England, Part 1 - Warwick & Lincoln (Aug. 4 & 5, 2006)

Yes, so my last post was about the ghost hunt at Warwick Castle. Obviously, I will not go on about that here. This is everything else but that, and photos.

First, a crazy photo I took at Warwick. It was dark, and the original photo is mostly black, except for the faint outline of the castle. I played with the "Auto Smart Fix" and the "Auto Contrast" features in PhotoShop Elements, and got these two interesting results:

(Auto Smart Fix)

(Auto Contrast)

Anyway, Melissa (my friend who lives near Lincoln, England) and I left Friday morning for Warwick. We arrived around lunchtime. I had reservations at the Days Inn somewhere in Warwick, and as we discovered, it was located at a Welcome Break, which is one of those massive roadside rests boasting several eating establishments, a gas station, a hotel, and shops. It was too early to check-in, as it was about 1 pm, so we ate lunch at the Welcome Break - Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then we wandered over to the Days Inn to check in, only to find out that the one where we had reservations was actually on the other side of the motorway. Ah well. We went up to the next exit and turned around and went to the other (identical) Welcome Break, and checked into our hotel. I wanted to get some sleep, since I was going to be up all night. Melissa went to the castle, where they are having their medieval days demonstrations everyday this summer. She got to see jousting, hand to hand combat, trebuchet, and other things. I figured that since I had just recently been to a similar event in Germany, I wasn't going to miss much anyway. I gave her my camera, and she took pictures (which are included in the link below).

Melissa came back to the room about 6…I had about 3.5 hours of sleep, more or less. I had showered and changed, so we drove back into Warwick in search of dinner. It's a rather small town, so it wasn't particularly hard to find the main drag. We decided on an Indian restaurant, since I haven't had much experience with Indian food. I ordered chicken korma, since it's a mild dish, and it was very good. I had rice on the side. Melissa had chicken tikka masala with garlic naan on the side, so we shared the rice and the naan. We had poppadams as an appetizer with mango chutney, onion relish, and a garlic yogurt spread. Tasty.

After dinner, Melissa and I had to run back to the hotel, since I realized that I forgot my flashlight for the ghost hunt. Then she dropped me off. If you haven't read about what happened after that, see the post below this one.

The following morning, at 5 am, Melissa picked me up from the castle and we went back to the hotel. I slept a little, but I was too wired from the events overnight. Melissa did a much better job of sleeping than I did. Melissa woke up about 10:30. By that time, I had already written out notes about the ghost hunt, and had moved on to a book. We checked out of our hotel at 11 and then had breakfast at the coffee shop inside the Welcome Break. I had a croissant and tea.

Then the trip back to Retford. It took a little over 2 hours. We went into the market square, where the Saturday market was being held. Melissa bought some marinated olives for our dinner that night. Mike (Melissa's husband) met up with us there and we went out to lunch somewhere locally…I forget the name of the place. Then we went back to Melissa's place and she headed off to the store to buy some cheese, crackers, strawberries, and wine for our dinner that night.

Melissa and I planned to attend the Lincoln Shakespeare Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that night, which was performed outdoors at the medieval Bishop's Palace, right in the shadow of the cathedral. We packed up our picnic beforehand of all the foodstuffs mentioned previously, and enjoyed a "dead posh" meal out on the grass before the show ("dead posh" is Melissa's term...gotta love that English slang!). The play was wonderful. It was so hilarious and the setting could not have been more beautiful. The only problem I had was that a wedding was going on nearby and the music was very loud - jazz music - which didn't quite go with the ambience of the play. But otherwise, it was an amazing time. Afterwards, we walked down (aptly named) Steep Hill, back to Melissa's car, which was parked in a garage by the riverfront…a pretty good distance away. It was a nice walk though. A beautiful evening, and everything lit up all over Lincoln. Lovely.

Pictures (all mine, except where noted)

Ghost Hunting at Warwick Castle

Note (July 15, 2007): I used to be the English Culture editor at BellaOnline, a position I held from Feb. 2006 to April 2007, and then left when I was offered a steady and challenging long-term writing project. Although being an editor there is mostly a labor of love (and hence, another reason why I left...I'm actually making money now), it did have some perks. I was invited to preview a ghost hunt at Warwick Castle, which was hosted by Fright Nights, a paranormal tour company in the UK. It was their first hunt in Warwick Castle, and I was among a team of journalists who attended. I was the only American there, and I was welcomed with open arms and some curiosity.

I felt that since this experience was such a departure from anything else I have ever done, it deserved its own post. I wrote about it for BellaOnline, as that was my "payment" for the free ticket (something that usually costs around $200, by the way), but that article was very condensed, since my limit was 400-600 words. The post I made below was transcribed from the rough notes I took at my hotel immediately after the experience. I believe that I remembered everything, even though I was trying to recall the entire night without having any sleep.

Fright Nights – Warwick Castle
August 4/5 2006 9 pm – 5am

The small group participating in the ghost hunts met in the castle’s cafeteria. We were introduced to the Fright Nights team and got an explanation of what they do, and what we should expect from the ghost hunt.

After this brief introduction, we got a tour of Warwick Castle – the grounds, Gate House, Dungeon, and the Ghost Tower. During this tour, the history of the castle was explained to us. At certain points, the Fright Nights guides paused to tell us that they were feeling certain spirits around, but most of the participants couldn’t see/feel/hear anything, except for one particular person in the group who had a very strong sense of the ghosts that were in each room.

After the initial orientation of the castle, we met back at our base of operations – the café. The tour leaders pass out ghost hunting equipment: various thermometers and electro-magnetic field detectors, and give us all a brief tutorial on how to use them. Then we are allowed to go off on our own private tour of the castle. Being reluctant to do this on my own, I paired up with another woman who was also there on her own. I had a thermometer and she had an electro-magnetic reader. We decided to explore the Gate House, but our equipment detected nothing. Supposedly, the Gate House contains the spirits of dead soldiers who tried to invade the castle, as well as a witch, and various other spirits.

After this, we all reconvened at the café to meet up with our medium, Michael. We all start introducing ourselves to each other, and two men (a gay couple…this will be important later, which is why I’m mentioning it) strike up a conversation with me, and I pretty much stick with them the rest of the evening.

As a group, we go out with Michael to tour the castle again. Immediately, he picked up the presence of ghosts: Roman soldiers marching in the courtyard, a man who had been trampled after being pushed to the ground, a drummer boy standing by a doorway who was sad because he lost his drum, a mother carrying a baby who is standing outside the castle gates, begging to be let in. Inside the dungeon, he sees the torture master, who doesn’t want us there. On the ceiling hangs an Iron Maiden. He sees a woman hanging in it. In the Gate House, he sees various other ghosts. At one point, he sees a ghost named Guy, a member of the Knights Templar, who was standing right next to me. The room was hot and stuffy, but my right side, next to where he is standing, is freezing cold.

In various rooms, depending on how spirits had died in them, people were complaining of correlating body aches: terrible headaches if the person died of a stroke, stomach aches if the ghost died from being stabbed in the stomach, etc. There was one room in particular where the air kept getting sucked out of my lungs and I was gasping for breath, and it happened to other people at the same time. There were also a few rooms where we smelled random scents like lavender or mint, when there was nothing in the room that should have been causing that scent.

In the Ghost Tower, which was left pretty much the way it was when its resident, Sir Greville, lived there, Michael picks up on a ghost in the first room named Brooke (last name), who tells him that he’s Sir G’s servant. Michael starts feeling a heavy pressure in his body, and he said it was due to the pervasive sadness in the room. Brooke was not just Sir G’s servant, but also his lover, and he stabbed Sir G. to death in a fit of passion, and then killed himself. Michael was relating all this to us, as he was communicating with Brooke, and it was consistent with the history of the castle, which Michael said he did not study prior to coming.

In Sir G’s bedroom, Michael describes Sir G’s ghost, and then begins to feel very uneasy. The other men in the room note some odd sensations, but the women didn’t feel anything. We were all standing in the dark, and we were told beforehand that if we felt like we were in imminent danger, we should turn on our flashlights and run. Well, one of the men did…he suddenly panicked, the flashlight came on, and he ran down the stairs out of Sir G’s room, followed by one of the paranormal experts who was leading the tour. They were down there for several minutes (they apparently picked up on another ghost at the bottom of the stairs) and those of us remaining in Sir G’s bedroom stood very still and quiet, and we heard footsteps actually walking around in the middle of the room. The men downstairs also heard them.

We eventually followed the men that were already downstairs, which led into a very narrow room. This is where the medium started panicking and freaking out. There was the presence of what is called an elemental, or animal spirit, and several people picked up on it being a wolf or a dog. At any rate, Michael, who has had contact with ghosts his entire life, told us that he had never felt more scared and freaked out in his life, and we had to strongly convince him not to flee from the building. At this point, for me personally, I had heard the footsteps, but besides that, had no convincing case that ghosts existed. I didn’t feel this panicky/dangerous vibe that several other people were picking up on.

After this intense scene in the Ghost Tower, we head back to the café, where we are split up into two teams. One team went with Michael to the Gate House and Dungeon to do a vigil for ghosts. My team joined the two other guides to go into the Ghost Tower. We started out on the first floor…one of the ladies in the group said that she felt a very playful spirit in the room, something akin to a court jester. We stood in a circle, holding hands. People were saying that they could feel the presence of the ghost behind them as it was walking around the room…it would lightly touch people. One of the guides said that she’s feeling that the ghost was walking in a very comical manner. One lady in the room gets a random fit of the giggles. I still feel/hear/see nothing.

We go up one floor, back to Sir G’s bedroom. All flashlights off, and we stand in a circle holding hands. Suddenly, we hear hissing sounds coming from various parts of the room. Some people say that the hissing is directly in their ears. Then we hear screaming and flashlights come on. Several women, particularly the ones standing by the stairs, were being shoved around very hard. The ones who felt this ended up moving to another point of the circle. Once we calmed down, we rejoined hands and the flashlights all went out again. The guides were asking, “If you’re here, give us a sign. Make a noise. Touch someone. Let us know you’re here” (they repeated this several times throughout the night). There is more pushing, screaming, flashlights coming on…people in abject terror. Lights go out again, holding hands again…I hear a shout coming from one of the men in the group. It is one of the gay guys that I was hanging out with, and he said that someone was trying to pull up the back of his shirt (remember, Sir G. was homosexual)…he explained that he was gay, so perhaps the ghost could sense that. We got settled back into our circle, lights out…one of the guides had gone and sat on Sir G’s bed. One woman suddenly exclaims that she sees a bright flash of light moving onto the bed. The guide announces that Sir G. is sitting next to him on the bed. We hear a sudden sound coming from downstairs. The guide on the bed shouts, “We know you’re down there, come up and join us.” In a minute, he tells us, “the elemental has joined me on the bed.” Despite all this going on, I still hear/see/feel nothing. Just about everyone else in the room is panicky and scared and nearly crying with absolute horror, and I was feeling a bit disappointed because I wasn’t experiencing anything.

At this point, we trade places…and our group joins Michael in the Gate House and the dungeon. Michael should have gone to the Ghost Tower, but he refused to step foot back in there again. We went to the dungeon first, which was, in my opinion, the creepiest room in the entire castle. All lights out. Instead of standing in a circle and holding hands, we just sat around the room very quietly. I was sitting off in a little alcove in the room, next to a trapdoor that led to a hole where they would throw some of the prisoners. I figured that surely I would feel something there, but I felt absolutely nothing. We sat there in silence for awhile, and the medium finally announced that nothing was there, so we moved on to the Gate House.

At the Gate House, nothing seemed to be going on there either. In one of the rooms, Michael said that he could see ghosts moving in and out, but none of them were staying. He said he would let us know if anything started to happen. Well, nothing did. We sat there for a really long time. My legs were starting to fall asleep. One of the guys in our group fell asleep and actually started snoring. Two of the women in the group finally got up, announcing that they had to go to the restroom, so I followed them out. We went to the restroom and then sat in the café for a bit, talking about how disappointing this was. Nothing we had seen had truly convinced us.

After a short while, everyone else joined us in the café. Michael arrived first, a minute or two before the others, and he was shaking and telling us that he was absolutely terrified of going back in the Ghost Tower. But he had to go, so he was fortifying himself with coffee. The rest of the group joined us, and we went back into the Ghost Tower and got into a circle, holding hands. All flashlights off, and the only light in the room was a tiny red dot coming from the tape recorder. Michael is sitting apart from us in a corner. I got a very odd sensation at this moment…the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I got this hot flash. One of our guides announced that Michael was currently in a trance. He is a transmedium, and ghosts can enter his body and speak through him. At that moment, we felt a whoosh of cold air, and Michael’s breathing became really shallow. He started moaning. So the guides begin asking him questions, and slowly he starts to talk. He says that his name is Guy, and that he lived right after the Crusades, in a place not far from the castle. He told us that he didn’t want us in the room, but he agreed to answer some questions on the condition that we promised to leave. He said that his wife lived in the castle…she was the daughter of an earl, and that she jumped into the Avon River and drowned at the age of 25 because she was possessed by demons. He explained that he lived his life as a recluse until he died at age 50. We felt another burst of air as he was talking about his wife, and he said, “She’s here.” The guides determined that his wife had entered the room. In a minute, we felt another rush of air and heard footsteps leaving the room, and the spirits were gone. Michael was sputtering and choking on the floor, and had to be helped out by one of the guides.

After that, a large chair was brought out and placed in the middle of the room, a wine glass placed upside down on top of it. Three people volunteer to place their fingers lightly on the base of the glass (like an Ouija board). One of them asked questions:

“If there is a spirit in the room, please move the glass.”

The glass moved, just a bit.

Through a series of other questions, we determined that the ghost moving the glass was once again, Sir G. Suddenly, the guides started suggesting questions for the volunteer to ask the ghost, but the ghost began responding directly to the guides instead.

“Do you know there is an elemental in the room?”

The glass moved so hard and fast that it nearly crashed off the chair.

“Can you move the glass in the direction where the elemental is located?”

The glass moved toward the stairway, where this wolf/dog spirit was first encountered.

A series of other questions were asked, and then the wine glass just stopped moving. After several minutes, we concluded that Sir G. was tired of playing with us, and he left. And so concluded our ghost hunt.

Back at the café for closing remarks, Michael is slumped in a chair, complaining that his body is burning. One woman touches his arm, and says that that his skin is boiling hot. It looked like blisters/boils were popping up on his skin, although I can’t be sure of that…I did see some wounds though and he was pointing them out.

The last hour was perhaps the most convincing for me, but I still haven’t quite wrapped my brain around it. Whether it was a bunch of smoke and mirrors, or whether it was real, it was a very cool experience, and I was happy to have access to the castle at night, which few people before me have ever had the chance to do.

Shakespeare Festival in Neuss

Somehow, a year or so ago, I accidentally stumbled upon some exciting news. Neuss, Germany hosts a Shakespeare festival every year! And Neuss isn't far from here! Less than an hour by train.

So I've been scheming for quite some time to go. Lance, of course, not being a fan of literature in general, showed no interest in going.

So I gathered up a couple of interested friends, and we trekked to Neuss yesterday to see the Aquila Theatre Company's fantastic production of A Comedy of Errors.

I'm not going to waste my time writing about it here. I already wrote about it at the Shakespeare Revue.

Anyway, a couple of photos:





Aside from this, Neuss has very little going for it. It wasn't in either of my German travel guides, and now I understand why. There really isn't anything there. They have a pretty church in the center of town, but as it was Sunday, we could not get in.

It's a shame, because we arrived there super early, giving ourselves enough time to get our bearings and then hopefully walk around a bit. I took my camera, but had nothing to photograph, except for this:



Yeah...I know, right? I only photographed it because it was weird.

Anyway, because it's not a touristy town, we were hard pressed to find anyone that spoke English. So I was called upon to activate my extremely terrible German, and we still managed to figure things out, but not without making fools of ourselves time and time again.

First, the tram. We wanted to take it to the Centrum. But the list of destinations at the ticket machine were all out of town. What about taking the tram INTO town...was that allowed? After standing at the ticket machine for 10 minutes, pressing random buttons and looking frustrated, an elderly woman approached us. She, of course, spoke to us in German. I responded "mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut" (a sentence I learned very quickly to say). I showed her our "Happy Weekend" train ticket, pointed to the tram ticket machine and asked "Ok?" She examined the train ticket and said it was okay, so hopefully she understood our meaning...we wanted to know if our train ticket would allow us passage on the tram. Sometimes train tickets include public transportation, and sometimes not.

After that, I asked, "Centrum?"

She responded, "Duesseldorf Centrum?"

"Nein. Neuss Centrum."

She looked confused (why in the hell would anyone want to go into Neuss, when they are all trying to escape from it)...

Finally, I said, "Shakespeare Festival."

"Ach!" She pointed to the opposite track.

So we got on the tram, still not sure we were allowed to use our train ticket. But nobody busted us. We got off at the Centrum stop and proceeded to find lunch...a Turkish place. Had lamachun (Turkish pizza), which was tasty, but very oily.

Then we proceeded to get lost. But we still had several hours. And a really crappy map I printed off the Neuss website.

We finally figured out that we were walking the opposite direction of the Globe. Turned ourselves around and walked back, and ended up at the Globe, only to discover that it was a stone's throw from the Centrum. HAHAHA. We suck.

Once we figured out its location, we went back to the Centrum, sat ourselves down at a gelaterie with some ice cream, and chilled out for about an hour.

Around 2, we got up to walk to the Globe (the play started at 3). On the way, we were distracted by a Jack Russell terrier playing in a fountain. The fountain shot out streams of water in various places at intervals, and the Jack Russell was running around chasing the streams of water, sopping wet and looking like she was having the time of her life. It was hilarious. I should have gotten a picture of that (or even video of it).

So then...the play.

Then back to the Centrum for dinner at Cafe Extrablatt (this is a German chain restaurant, which is why I'm linking to it. For God's sake...go to one somewhere else, but it's not a reason to go to Neuss). It was tasty. First time I had ever been there. I was just looking for something light, since the day was hot. My Greek salad fit the bill.

We decided to walk back to the train station by following the tram tracks. It took 10 minutes. Gee, we would've saved ourselves a lot of time in the first place if we had just done that.

Figured out the train schedule...or so we thought. Wanted the train to Aachen (since it stopped in Geilenkirchen on the way there). That train goes through Monchengladbach. So we got to the track, and the sign at the track announced that the next train is going to Monengladbach. We figured that was our train. It wasn't. As we soon found out. We hopped on the train. It stopped at Monchengladbach. Then it started going the way that we came. WTF?

So we got off at the next stop. Took the next train back to Monchengladbach. Got off there, and then got on a train going to Aachen.

(Note to self: Monchengladbach looks more interesting than Neuss. Perhaps a trip there for kicks sometime).

That was a swanky train, at least. Air conditioned. Very comfortable seats. Relaxing. It was a pretty short ride from there to GK.

So our day was full of misadventures. But we still had fun. We got to see great Shakespeare. And I didn't get the cheesy t-shirt I was hoping to buy (they only sold one t-shirt, and it wasn't cheesy), but otherwise, it was fun. That's the only thing that would get me back to Neuss again though.

Birthday Trip Around the World in Two Hours

Today is my birthday, and originally, Lance and I planned to be in Luxembourg for their annual Army March, which is a pretty big deal, from what I understand.

But our walking club decided to do a different walk instead (in the local area), so we were left without plans for today.

I decided yesterday that I wanted to check out Mondo Verde, a theme park in Landgraaf, Netherlands, about half an hour from where we live.

Mondo Verde is a large park full of gardens that are supposed to represent every part of the world (except, it didn't, but it had a lot of different gardens).

We were there for a couple of hours, and we managed to see everything. We even ate there, although I wouldn't recommend it. The food isn't very good and it's expensive.

Click here for pictures.

Karyn Goes Medieval

Yesterday, Tina from the Family Support Center headed a group to go first to Kommern (a little over an hour away) to see the Freilichtmuseum, a Rhenish open-air museum that covers German history from medieval times to present, followed by a medieval festival and jousting tournament at Satzvey Castle, only 10 minutes from Kommern. Lance was supposed to go, but he bailed out on me at the last minute, but gave me a large amount of spending money to get myself something nice for my birthday. I met up with the group and rode with Tina in her car to the museum.

I don't think the museum attracts a lot of people besides Germans, because they had no visitor's guides in English or anything that explained to us what the buildings were for and when they were built. Some were obvious and we were able to figure them out on our own. Mostly, we just enjoyed the feeling of walking through all the old villages, which looked like something out of Shakespeare.

We arrived at the museum around lunchtime, and Tina and I were starting to feel hungry. There was a long line outside of a building marked "Handlung," so we stopped to see what the fuss was about. As we were getting there, we saw a man carting a big basket of bread to the building…we realized then that it was a bake shop (the breads are baked down the street and carted here for sale). So we got in line and got ourselves some hot, fresh butter streusel. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

We spent a few hours there poking around. I don't have much to write about it, since the pictures do a better job of describing what it's like than I could. We went to this really modern looking part of the museum (it's rather large and spread out) and went inside this building that looked like an IMAX theater or something…only it was an enclosed village, with each street representing a different time in German history. So we started in what looked like 18th century and worked our way through the building, ending at post WWII. Inside the windows were various scenes - domestic scenes with families of very realistic looking mannequins sitting around the dinner table, or scenes of people conducting business or civic duties, and even a scene in a bar with a prostitute sitting in some guy's lap. Then came the WWI scenes and after that WWII, with the Jews standing behind barbed wire fence, with a Nazi flag hanging over them and a poster of Hitler.

Anyway, around 3 pm, Tina and I met up with the rest of the group at our designated meeting point, and we got in our cars and moved on to Burg Satzvey, which is located in the town of Satzvey just a short drive away. It's an area with several castles, but Burg Satzvey is one of the best preserved moated castles in North Rhine-Westphalia (the German state in which Lance and I live). Burg Satzvey itself is not a tourist attraction, since it's a residence. A count and countess live there, and the rest of the castle is divided into apartments. But the countess loves medieval history, and since 1981, she has hosted various events on the castle grounds, the highlight of which is a medieval festival and jousting tournament held for one weekend every June. There are also other events such as Irish night (with Irish dancing and music), Halloween night, Christmas, etc. All of these events generally have a medieval theme attached to them, and there are some permanent fixtures on the castle grounds, like medieval-themed shops and restaurants, that people can visit year-round.

Anyway, we showed up at the castle with a little time to spare before the jousting tournament, so we all split up. Tina and I went to search for some actual food, since at that point, I only had cereal at breakfast and then the piece of streusel. I ordered what I thought was a meat kabob (that's what Tina told me it was) with a side of kraut and fries. What I actually got was a pork chop smothered in caramelized onions. That's okay. It was soooooooooo good. Everything was good. Tina had the same thing and we were just so happy. We got a picnic table by the stage, where a medieval music group was performing. They were fantastic. The music had a great beat.

Once we were done eating, it was nearly time for the joust. So we made our way to the jousting grounds and stopped at the drink counter to order drinks (since the place where we got our food didn't serve drinks for some reason). They took a two euro deposit from each of us and served us our drinks in souvenir Burg Satzvey glass mugs, but we let them keep our 2 euros each and kept the mugs. :)

Anyway, we found our seats in the covered pavilion and we were in the SECOND ROW! And I had little kids sitting in front of me, so I had a virtually unobstructed view of the show (except for when the one little girl in front of me put on a knight's helmet with a huge blue feather sticking out of it).

The joust was narrated in Old German, but we got the gist. It was a pretty cliché story. A woman comes out and talks about how her beloved brother was killed by an evil knight. The village gathers together to avenge his death, but the black knight's minions sweep into town, nearly killing everyone. They take the sister hostage…she is claimed as a bride by the black knight. One of the surviving villagers, a good knight (go figure), gathers up some men and challenges the bad guys to a joust. A mysterious man in a black mask joins them…together they all vanquish evil, and the mysterious masked knight turns out to be the king. The sister is saved from having to marry Sir Evil, and everyone, except the bad guys, lives happily ever after.

Or something like that.

It was great fun anyway. And except for an accident at the end where the actor playing the evil knight fell from his horse and the horse fell on top of him (from the way it looked, it was NOT planned…it was after the show when they were coming out to take their final bows), it seemed to go pretty well. There was no stage blood shed, but it looked like some of these actors really got hurt, that's how well everything was acted. And the horses had to jump through flames, which I thought was amazing, especially since Tina told me that it's against their nature to do something like that (she used to have horses and knows a bit about horse training).

Anyway, the show was good. And Tina checked with everyone else in the group and they decided to go home on their own time…we wouldn't caravan back. So Tina and I could stay as long as we liked. We did some shopping (I spent the money Lance gave me on two blouses and a decorative ceramic thing to hang up somewhere in the house). We had some Belgian cherry beer (which was delicious, but didn't taste a thing like beer). We had mead (and I bought a bottle to take home). We also visited the tent village where the actors live during the weekend that they're at the castle. It's really cool. No modern conveniences for them (except canned food). They sleep on sheep's wool rugs (which actually look very comfortable). Several tents are set up around a communal table, where they all eat together (whilst still in costume, I might add). Even the family pets are there. They even play medieval games. It actually all looked quite bohemian and cozy. I wouldn't want to live that way indefinitely, but it would be fun for a few nights.

Pictures

Freilichtmuseum Homepage (in English)

Burg Satzvey Homepage (in English)

Bonn and Rhein in Flammen

My friend Andrea, her husband Jeff, and I decided to go to the opening weekend for Rhein in Flammen (Rhine in Flames) yesterday. Rhine in Flames is a yearly event that takes place several times over the course of the summer - beginning generally in the towns along the Northern end of the Rhine and then moving down the river, generally ending somewhere around Bingen each year (usually in conjunction with a wine festival).

Since yesterday's event took place around the area of Bonn/Königswinter, we decided to leave early in the afternoon to spend a few hours sightseeing in Bonn, drive across the river to Königswinter, and then watch the fireworks from there.

It was a beautiful day for sightseeing…low 70s, sunny, just a bit of a breeze, but not enough to be uncomfortable. We had a nice drive to Bonn…it takes a little over an hour to get there. But wouldn't you know, we had no sooner arrived in Bonn, waiting at a traffic light at an intersection, when Jeff's car died. He pushed it to the side of the road and attempted to figure out what was wrong with it. He guessed that the fuel pump went out (an accurate assessment, as we later discovered), and then commenced to calling ADAC (the German auto club). He told Andrea and I to go ahead and get out of the car and do our sightseeing. We weren't far from the main train station anyway, which is where we had planned to park and begin our walking tour. So Andrea and I left him to deal with the car and we went ahead to begin our sightseeing.

We stayed in the general area of the Markt. There were lots of interesting things to see, not the least of which was a beach volleyball tournament right in the cathedral square. Rather odd, but interesting. We wanted to visit the cathedral, but it was closed. It was completely covered in scaffolding too, so I couldn't even photograph it. We had no particular destination in mind, other than the Beethoven Haus, so we just meandered along the shopping district, making note of potential places to have dinner. We eventually found ourselves a bit lost, as the signs for Beethoven Haus came to an end and we couldn't find it. So Andrea consulted her map, realized we were about a block from where we should be, and we backtracked and found it.

So we paid the admission and went in for about an hour. It's a good sized house, but with small rooms. No pictures allowed inside. Beethoven's viola, organ, and his various woodwind instruments were on display. His hearing instruments (ear trumpets and whatnot) were also there, as was his life mask and death mask. It was interesting. The room in which he was born is completely empty, except for a bust of him sitting in the center of the room. It was an interesting way to kill some time, and the gardens outside were pretty. The gift shop was nice too. I picked up a couple of Andy Warhol's Beethoven paintings in postcard form to send to some friends, and I got a magnet that has his sheet music printed on it.

Andy Warhol's Beethoven

After the Beethoven Haus, we were starving. Andrea had already talked to Jeff a few times, and he was in the process of having the car towed to the shop and getting a rental car (all of which is covered by ADAC), so he told us to go ahead and eat. I remembered seeing a tapas bar just a couple of blocks from the Beethoven Haus, so I asked Andrea if tapas sounded good, and she agreed. So we sat outside at the tapas bar, happily nibbling away at our mixed tapas platters, when Jeff called. He had the rental car, he was parked at the train station, and he wanted to know where we were. So we told him the street name (we were sitting across from a big church…I think it was, in fact, the one in which Beethoven was baptized). He took his GPS unit and plugged in the coordinates, and several moments later, we saw him coming down the street. So he joined us, shared our tapas, got a bit more for himself, and we had a nice dinner.

After dinner, it was going on 8, so we decided it was time to leave Bonn. We made our way to the train station and picked up the rental car (emblazoned on all sides with the ADAC logo…AWESOME! :P) and we drove to Königswinter. I should mention that this town's claim to fame is Castle Drachenfels, a ruin at the top of this absolutely massive hill that you can see for miles around. Drachenfels is apparently "the world's most popular hill." There's a funicular that goes to the top to the Drachenfels visitor center, stopping halfway up for people who want to visit Schloss Drachenburg, which is a large Rococo palace. We weren't sure we would be able to visit Drachenfels, since we read that the funicular only operates until 7 pm. But we were in luck, because of Rhine of Flames, they were open until 11:30, and they were taking people up to the top to watch the fireworks. From up there, you can see all the fireworks displays, which started at Linz at 9:50 and ended at Bonn past 11. So we paid our 8 euros round trip, and took the funicular to the top just as dusk was settling in. The views were AMAZING. It was incredible to watch the lights come up on all the towns around the Rhine.

The ruins themselves were closed off by that time, but they don't look that big anyway, so I was content to just hang around the visitor center. Large crowds had already staked out spots, particularly on the side that looks out over both sides of the Rhine. We got there too late…we could only see the river from Linz to Königswater. We wouldn't be able to see the fireworks show in Bonn. But we held on to the spot we could get…fortunately, it was along a wall so I could set up my tripod, and we waited for the fireworks to begin.

Once they began in Linz, we could barely see them…but they were there, at a distance. Ten minutes later, fireworks started going off at a location nearer to us…we could actually hear them this time. At the same time, we started to see the fleet of lighted barges snaking its way down the river toward Bonn. Some barges that were lit up all in red were floating close to the banks, giving off a reddish glow that really did look like flames. Ten minutes later, an island just below us started shooting off their fireworks. That’s when I got most of the photos.

The Königswinter fireworks began, but on the other side of the visitor center from where we were. But we found a spot where we could see most of them. At the same time, the Drachenfels ruins were lit up a bright red.

Then, the Bonn fireworks were to begin. There was no spot we could find where we would have a good view, so we decided to just get on the funicular and beat the crowds. We sat on the train for a good long time, waiting for the fireworks to end. We could see the sky lighting up, but that was about it. Finally, the hordes were coming, and we were grateful that we had seats.

So we came down, found the car, and then headed home. I got in at around 1:15, exhausted and with a splitting headache, but very very happy. It was a fun day, despite the car mishap, and we all had a wonderful time.

Pictures

Tiptoe Through the Tulips: A Walk in Keukenhof

Rather than doing a trip report and post, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Just a quick note - Keukenhof just opened last week, and because of the late winter, most of the outdoor gardens are not blooming yet - mainly just daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths. The indoor gardens were beautiful. And we got to listen to a nice swing band playing inside. Most of the flower photos were taken in the indoor pavilions.

The weather was nice today. Very windy, but sunny all day with mild temperatures.

Pictures

Viva Veneto! Karina's Italian Adventure, The Exciting Conclusion

Friday, March 3, Day 4 - Venice again

Friday was our last day…at least for me, Emily, and Tracey. Stephanie's husband was coming down to Pisa, so she was taking the train down there to meet him. Her train was scheduled to leave at 8:20.

So we quickly ate breakfast and at 7:20, I got us checked out of the hotel and asked that a cab be called for us. Typically, it only takes a couple of minutes for the cab to arrive. The first place he contacted couldn't send out any cabs. So he called the second place and the phone was busy. He tried for 20 minutes. After being unable to get through, he advised us to go to the tobacco shop across the street and buy bus tickets. So we did that and waited for the 8:05 bus, which didn't come until 8:15. It was really cold and it started snowing while we were standing there. Finally, the bus came, but by the time we got to the train station, Stephanie had missed her train. She was able to get on another one that got her down to Pisa a half hour later. We got our train tickets to Venice, which ended up being on the EuroStar, the high speed luxury train. They cost a bit more, but it was Emily's birthday, so we figured it was worth the splurge.

Ironically, the high speed train was 20 minutes late. And when it arrived, it came in on a different track. Fortunately, it was the track next to us, so we didn't need to rush to get to it.

We arrived in Venice, checked our luggage at the left luggage counter, and then set out. This time, we stopped in many souvenir shops on the way. I got a Murano glass pendant with my initial on it, and a ceramic handpainted mask, as well as a Murano snowman ornament. We slowly made our way toward Piazza San Marco, since our goal was to actually see the inside of the basilica and the Doge's palace. Instead of lunch, we grabbed some ice cream cake at a gelato stand. When we stopped at McDonald's to use the restroom, Emily and Tracey had decided that some protein might be nice, so they each got a hamburger. When I saw them eating, I caved and got one too. Yes, I understand the irony and the sacrilege of eating McDonald's in Italy. But I had to say, it hit the spot.

Finally, we arrived again at San Marco, which was not nearly as crowded as it had been 3 days before. We went into the basilica, and I immediately got a sense of déjà vu. It reminded me of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Turns out, it was modeled after the Hagia Sophia, so it's no wonder I made the connection (I actually read this in The Historian later that day - a novel that has nothing to do with Italy, really, but it was mentioned. I thought that was pretty cool. And the novel is based on fact, so I assume that the San Marco/Hagia Sophia connection is true). We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, which is a shame, since it's gorgeous. But I managed to take some pictures right outside the entrance. You can take a virtual tour here:

http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/eng/index.bsm

After touring the basilica, we went next door to the Doge's palace, but not before I had a sudden impulse to feed the pigeons. I hate them, so I'm not sure what compelled me to do it, except that Emily videotaped it and she thought it was funny. I asked her for some crackers and she gave me some butter cookies out of her purse. Within a minute or two, I had pigeons all over me. I got smacked in the face with their wings and everything. But I didn't get pooped on. Miraculous.

Okay, so Doge's Palace…we could only take pictures in the courtyard, but the inside was very impressive. The prisons were a bit cramped though, and my slight claustrophobia made me somewhat uncomfortable.

Once we toured the palace, we figured we'd call it a day, since we needed to start moving toward the train station to work on getting home. We wanted to eat first though. Emily found this restaurant that seemed a bit high priced to me, but she really wanted to eat there, so I agreed and we went inside.

It was disappointing. I had minestrone soup. At least, that's what I ordered. What I got was vegetable soup with microscopic bits of chicken in it. There were no beans, which is what I thought made minestrone minestrone. I complained to the waitress and she was really snotty with me. Emily and Tracey ordered shrimp scampi, which was a bit charred. The bill for the 3 of us was 81 euros. My soup alone was 9 euros - an outrageous price. In fact, I'm pretty sure the prices inside were higher than what was posted outside. And the food was terrible. At least mine was. We were angry and we felt we got ripped off.

So unfortunately, that was my last meal in Italy. It left A LOT to be desired.

We got to the train station, got our luggage, and got our train tickets to Treviso. There was some confusion. We looked at the arriving trains schedule instead of the departure schedule, so we were waiting at the wrong place and the wrong time. When we finally realized it, we had been sitting for quite awhile. So Emily asked at the information counter which train we should be on, and we got straightened out.

We had some time to kill, so Emily went to the restroom, and I just happened to glance at the train ticket, realizing that it was only for one person! The entire time, all our fares had been printed on one ticket. So I pointed this out to Emily, and in a huff, she got in line at the ticket counter again and waited for the same person from whom we bought the tickets. She was prepared to yell at him, but when he saw her, he said he was glad that we came back, because he had our two tickets still with him. So he gave them to her, she blew him a kiss and thanked him, and we found our platform.

Got to Treviso and needed to take the bus to the airport. There was some confusion as to where we caught the bus. There were about 10 different bus stops. The very last one we checked was the one we needed. So we waited. And then our bus arrived.

It took us through a different part of Treviso than what we saw the first day - right in the center of town. Treviso looked very nice and seemed to be quite a happening place on a Friday night. It's only about 15 km. outside of Venice, yet it looked like the place to be.

So we got to the airport for our 9:20 flight, which left a bit late since somebody checked on their luggage and never boarded the plane. When we got back to Charleroi, it was 11 pm and Emily had mistakenly told her husband that we were getting in at midnight, so we had to wait almost an hour for him to arrive. It was freezing out, and one of the night workers tried to kick us out. But we refused to leave. Finally, he arrived and we headed home. I walked in my own door shortly before 2 am, exhausted.

Ciao, Italy. It was nice knowing you, if only for a few days.

Last day photos

Viva Veneto! Karina's Italian Adventure, parts 2 & 3

Day 2 - Nove (March 1)

Nove is a small town outside of Vicenza, in fact, you go through Padua to get there. Unfortunately, I was unable to see much of Padua, which looks like another amazing place to sightsee.

Anyway, we started our morning with breakfast at the hotel. There is nothing like a fresh baked croissant with cream cheese and jam. They had other things too, but if I see that on the breakfast buffet, that's the only thing I want.

After breakfast, we called a cab to take us to the Army base. There is a small military installation in Vicenza. I shouldn't really say that it's small - it's larger than the Army garrison we have here. This seemed quite large by comparison. But it's considered small.

Anyway, we needed to pick up a rental car, so we asked around and finally got directions to the Europcar office on base. The cars were parked on a lot about 7 km outside of the base though, so we couldn't pick up the car right away. We had a little over an hour until the shuttle would come get us to take us to the lot, so we stopped at the commissary and bought some more snacks and water and we stopped a few other places in an effort to kill time.

At 11, this blue school bus came and got us. The guy spoke no English, so he had trouble understanding where we were trying to go. Finally, he picked up another passenger and that person explained to him where we were trying to go. So he dropped us off there and we located the Mercedes that we reserved. That was the one thing we spared no expense on during this trip. We wanted a good sized car with a roomy trunk and an automatic transmission. Split 4 ways, the cost per day wasn't bad.

After figuring out all the bells and whistles and plugging our destination into Emily's GPS system, we were on our way to Nove. It didn't take us too long to get there…maybe half an hour, slightly longer. Nove isn't a spectacular town or anything. They have a nice bell tower in the center of town and a pretty impressive school building, but there is nothing striking beyond that. You can see the mountains in the distance though, which is cool. Nove's claim to fame is its dozens of ceramics shops, and ceramic shopping was our order for the day.

Well, I should say it was THEIR order for the day. I didn't particularly care to go shopping, but since I'm writing an article about Nove ceramics for a magazine, I had to go. If I didn't have to go, I would've gone off to Verona for the day.

I bought a few things. The mosaic pottery was beautiful, so I bought a piece for myself. I got some gifts. The pottery is really cheap. You can get Lenox or Tiffany china there for a fraction of what you pay in the States. But it was mostly white stuff, and all white stuff bores me. I like color. And the pottery I bought was colorful.

So the entire day was spent shopping. My companions bought A LOT of pottery. I was mostly interested in getting pictures for the magazine. We visited some shops that had pretty handpainted things, but as I was not in the market for any pottery, I didn't see the point in buying it.

Nove is so small that there weren't many places to eat. We stopped at a place that had sandwiches, and I got some kind of wrap with thin sliced beef and cheese. Also, Nove is off the tourist radar enough that they still have squat toilets in most public restrooms. We only found one regular toilet the entire time we were there. Believe me, I was thrilled.

While we were shopping, we ran into two people from here at our base. Small world, after all. And we ran into a lady who is trying to start her own business selling Italian pottery. I think she spent about 15,000 euros...she spent 8,000 just in one store. Anyway, she seemed really nice, and her name was Karen. She is the one who called me "Karina" and told me that it means pretty in Italian.

Once everyone was satisfied with the shopping (actually, it was time for the shops to close), we headed back to Vicenza, stopping at the base to get some cash out of the ATM machine. We asked a nice couple to recommend a restaurant for us, and they told us about this place called Giada's and gave us directions to it.

So, bellies grumbling, we set off for Giada's. The restaurant is located inside an elegant looking 3 star hotel. We ordered 2 appetizers to share: fried stuffed olives and fried mozzarella. I had a nice fruity white wine which reminded me of Riesling. We had a basket of mixed breads AND bruschetta brought to our table. The bruschetta was delicious, as were the appetizers. For the main course, I ordered angel hair pasta with crab legs. They didn't bring me a little fork to get the meat out, so I had some trouble, but what I was able to eat was excellent. Finally, we ordered dessert. I got a lemon sponge cake that was absolutely delicious. Total cost for 2 appetizers, 4 main courses, a side dish, 1 liter of wine, a Diet Coke, and 4 desserts - 69 euros. Astonishingly cheap. We were very pleased and it was the best meal we had on the entire trip.

After our wonderful meal, we headed back to the hotel for night #2.

Day 3 - Vicenza (March 2, if you're not keeping track)

After breakfast, we headed back to the base. We had an appointment with the post office to ship all the pottery. The pottery shop where we purchased the most stuff was delivering it to the base for us. We had to wait awhile for them to show up, but they finally did, we helped unload the boxes, and then we labeled everything and slapped on the customs forms and shipped them back here. (And in case you were wondering, the shipping doesn't cost us anything).

After that was done, we drove into Vicenza for a day of sightseeing there. We found a place to park next to a really pretty park with a beautiful church. So we walked through there first and then headed toward the market square, where a flea market takes place every Thursday.

We got there and perused the flea market for a bit. There was nothing different there from what we usually see in the local markets here. So we gave up on that. We stopped at a place for lunch and ordered pizzas. Mine was vegetarian and came with giant strips of zucchini on it and large pieces of pepper and eggplant. It was a very odd looking pizza and honestly, it wasn't very good. I had a nice rose wine with it though. I don't know what it's called, but it was good. As we left the restaurant, I saw a small dog walking around inside, collecting sugar packets off the floor. His owner, an elderly gentleman, seemed pretty distressed about it, so I called the dog over to me and plucked the sugar packets out of his mouth. As I was leaving, the man stopped me and said "Thank you" in English and then wished me goodbye.

Our car was paid up to park until 2, so after walking around a bit and exploring various streets and alleys, we headed toward the car so we wouldn't get a parking ticket. Tracey was getting tired and wanted to go back to the hotel to nap. So we dropped her off and then drove to a better parking spot closer to what we wanted to see: the Teatro Olimpico, Europe's oldest operating theatre, built by the famous Italian architect Palladio in 1580. The theatre was breathtaking. And we found out that they were performing Romeo and Juliet there only 2 days later - the day after we left Italy. Oh, the heartbreak! Especially since Vicenza is Romeo and Giulietta country (so is Verona, but the original author is buried in Vicenza).

There was an art museum across the street, and our Teatro Olimpico tickets admitted us into that museum as well, so we decided to check it out. We didn't spend much time there. It was mostly religious art, but nothing really famous. Some of it looked familiar though.

After the art museum, we wanted to stop and sit awhile, so we found a coffee shop and got some ciacolatta calda (hot chocolate).

The church were Luigi Da Porto is buried (the aforementioned author of the original Romeo and Juliet) was close by, so we decided to go there to see if we could find his grave. Supposedly, the church also houses a thorn from Christ's crown of thorns. We saw neither. The church was pretty though. It's the Church of Santa Corona.

After the church, we pretty much had enough sightseeing. We were near a pastry/gelato shop that I had seen earlier in the day that had really cute heart-shaped pastries and other lovely delights, so I wanted to take Emily and Stephanie there to show them. We decided to have some gelato, since how can you go to Italy and not have some? So we went inside and they ordered tiramisu and chocolate, I ordered strawberry.

After our treat, we headed back toward the car, but not before a cosmetics/candle store caught my eye. I went in and bought some bath stuff and then hopped in the car and we went back to the hotel.

Stephanie and Emily decided to return the rental car. They left me with the task of picking up something for dinner. So they took off to get rid of the Mercedes and I stayed in the hotel room for awhile to read, since I knew they would take awhile. Tracey was also in the room with me, working on puzzles. It was the first real moment of quiet I had the entire trip, other than when we slept.

An hour after they left, I figured it was time to pick up dinner. We actually wanted to avoid Italian this time…Chinese sounded good to all of us. But when I asked at the front desk, they indicated that the nearest Chinese place was quite a distance from the hotel. I wasn't comfortable being out after dark, alone, in a strange city. So I decided to just get food at the closest place I could find, which ended up being a gelato/snack shop about half a block from the hotel. The guy working there spoke no English at all, so with my very limited Italian, I was able to order 2 pizziola sandwiches and 2 ham and fontina cheese on foccacia. While he was toasting my sandwiches, he was talking with a guy who had a beagle. The beagle kept looking at me and then jumping up to hump the guy's leg. It was hilarious. But I pretended not to see. After what seemed like ages, my sandwiches were toasted, he wrapped them up to go, and I went back to the hotel. I divided each sandwich in half so we could each try a bit of both. They were delicious.

After the sandwiches had gone cold, Stephanie and Emily returned. They had some problems with the car rental return, but it got sorted out, and they came up to the room with 2 glasses of red wine for themselves and a glass of champagne for me (they had no white wine at the bar). They ate and told us about their car rental return adventure. Since Emily's birthday was the next day, we surprised her with a card and a tiny gift - a silver violin that was purchased earlier that day. Emily is an accomplished violinist.

And thus ended day 3. One more day to go.

***
I published an article about Nove in the
Stars & Stripes, European Edition in October 2006. My photos are included too.

Days 2 & 3 photos

Viva Veneto! Karina's Italian Adventure

Day 1 - Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - Carnevale in Venice

As we drove further into Belgium toward Charleroi airport early that morning, the snow fell harder and harder, making me glad that I was leaving. Surely the weather would be better in Italy. We arrived at Charleroi, checked in for our flight, and waited. Our flight was slightly delayed, but not by much.

The Ryanair flight was reasonably short - about 90 minutes - and I had a positively breathtaking view of the snow-capped Alps before we began our descent into Treviso airport. As our imminent arrival was announced, I looked out the window and gazed for the first time at the Italian landscape below. It was much browner and drier than Germany. The sun was shining. There was NO SNOW.

Once we departed the plane and tried to get our bearings, we had a decision to make: take a bus all the way into Venice, or take a bus to Treviso's train station, and from there, take the train into Venice? We chose the former, figuring we would get a nice view of the scenery as we drove by. The only problem was, we had no idea where the bus would drop us off in proximity to Venice's Santa Lucia train station, which is where we needed to go to store our luggage. A look through a guidebook revealed that it was only a short distance from where we needed to go. Whew. We sat back and enjoyed the ride and watched stately villas come into view. Already, I was smitten with Italy.

After a 45 minute ride (give or take), the bus arrived at Piazelle Roma. We debarked, found our luggage, and walked about 10 minutes to the train station. Everywhere I looked was a photograph - postcard perfect. But with luggage in tow, it was difficult to get out my camera and take photographs. Alas, I could not, if I wanted to keep up with my friends.

Once we located the train station and stowed away our luggage, the first order of business was getting food. Since the Carnevale festivities take place in Piazza San Marco - a reasonably long trek from where we were - we decided to start making our way in that direction, and stop to eat wherever looked good. This time, I had my camera at the ready, and I snapped away - Venice is a shutterbug's heaven. I frequently got behind my travel companions, but I always managed to catch up.

Eventually, we stopped for lunch at some nondescript place tucked away in a small square. Stephanie had been to Venice before on her honeymoon, and she recalled eating in that area, so we stopped at a place that she recognized. I ordered spaghetti carbonara, my favorite Italian dish. It was good, but I've had better. I had tiramisu for dessert. It was a satisfactory meal, but it didn't blow me away.

Recharged after our meal, we again made our way toward Piazza San Marco, occasionally stopping to browse in shops or take photographs. Carnevale events were well underway by the time we arrived. The Masque Parade was taking place on a stage that was set up at the end of the piazza, opposite Basilica di San Marco. There was such a crowd that I was unable to see anything. I focused mainly on taking pictures of the people around me who were in costume. Emily, being the tallest one of our group, was able to hold up her video camera to record the parade, and we watched it on the small screen of her camera.

After the parade, some of the participants came out to pose for photographs. Tracey, Emily and Stephanie decided that they wanted to buy some masks, so we visited several of the souvenir stands set up in the piazza until they all found what they wanted. Dusk started settling in, so we decided to go in search of dinner. I took a few more pictures as the lights started to come up around Venice, then we headed back toward the train station. We found a little café and ordered calzones.

We took our time getting to the train station, enjoying the allure of Venice at night. As we were getting closer to our destination, we stopped in a grocery store to get bottled water and snacks, and then walked to the train station to pick up our luggage and get on a train to Vicenza.

Once on the train, we noticed that it was much different from the reliable, efficient German rail. For one thing, the stops are not announced, so we had no idea when we were going to arrive in Vicenza. Every time we pulled into a station, we looked out the window, frantically searching for a sign to tell us where we were. Finally, we asked a passenger how many more stops until Vicenza. She told us that the next stop was Padova (Padua) and then 2-3 stops afterwards was Vicenza.

Once we got off at Vicenza, we immediately hailed a cab to take us to our hotel, about a mile and a half away. Since it was a holiday and nighttime, we were charged quite a bit for the ride, but it was better than trying to navigate the streets at night without a map and whilst carrying luggage. After a short drive, we arrived at the hotel. The lobby was very attractive and clean, so we felt good immediately upon entering. Once we made our way up to the room, we were impressed to find that it was huge, clean, and despite its shabbiness, it was charming. It was also very cheap - the four of us shared a room for about $120 each night. We had two twin beds and a queen bed. I immediately claimed one of the twin beds. We settled in, two of us took our showers to help save time in the morning, and then we were asleep.

***

An article was published about this trip in the January 2007 issue of Connection magazine. (I was also supposed to do the entire photo spread, but they only used about 5 of my photos at the most, and the absolute best one that I took wasn't even used).

This is the best photo I took there. It was published in a photography anthology in December 2006:



See the rest of the photos from day 1 here

Going Medieval in Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Our walking club took their annual trip over the weekend to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is along Germany's Romantic Road. From where we live, it's anywhere from a 4.5 to 6.5 hour drive, depending on traffic. Our club hired two 9 passenger vans, so we met up at 4 pm Friday afternoon at the car rental shop on base and loaded our luggage and ourselves into the van to begin our journey. Lance and I sat in the back of our van and we were the only 2 Americans among Canadians. We all got along well and the trip was pleasant enough, despite the wind and rain we had when we left. As we drove further into Germany, the weather became much nicer. About 2.5 hours into the trip, we stopped at roadside rest for snacks and a bathroom break. Our drive took us through/past Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, and Wuerzburg.

We arrived in Rothenburg sometime around 10:30 or so (we hit several traffic jams along the way), and stopped at an Aral station to ask for directions to our hotel. Our hotel - Gasthaus zum Schmölzer - is inside the Altstadt, or the Old Town, which is enclosed inside a giant medieval city wall. We found the hotel without much of a problem, located on a quiet cobblestone street. The owner of the hotel, Herr Hofmann, directed our group to another building nearby on another quiet cobblestone lane. That building, known as Pension Hofmann, is a part of Gasthaus zum Schmölzer, and that was where we were staying. Lance and I were handed a skeleton key with room 7 on it, and we climbed up 2 flights of spiral steps to our room.

Our room was small but cozy, with wood paneling on one wall, decorated with sketches of local sights and Renaissance and 18th century era portraits. We had down pillows and comforters. There were two single beds pushed together. We had a private WC with a small shower stall...it was tight quarters, but clean and cozy, and the room was very cheap with free breakfast every morning. Lance immediately checked on the television and we found that all the channels were in German (typically we get BBC World or CNN World), so he settled on Eurosport to watch the Olympics, while I settled in with a book. We didn't have a clock or a phone in the room, so we asked our new Canadian friends across the hall if they would rap on our door at 7 am. One of them had a cellphone with an alarm (I have one on my cellphone too, but I found that my cellphone battery was dead). We settled in for the night and I was soon asleep in the very cozy, comfortable bed.

At 7 am, there was the knock on our door, but I was already awake. The day started out cold and wet. We walked down the street to the main hotel for our breakfast - brotchen, cold cuts, cheese, hard boiled eggs, juice and tea. Lance and I weren't scheduled to do our volksmarch until the afternoon, but most of the group elected to do a morning walk as well, so we followed them to the start hall after breakfast so we knew where to go when our walk started. As we got there, the weather got worse and worse. And Lance and I were walking back to the hotel, it started to snow. We were going to spend the morning wandering around near the markt, but with the weather looking bad, we decided to stay in our room awhile to see if it might improve. I got so cozy that I fell asleep for about half an hour, and when I woke up, all precipitation had stopped. So Lance and I bundled up and made our way outside, where I decided to just walk straight to the start hall to wait for our walk to begin. The start hall is a lively place full of crowds, live music, and free flowing beer. There are always interesting characters there. We saw several men in lederhosen walking about.

After waiting some time for members of our club to get back for the afternoon walk, they announced the start of the Old Town Walk, and we took off. During the wait, we met some other Americans (there were a lot there) and got to pet some dogs. The afternoon walk was 11 kilometers, but I actually think it was much more than that. The weather was beautiful for the most part...we only got spit on a little bit about 3/4 of the way through the walk.

Much of the walk was on the outside of the Old Town, around the perimeter of the wall. Occasionally, we would be directed into the city, only to leave it again. We got nice views of the valley below.

Once we got inside town, I was instantly charmed. The buildings were colorful and beckoning us to slow down and look around. We made several detours for souvenirs on our way. I especially liked the Käthe Wohlfahrt store - the world famous German Christmas store. I think the one in Rothenburg is the original, and it was absolutely GIGANTIC. It was like walking into Santa's workshop. The Christmas displays were breathtaking. I managed to get some pictures of a cute animated display right inside the entrance, but beyond that, no pictures were allowed. Lance and I were walking through the store, looking for a Rothenburg Christmas ornament to add to our collection of ornaments that we've purchased on our travels. We finally found one - an exquisite handpainted glass one that will look wonderful alongside our ornaments from Paris, Holland, Brugge, London, etc.

We were in the Markt (town square) at 3, and our walking companions mentioned that the astronomical clock at the Rathaus had a little show at the top of every hour. So we watched the little windows on either side of the clock open up, and two medieval figures appeared in the windows. One was drinking beer, the other wine.

We finished our walk around 4 - roughly a four hour journey, and we got a really good look at most of the city, so Lance and I were pretty satisfied. We went back to the start hall, got our walking books stamped, and picked up a souvenir beer mug that we ordered that has a painting of Rothenburg's town square on it. Lance and I were pretty worn out, so we decided to go back to the hotel and freshen up, agreeing to meet most of our group for dinner at the main hotel at 6:30.

So back to our room for a nap and a shower. At 6:30, we walked to the main hotel. Lance ordered pork schnitzel with spaetzle (German noodles) and one of the regional Pilsners. I ordered jagerbraten (roast beef with mushroom sauce) with knodel on the side (potato/flour dumplings) and a nice Kabinett wine. The food was very good. I am not a fan of the knodel though, I must admit. It was very sticky and bland. I wish I had gotten the spaetzle.

Our dinner ran a couple of hours, so we got back to the hotel room and watched the Olympics. I was still exhausted, so I fell asleep pretty early. I slept really well, only being awakened by a few drunk guys singing on their way home from a bar.

We breakfasted at 8 this morning, and by 9, we were loaded up in the vans and on the road again. This time, it only took us a little over 4 hours to get home.

It was a nice weekend - way too short, but a nice change of scenery, which I badly needed. I fell in love with Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and I hope I get to go back. Before I moved to Germany, there was a certain way that I pictured it. Rothenburg is what I pictured. I'm just glad that there is an actual place in Germany that lives up to my imagination.


Pictures

Battle of the Bulge Memorial Walk, Bastogne, Belgium

Today, Lance and I had the privilege of participating in the annual Battle of the Bulge Memorial Walk in Bastogne, a tradition that spans 28 years. The emcee of the event was a Belgian soldier who served as a translator with Patton’s army. He’s 80 years old and he outwalked the rest of us. I got to talk to him briefly and he’s a remarkable man. ;)

Anyway, the busses departed Geilenkirchen at 5 am. We had a nice luxury motorcoach, so we relaxed and slept most of the way to Bastogne, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Geilenkirchen. Once there, we discovered that it was quite different from the weather in Geilenkirchen. Bastogne was covered in a blanket of snow. Pretty, but not the most ideal conditions for walking. The men who fought and died here did it in similar weather though (although I believe it was colder), so we were going to tough it out.

After spending a brief time in the start hall preparing for the walk, we made our way outside at 8 am to the starting point. They had 3 walk routes – 6 km, 14 km, and 20 km. Lance and I planned on doing the shortest route, since it was pretty cold outside. We were told we could start later – the 20 km walkers would be going first. But we decided to go with them, since the routes for each distance are marked. I believe most of the group decided to leave at that time also.

It was slow-going, as the route was icy and treacherous. I saw several people wipe out, and just crossed my fingers that Lance and I wouldn’t be included. After awhile though, walking was actually pretty pleasant. It didn’t feel very cold, and we actually started peeling off layers.

Occasionally, there would be stops along the route where you could see re-enactments of the Battle of the Bulge. There were soldiers in foxholes…most of the actors were depicting American soldiers, even though most of them were Belgian or Dutch. There were some American actors there, but not as many. They had places every 5 kilometers or so to get hot chocolate or mulled wine and use a porta potty. When we got to the 6 km turn-off, we decided that we were feeling good, so we would go for the 14.

There were times along the route where it was quite windy, once we reached the top of the hill and were out in the open, not sheltered by trees or hillsides. We just put all our layers back on and trudged onward. Also, toward the end, the last 5 km or so, the snow really started to fall. We had small ice pellets at one point, which stung when they hit you.

The coolest thing about this walk (besides the weather), was that soldiers would constantly come marching by you or jeeps and tanks would be driving up the streets of all the villages around Bastogne. At one point, we even heard machine gun fire. I can’t say the re-enactments were totally authentic though. I saw no Nazis, and all the guys looked pretty happy doing what they were doing. They didn’t make it look like war was hard work. They made it look pretty fun, actually. It was also amusing to see these guys in 1944 military uniforms talking on cellphones and using digital cameras.

Anyway, once we got to the 14 km turn-off, we decided that we could go no further. Lance said he could actually do 20. But I was wet, sore, and getting exhausted at that point. It would have been less of a hardship without the slush and mud all over the paths. We stopped at a tent so I could get a nourishing cup of mulled wine (which was good, by the way, first time I ever had it), and met up with my friend Emily and her husband Jamison, who had gotten way ahead of us on the trail, and we marched on.

Toward the end of our route, there was a Battle of the Bulge Museum and a monument, which you could climb to get great views of the Ardennes countryside. But we decided against both of these things. It was too cold and windy and snowy to climb an open air monument and we were too sore to pass some time in the museum. We tried to finish the route as quickly as we could (it took us exactly 4 hours). The bells were tolling noon as we walked up to the start hall for the completion of our walk.

We had 6 hours at that point until the busses departed for Geilenkirchen. Time enough for a little sightseeing and shopping. But first thing’s first – lunch! There was a cafeteria near the start hall, which happened to be in a mall, so we had lunch there. It was quite tasty, but all of the ordering had to be done in French, since the employees spoke no English. But we managed. I still remember enough French to order food, at least.

I tell you, it felt so good to sit. And sit we did. We stayed there for quite some time.

Afterwards, we walked into town. We stopped in the church to look around, only to find out that a wedding was about to begin (the bride and groom already entered). Ooops. We discreetly walked out.

We poked around in shops and as we were doing so, we noticed the parade about to begin on the main street. So we caught that. It was neat. They had all the actors from the re-enactment and some of the Belgian veterans marching in it, as well as children carrying the state flags from all the states. We had heard a rumor that people would be throwing nuts down from the windows of the town hall (this has to do with the time during the battle where the Germans asked for our surrender, and American General McAuliffe responded with “Nuts!”). Nuts, by the way, were a big theme on souvenirs and there was even a restaurant in the Bastogne town square called “Le Nut’s.” HAHAHA. We missed the nut throwing though.

After the parade, we stopped at a café because Jamison’s knee was hurting. So we had hot drinks and then he stayed there while Emily, Lance, and I did some more looking around in the shops. Finally, we gave up on the shopping, as the snow was coming down harder. We had a couple of hours until we had to meet the bus, so we stopped by the café to pick up Jamison, and then went to an Italian restaurant to eat dinner and wait out the couple of hours for the bus.

It was a snowy ride back, but by the time we reached the German border, the snow gave way to freezing rain. But we got home safe. Sore and exhausted, but safe.

Pictures (which Photobucket seems to want to show in reverse chronological order)

Thorn, Netherlands

Lance and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary in a couple of days, so we decided that we wanted to take a day trip somewhere nearby. One of my friends has been talking a lot about Thorn recently, which is along the Maas River in Limburg, very close to both the Belgian border (less than a kilometer, actually). She mentioned that there was a fantastic pannekoeken (!!!!) restaurant there. Well, Lance and I love our Dutch pancakes, so I was sold. I suggested to him that we should go there for a few hours, and it was well worth the visit.

It took about 45 minutes to drive there, maybe a little less than that. Absolutely easy drive. When we got there, the town seemed pretty dead. There were no cars parked in the town parking lot and there didn't seem to be a lot of people walking around. I told Lance that perhaps everyone was at mass. It was around 10:30 or so when we arrived. We were on the outskirts of town anyway, but I figured there would be more people at the historic town center.

Thorn is known as "the white village" for its whitewashed brick buildings in the center of town. The only building in the center of town that is not like this is the church. The church was built in the 10th century, and was actually an abbey, or a "stift" for quite some time. But the women who lived there were not nuns. They were just the unmarried daughters of the aristocracy, leaving the stift if they married.

There's your little history lesson on Thorn. :)

So we parked and walked into the town center, and as we approached the church, we noticed a lot of men in Renaissance costumes standing at the church entrance. There were kids wearing angel costumes. It seemed that everyone in Thorn was standing around, waiting for something to happen. It looked to us that a parade was about to start. But I wanted to find the VVV (Tourist Information) office, so we followed the signs to get there. I asked the lady at the VVV what was going on, and she told me it was a religious procession. Just then, we heard music starting to play, so we walked back to the church to see the parade finally begin. We had seen banners placed all around with crosses on them, so we figured those banners were marking the parade route.

De Pannekoekenbakker, the place where we wanted to have lunch, was right across from the church and there were already a few people sitting outside in the sun, enjoying their coffee or tea. It was a bit chilly for us to sit outside, so we went inside and grabbed a table. I immediately liked the place. It had a very cozy ambience, even though the inside was very roomy and the tables were pretty private (we've eaten in many a restaurant where the tables were crammed very close together). It had a nice, rustic feel to it, with a little bit of kitsch thrown in (stuffed animals strewn everywhere). Their claim to fame is 230 kinds of pancakes, so we grabbed menus and dove right in. But as we tried to decide what to have, we enjoyed some lovely hot chocolate with whipped cream (warme chocomel met slagroom).

Lance decided on a ham and cheese pannekoeken. I ordered a bacon, cheese and onion (onions in pancakes, you say? Why, it's delicious! These aren't pancakes like what we're used to in America). We ordered seconds on the warme chocomel met slagroom. That is seriously the best hot chocolate EVER.

Our lunch was very tasty and we enjoyed it immensely. But once we were finished, the doings at the church seemed to be over, so we decided to pay the admission fee and walk around. It is much smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside, but it has a gorgeous altar, and we went down in this little room in a sub-basement that had some religious relics, and the body of one of the abbesses was on display in a glass coffin. She died in the 18th century, but seemed none the worse for wear. There was another abbess on display too, but she was nothing but bones. I don't know when she died. Odd and creepy, really, but amongst the bones, hair, and other body parts of saints, they weren't particularly out of place, I suppose.

After our visit to the church, there really wasn't much left to see or do. Since it is a Sunday, the shops and museums are closed. We decided to look into a river cruise, which goes from Thorn to the towns of Wessem and Stevensweert, but when we looked at the time table for cruises, the next one didn't begin until 2:15. It was only 12:45. So we decided to just go home. We mostly came for the pancakes anyway, and for a bit of a scenery change.

On the drive back, we took a different route home that took us off the autoweg (or what you would call the autobahn in German). We drove through picturesque towns and just enjoyed the beautiful, sunny autumn day.

Pictures

Karyn in Luxembourg

Yesterday I took an MWR trip to Luxembourg City. MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) is a military organization that plans activities for military and their dependents. Here in Europe, they very frequently arrange coach trips to various destinations. Usually they are day trips, but sometimes the trips last all weekend.

Anyway, the trip to Luxembourg took about 3 hours. We drove through the Belgian Ardennes (past Bastogne) down into Luxembourg, and shortly after passing the border, we were in Luxembourg City. It's the largest city in Luxembourg, but doesn't have the feel of a capital city at all.

When our bus arrived, a tour guide got on and showed us the city's sights. Our first stop - the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, where over 5,000 WWII dead are buried. General Patton is also buried there. He died after the war ended, but his will requested that he be buried there with his men.

There is a Nazi cemetery down the street from the American one. I wanted to go in and look at it, but sadly, the tour did not include that. We did learn that over 9,000 Nazi soldiers are buried in that cemetery, approximately 5,000 of them in a mass grave.

The bus brought us back into town, where the guide pointed out various landmarks. We stopped at the casemates (the city fortifications) to look at the views of the valley below.

The bus tour ended around lunch-time, so we got off the bus, splitting off to do our own thing for the day. The guy who had been sitting next to me on the bus, Nels, asked if I would mind if he joined me, provided I didn't plan to spend my day shopping. I didn't plan to spend my day shopping, so I agreed to let him accompany me.

Our first stop was to find some lunch. We walked into a square with a variety of restaurants. I spied a Chi Chi's and I hadn't had Mexican food in some time. He agreed this was fine, so we decided to split a combination plate of their nachos. Honestly, the food was lousy. Chi Chi's isn't a great Mexican restaurant to begin with, but the overseas ones are really bad. I regret going there to eat. While we were eating (al fresco, I might add, although we were under an umbrella), it started sprinkling a bit.

After lunch, we decided to just walk around for awhile. The sky started darkening and we knew worse rain was coming (I was prepared, Nels was not). We ducked into a church when the rain started pouring down - Eglise St. Michel.

Once the rain let up a bit, we found ourselves going back toward the casemates. You can take tours inside it. There are various tunnels and caves inside where battles were fought. The rain started coming down again, so we decided to get tickets for the casemates tour and then spent the next hour or more walking through pitch black tunnels and going down slippery, narrow, winding stairs.

By the time we left the casemates, the rain had stopped and the sun came out again, so it started to get really muggy and miserable.

After that, we mostly wandered around, stopping for McFlurries at McDonald's. There was a jazz band playing in the square, so we listened in for a few minutes and then moved on.

We toured the Notre Dame cathedral, which isn't nearly as impressive as Cologne's, Strasbourg's, or Westminster Abbey. But it was still pretty.

About 45 minutes before we had to meet up with the bus to go home, we stopped at a restaurant called La Boucherie for drinks. (I wish we had eaten there for lunch. The food looked really good. And it was just 2 doors down from Chi Chi's). They had a new flavor of Cola Light - Sango (orange-flavored) that is being test-marketed in Luxembourg and Belgium. So I ordered that. It was very nice. (I ended up buying a big bottle of it to take home when the bus stopped just outside Liege on the way back).

Even though we didn't do much, we saw a lot of sights, and I could appreciate the things about Luxembourg that weren't particularly touristy. There were a lot of interesting details on both residential and commercial buildings, so I tried to photograph those things. The part of the city that lies in the valley seemed to be largely untouched by tourist traffic, so we enjoyed wandering around there as well. It was peaceful and quiet, with just a few sidewalk cafes and nothing that particularly catered to tourists.

We did a lot of walking, particularly on very steep (wet) cobblestone streets, which was a lot of fun, let me tell you. And there was a lot of stair climbing as well. But what I found to be really interesting about Luxembourg is that you can appreciate it on various levels. The views of the valley from the top of the casemates are equally as wonderful as the views from the valley. And in-between is nice too. I hope my pictures demonstrate that.

Pictures

Lance and Karyn Go to London Town

This was almost two weeks ago, but Lance and I have been moving into another house, so I've had no time to update until now.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Lance and I arrived at London Stansted after a nerve-wracking morning of being stuck in Eindhoven, NL traffic and getting to the airport less than an hour before our flight. The flight was smooth and extremely brief. Getting out of Stansted into London proper actually took longer than the flight. We took the Stansted Express – 45 minutes to Liverpool Street Station. From there, we hop on the tube, take that to Tower Hill, and then switch tubes to get out to Fulham Broadway. Total tube travel time (try saying that 10 times fast) = 1 hour. There were some delays due to security issues, but that seems to be pretty normal since the July 7 bombings.

At one of the tube stops, a pigeon got on, pecked around until the next stop, and then got off. Hilarious.

Once we got to Fulham Broadway and located our hotel, we checked in and decided to search for lunch. Lance decided that he wanted to visit the Natural History Museum, which is in the South Kensington area near a lot of other museums. So we figured we would find a bite to eat there. The first place we saw after leaving the tube station was a crepe restaurant. So crepes it was. And then on to the Natural History Museum.

I should say, first of all, that I wasn’t feeling well our first day there. I had an upset stomach – not nausea, but just not good. But I got through the Natural History Museum as best I could. It was interesting, but I just couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked. We saw a good portion of the museum, but not everything. The museum is free and I was very impressed with the quality of it. It was probably the best natural history museum I’ve ever seen. The dinosaur exhibit is impressive. No wonder it’s so popular.

The Victoria & Albert Museum is right by the Natural History Museum, and Lance chose that as a place for us to visit. That surprised me, because it’s mostly art, and he’s not really into that. But there was plenty of interesting stuff to look at. We didn’t get through all of this museum either, but the sculpture room was especially interesting and I also liked the wardrobe exhibits – mostly stuff worn by royalty.

After we had enough of that museum, we decided to go in search of dinner. Lance wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Café, since it’s the original. I wasn’t so particular. I’ve already eaten there anyway. So we took the tube to Hyde Park Corner to go to the restaurant, only to find out that they were closed due to a fire. So we walked all over the area looking for another place to eat. We stopped briefly in Harrod’s so Lance could check it out. And then we continued on…and on…and on… Our walk turned up nothing that either of us wanted to eat (and in London, that’s pretty amazing). So Lance suggested we take the tube back to the area where we started out, and there we found an Italian restaurant. So we had dinner there and headed back to the hotel to shower and rest. We spent the rest of the evening watching crazy British television shows (there’s this one called “Bad Lad Army” that just had us in hysterics) and I had some hot cocoa and cookies from the tea service in our room.

Friday, August 26

Lance’s sister and Dennis were arriving that morning, so we spent all morning in the hotel lobby awaiting their arrival, after having a traditional English breakfast at a little café across the street from our hotel. Their flight was to get into Gatwick at 9, but they didn’t make it to the hotel until almost noon.

Once they got checked in, we gave them some time to freshen up, and then they came and got us at our room.

We figured we would get on our city bus tour, since we had 24 hours to use it after validating the ticket. So we took the tube to Green Park to get on the bus, but since we were so close to Buckingham Palace, and Kim wanted to take the tour of the state rooms, we did that first. Then we got on our bus tour, and it started to get pretty cold and a bit rainy then. We rode up to the Tower of London, got off, and then took our free one-way boat cruise down the Thames. We arrived somewhere near the Parliament building, and we decided to go to Trafalgar Square for dinner. We ended up at the first place we saw – Garfunkel’s – which had a bit of everything: burgers, fish and chips, steak.

After dinner, Kim and Dennis were feeling the jet-lag, so we headed back to the hotel. And that ended day 2. At least for Lance and myself.

Saturday, August 27

Not wanting to have English breakfast again, Lance and I fortified ourselves with 2 day old cinnamon rolls from the Sainsbury's grocery down the street. Ick. At least the tea from the tea service was good (but Lance doesn't drink it, so he'll never know).

Our first stop was to the Tower of London. It took awhile to get there on the tube. We got there pretty early and got on one of the tours with a Beefeater, who was more amusing than you could imagine. It was a really interesting tour, but it didn’t cover the exhibits. So we looked at the crown jewels, and the armory.

Since we had an ambitious schedule, we left there around noon, grabbing quick takeaway lunches from the Tower’s snack counter. We hopped on the tube to St. Paul’s, but when we got there, it looked like there was a wedding about to happen, so we decided against taking a tour. Back on the tube, this time headed for Westminster Abbey. We spent at least an hour in there…probably more than that. I was particularly in awe of Elizabeth I’s tomb, the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Poets' Corner. It really is a magnificent graveyard. You almost forget that it’s a cathedral though because it is so mired down in sarcophagi and memorials – more than any other cathedral I’ve seen. But it’s so fascinating to see them all. I almost stepped on Charles Darwin’s grave. He’s buried under the floor. You can’t walk in there without stepping on someone’s resting place.

We had a 4:30 appointment at the London Eye, so we left around 3:30 or so and walked across the bridge to get there (it’s directly across from the abbey – Parliament). We got there way early and we were ushered into a waiting room to await our tour guide that we paid a bit extra to have. We got a private car with her (along with the few other people who paid extra for the tour guide) and had a really cool half hour ride with a bird’s eye view of all of London’s sights. Very very cool. Seeing Downing Street (the prime minister’s residence) from high above was particularly interesting, because it doesn’t look nearly as impressive on the ground as it does from the sky. I have to admit that I was skeptical about the London Eye. In my humble opinion, it’s an eyesore next to the grandeur of all of London’s great landmarks. But it is an awesome way to see the city.

We capped off our night by having dinner at The Anchor Bankside, a pub that was once the haunt of Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, and Dickens. We had a nice dinner there and stayed and had drinks as the skies darkened and the London skyline lit up. After having our fill of beer and cider, we walked along the banks of the Thames for awhile, enjoying the beautiful views, the buskers performing in the streets, and the beautiful weather. What a fantastic ending to our trip.

Sunday, August 28

We had said goodbye to Kim and Dennis the night before, since they had a very early wake-up call to move on to their next destination (Stratford-Upon-Avon…*jealous*…I’ve been there before and I loved it so much). Lance and I didn’t have our flight back to Eindhoven until 5, so we had a leisurely morning at the hotel. Then we checked out and took the tube to Liverpool Street Station, which is where we needed to catch the train for the airport. But we hung out there for awhile, had lunch, and attempted to spend some of the pounds we had left. At 1, we took to train to the airport and then spent more money there. I bought a bunch of books and magazines, so I have plenty of reading material to last me awhile now.

As we were arriving in Eindhoven, I was very excited to see the British Royal Air Force Red Arrows lined up on Eindhoven’s tarmac. I saw them perform last year when Lance and I were at RAF Waddington near Lincoln, England for an air show. They are impressive.

Pictures