The Aerie
Well we're back from Paris, and I've got another day of pictures posted over there to the right.
The return drive was very tiring due to rain. The autobahn is a great tool in good weather, and a nightmare when it rains. Thank goodness we didn't try to drive it after dark, we'd still be there. The height of the fun was when I tried to pay for gas using a credit card, and in broken Germlish he told me that not only wasn't my card working, but he was not going to let me have it back. After a $10 phone call to the card emergency number, I found that I was using a card I should have destroyed after my spouse got scammed by bank spam last spring. So it was my own fault in the end, but that didn't make me any happier.
But we got home in one piece and spent yesterday mostly resting, recovering, and doing laundry. Since we had been gone for the week there was no food in the house, so at one point in the afternoon I loaded the boy up in the van and we drove around looking for open grocery stores. As we'd been told, the only thing open were gas-station convenience stores, so we got some hilarious foot-long-hot-dogs in glass jars of brine for dinner.
Today we have spent so far arranging for our next and final excursion before we depart: a mere day spent in Prague, followed by two nights in Leipzig for the GC Game Convention. When my son first told me about this, it sounded like a nice little diversion to attend. He plays a game called "Guild Wars" and he believed at the time it was "a Guild Wars convention." It turns out its the second largest annual computer game convention in the world.
As a result, all the hotels in town were booked, and getting reservations took several hours of phone calls this morning. However a call to "www.hotels.de" was not only handled with courtesy and expedience, but quickly turned up a five-star hotel with a room available for five people, apparently not far from the convention center. So Props to the Hotels.com people, because now we have someplace to stay in Leipzig, and apparently someplace pretty nice at that.
This afternoon we are supposed to already be at the final day of the Neumarkt festival, the local equivalent of the Minnesota State Fair. Unfortunately its been raining off and on, so we're only getting going now, at 2:30 in the afternoon. But that's okay, plenty of time to enjoy the fair again before the fireworks tonight at dark.
We have free tickets and a commemorative stein from the fair, personally hand delivered to our door by the Oberburgermeister (or mayor) of Neumarkt and his wife. THAT'S how courteous the German people are. The fact that we're staying in his son's house has NOTHING to do with it... While he was visiting we made an appointment to drop by his office in the Town Hall (German: "rathaus") tomorrow at 11:00. I think he was just being polite, but how often do you get to visit a Burgermeister, much less an OBERburgermeister?
Anyway the reservations for Prague and Leipzig are now in place, which will take us through Sunday. Our plane leaves the following Thursday, so we're approaching the end of our five-week visit to Germany in about ten days, with no further major excursions planned.
Now it's time to head off for the festival again. I am determined to get one of those giant pretzels and a stein of beer..
More Paris pics soon!
Posted by Albatross at August 21, 2006 6:51 AM | TrackBack