another, casting down on us their energy.

That is how we got to Weisbaden.

It did not take us long to find somewhere to stay. We were blessed with a room that normally cost twice the amount, and was meant for more than three. We do not know why she gave it to us, but it was like having a living room again, and we were happy. So happy that we stayed another night.

Finally, we worked up the nerve to try our inspirational return to Rudasheim. We got on the train just fine, no delays. We did wind up passing our stop, as you can only read the station signs once you pass them, and were afraid that we had another hour until the next small town, but it wasn’t so. We got off and on another train heading back as soon as we could, and finally stepped foot in Rudasheim.

We quickly found out that the entire town was shut down. Totally and completely closed. All restaurants, all hotels. There were two open hotels among twenty, and of the two only one had a semi-decent price with a view over the river, the other with an outrageous price and no view. We did a complete circling of the town and wound up back at the first hotel. It was then that we found out Rudasheim is a famous town, as are most of the ones along the Rhine. And they all go to sleep in the winter, waiting for spring to usher in the big crowds. We were exceedingly grateful to be the only tourists, and by ‘only’ I mean ‘only’. The first two nights we went to eat, we were the only people in the restaurant. The other nights there were no more than two other people. We are pretty sure we spent at least half of our nights here as the only people in the hotel. Speaking of which: we were going to settle for a single room at a much better rate, breakfast and wi-fi included. The receptionist was so concerned about our choice (“You know it will be small? Single is little, for only one person.”) that she upgraded us to a double, with a view of the river. We haven’t gotten a deal this good the entire trip. And the whole town to ouselves!

Of course on our first, full day (after the day of arrival) we decided to tackle the vine-covored hills. They were amazing. The views were spectacular. While it seems that the view would be nice in the summer time, the hills all covered in fluffy grape leaves, we agreed that we preferred the stark winter arrangments. The green stripes of the grass in between the tan and brown rows of vines really showed how many there were, and the paths they took higher and higher. There was a monument we were aiming for, and while it seemed that it would have been impossible to get that high, we made good time and took plenty of pictures. The final climax of our climb was about four hundred steps, the mother of all ascents.

The monument was erected in the 1800s, after a war the Germans had with the French, and the Germans won. Rebecca’s personal attachment to it was her grandfather’s first name, inscribed in large letters at the base of the monument, which stretched tall and wide, a Statue of Liberty of sorts. We do not know what her grandfather’s name had to do with the story, but for a moment we felt close to home.

Michael, the ever-brave and humble soul that he is, asked an older couple to take a picture of us. He always consults his wife, and she always answers the same...”Oh...I dunno.” He always gets the picture, and plenty of smiles too. It’s the same with directions. We could be hundreds of miles from where we are supposed to be, and Michael will be saying “I think we should ask somebody” and Rebecca will either pretend not to hear or do the same, “Weeeell...” Michael always gets his directions, and never loses face for doing so. Somebody else, on the other hand, would be miserably lost and lonely if it went her way.

This particular time, the older couple, a very grandparently couple, chatted with us a few moments. We learned the story behind the monument, marveled at it and the beauty around us, and talked about potential sites to see. When we said our goodbyes, they came back to us, asking our plans for the afternoon. They then took us on a drive further up the Rhine, stopping for us to take pictures, and escorting us up the side at the narrowest part of the river, where it was said that Lorely would look down brushing her long blonde hair, causing the captains to run their vessels into the rocky walls. We learned about the castles called Cat and Mouse, brothers who fought like it too, a relatively short distance between them. They dropped us off outside of our hotel, said they enjoyed their time, and we thanked them profusely.

On our second day we conquered the hills again, but this time for a different reason. At the top of one of them, not too far from our little town, was a castle. And we were going to hunt it down. The sun shone brightly and warm, beautiful spring weather. They da before had been fairly bright, and mostly warm, but accented by a crisp wind that chilled to the bone. Our journey to the castle started on train tracks, and we talked about people who got stuck walking along like we did, and with all the trains passing through it was a bit creepy. We sat on a ledge and felt them pass by, speedy and powerful, shaking the earth and blowing crud in our eyes.

The ascent this time was more pronounced, and we feared getting run over on the skinny, turny roads by any of the farmers we had seen parked by their land. We watched fearless individuals driving tractors in between their rows, and shuddered to think of the potential mistake, which sums up that word in its entirety.

The castle was masterfully barricaded, but otherwise unguarded. Our attempts at trying to find a way in were probably no more creative than the average hoodlum, but attempted none-the-less. We discussed our options if we had a decent length of board, or the guts to attempt a hand-over-hand climb to a tantalizingly open window about ten feet up. Okay, so we had the guts, but not the iron phalanges. We did a full circle of the castle, turning our heads from the plunge below us, but with no luck. Unsuccessful but undefeated we began the long trek back.

Our breakfasts here have been superb. The first day we thought we had died and gone to somewhere where we had a lot of money, as not only did we set up our own time to eat, we came down to a nicely laid spread in front of the window, with someone at our shoulder asking what we needed. Turns out the special service was because we were the only guests, but on the other days when we used the buffet (with no sign of another guest) we still had someone asking if there was anything else we required. We could stay in Rudesheim for months upon months, with our separate pots of coffee, three-minute eggs, and the best honey in the world.

The fouth morning was overcast and chilly, and we did not lament holing up in the room. We went for a short time to visit the wine musuem a bit down the road, which turned out to be in the oldest castle along the Rhine. We went from room to room, display case to display case, sipping wine from Rudesheim and listening to an audio-recording. However, the ancient castle was by no means heated, and it was actually warmer outside. Our room was a safe haven when we returned from the Weiner Grill, where we got our take-out supper.

Today we woke up to the hills dusted in white. Apparently it had snowed all night. We had stood outside in the dark, swathed in blankets, watching the flakes come down heavy and wet, blurring the lighted castle directly across the river from us. When we awoke it was hard to imagine this place had been the bright and cheery one from 48 hours ago. It had become a winter wonderland, cozy indoors and picteresque out of them.

We leave tomorrow morning to continue our discoveries. The time here has been good, refreshing, what we want from this trip, but the future only keeps coming, and one day very soon this will all be in the past.

This Past Week

00bitbybit00 — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 00:05:00 GMT

Yes, we ARE alive! And we deeply apologize if we have been the cause of any concern, lack of sleep, or change in eating habits. The writer has just come out of an intense illness, and the photographer had nothing to take pictures of that did not involve tissues and soup.

We left Amsterdam only because Rebecca felt the sickness coming. We truly enjoyed our stay at the hostel there: the Shelter Jordan. A Christian place, run by volunteers who go and live in a house nearby from a month up to a year. The food was cheap, the environment quiet and friendly, English-speaking, with Bible discussions every night at 7:30 (which we thoroughly needed and enjoyed), and even a movie night on Monday where we watched Bucket List and remembered why it was so great. We are also increasingly glad that our travels are not the product of having our days numbered, but it is also reassuring that we do not know how many of those days we have left so at least we have taken this trip while we could. Once again, thanks to everyone that has been so supportive and helpful. We hope to return to you all soon and in one piece.

Any amount of money we saved from staying at the Shelter Jordan, mainly by laying low, sleeping in the dorms (there were no accomodations for both of us to share), and eating their hearty meals for a small fee only, we blew hard core at the post office. My goodness. Not only are the boxes to choose from ridiculous in size and totally incompatible, the fees to the states are just nuts. We will take this time to complain about the exchange rate one more time. Oh, Europe, what an expensive continent you are, and for what reason, who knows, except it seems everyone wants to be here despite. Silly us.

We did one "touristy" thing while in Amsterdam (aside from sipping soup and enjoying the most amazing panini BLT in a cafe with free wi-fi next to the Anne Frank House). We took a day trip to the nearby city of Haarlam and visited the Corrie Ten Boom House. The tours alternated every hour between English and Dutch, and when we arrived the next English tour was set for two PM. This left us a little over an hour to spare. We spent quite a few minutes contemplating if we even wanted to try eating lunch, as the service is so incredibly slow, and you could buy a house in the time it takes to get the bill. We decided to take the chance, and then wandered around trying to find the best place, and eventually settling for one right by where we started. Amazingly, we were done with our food and back to the Ten Boom House at 1:48. The alley was empty, and we could see that the time for the English tour had been changed to 1:45. We both admit we have never wanted to break a window so badly. We banged on the door, rang the bell. The rage was palpable in the winter air. We waited in that cold alley for the Dutch tour, another hour. And we sat there and listened to the Dutch tour. While we all crowded in the sitting room, Rebecca counted the vowels in the English pamphlet. We each read it three times. A half an hour later, everyone else very much inspired by the amazing story, we all shuffled upstairs to see the famous Hiding Place. We heartily recommend anyone to read Corrie Ten Boom's book of the same name. It is truly amazing to see how God worked, and how real He was during such a time. As we stood in the little secret room that hid so many seeking safety and refuge, the feeling was enough to give a dry-mouth. The emotions seeped from the brick walls.

One man, a Dutch man who spoke good English and who was there with his wife and son (who is named Casper after Corrie Ten Boom's own father), recognized us from the first time we were waiting for the tour, and was gracious enough to hang back from the rest and explain what the guide was telling everyone else. Once again, gotta read the book, seriously good stuff.

That night Rebecca's sickness really started sinking in, and we made the move out of Amsterdam a few days later.

We decided to save the money from going right into Frankfurt by stopping in Cologne, Germany (pronounced 'colon', as in the part of the body that nobody ever talks about). It would cost half the price, and we could see the oldest crucifix. Our first night we stayed in a cheap hostel, and not a moment too soon. Rebecca's fever sky-rocketed to over 101 degrees. Having not been that sick since she was a child, the place and timing for the attack seemed most appropriate. The next day the fever was gone, but the sickness was not. Nausea and throat complications, and a cough that sounded like a rock slide. Michael wanted to remove from the dingy place we were staying at, the halls smelling of wetness and the overall atmosphere just plain old gross.

Not only had we arrived in good ole Cologne over the weekend, there was a trade show going on. Which meant that hotels who had never even seen rates for half of what they were charging weren't even including breakfast. Once we left the Station Hostel we hopped on the metro and moved out a few stops, hoping to get out of the thick of the mess, but we managed to wander around for two hours until we realized we were almost where we had started. Rebecca admits it was probably the greatest day of her life. Right when it was just too much, when Rebecca felt a raindrop fall on her nose, we found a place. Cozy, clean, and with breakfast included. A heckuva price, but placed in our paths by the heavenly hosts. As soon as we closed our room door behind us, the rain started coming down.

Michael really proved his superhero capabilities in Cologne. Marathons, we called them. The first night, he left to find Rebecca some food, and returned some time later with steaming soup in a tupperware container and a real spoon. The second night, he went to see if we could stay a another night in our safe haven, and when he found out we could not he wandered the darkened streets of Cologne and found us a place, talking down the price and getting breakfast included. He returned with these glad tidings, and left again to find food. Some time later he returned with more steaming soup and sandwiches, having to walk until he reached a mall where he made friends with a good guy at Henry's Cafe who put the soup in a coffee cup and even threw in an actual spoon. It might not seem like such an accomplishment: great, he goes out and gets food and comes back, he gets a hotel room big deal. In a city that does not believe in take-out OR soup, what was done was a true act of devotion. Wandering literal miles of street corners at a record pace, even muttering to the point of blending in with the bums on the side of the road, Michael made it happen. And the hotel situation is another story. Even the crappiest of conditions were sold out. God truly had mercy on us. And it's ironic that we wanted to save money by stopping in Cologne, and wound up blowing the Euros out of the water. We didn't even see the oldest crucifix.

We are in Weisbaden, Germany right now, which is a comfy place next to Frankfurt. There is nothing special about this place, except for its georgraphical placement, and that is for next time. Which won't take nearly as long as last time.