On the Lam.

Travel writing quickly becomes fiction. Time passes, memory fades, but the pressure to publish and bring the saga of my and C's three-month sabbatical to an end remains. Which brings us to today, back in the United States, back in Anchorage even, a little over a month out of the Czech Republic, and only now filling in the blanks after Ceske Budejovice. To do so, I'll dig into memory to tell the tale. I did not keep contemporaneous notes, so I might have lost some of the details, but what follows is how I remember it happening

My arch-nemesis, Baron von Kleidentragger, somehow discovered our presence in Ceske Budejovice and dispatched an elite squadron of what he terms Stormtroopers—likely named in reference to the Third Reich and not the Star Wars trilogy—to find and capture C and I. Meanwhile, C and I were ensconced deep within Budvarka Pivnice, having spent the better part of four days drinking unfiltered Budweiser nonstop, when we spotted the first pair of the Baron's soldiers marching past the open door to the bar. The soldiers were on their way to our hotel room, which we had not actually been back to after checking in, having slept each night in pools of spilled beer and one random gutter. The soldiers would not find us there.

Relying on my years of training as an elite espionage agent for Albemarle County, I willed all of the accumulated alcohol out of my system, then willed all of the alcohol out of C's system too. We needed all of our reflexes to react. Clear headed, we assessed the situation, decided there were too many of the Baron's troops to battle, and decided to flee. Chased by Stormtroopers, it is only fitting we headed to Chateau Zbiroh.

If you have heard of Chateau Zbiroh at all you are probably either: a) Czech; or b) travelers like us who were looking for somewhere to spend a day or two between Ceske Budejoive and Prague and found a listing for the Chateau on booking.com. The rooms cost a little more than we wanted to pay, but how often do you get to stay in a Chateau? Besides, the website advertised an underground swimming pool, and we had packed swim suits all over Europe. It was time to put them to use.

Chateau Zbiroh sits on the hill over the town of Zbiroh, close to the train but only if you have a car. Luckily the hotel sent a driver to pick us up at an additional charge. We checked in and made our way to our room, which in an earlier age probably housed a scullery maid. At our rate, we did not get the grand rooms advertised on the website; we were stuck into the servant quarters.

We took a tour of the Chateau (at an extra charge), and tried to follow the tour narrative in an English packet we were handed. The translation was not great, and it was hard to follow. The place has a long history stretching back to 1193, and housed at least three emperors. There was also some strong connection with the Knights Templar, but I never really understood the details, if there were any. The Chateau keeps a bunch of Templar artifacts in its museum, though, which made the whole thing feel like a Dan Brown novel. Mucha lived in the museum for a number of years, painting his Slav Epic in what is now the Mucha ballroom. He also made the Chateau a seat for the Masons: more Dan Brown. Curiously, we learned that the Masons (and Mucha) were instrumental in the creation of Czechoslovakia as a nation.

The Nazis occupied the Chateau during the Second World War. Tour materials claimed that a large quartz deposit (jasper) under the Chateau made it possible for Nazi intelligence to intercept radio signals from all around the globe. I'm vaguely familiar with the concept of quartz radios, but I have my doubts about the technical accuracy of the story. As the Nazis were departing the Chateau, probably in a hurry as Soviet armies moved in, they dumped documents, weapons, and the bric-a-brac of military life into the deepest well in Europe, conveniently located at the Chateau. Some of those artifacts are on display as part of the Chateau tour—rusty pistols mostly—and I suspect anything really interesting was carted off.

The well is also home to legend, as it apparently has some kind of false floor or side wall that is wired with explosives. People (which people, specifically, I'm not sure) now speculate that the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Lost Amber Room, is hidden behind these explosives. Our English tour documents claimed that “even the American Discovery Channel” could not figure out how to access whatever lies behind the false floor. Is the Discovery Channel really the world expert here? Am I really to believe that modern remote sensing or drilling technology can't determine whether there is or isn't something of significance to be unearthed? I suspect that the legend is more valuable to the hotel as a continuing mystery than as a busted myth. We never got to see the well itself. It is part of the outdoor tour, which was canceled due to rain, and would have cost extra in any case.

The hotel itself was fine, but nickled-and-dimed its guests. That pool for instance? It cost $20 an hour. Tripadvisor reviews kept bringing up chained birds, and indeed the hotel kept large birds of prey tethered on short leashes to roosts out front for our entertainment. We could hear them crying in the night. At least it sounded like crying to me. To the extent the Chateau wants to seek international guests, many of whom, like me, haven't seen animals kept like this since that sad zoo in Alamogordo, New Mexico circa 1980, the Chateau may want to rethink this attraction.

Because we did not know what else to do with out time, we took the hike into town for lunch and toured the local museum. On the way back, we walked deeper into the woods. We stopped at a barbed wire fence, blocking the entrance to a cement bunker. It looked... institutional. Or maybe militarized. A crash sounded in the woods behind us. C screamed. It turned our to be a tree branch that let loose, falling to the ground.  But clearly the place had us on edge. It was not much of a stretch to think Nazi zombies were crashing through the woods.  Time to move on. One step ahead of the Baron as always.

(In the hall of the scullery maids.)

(The Zbiroh woods.)

(A picture of a picture of the Chateau.)

(View from the Chateau.)

(Entrance to the hotel.  Ok, it is grander than the Motel 6.)

(So, if you saw this sign on a staircase, what would you do?)

(We followed this stairwell into darkness.  Really.  Then turned around and came back up.  Wonder what was down there?)

(On the train, leaving Zbiroh.)

The King of Locks

C and I packed and prepared to leave our hotel-that-was-not-entirely-sure-it-was-ready-to-be-a-hotel in Ceske Budejovice a little after 8:00, early perhaps but well within the usual ambit of business hours in the hospitality business. We shouldered our bags, locked our room, went down two flights of stairs and through a glass door that locked automatically on closing, providing, I suppose, an extra measure of security for us, the only guests. One last long and wide flight of wooden stairs, worn concave in the center, took us to the ground floor, a covered hall separated from the street by a wooden door, an interior courtyard by a full-length and locked wrought iron gate, and the cafe/bar that doubled as reception by a locked door with a piece of paper suggesting—if we deciphered the Czech correctly—that the cafe was closed. Not really a problem, though; we had prepaid for the room and felt free to leave.

“What should we do with the key?”

“I don't know. Just leave it in the room. I'm sure they'll find it.”

“Ok.” I left my bags in the hall and made the climb back upstairs for the last time. I put the keys in the lock and left them there. No one was going to pass by to take them, and the staff would find them soon enough. I headed back downstairs. C and I again hefted the bags and headed to the street.

The door heading outside was the sort of thing that we, as tourists, find charming about the Old World: weathered wood planks held together by iron bands, all secured to a stone arch by six-inch hinges that would be at home in a Tolkein novel. It is the sort of touch I might expect to find at a Disney castle but that carries an aura of authenticity here where, well, that is just what doors look like. C gave the handle a turn and a tug, then looked down at the modern and solid looking deadbolt, an apparent retrofit.

“It's locked.”

I turned to look back up at the automatically locking glass door and thought about the set of keys I had just left on the other side.

***

We had pulled into Ceske Budejovice a few days earlier after several hours on two trains, first traveling with crowds through Austria, then traveling in a nearly empty train through the woods, hills, and farms of the Czech Republic. After our prior touch-and-go attempt to find lodging in Munich on the fly, we had booked a room in advance. We had an address in hand and a map thanks to our phones and an international data plan. The door on the street under the right number appeared to lead to a cafe, and at the time of our arrival six men and women were crowding the door trying to muscle a four-foot tall safe of prodigious weight either into or out of the building. We stood in front holding our bags and whispering back and forth.

“Is this it?”

“I don't know. I guess so.”

You might think if you were trying to run a hotel and two befuddled foreigners speaking a foreign language showed up with luggage, you might—assume? hope?—they were here to part with some money and do their small part to make your business viable. Perhaps you would smile and make sweeping motions with your arms to show, regardless of the language barrier, that the strangers should please enter the door and become customers. Not the case here. After what felt like minutes but may have only been seconds of standing around and feeling we were somehow in the way, we interrupted to ask, “Hotel? Pension? Ano?”

We got an affirmative sign, and decided it was ok to walk up the plywood ramp that had appeared in order to help in some undefined manner with moving the safe. We made our way into the cafe where a young woman stood behind the counter.

“Dobry den. Do you speak English?”

“Yes, a very little.”

“We have a reservation?” This we phrased as much as a question as a statement of fact. It still was not clear we were in the right place. But yes, we did have a reservation, and yes, she was expecting us. The young woman read from a small hand-written script in English that someone had left for her (or that she had prepared in advance), explaining that payment was due, describing how to get to the room, and noting that the key she handed to us would open all three doors. Three doors. Got it.

After unlocking two doors we settled into our room and then took a walk to get our bearings. We climbed the black tower for an overview of the town square. A bit unsure after Bratislava of how to tell if a restaurant served food or bar snacks, and tired from a day of travel, we took the safe but still tasty option of sitting down for a pizza on the same square. And we ordered our first pints of Budweiser.

To the extent Ceske Budejovice has an international reputation, it is known for its beer, which has been brewed in the area since the 13^th century. Two different breweries have brewed and exported beer under the name Budweiser from Ceske Budejovice, and both have been involved in a three-way trade mark dispute with Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser here in the United States. I have no idea what has become of the older Czech brewery using the Budweiser name, but the more recent (since 1895, almost 20 years later than Anheuser-Busch started using the Budweiser name) has a strong presence throughout the Czech Republic. As a result of the trade mark disputes, the American Budweiser can only be sold in the European Union as “Bud,” and Czech Budweiser is marketed as Czechvar in the U.S. The claims have, I think, all been resolved or dismissed, and as I understand it agreements were at one time reached whereby Anheuser-Busch (or, rather, its parent InBev) agreed to market the Czech beer in the U.S. Presumably the parties have kissed and made up, though the Czech brewery still asks “King of beers?” with a smirk, confident with good reason that its beer would win any blind tasting.

As all tourists in Ceske Budejovice must, we toured the brewery. A cute, young girl led our tour in English. She had a heavy Slavic accent that (strictly as a matter of insensitive cultural stereotype) was completely out of character with her being a cute, young girl (but that was surely in character with her being Czech). She made multiple references to the number of “hectacres” of beer brewed (do they really measure beer by area in the Czech Republic?), sounding like Crazy Vaclav and making C and I snicker every time. Perhaps this is why Americans have a bad reputation overseas.

Equating Ceske Budejovice solely with its brewery tour, though, is selling the place short. We would have liked to stay longer to further enjoy quiet nights on the square, sample some wines in addition to the beers, and, perhaps most of all, take day trips on foot and by bike on the trails in the region. But, once again thanks to Munich, we had booked ahead in a town further north and it was time to move on. Which is why we are up and packed at 8:00, sitting on the worn steps in the entry hall to our hotel, wondering when the cafe will open. Staring at the third door.

They Have a Different Word for Everything

And just like that, I have no idea what is going on. Austrians may be impossible to understand, but at least I can read their signs. But the Slovaks? They use our same alphabet, but have decided on a whole different way of organizing the letters. As a result, C and I found ourselves in Bratislava, hungry, sitting down for a lunch of . . . braided cheese? A little research after the fact suggests we decided on a bar for lunch with a menu of “snacks to eat with beer.” I assume it is the equivalent of traveling to New Jersey, deciding you feel peckish, and walking into an old-man-bar to order a nice bowl of beer nuts for what is often in Europe the largest meal of the day. But it was not a complete loss. The bar had a large screen TV playing a video survey of the most important women in pop music today, so I was totally brought up to speed on . . . twerking? Or was that last year? Maybe I'm not as up to speed as I'd hoped. I suppose the subtle flavors of braided cheese distracted me from the many global cultural lessons being televised to a room empty but for C and I.

Bratislava was certainly a step further east than Vienna. Like pretty much anywhere listed in a guide book, the town came replete with old buildings, cobbled streets, and postcard vendors. But here we for the first time intersected the web of global backpacking routes, finding ourselves at the Tourist Information office with someone shouldering a didgeridoo and someone else traveling the world with juggling pins strapped to his Deuter, perhaps how I would have packed for a trip some 30 years ago. We were all scratching our heads, trying to get a lay on what there was to do in the border regions of Slovakia.

In our case we opted to visit the Eastern European Center for Photography. Who would have thought we would have to travel to Slovakia to be introduced to the work of the Korean Dancing Photographer? Sometimes I think I have an understanding of and appreciation for what it means to be art. Then I run across something like the Dancing Photographer and have to throw all preconceptions out of the window: the defenestration of understanding.

“I work in contradictions. For example, I named this piece 'The Skinny Pig.' Pigs are not skinny. They are fat. So it should have been called 'The Fat Pig.' But I did not call it 'The Fat Pig.' I called it 'The Skinny Pig.'”

And therein lies the art.

We are heading next to the Czech Republic, where I am told they have found yet a third way to organize and derive meaning from the letters in the Roman alphabet. I am also told the Czechs know a thing or two about beer. So here is to hoping that we learn how to read “cheese” and “beer snack” on any menu we are handed.

(C looking dubious about lunch.  She has the braided cheese.  I've got blue cheese in a jar of pickled onions.)

(Bratislava street.)

(We needed to mail post cards.  So was this place a post office or a bank?  We weren't sure up until the moment that the clerk put stamps on and hand cancelled our mail.)

(Bratislava church.)

Waltzing for Cake

So. Vienna. What have you taught us? The importance of air conditioning (temperatures hovered just shy of 100 while we were there)? That an eisspänner and Sacher torte from some random cafe on Goldegg Road can cure all ills, even those caused by route deviations, enormous crowds, and the aforementioned heat? That Luciano Pavarotti holds the record for number of curtain calls—165—a record set at the Vienna Opera House? A little of all of the above?

We spent four nights in Vienna, leaving the small town comforts of the Bavarian Alps behind. On the way from Lenngries we had to connect trains in Salzburg, so we decided to take a little walk through town, dodging Sound of Music tours all the while. As tourists we did what all tourists ultimately do in Salzburg: buy iced coffees at Starbucks. There is no tradition of iced drinks in this part of the world, much less iced coffees, unless you want your espresso poured over ice cream. Let's face it, as delicious as that may be, sometimes you just want coffee. And when it has been above 90 degrees for as long as you can remember, sometimes you just want your coffee cold. So, Starbucks. And churches. We also looked at churches.

C and I got to Vienna and were delighted—deeee lighted—to find powerful and functional air conditioning in our hotel room. Our days thereafter were spent alternately reviving under its soft caress and pushing the limits of crowd and heat exhaustion in the outside world. It turns out we were not the only people visiting Vienna in August. This point was driven home with some force by the line to enter Belvedere Palace, the lesser of Vienna's two major palace attractions. Rather than gape at Hapsburg opulence, we turned tail and ate cake and drank coffee instead. As cake and coffee are also considered Viennese institutions, I figure it still counts. Some of the Hapsburg opulence was also on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, a museum where the structure itself could have been a museum and still draw crowds even absent the Dürer, Rembrandt, and Rubens. So we didn't miss out entirely.

 

We also got to do laundry, because sometimes you still have to do chores even in Austria.  We packed our bags and headed to a laundromat near our hotel.  Contrary to our expectations, there were no vending machines selling small packets of detergent.  Many years ago, I was required to memorize a piece of dialogue for my high school German class, an exchange that was purportedly an advertisement for Blanco brand detergent.  It was a stirring piece of a theatre:  "Hi!  How are you?  You're looking good!  But your laundry... that is a different story.  It is gray and staying gray.  You should try washing next time with Blanco.  No washing detergent washes any whiter than Blanco!"  Stirring enough that it has stuck with me for over 30 years.  So I knew exactly how to say "detergent" in German.  Because Austrians all understand German (even though speak with some crazy dialect that I can't decipher), I approached a woman to ask, "Is there a store nearby where we can buy detergent?"

 

"Detergent?  You don't need detergent.  It is in the machine."

 

"The soap is in the machine?" I tried to clarify with some degree of disbelief.

 

"Yes, it is all automatic."

 

I'm sure we looked like some kind of yokel straight out of the closest hollow, mesmerized by big city technology, staring at the washer and elbowing each other in the ribs: "Hey!  There's soap in them there machines!"  But at least we didn't need to buy detergent.  The washing machines actually weighed your clothes and used the correct amount of both water and soap depending on the weight.  Pretty cool, actually. 

 

I liked Vienna.  But saying that feels a little like saying "I like chocolate."  It is kind of a given, right?  I just wish the Austrians spoke German in a manner I could understand.

 

(Salzburg church.)

(Salzburg window.)

(Salzburg iced coffee.)



(Vienna church.)

(View from our hotel window.  These two were out there for hours every morning.)

(Vienna cake and coffee.)

(Vienna museum.)

 

Check, please!

Nothing makes a United States citizen abroad more anxious than uncertainty over how or when the check will arrive after eating out in a restaurant. We as a country have come to expect that soon after our plates are clear—or maybe before—the bill will appear with a curt “Take your time,” an invitation that is rarely made in earnest. We pony up, burp loudly, and move rapidly home so as to not miss the season finale of the Bachelor.

Not so elsewhere, where the expectation seems to be that, as a diner, you will want to linger, converse, digest, and perhaps if the mood strikes order a coffee or glass of schnapps. How then, do you actually go about bringing the meal to an end and settling the business of exchanging money for goods and service received? Most of the time, it involves catching the waiter's eye and simply asking for the check, although the whole getting the waiter's attention piece of the dance can sometimes be a challenge. I am convinced that at some places we have eaten, the staff is involved in a bit of side action with money riding on who can keep his or her customers seated the longest.

I have always liked Mexico, where, as here in Europe, it is required that you ask for the check, done in Spanish with a brief, “La quinta, por favor.” In my experience, without exception, this is greeted with a pause, a slight inward gaze, an internal calculation, the tossing of hands in the air, and the exclamation: “Ah! La quinta! Si, senor.” Unspoken, but carried in subtext, is: “The check! What a great idea! I never would have considered that, but now that you mention it I can think of no better way to bring our time here together to a close. When I return home tonight, I shall light a small candle to the Virgin of Guadalupe in honor of your vision and courage! The check will arrive momentarily, and I thank you for your wisdom!” Soon thereafter, the bill arrives, I pony up, burp loudly, and move rapidly to my hotel to catch whatever tele-novela is on that night.

In Germany, I initially also asked for the bill--”Die Rechnung, bitte”--but have started following the lead of those around me and just saying we want to pay--”Wir wollen bezahlen, bitte.” So I did recently at a beer garden in Lenngries, a small resort town in the Bavarian Alps. The proprietor came over with the ubiquitous leather wallet, used to make change in every place with table service I have ever seen in Germany, settled the bill, and then asked, “Where are you from.”

“Alaska.”

Tell someone you are from Alaska, and you generally get one of two reactions. The first, and more common, includes a widening of the eyes, a slow whistle, and a shake of the head, all intended to let you know that you are crazy for living somewhere so cold, notwithstanding that anywhere north of the Alps probably gets as cold or colder than Anchorage over the course of a winter. The second reaction also includes wide eyes and a slow whistle, this time with a slight nod and various statements about how badly the person speaking wants to go see the place. But the man in Lenggries went off script.

“Alaska? Really! You see my nephew over there? The boy in the blue shirt?”

“Yes.” Indeed, his nephew had just earlier brought me a second beer.

“He thought for sure you were French. Hey! They aren't French! They're from Alaska!”

The nephew walked over. “Really? But the way you ordered a beer: 'May I have another beer, please.' It sounded so French. Alaska, eh? What the hell are you doing in Lenngries?”

Now that was a good question.

We had actually intended to be in another town altogether. Once in Munich, a friend had sent a number of tips for the Bavarian Alps, most involving stays at alpine huts for which we couldn't quite figure out the logistics. But he also sent a link to a hotel on a mountain lake that looked lovely, particularly in contrast to the heat of Munich. C started looking online, followed some links, declared the price south of reasonable, and we decided it was time to head into the mountains. C booked us into a room for a few nights—at a non-refundable rate.

I started looking at train tickets, which is when we started to realize that C had followed the wrong link and booked us into a completely different hotel in a town we had never heard of. As it turned out, though, the place we booked was only a valley or two over, and the original hotel was priced well north or reasonable and not a valid option after all. So, win-win. To Lenggries we went.

Lenngries is at the base of a ski hill, that I gather is a rather large and popular winter destination, but they also boasted summer fun, with, among other things, ski lifts to alpine hikes. And, as luck would have it, Lenngries was hosting a week-long traditional Bavarian alpine festival that started the day we arrived. The festival appeared to draw crowds from neighboring towns, but only a handful of other tourists. The tourists were all immediately recognizable as the ones without lederhosen or dirndl dresses. It turns out that traditional clothing isn't all kitsch in these parts, but still gets worn by young and old when the occasion calls for it. Brass bands played, the locals went on parade, and a giant beer tent welcomed all.

None of which, though, did I tell the nephew. I just said it got hot in Munich and we decided to come to the mountains for a few days. Then I burped, and C and I went back to our hotel to watch Freiburg play in the Second Bundesliga match on TV.

(Just, you know, out walking the dog and the kid in my lederhosen.  That's just how we do here in Bavaria.)

(Follow the horses on parade at your own risk.)

(Let us take a moment to recognize the real heroes of the Alpine Fest.)

Orbital Cycles

A sure sign that you are over-nighting with a scientist is that the evening's entertainment consists of a glass of wine on the balcony, watching the International Space Station interactive location map.  We were waiting for the ISS to appear on the horizon and pass in an arc across the sky only to disappear with a promise to reappear in another 90 minutes or so.  Frankly, the night suited us well.  But we nevertheless got pulled into the station's orbital wake and were yanked from the quiet of Reutlingen and tossed to Munich.

Our arrival into Munich was inauspicious. We had not known when—or even if—we would be going to Munich, so had not made any housing arrangements. We disembarked at the hauptbahnhof, and wandered to the Tourist Info center to book a room for the coming days, a strategy that had worked well for us in the past in other cities. This being peak vacation time in southern Germany, the lines were long, and we cued at the back. More people filtered in behind. We could overhear conversations up at the counter.

“Every room in our system is booked.”

“But where will I stay?”

“You can take this list of hotels in Munich and try to call them, but there is nothing on our system and nothing I can do.”

C and I looked at one another and decided there was no point in standing in line any longer.  The man at the counter looked shell-shocked.  We stepped out of the TI office and into a Le Crobag at the train station that had WiFi, deciding it would be more efficient to do some searches online than take the TI's collection of phone numbers. It was hot in Munich, way hotter than it had any right to be, and the Le Crobag (like all of Munich) had no air conditioning. Across from us a couple of (suspected) junkies nodded off to sleep, snapping awake from time to time to scan the room with eyes that never seemed to track one-another. Next to us sat two girls from Japan texting, crowded by a man from Spain talking loudly on the phone who had, for some reason, decided to forego the numerous empty seats for a seat at the same table as the girls.  It looked like their shoulders touched. The man started to get agitated, speaking louder and unintelligibly into the phone.  At least he was unintelligible to me. Presumably, the caller on the other end could make it out. But maybe not, which may have led to the agitation in the first place. The girls got up and left, but not as quickly as I would have expected. A pigeon wandered in to join the fun, and I'm pretty sure one of the junkies tried to score from it. We did not research hotels long and hard. There's a hostel with space? Take it and let's get the hell out of here.

Once in the hostel, we arranged an Air B&B stay for the remaining nights in Munich, settled in, and wondered what to do next. A guide book we are carrying in electronic form—convenient for its weight but not particularly functional if you actually want a guide—stated that Munich is a city of art and beer, and I cannot really argue with that description. There was plenty of both on offer. There was also stifling heat raining from the skies in a relentless siege on all that is good and right on this Earth. As such, we spent most of the time trying to keep C alive by browsing shopping centers, the only buildings in all of Europe (apparently) that were constructed or remodeled recently enough to have included AC as part of the design. I looked at women's clothes. I looked at kitchen wares. I saw shoes and scarves enough to fill a lifetime. All in the name off keeping cool.

Between sale racks, we learned a little about Munich's history and its rise to wealth and prominence, including its role in the rise of the Third Reich. We saw Satan's footprint, preserved under the onion domes the Frauenkirche. We saw a small fraction of the art available city-wide for viewing. And, yes, we drank an even smaller fraction of the beer available for consumption. But most importantly, we stopped to pay homage to a great historical figure who changed the world with his message of peace and declaration that Billie Jean was not, in fact, his lover, spending the better part of two days in quiet meditation at the Michael Jackson memorial.

Munich hovers near the top of lists ofthe world's most liveable cities. It may be, but it is hard to judge under the twin oppressions of crowds and heat. We only scratched the surface of the city's museums, and could not fall into the city's rhythm on the tourist trail. Rather than admire a high quality of life, we seemed to spend our time trying to hydrate, cool down, and dodge rental luxury vehicles driven by the monied visitors who seem to have come for the high-end shopping on Maximillian Strasse rather than the collection of ancient Greek sculpture in the Glyptothek. As such, we again cued the ISS interactive map and grabbed hold on its next pass, letting it pull us out of the urban and into the (hopefully) cooler Bavarian alps.

Some photos from Munich:

(It is still called the "New" Town Hall, even though it was built in 1867.  How does your town hall measure up?) 

(C... and crowds)

(Beer garden, quiet before the storm.)

(The iconic view of Munich, available on every post card.)

(The junkies we saw in the Le Crobag?  Some picture I took after too many house in the heat?  Our Air B&B host watching our every move from the shadows?)

(Munich has a surf scene.  Really.

(Beating the heat.)

Don't Start Asking Questions

You could do worse as a 15 and 17 year old boy than to choose an all girls school in Germany to attend as an exchange student. Of course, I never actually made the choice. That decision was made by virtue of the school my high school, Albermarle High School, partnered with as part of the German-American Partnership Program, St. Ursula's School for Girls in Freiburg, Germany.  But still, all girls.  So of course I went on exchange twice, both times for approximately a month, staying with different families each time. Unfortunately, I was an ill mannered youth who failed to keep in touch with his hosts, which is too bad because we just passed through Freiburg and it would have been fun to have friends on the ground.

I did find the school, although it did not look at all like I remember it. It wasn't even where I pictured it relative to the rest of the city. There are two possibilities: 1) the school has been renovated and/or moved; or 2) my memory is shit. I'll leave it to you to guess which is the more likely.

C and I met our good friend Tina in Freiburg, who had travelled over from France, and immediately went to the doctor's office. That is what you do in a new town, right? To get to know the people? And the culture? No? Well, it is what we did, but mostly because Tina's arm was starting to blister and swell from an insect bite. The doctor wrapped her up good and prescribed a steroid. So fortified, we explored the town for two nights and one day before heading into the countryside to stay with the family of a mutual friend from Fairbanks.

As we continue to make our way through Germany, we've been puzzled by the volume of bottled water we (and everyone else) consumes. Unlike other countries—the U.K., France—you cannot get tap water in restaurants. It is only served sometimes (I've seen it twice) as a very small glass on request to accompany espresso. I've seen no drinking fountains. Although the water is safe to drink, everyone relies on bottles at home. No doubt the bottled water tastes good, but all of the packaging and transportation comes at an energy cost, even if the Germans reuse or recycle all of the bottles. And in every other facet of life, the Germans are fanatics about sustainability. It doesn't add up.

I asked Margret, our friend in the rural Black Forest, for her take, but I'm not sure she understood my point and I didn't press the issue. Because the bottled water—from springs—tastes better, has not been treated chemically, and has minerals that are believed to be healthful, she equated drinking bottled water as an extension of sustainability. Clean living = clean environment. While there may be the perception of purity with spring water, that seems to me independent of any question as to the energy costs of transportation.  I wonder if the added energy costs are worth the benefits.

I raised the same question with another friend we stayed with in Reutlingen, Olaf, a professor of ice physics who I first met in Fairbanks. He understood my point, but didn't have a good answer. He pointed out that most of the water is transported a short distance—towns and regions have a “local” water of choice. Germany has plenty of water. And, again, there is the perception that the spring water is much better for you than tap. At the end of the day, it seemed tradition trumped sustainability, at least in this instance. Probably for the best. If you start looking too hard at sustainability you start to question beer. I've read that anywhere between 8 and 24 gallons of water is required per pint of beer once you take into account water used to grow the ingredients, etc. And any analysis that questions the reasonableness of beer, particularly as we move east to Munich, is an analysis best swept under the rug.

(Seen in a shop in Freiburg, the REAL reason we come to Europe at all.)

(Freiburg Munster.)

(Wall detail, Freiburg.)

(Wine detail, Freiburg.)

(Blogger detail, Freiburg.)

(Path through the Black Forest.)