September 26, 27 and 28

Jim & Bev Tour Germany 2009

Bev and Jim tour Germany - Days 1, 2 and 3

A note of Sympathy to any loyal blog followers and a note of apology to those who stumble upon it by accident. I do have to renumber the bloody thing as I am sitting in our Farmhouse Hotel, ‘Rustic Paradise’ on Sunday morning 4 October 2009, no longer knowing what day we did what and what we are going to do now.

Started Saturday, 26^th September Day 1

-Departed Parksville by truck at approx 1100 hrs

-Ferry to Twassen

-Truck to Richmond area to the airport

-Plane left for Calgary at 2000 hrs

Sunday, 27^th September Day 2

-arrive Frankfurt approx 1600 hrs

-shuttle to Express Holiday Inn

-supper in a Gasthaus

Monday, 28^th September Day 3

The actual, Now-In-Germany-Being-Tourists-Day-One account (True day number is Day Three) of our adventure. It began peacefully enough with a delicious and varied continental breakfast at our hotel. It went downhill from there.

Missed the shuttle to the airport. Missed it again, got the third attempt. I was off to pick up our rental car and then return to the hotel. Once there I was to pick up our navigator, Amelia Earhart’s little sister, Bev. She was currently up in our room praying to every deity she could envision, begging them to change the speed limit on the Autobahn to one that only permitted 30 kms an hour.

At the airport the car rental went well. If you don’t count the guy doing my paperwork and who was asking me questions in English while also helping a colleague with a knotty problem (in German) and yelling in French at another colleague over on the phone. I trumped him by farting in Swahili, burping in Yiddish and muttering expletives deleted in pig Latin. He was not amused and in revenge gave me a vehicle that was parked in another country.

After finishing up with him, I trudged manfully through tunnels, one of them, I’m sure being the Chunnel, then took escalators, elevators and more tunnels to come out on Level Two, but three or four miles from the Avis booth. I wanted Level One. Not knowing if Level One was up or down, I went in and asked a curmudgeonly Avis lady where Level One might be. She offered something in German that indicated that she could care less which level we were even on so I tried again. Staying in the language that I am most fluent, I tried again, a bit louder, thinking she might be as deaf as I was. She scowled, pointed at the glass doors that I had just come through and snarled, “Not this floor!”

Luckily for me, I caught that and had the foresight to rephrase the question with no mention of this floor, since we seemed to have established that we were (both of us) on Level Two.

She pointed at the pavement, realized that she was indeed dealing with a moron and loudly said, “Down one!”

A day or two later, I reached my vehicle. I knew it was mine because the lights flashed when I pushed the button on the key-assembly-thingy I had received at check-in. A car’s lights flashed when I pushed the doo-dad. It was two lanes behind me and while I was standing directly in front of the parking space listed on my papers, that car over there had to be mine. I pressed buttons and it flashed lights. Turned out to be the easiest and clearest method of communication I was to experience all day.

That car had to be mine and I got in it under the impression that all was required was to drive away from the airport following the directions that the shuttle bus driver had given me. I distinctly remember the words, “Short trip.” And was grateful that he didn’t smugly offer up the old chestnut, “You can’t miss it.”

I stalled it a number of times during the trip out of the parking space in reverse; did I mention that I rented a standard, had not driven a standard in fifteen years and that I had no idea what the German instructions were about in my papers? The only bit of English was my signature.

After a few re-starts, I got out of the parking space and made my way up to the surface. Level One is subterranean, about three feet higher than hell. Boy was it hot down there! Don’t ask about air conditioning, I didn’t, so I had no idea whether the car had it or not.

A patch of blue sky, a couple of semi-trailers on my starboard side, and a lane free of automobiles dead a head. I banged the gas pedal to the floor, remembered that the clutch was not a second brake pedal and shifted from first into fourth. The car nearly died, the semi closest to me blared some kind of apocalyptic air horn in my direction and shoved himself past at 100 kms an hour.

Out on the Autobahn I saw nothing that resembled the trip Bev and I had taken by shuttle out of the airport yesterday evening, or a reverse of the trip in by shuttle half an hour ago. At the slow pace of 100 kms on the Autobahn you will be passed by any Teutonic turtles in the area, so I goosed it up to 120. That got me out of the bicycle lane. I cruised along looking for landmarks. I spotted one or two trees I thought looked familiar. Problem was, they had grown fifty feet in my absence. By this time, although I didn’t know it then, I had been steadily heading west rather than the suggested direction of south, which would have brought me a whole lot closer to the hotel.

I decided to get off the Autobahn. If you decide to visit Germany and the time comes for you to get off the Autobahn, be aware that the little red circle with 30 printed in its middle stands for 30 kms an hour and is not the highway number.

I managed to avoid a wreck by gearing down, braking and praying all while wondering why there was no cup holder in the car and would my travel mug dump its contents during this rapid deceleration.

We, meaning me, the car and the travel mug, found ourselves in a quaint little town that still remains unidentified. It did have a quiet, peaceful, pastoral bike path that was the only parking spot I could see. I pulled in there, was treated to some unkind words by a pair of bike riders looking for the Tour De France, most likely a couple of British and or Canadian cyclists. I reversed out--twice. While waiting for a break in the traffic, no Autobahn, but still a steady flow of cars and small trucks, I saw a pedestrian. She stopped when I said in my best German, “Hello, do you speak English?”

She looked at me as if I were from Mars, pointed at her watch and told me, I suspect, the time. I glanced at her watch and then repeated the question a bit louder in case she was deaf. She realized that she had a bus to catch and in the only english she possessed said, “Bus. No time. Go!” and she go-ed.

I realized that I was learning something: if her watch was correct, by this time Bev would have been kicked out of the room and would even now be standing beside the Autobahn with a pile of luggage.

A teenage girl and her mother or Parole officer came out of a building and I put the same questionnaire to them. By means of gestures, words, some German, mine all English, we got the idea that I needed to go back to the airport and give it another go, this time on the correct highway. They hopped in their SUV and I hopped into my car and followed them. We got out onto the Autobahn. We moved along, with only a stop or two for them to let me catch up. We pulled over under a big sign that showed a little plane flying on its side. I nodded my comprehension, told them that we Canadians had invented that little piece of roadside hieroglyphics, thanked them and we parted company.

I traveled along, came to the airport and in some intuitive fashion bypassed Terminal 1 and 2, waved in the direction of Level One and headed out to find my Sweetie. My knowledge of the rollercoaster style method of assembling clover leaf highway systems near airports all over the world stood me in good stead. I chose one road, breathed a prayer that this was not the same road that I left the airport on a lifetime ago, and put the pedal to the metal.

Lo and behold, somewhere down the highway I took a turnoff that could have been the one we had traveled last night. I got off the Autobahn without causing any forty car pile ups (that I was personally involved in) and then in a panic, slammed on the brakes, downshifted, flipped on the turn signal and turned into a one way street going the wrong way.

I had seen the hotel sign. Ignoring the horns of startled drivers, I moved off until I found another one way street, but known for my consistency in driving matters, took it in the wrong direction as well. Ten yards later brought me to the hotel driveway.

I parked, got out of the car and nonchalantly walked into the hotel lobby. Bev was sitting there, munching on an apple amid our luggage.

Compared to that portion of our trip, the actual voyage to Huglesheim was a breeze. I even got the little bomb up to 135 without Bev noticing it. The passenger side handhold will have to be replaced, but we arrived, and are now in a nice suite in a Gasthaus.