Chapter 2        Chapter 3        Chapter 4        Chapter 5        Chapter 6        Chapter 7
 

Chapter 1

I wanted to write to let you all know that I have arrived safely in Germany.  Perhaps I should say Bavaria, as it is not at all like the rest of Germany.  The country is very beautiful. I may also have to learn a new language - the Bavarian dialect.  Robert's parents do not speak English.  They do speak Hochdeutsch (the kind of German I learned in school), but they only speak it to me.   I am in a very small town called a dorf.  I was able to ride a bike through the town in about 10 minutes.  The next dorf is only a minute by bike, as I am living on one end of Mallersdorf.

 I slept 11 hours last night.  I was very tired, but I felt worse for having slept so long.  I awoke to have lunch with Robert and his parents.  They are very nice.  Another thing that distinguishes Bavaria from the rest of Germany is that Bavaria is mostly Catholic.  Traditional Catholic's fast from eating meat on Friday's and eat only fish, in honor of Jesus being Crucified on Friday.  Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and usually the only meal that involves cooking.  Breakfast is usually some bread or toast with jam, a little coffee, and perhaps some wurst or other meats and cheeses.  Robert's mother is a really great cook. The food here tastes great. While I said that I would never drink beer, I am starting to drink it here.  I still really do not like it, but I am drinking it, because it is what people drink here.  It is honestly cheaper than coke.  There is a drink here called a Radler, (Literally, it means one who rides a bike), which is a mixture of half beer, half sprite (or limonade - which refers to any drink, coke included, that does not have alcohol).  It is said to quench one's thirst better than beer alone, on a hot day after riding your bike.   I feel sometimes like I am a guest in a hotel.  The other day, she insisted on doing my dirty laundry.  I could hardly believe it.

 The house that I am living in right now is very nice.  It is much bigger than I had anticipated.  It has three bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen, and living room (it is a separate room to which the door can be closed), two or three storage rooms, and then also a few rooms in the basement.  The bathrooms are really just that.  The one in the lower part of the house has a bath, shower and sink.  The toilet is in another room by itself.  I have to walk down the hall to wash my hands.  It is also proper to keep the toilet door shut at all times.  Thus you have to knock to be sure no one is in there.

 Another thing I noticed is that the light switches are reverse from the U.S.  When they are pointing down, toward the floor, the light is on.  When they are up, the light is off.  I have had to get used to that.
 Last Saturday, I went to Regensberg.  It is the sister city of Tempe.  If you want to look for it on a map, just look for the North most point of the Danube river.  This city is over 2 thousand years, originally inhabited by Gaelic speaking peoples.  In the 4th Century, the Danube was the border of the Holy Roman Empire and Regensberg was placed there as a defense against the Germanic tribes.  Some of the old wall, from the Holy Roman Empire can still be seen.  It is obvious that the city was not built for cars.  The streets are small and often cars park mostly on the side walks.  It is somewhat humbling to stand in a city that is 10 times older than my country.  It is a beautiful city, with a very large Cathedral.  Actually,  Regensberg has the most churches, per capita, of any city in the whole world.  In the square where the Cathedral is, there are 4 churches, all next to each other, and from what Robert tells me, they all have a different style of worship.

 This past Monday, we went to a Volksfest (a huge celebration of the people).  It is the second largest in Bavaria, only to Munich's Oktoberfest.  It was something like the state fair.  Although there was far more eating and drinking beer.  These beer waitresses, could carry seven one-liter steins, in each hand.  She carried six by the handles and then put the other two on top of the six beer handles.  I could hardly believe it.  Each glass weighed probably 3.5-4 pounds.  The aisles were small and jammed with people.  When she would come through with all of these beers she would shout "Vorsicht!" which means, "look out!", and everyone would step aside.  She would set them on the first table she could find.  A couple of times I had to quickly grab my camera to keep it from being crushed under the weight of all these glasses of beer.

 In this Volksfest, I tried horse sausage.  It was quite good, and very lean.  They only make horse sausage, when a horse has to be killed anyway - if it breaks its leg or something like that.  There were also many carnival type rides.  It was really a good time.

 I also arrived just in time for a regional party.  It was mostly for young people.  I met many of Robert's friends there.  Again, there was lots of beer drinking, and eating sausage.  It was something like being in a night club.  One of the biggest challenges for me was to try to understand the Bavarian dialect over the music and talking.  There were times when I felt very stupid, because I could not even get a person's name right.

 I found at this party, that American culture is really sweeping through all of Europe too.  Most of the people looked to me as if they were americans.  They are wearing the same clothes, same hairstyles (dyed all kinds of colors), and even are piercing their bodies.  Since I have been here, I have also seen 5 McDonalds.  I refuse to eat there, however.  As well, American, or perhaps English, words are used everywhere.  It seems that a lot of culture is being lost as the planet grows smaller.

Smoking here is a much bigger thing.  There are cigarette vending machines all over the place.  I saw one just hanging on a light post in a small neighborhood.

Well, to end this letter, I thought I would make you all jealous and tell you how great the weather is here.  It gets up to about 85 degrees during the day, and it is starting to get cold at night.  My bedroom has a balcony and I usually sleep with the door open.  It hasn't yet gotten too cold for me.

I will likely only be sending e-mail once or twice a month, so if you have lots of time to read this and write back, if you want.

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Chapter 2

Well, I am back from an adventure in Spain.  I have also grown a little older and a little wiser.  Robert has a friend who is originally from Argentina, but is now working and living in Spain.  The town is called Lleida (in Spanish) or Lerida (in Catulayn - a Spanish dialect used in the North East of Spain, or Catulynia as they prefer to call it.)  It is about 62 miles West and a little South of Barcelona.

 The plan was that I would buy a Europass and go there by train.  It was cheaper for Robert to fly there.  We split up at the airport.  I took the S-bahn (Street train) to the central train station to buy the Europass.  I was able to get it, but when I asked about going to Barcelona that day, they man told me there would be a problem. I asked why.  He said that all the trains were full.  I ended up taking a train from Munich, to Paris and then to the border of Spain and Paris, and then to Barcelona.  The train tracks in Spain are not the same as the rest of Europe, so every train stops at the border between France and Spain.

 My train, however, did not leave until 9 hours later.  I had not seen Munich yet, so I took it as an opportunity to see the city.  However, with terrorist activity on the rise, one can no longer find lockers in most airports in the USA.  I figured that the same was true in Germany.  Robert had loaned me his backpack so I carried that around Munich for about three hours, and was very tired.  The weather had also not been so good.  It had been raining lightly most of the day.  I went back to the train station and there I found lockers.  I was feeling a little dumb for not having seen the sign earlier.  So, I locked up this backpack and went out to have another look at the city.

 I also saw the only (probably) LDS church in Bavaria.  It was very small, but well kept.  I had talked once with a missionary of the LDS church who did his mission work in Munich.  I visited the Cathedral and also another really big church in the towns main square.  Again I was faced with awe knowing that these churches were built hundreds of years ago, with very primitive tools. I made it back to the train station, had something to eat, and waited for my train.  I had also tried to call Robert's friend in Lleida, but it turns out that Robert did not give me the right area code for that city.  I did not know what a ring was supposed to sound like in Spain, so at first I thought they were just not home.  It was only when I got to Barcelona that I found the right area code on the pay phone.

 I had requested a sleeping car on the way to Paris.  I did not know I had to pay extra until I got the bill.  It was tough trying to figure out this Europass.  There was a man and his wife in the sleeping car I was in.  I asked them if we were all in the car together.  She replied that her husband was in the car, but she was in a different car.  She spoke so slow and clearly, I thought she must not be a native German speaker.  She was just being polite, I found out when I asked.  The other guy in the car was from Munich going to a place in France just across the channel from England known as "Little Brittany".  He played the cello for a living.  He seemed like a really nice guy. We talked a little more, but I was very tired.  As soon at the porter took my ticket, I went to sleep.   When I got on board, the porter asked me if I spoke English.  I said yes, and he spoke English the rest of the time to me.  I thought that perhaps he wanted to practice his English.  Later, I found out that he was French and could not speak German.

 The alarm on my watch came in very handy in my travels.  Sometimes I would have to change trains and would literally only have a few minutes to get off the train.  Often they did not even announce the stop.  So, I always set my alarm for a few minutes before I would get to the train station, so that if I were sleeping, I would wake up and have time to get ready.

 I got to Paris, and one thing that I did not know, is that Paris has 4 different train stations - one for each cardinal direction.  This meant that I arrived in one train station and left from a different station.  I did not know this until I asked the information desk where my train left.  Of course, I do not speak French.  I can say thank you and pardon me, that is all.  Luckily the people in the information office spoke English, though not very well. They gave me a metro (subway) map and showed me the other station.  It took me some time to get what they meant, but when I did, I must admit that I was a little scared.

 I had already changed a little money into Francs and so I bought a Metro ticket.  I really had a tough time figuring out the map though.  It was not really to scale and did not show the connections.  I tried to ask a few people by pointing to where I needed to go, but no one could help me. I finally realized that I would have to figure it out myself.  I found a map that had all the connections, where I was and where I needed to go.  I saw which train I needed to take, which direction I needed to go and which connection I needed to make.  I was very happy with myself for having figured it all out on my own.

 I got to the train station about 2 hours early and had plenty of time to relax.  I bought a couple of big pastries and had breakfast.  I was surprised at how much money I had gotten in France for my 20 Marks.  It turns out that 1 dollar is worth about 5 Francs.

 I had heard that the French were pretty snobby.  At first I did not really believe it.  Most of the people I met seemed pretty nice.  On the train, to Perpignan, it started to look like what I heard was right.  In most countries, announcements are made in at least 3 different languages.  In France it was only French.  The train was going to Spain, yet none of the Porters spoke any Spanish.  I was better off trying to speak English.  When I wanted to get lunch, the man in the dining car seemed a little disturbed with me that It took me so long to figure out the menu.  It was only in French.  When I was trying to figure out if I could buy something to eat and a drink, he quite rudely said, "You haven't got enough for a drink."  He just did not want to deal with me.  One lady in the train tried to ask me a question.  I told her that I don't speak French, actually I said, "No French".  I then said, "Ich spreche Deutsch(German), y Espanol (and Spanish), and English."  She then asked me the question again in French.  I just shrugged my shoulders and she looked away.  She must have had the impression that I spoke French, because she asked me for the time (pointing to her wrist) and I showed her my watch.

 Because the trains were so full, I got stuck in smoking cars on the way to Spain.  It was not much fun.  It really seemed like a lot more people in Europe smoke than in the U.S.  But I cannot say for sure.  The man next to me was smoking cigarette size cigars.  They were not horrible, but really strong.  Luckily he only smoked one about every hour.

 While I did not really remember most of the Spanish I learned, having to face the fact that I was going to Spain, I thought more and more about it.  In the end, just that 10 hours thinking about Spanish brought back a lot of what I learned.  Still, my Spanish is and was not very good.

 When I got to Barcelona, I finally figured out how to call Robert's (and now my) friend, Freddy.  I also practiced saying in Spanish, "May I please speak with Robert."  I called and Robert had gone out for a little while.  Luckily, Freddy had gone to a private English School in Argentina.  His English was not great, but better than my Spanish.  His Fiancé, Alicia, was fluent in English and German.  That was a surprise to me.  I had bought a train ticket to Lleida, but the train stopped running already.  He told me that there was another company that had a train and that I should buy a ticket with that train company.  I bought the ticket.  The man told me it left at about 11:00 PM.  I asked him which platform I needed to be on.  He handed me another ticket and told me.  I did not figure it out then, but later I found out that he had given me an earlier ticket.  I went to the first company and asked for my money back, because there was no train.  I was a little surprised that they gave it back so quickly.

 When this second train was supposed to leave, around 11:00, I suddenly realized that I had a ticket for an earlier train.  I was again very distressed.  I called Robert and told him the situation.  I only had a 500 Pesetas coin, and the phone did not give change.  I was not happy about that either.  There were no stores open to give me change either.  He told me to just get on the train (as it was the last) and explain the situation to the porter.  I went down, told the porter what happened, and she asked the conductor if I could ride the train.  He said yes, and I sat down in the first seat I found.  It happened to be in first class.  Another porter came by to check my ticket and I began to tell him the story.  He stopped me and said, "I don't care".  He let me ride in first class.  I was very surprised.

 I finally made it to Lleida, and was very happy to see Robert and Freddy.  We walked back to Freddy's apartment and I had something to eat and drink and I felt much better.  The next day was just a rest day.  I woke up very late, had some coffee and really did not do much.  Robert and I went out to Freddy's office and met Alicia and Freddy for lunch.  We went to a nice restaurant and let Freddy order for us.  You may not believe this, but I ate sea food.  It was not too bad either.  I had octopus, muscles (the meat was mixed in a breading batter and baked in the shell), a salad with raw cod, some other deep fried fish, and a tuna salad.  (Sea food is very big in Spain.)  For the most part, I did not taste the fishy taste that I hate about sea food.  It was a little hard eating the octopus, as it was so chewy.  It really was good though.

 Time is a very strange thing in Spain.  People stay up very late at night.  We often ate dinner at 10 or 11 at night.  Still, they get up quite early, but then between about 2 and 6 in the afternoon, people go home and take a nap.  I think it was partly because of the weather.  Spain is hot, much like Arizona.  It was more humid while I was there, thought I was told it was not regular.  The landscape reminded me of Arizona.  It turns out it used to be heavily forested, until the shipping Industry got started.  Anyway, during the hottest part of the day, everyone stays inside.

 We stayed a few more days in Lleida and visited a very old town near by called Mount Blanc and went to the beach in Tarragona.

 After Lleida, we traveled to Madrid.  Madrid is, of course, the capital of Spain.  It is a huge city much like we have in America, only much older.  In the train station, we met two girls from Italy and we decided together to try to find a place to stay.  We consulted the tourist information booth and quite quickly found a cheap room to say in.  That night the girls went to meet another friend, and Robert and I went walking around Madrid.  We saw the royal palace (yes, Spain also has a King, though not as entertaining as the British royal family), and much of the city around the place where we were staying.  Most grocery stores are not open late in Spain.  There are a couple emerging chains which are open later than most.  It was Saturday afternoon, and most everything, aside from restaurants, was closed.  But we did manage to find one of these chain stores and bought food for the next couple of days, as really nothing is open on Sunday.  The grocery stores in Spain, and most of Europe, are also very small - about 3000 square feet at most.

 The night life in Madrid was incredible.  There were more people out at night than we had seen during the day.  We also went from one club to another.  We never stayed in one place very long.  We did find a very small dance club that played traditional Spanish songs along with newer music.  Robert and I liked it very much.  The Italian girls did not like it so much.  I tried to teach one to do the Meringue, but it was very hard in such a small place, and with the language barrier.  I could understand a little Italian, and the girls could understand me, usually, when I spoke in Spanish.  One of them spoke quite a bit of English, while the other spoke very little. What was funny is that I started speaking Spanish with the same kind of stress that there is in Italian.  I called home and talked to Amy in Spanish and realized that I was speaking it more like Italian.

 On Sunday, we all went to a bull fight.  Robert and both of the Italian girls were really against bull fighting in general, though they wanted to see one so that they could know what they were talking about.  I really had no idea what I was in for.  I now realized just how cruel bull fighting it.  The arena is a circle with a dirt floor.  There are two white chalk circles on ground one inside the other, about 5 feet apart.  The matador must put the sword into the bull in that 5 feet of space.

 First they let the bull into the arena.  There are a few amateur Matadors there, much like the clowns in a rodeo, to get the bull running around.  I think it is to show the crowd that the bull is healthy.  Then two men ride out on horses with spears.  The horses have thick padding on there sides and are blindfolded.   The bull charges one of the horses, rams into its side and then the man on the horse stabs the bull in the back with this spear two or three times.  Often they have the bull charge the horse more than once if the man cannot stab it properly the first time.  Once the bull has been wounded, another matador enters the arena.  He has two spears about 1.5 feet long.  He gets the bull running at him, and at the last second drives these two spears into the bulls back, and leaves them there, jumping out of the way of the bull.  I must admit, it takes a lot of skill to do such a thing.  These spears are flexible and flop around in the bull, I believe, to aggravate it more.  This is done three times, so that in the end, the bull has six spears in its back flopping around.  Often one or more of the spears doesn't stay.  When this happens, the crowd will start booing and whistling; whistling in Europe is a very bad thing.

 It is only after the bull has these spears in its back then the real matador faces the bull.  He will let it charge him several times, trying to stay as close to the bull as possible.  One matador started out on one knee.  If they can touch the bull backside as it passes them, that is really fantastic.  If the crowd likes the matador, every time the bull passes the matador they will shout, "oley".  After about 10 minutes of this the matador exchanges his sword and prepares to kill the bull.  He must drive his sword all the way into the bull in one shot, in order to be a success.  After he does, the amateur matadors play with the bull until it falls over and then drive a small knife into its brain stem to be sure it is dead.  One matador did not kill the bull with his initial sword, and with amazing skill and accuracy, stabbed the bull in that same spot and it dropped dead instantly.  It was not fun for me to watch.  Just as one bull was about to die, blood began pouring out of its nose, and this Italian girl next to me grabbed my arm.  At that moment, it just seemed really horrible to me.

 If the crowd really likes the matador, after the bull dies, they will wave white handkerchiefs.  There is a special booth in the arena for the royal family.  The crowd are basically petitioning the royal family on behalf of the matador.  If one of the members of the royal family waves a handkerchief, then the matador gets to keep the ear of the bull as a prize.  That night, there were no ears given out.
 On Monday, the 4 of us went to Toledo, which used to be the capital of Spain until the late 16th Century when the King at that time moved it to Madrid.  Toledo still had most of the original wall around it.  It was a very touristy town and almost all of the shops there sold these reproductions of Medieval swords.  We went back to Madrid that night.

 The next day we visited the Prado Museum.  It is very famous featuring mostly Spanish painters.  I bought a couple of posters there, which I later forgot on the train, but then was able to recover in Barcelona, thanks to Alicia calling the train station right away.  After that the Italian girls went to another Museum, and Robert and I walked through a huge park in Madrid.  It was very nice.  The girls had to leave that night to go to Lisbon, in Portugal.

 On our last day in Madrid, we went to the Museum of modern Art.  I saw works from Picasso and Salvador Dali.  I also saw lots of artists that I really did not like much.  To me most modern art takes very little talent and very little creativity.  So, I passed most of the Museum very quickly.  I did end up buying a T-shirt with a painting by Dali on it.

 After that we went back to Lleida.  Robert flew back on Friday, and I decided to take another rest day and just stay with Freddy.  Robert had already been to Barcelona in previous years, so I decided to go there by myself and see the city.  I left the next day and it was really not a bad trip.  I took a bus, rather than a train, because there were more busses that day.  The Italian girls had given me an address of a woman who rented them a cheap room in Barcelona, so I found place to stay right away.  I went out that afternoon to one of the old palaces that is now a museum.  Freddy had told me that it was really worth seeing.  I also thought that I could take some pictures of the city, since it was up on a hill.  At around sundown, I saw may people sitting around in chairs.  The fountains running, where as they had not been running before.  I sat and watched the fountains, and as soon as night fell, the main fountain was lit up, and the colors of the lights were always changing.  It was really fantastic to see.  Tourist began flocking to see it, and I already had one of the best seats in the house.  It went on for hours.  As well, the monument behind me, the one that holds the Olympic torch was lit up.  It was very neat to see.  I had seen it many time on television, and now it stood before me.

 When I got back to my room, I met a couple of girls from Argentina.  We talked a little and I had told one of them that I wanted to go to the Picasso museum in the morning, because it is free on Sunday.  She said that we should go together, and so we did, along with two other girls from New Jersey (whose family were from India). It was a nice time.

 After that, I got lesson in traveling from the school of hard knocks.  Robert had lent me a wallet that hangs around the neck.  It was humid and hot that day, so I did not want to wear it, as it stuck to my skin.  I put it in my fanny pack instead.  In Lleida, I needed a little more Spanish money.  None of the banks were open, so I went to an ATM machine.  I wanted about 4,000 Pesetas, but on accident I took out 40,000.  I figured it was not a big deal, as I had the money in my account (about $300) and I could change it into Marks when I went back.  I had that in the wallet, my passport, and my Europass.

 To get to the point, all of it was stolen.  Two women approached me on the street.  They had pieces of cardboard in their hands are were pointing to it.  I had no idea what they wanted.  I think they were begging.  I tried to cross the street to get away, but they crossed with me.  I tried to walk faster, but they would not leave me alone.  I kept saying, "No," and kept walking.  They kept grabbing me.  I just wanted to get away.  When they finally left me alone they said, in Spanish, "Thank-you".  That should have been my clue, but still just wanted to get away from them.  When I looked in my fanny pack for my map, I noticed that my wallet and, of course, those two women were gone.

 It was a very stressful moment for me.  I could not believe that it had just happened.  I frantically searched through my fanny pack.  I then ran through the streets to try to see those two girls.  They were nowhere to be found.  I was kicking myself for being so dumb.  After about 10 minutes, I just realized that it was over and I had to take care of things.  I went to the police and filled out a report.  I had kind of thought that they would be more help.  Actually, they did not speak English at this police station.  My Spanish was becoming better all the time.  The officer told me that I needed to go to the consulate to get a new passport.  Unfortunately she thought I was British, and directed me to the British Consulate.  I had to call information to get the number of the American Consulate.  They were closed until Tuesday, because of the Holiday weekend.  I still had some U.S. Cash and all of my travelers checks.  I went back to the train station to get some money to pay for my room that night.  I asked the lady who rented me the room if I could get back to Germany without my passport.  She thought so, but said I should ask at the train station.  At they train station, they said that I needed it.  The message at the consulate said it would probably take a day to process the passport.  It was looking like I would not be able to leave Spain until Wednesday.

 Monday, I did some sight seeing, though I was too upset to really enjoy myself.  I got a little more money from the ATM to buy food and pay for my room.  Without a passport, I could not cash my travelers checks.  Tuesday, first thing in the morning, I went to the consulate.  To my surprise and relief, it took about 20 minutes of paper work, 15 minutes of waiting and $60 dollars to get a new passport.  I bought a ticket back to Munich for that night.  In the meantime I did go see that really famous church in Barcelona and I walked the Rambla, a street with many shops, painters, mimes, and people imitating statues.

 Well, I am now back in Germany, and not once did they ask for my passport.  Still, if I had not gotten it, I know they would have asked for it.  It is very good to be back here.  Though I am still feeling depressed about losing my Europass.  I may be able to get some money back from it, and if I can I will likely buy another one.  If I cannot get my money back, I will likely not be doing much more traveling.  That would not be too bad, as I had wanted to spend a lot of time in Germany anyway.  I can also come back again.

 Well, as I wrote in the beginning, I am now a little older and a little wiser.  My friend Robert says that if I don’t want such things to happen, I should stay at home.  He is right, and I cannot let other people’s actions stop me from living life.

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Chapter 3

Life has not been too exciting lately.  Robert started work two weeks ago and his apartment was not really ready to be lived in.  So, I ended up going back to Regensburg with his Sister and I stayed with her from Sunday night until Thursday.  It would have been really neat, I think, except that it rained the whole week.  It was always wet and cold.  I am just not used to that kind of rain.  In Arizona it rains one day and then it is over for a week or so.  The Danube river was very full and the foundations of the "Steinebrueke" (Stone Bridge) - the oldest bridge in Europe that is still being used today - were covered with water.

 After being robbed in Spain, I was kind of tempted to become start acting a little worse.  Then I realized that I needed to rise above it.  I did not want anyone else to feel the way I felt.  It happened that I was buying several postcards in Regensburg.  (Postcard pictures are usually better than any I could take and often they are cheaper than the cost of film and developing.)  I thought I had taken eight postcards and so I paid the man for eight.  A day later, I was looking through them and realized that I had taken two of the same by mistake.  It was okay, because I wanted to send out a postcard and needed an extra.  I went back to the shop where I had bought the postcards and gave the man the 30 pfennig that I owed him.

 The look on his face was worth the trip back there.  I started out by telling him how I had bought the post cards.  He wasn't sure what I wanted at this point.  Then I told him that I had thought I had taken eight and got home and found nine and that I wanted to pay him for the ninth.  His face lit up as he smiled and he said, "You coming back here is payment enough," and he pushed my hand with the money away.  I then answered, "No, you must let me pay, and I laid the money on the counter."  It made his day, and mine too.

 On Thursday I went back to Mallersdorf with Renate (Robert's sister).  Robert met me there the next day.  He has really not had much time lately, as he has a new teaching job, and has to prepare a new curriculum.  On Friday we went to this regional party.  These things happen quite often.  Since the legal drinking age is 16 (not too strictly enforced), there is never a need for the police to come and break up such a party.  There is, of course, always plenty of beer, bratwurst and Brezen (pretzels).

 We went to the party with a couple of Robert's friends.  After we dropped them off, we went to this Diskotheke (dance club).  Maybe I am wrong, but Europeans just don't seem to have that same kind of Rythm as in the US.  They really do not dance very well.  Of course, who am I to judge.  The school system is different here, and one usually studies with the same people for years.  In this way, Robert seemed to know people everywhere we went.  I had a hard time believing he knew so many people.
 
 The next night we went to a party here in Friesing, where Robert lives.  It was at a house where basically students live.  It was pretty wild.  All of their party's have themes and this one was the South Seas.  They had painted these huge murals, had put up some fake coconut trees, and played some Mediterranean music.  It was a birthday party and as a present one of the girls from Turkey did a belly dance. She had the costume and everything.

 Sunday night we went to see a German movie.  It is called, "Bin ich Schoen?" (Am I Beautiful?)  I was surprised at how much I understood.  Many movies use so much slang, that I never learned, that I cannot understand all of what they say.  In this film, I was able to understand about 85% of it.  I had seen another movie dubbed into German, called, "On the Wings of a Dove."  This movie was really a literary movie and so I was able to get about 98% of it.  It was a strange movie, but an interesting prospective on human nature.

 Freising is just North of Munich.  I can get to Munich with the S-bahn in 40 minutes.  As a result, I have been spending a lot of time in Munich.  On Monday, I walked around Munich for a long time.  The Oktoberfest has started and so the city is jammed with tourists.  Just after noon, in Marien platz (one of the central squares), there is a clock that goes of and plays an old German song and has these figures that do kind of a play.  It was pretty neat to see.  After that I visited the Munich Olympic Stadium.  The architecture is really wild.  It looks kind of like a huge circus tent.  I also saw the main BMW building.  That was also impressive.  The Museum is right there for auto buffs.  I passed on it though.  From there I went to see one of the Palaces in Munich.  It was really beautiful.  There is also a huge park around the castle.  The trees grow up so thickly, and there was a big lake in the middle.  It was a nature buffs dream.

 When people asked me if I was going to the Oktoberfest, I usually said, "No, there are too many American tourists."  Robert's parents kept telling me that I had to at least go and see it.  So, I decided to do it.  It is kind of like a fair, with rides, games, and lots of food.  I ended up buying a T-shirt with the Bavarian flag as the material and the Bavarian symbol on the front.  Robert tells me he likes it because it is so touristy.

  Of course, there are also these huge beer tents.  I walked around for quite a while and then decided that I had to at least have one beer to say that I was really at the Oktoberfest.  I went into this tent and finally found a place to sit down.  I had asked one man, who I think didn't speak German, if I could sit down and he just shook his head.  I saw a table that looked pretty empty and just sat down.  I think I picked the right table to sit down at.  I ordered a Radler (a mixture of Beer and Sprite), as I am not a big drinker and a liter of straight beer would have likely put me under the table.  Usually, though, they only drink Radler's during the summer when it is hot.  It is said to quench one's thirst better when it is hot.  (It has not been hot for since I was in Regensburg.  That week of rain sent the place straight into Autumn.)

 Shortly after I sat down, two people asked me if the seat across was free.  I said yes and they sat down.  When they got their drinks, I toasted with them, saying, "Prost" and we drank.  Later one of the guys at the table had to go for a pit-stop.  I got up, but when he came back, he just sat down next to me rather than making me and this other guy get up again.  We started talking.  He was from Northern Germany, so I was able to understand him a little better.  I am however starting to pick up some of the Bavarian dialect.  He asked my why my beer was lighter.  I told him it was a Radler and he kind of said "What, are you crazy?"  I replied that I was only 25 and still a kid.  Then these 4 women from Moscow sat down at the table across from us.  That is when the fun started.  Two of them spoke English, and they all knew a few words of German, so I often translated so that everyone at the table could talk to one another.  One of them was younger and full of excitement.  She was always toasting (which is quite common here).  She ended up cracking her giant Krug (beer mug) because she was toasting so much.  Then she started dancing and singing.

 When I heard that they were from Moscow, I told them that I had been there.  They then asked me where I was from.  I said I was an American.  They teased me a little about this.  Later, when we were introducing each other and they found out my name was James, they called me James Bond, they rest of the night, and made machine gun sounds each time they called me James Bond.  I really enjoyed it, actually.

 We were sitting right next to the bandstand, and this older one wanted to hear a traditional Russian song.  The conductor came down from the bandstand, gave her the wand, and let her be the conductor for the song.  She was having so much fun.  We all cheered her on.  Later, this younger one started to stand on the bench and dance.  She also then started pulling me up and everyone else around her.  I was planning to go when I had finished my drink.  However, I decided that the twelve Marks I would have to pay for another drink was well worth the company I was with.  I ordered another Radler, and really enjoyed the excitement of everyone around me.

 When I finally had to go home, the man next to me, from Northern Germany, kept asking me why I need to go home.  I tried to explain it to him, but I think he thought I was a little bit of a party pooper.

 The next day, Robert had a day off.  He is only a part time teacher at the moment, so he gets one day a week off.  He needed some more furniture for his apartment, so we went out furniture shopping.

 On Wednesday, I made the trip to Dachau - one of the first concentration camps built by Hitler.  The city Dachau is actually quite beautiful.  The Museum was incredible.  It is laid out describing all the horrors of life in a concentration camp.  Nothing was hidden at all.  I had kind of thought they might down play what went on there, but I was really wrong.  I think the words that ended the museum tour really captured the reason and the reality in telling it exactly the way it was.  "Those who cannot remember history are destined to repeat it."  Those words really hit me hard.  I have to admit that I had a hard time keeping myself from crying.  There were a few times when the tears came rolling down my face.

 After the museum tour, I was able to walk around the grounds.  The original barracks were in really bad condition, so they had to tear them all down.  They reconstructed two to show people what it was like.  All of the original guard towers are still standing.  I was able to walk through the barracks and I took some pictures.  Inside are quotes from people who wrote their stories.  I was then able to go to two small chapels on the grounds - a Christian chapel and a Jewish chapel.  Fresh flowers were laid at each and several of the monuments.  I think something else people do is bring a stone with them from their home land and lay it on the monuments.  I saw these all around.  There is also a small church and a monastery on the grounds.

 I then saw the crematorium and was able to stand in the gas chamber - though it was never used.  I am guessing that they just did not have enough ovens to burn all the bodies that a gas chamber would make.  There was a memorial in there to four women who were murdered there, serving the Red Cross, just before the war ended.  It was very intense and very sad.

 One of the things pointed out in the tour, was that while prisoners were treated so harshly, there was a spirit of brotherly love among the prisoners themselves.  Many risked their own lives to help others.  It is amazing how the spirit of humanity survived in those conditions.

 I spent about 4 hours at the Dachau memorial, then walked back to center of town to see the old castle there.  As I wrote earlier, the city was very beautiful; quite a contrast to the camp.  I got back on the train and went back to Munich where I spent some time at the English Garden.  It was really amazing, with trees everywhere, a big lake in the middle and lots of people enjoying the outdoors and the wonderful weather.

 On Monday, I had bought a German Rail ticket.  It is like the pass I had before, except that it is good only in Germany.  I get 10 days on the trains in Germany in one month.  Yesterday, I used one of my days to go to the Bavarian Alps.  There is a very famous castle near a small town called Fussen.  The castle is called Neuschwanstein.  You would likely see it on the cover of any German guide book.  The place was breath taking.  There was a crystal blue lake in the valley between the Mountains.  The castle was pretty high up on one of these Mountains.  Actually there were two castles, each on a different mountain.  I did quite a bit of hiking in and around the castles.  I kept saying to myself, "Wow, I am hiking in the Alps!"  I am starting to miss that Europass, being that I really wanted to go into Switzerland to see more of the Alps and, of course, the Matterhorn.  Still, I am young and I can come back in a couple of years.

 I hiked up to this bridge between two ridges of these different Mountains.  There was a waterfall about 100 feet below me, and I was about 250 feet from the ground.  I kept thinking about how I wished I had my rapelling gear with me.  However, the first moment I realized how high I was, I got kind of woozy and had to grab the guard rail.  It is a great place to see the Neuschwanstein castle though.
 I walked around the lake, and almost rented a row boat to go out on the lake.  It just did not seem right by myself.  The place really was incredible.  I hope to go back before I have to come home, and see a third castle in the area and do some more hiking.

 Today has been just kind of a breather.  I stressed the tendon in my heal yesterday and so I thought I might just hang out today.  The weather has gotten a little worse today as well.  It is really cloudy and was foggy this morning.

 This weekend I am going to start traveling through Germany.  They have a special weekend ticket that I can buy for 35 Marks.  I can travel the whole weekend anywhere in Germany with this ticket.  I will likely go see Nurenburg, Ulm and Stuttgart over the weekend.  Then I will start using my German Rail ticket.  I can use it to take a boat tour up the Rhine river, which would be really neat.  I hope the weather is good.

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Chapter 4

 I am back from a three week tour of Germany.  It has been an interesting trip, and Robert tells me that I have seen more of Germany than he has.  Perhaps it is true.  While I have seen a lot of Germany, I have missed so much as well.  There is just too much to see in such a short period of time.

 I started my trip with a "Schoenes Wochenende" (nice weekend) train ticket. One can travel anywhere in Germany with this ticket, both Saturday and Sunday, with as many as five people (two adults max) and a dog, for only thirty-five Marks.  The catch is that one can only use slow trains, which stop often.  I had wanted to get to Stuttgart, but I saw at the train station, only faster trains went between Munich and Stuttgart.  As a result, I had to plan my trip through a small town called Donauwoerth.  I took a connecting train from this town to Stuttgart.  What I did not know, however, was that they had added some regional trains to and from Stuttgart because of the Oktoberfest.  This train that I go on to at Donauwoerth was coming from Munich, as I saw many people dressed in Oktoberfest hats, T-shirts, and acting as though they had been drinking heavily.

 I got to Stuttgart late that night and called about getting a bed at the Youth Hostel.  Robert had told me that it was really easy to find, so after they told me they had a place, I decided to walk.  This was probably a mistake.  I got lost and in the end had to take the tram to find the place.  When I called the Youth Hostel to get directions by the tram, he told me to go back to the train station.  However, not wanting to walk so far, I asked a bus driver and I was only a few yards from a tram stop that would take me where I needed.  A man on the tram, seeing that I looked like a traveler with my back pack and other articles, showed me when to get off of the tram and how to get to the Youth Hostel.

 The place was filled up, and so they had a reading room in the basement with about 30 mattresses laid on the floor, which is where I slept.  It was not too bad, as they did not charge me much for it.  I had to buy a Youth Hosteling ID, and rent sheets, which amounted to thirty Marks.  So, I ended up paying about six Marks for the bed alone.  The nice thing about the Youth Hostels in Germany is that they include breakfast in the price of the night's stay.  This was very convenient and saved money, however, I did have to wake up earlier in order to take advantage of it.

 The next day I brought my things back to the train station, locked them up, and went to see the city.  It turns out that I picked the right day to be in Stuttgart, because they were having a parade.  Bavaria is really a place where people drink beer.  Stuttgart is in Baden Wuerttemberg, in which lays part of the Rhine River Valley. This valley could be compared to Nappa Valley.  As a result, wine is much more popular in this region.  They parade I saw was a celebration of wine - from the grapes to the end product.

 To help me with my trip, I had bought a travel guide through Germany, in German by the way.  It was very good.  It points out things that one should see, and often has a map for the bigger cites.  Everything that was recommended to see in Stuttgart was very central and so I really only needed one day there.

 Next I traveled to Heidelberg, birth place of one of my German professors, Frau Carlson.  They call it, "The Pearl of Germany".  I now know why.  It is a town along the Neckar river, in a small valley.  It was very beautiful.  On one end of town, on the hill, there was the old castle, and the city center.  There were a few houses and hotels across the river, but as there was not much room from the hill to the river.  There was a very old stone bridge across the river from which one could get a very good look at the Castle.  My first day there, I went to the castle and walked around the castle gardens and fountains.  I paid to go inside the castle and one of the attractions of the castle is that it has one of the largest wine casks in the world.  They had built a platform above it which was about as big as my bedroom.

 I later went hiking in the hills around the the city.  It was really peaceful and the forest was beautiful.  This is really the first time in my life that I have experienced Autumn.  All the leaves are beginning to change, it is, for me, very cold and the sky is very gray most of the time.  They tell me that October in Germany is usually much nicer than this, with more sunshine.

 At the top of this hill there was a tower that I was able to climb.  I could see for miles.  I also, found at the top of this hill a United States Army radio antenna.  There were some trails that went over the top of this hill and so I spent a lot of time just wandering around.  Later, after I was really tired out, I took a cable car back down the hill.  It was much like the cable car I had ridden with in Pittsburgh.
 I really could have spent days hiking through the forrest there.   I think if I were to have the chance to live in Germany for a few years, Heidelberg is the place I would pick.  There is a University in that town, so perhaps I could end up studying there or something like that.

 After Heildelberg, I went South about 100 KM to a very touristy town called Baden-Baden (Literally baths-baths).  It was named so, because it is full of these mineral baths.  There are some that were used by the Romans during the reign of the Roman Empire.  It is pretty expensive to go in these baths, so I skipped them.  I was told by a guy from Switzerland that it was really worth it.  Maybe when I am independently wealthy I can come back.

 Instead, I rented a Mountain Bike to ride through some trails in the Black Forest.  I ended up though pushing the bike up hill often and riding only on the down hills and the level places.   The way they posted signs was kind of crazy too.  I was trying to get to these old castle ruins.  One sign pointed me the right direction, but then about 35 feet later, there was a fork in the trail and no sign.  It said one KM to the ruins, so I rode the bike for what I thought was one KM.  Then I went back and rode the other trail for what I thought was one KM.  I never did find the castle.

 The next day I wanted to go see a really beautiful castle called Hohenzollern near a small town called Hechingen.  I had to travel back to Stuttgart, then to this town.  When I got there, I found that there was no bus to this castle, that one had to either walk or take a taxi.  I called and found out that a Taxi would have been twenty Marks one way.  It was 10 KM from the train station.  The weather was really bad that day.  It was cold, wet, and there was just no way I could walk 10 KM in that weather.

 After such a disappointment, I decided to just get on with the trip and headed to Frankfurt am Main.  (There is also a Frankfurt am Oder in the Eastern part of Germany.)  When I flew to Russia in 1990, we had a lay over in Frankfurt.  I thought I would recognize something of where I had been.  But, I did not recognize anything.  I think our tour guides, out of concern for our safety must have had us go to one of the suburbs of Frankfurt.  It is really one of the most American-like cities in Germany, with sky scrapers, etc.  In this travel guide I had they nicked named Frankfurt, Main-hatten.  The Youth Hostel in Frankfurt was right on the Main River.  It is really a new thing for me to see rivers with water in them.

 From Frankfurt I took a train to Mainz, which is really a suburb.  With this train ticket that I had bought I was able to take a boat from Mainz to Cologne along the Rhine River.  The Hostel in Mainz was full, so I had to go to a neighboring town called Wiesbaden to stay in the Youth Hostel there.  It meant that I had to get up early to take the bus back to Mainz to get to the boat on time.  I had been traveling the whole time without an umbrella, but in Weisbaden, I broke down and bought a cheap umbrella.  It was really worth it.

 The weather was still really bad at this point.  I was hoping for better weather to see the Rhine Valley with all the castles and toll stations.  I ended up meeting some other people from America and we had coffee together on the boat.   I went up to the sun deck to try to get a better look at the castles, but it was so cold I could only stay up there for about 45 minutes before I went back inside.

 Most of the people got out of the boat at a town called Koblenz.  I understand why now.  The landscape got pretty industrial after that town.  The valley widened out and the landscape was not quite as nice.  It narrowed later, but was still not quite as nice as what I had seen.  I passed through Bonn and saw the german equivalent of the White House and finally stopped in Cologne.  The boat ride was about 11 hours total.  It was pretty late when I got to Cologne, but I was able to get a bed at the Youth Hostel.  I think in that sense I was in Germany at the right time.  During the Summer, one really needs to make a reservation in these Youth Hostels to get a bed, at least in the bigger cities.

 One of the main attractions in Cologne is the Cathedral.  I have never seen anything so big in my entire life.  It was constructed over a period of 400 years, and then in the sixteenth Century, they had to stop because of a lack of money.  It was finally finished in the eighteenth Century, which took another 40 years.  I think the idea was to remind the people who came in, just how small they were compared to God.  Of course, I cannot say for sure.  I ended up going to Sunday Mass in the Cathedral.

 A very strange thing happened to me in Cologne, on the night I had arrived. From the boat, I walked to the main train station.  This is a good place to ask for directions to a Youth Hostel, as there are many modes of transportation that leave the station in a number of directions.    I called the Youth Hostel and asked about a bed.  The man who answered said that he had something left but that I should hurry there, to be sure I got a bed.

 With this in mind, I got on a quick train to the next stop and asked how to get to the Youth Hostel.  As I walked along this dark, narrow street, a woman was coming my way.  I had been walking with my eyes toward the ground, and at the last moment I looked up into this woman's face to catch a glance at her.  As I looked up, I saw a face I recognized - my mother's, or rather what looked exactly like my mother's. To my great surprise, as I turned back to get a better look at this woman, I saw that she had stopped under a lighted street sign, to turn around a stare at me for quite a long time.  It was as if she suddenly recognized me and had to turn around and stare for a while to be sure that I wasn't who she thought I was.

 I did not know what to think or say.  I wanted to turn around and ask this woman who she was and why she stared at me so.  However, with the words, "You had better hurry" ringing in my ears, I went on and got my room at the Youth Hostel.  Thinking about it now, I would have slept in the cold for a chance to talk to her.  Hindsight is 20/20 they say.

 I honestly thought for some time that my mother had died.  Most near death experiences involve a tunnel and a light.  I had thought that perhaps as she was walking down that tunnel toward the light and that the tunnel passed along the small, poorly lit street in Cologne.  I called my father soon afterwards and found out that my mother was still alive and well.  He told me that my mother was of German heritage and that it was quite likely I would see someone that looked like her here.  He had a point, but they way that she looked at me as if she knew me, made me ask lots of questions.

 Silly as it sounds I entertained the idea that alternated realities somehow met that night.  I don't know.  I am still left with the question of who this woman is.  Did I look like her son?  Brother?  Nephew?  An early picture of her father or uncle?  I have no idea.  I waited on the street for hours hoping she might walk that way again and I could find the answers to these questions.  I waited the next night for about an hour around the time that I had seen her the previous night.  She never did come.  Perhaps this is a story for the television show, "Unsolved Mysterys".

 The following day, I went to the German-Roman Museum in the city and found that Cologne was, around the time of Christ, bestowed a special title as a Roman city.  The Emperor at that time had married a woman from Cologne, thus being the reason for it's great favor in his eyes.  In the museum, I saw many old Roman artifacts, including some Roman coins.  It was a very neat thing to see.

 After Cologne, I went to Hannover.  I had thought about going to Dortmund, as it is the largest Metropolitan area in all of Europe.  There are several cities that had all grown together.  It was at the turn of the Century an industrial center processing coal and steel.  Figuring that I had already seen something like that in the U.S., I decided to skip it.  Hannover is great, because the people there speak perfect Hochdeutsch - the German I learned.  I could understand almost every word.  It was so much easier for me.

 I was planning to stay in Hannover for two days.  At this point, it had been six days since I had seen the sun.  Then (pardon the pun), out of the blue, it was completely clear.  At first I thought it was still cloudy, because I saw no clouds at all.  Wanting to take advantage of such a clear day, I decided to go to the North Coast, to a small town called Wilhelms haven.  It is a very wealthy town, much like most coastal towns in America.  I was carrying around a german shopping bag (my food supplies were usually in this) and looking pretty much like a homeless person.  The people in this town often looked at me like, "Get out of our town."  I never let it bother me though. I had a wonderful day enjoying the sun on the North Sea.  The wind was pretty strong, so it was still very cold.

 Just as the blue sky had come all at once, it left in the same manner.  The next day was without the sun again.  I could hardly bear it.  I know now that I would never make a good vampire.  I would miss the gentle tingle of the suns rays warming my skin, too much.  I am definitely an Arizona boy!  With this in mind, I left the North Coast and went to Bremen and then to Hamburg.  Both of these cities are major German ports, and both of them are city-states, the closest thing we have is Washington D.C.  Just imagine if say New York city became the 51st state, that is kind of what these cities are like.

 Hamburg was really a "big city".  It was not like the rest of Germany in many ways.  It seemed that there were many more homeless people in Hamburg, and I just really did not feel as safe there.   It was also the only city in which I had seen an American grocery store, Safeway.

 After Hamburg, I returned to Hannover for a couple of hours, and then took the train to Berlin.  Berlin is now the largest construction site in the whole of Europe.  Of course with the communist rule of East Germany and East Berlin, the city is taking great pains to modernize the Eastern part.  Someone told me that you can take a tour in which they promise to show you over 100 cranes in less than an hour.  I have no doubt about this.  Many of the sights that I wanted to see were covered with scaffolding and fences and cranes.  I did however see a lot.  I stayed 4 nights in Berlin, really wanting to get a feel for the city.  I saw separate sections of the Berlin wall which still stand.  One is called the East Side Gallery.  If you are an artist and want to pain the Berlin Wall, this is the place to go.  The other section is in front of a third reich museum.  There is also a piece at the Checkpoint Charlie museum.

 The Checkpoint Charlie museum was really neat.  It was filled with stories of people who had escaped East Germany into the West.  There were over 70 tunnels dug to get to West Berlin.  Two separate people drove a car so small that it drove under the arm of the blockade across.  The guards then installed vertical bars to prevent this from happening.  Anyway, there was so much in this museum that I could go on for far too long.

 From Berlin, I decided to go into Poland.  My grandfather on my father's side was from a city called Danzig (Gdansk in Polish).  I wanted to have a chance to see the place where he had come from.  In the train, I met a man who had grown up in Danzig but moved to Germany and had been there for 10 years.  He really spoke German well.  His grammar was nearly perfect.  He asked me if I would like a tour of the city the next day and I said that I would.

 He showed me many things and told me much of the history of the city.  It had twice in History been a free city, belonging to no country at all.  As a result, there were people from all over the whole world living in Danzig.  It was pretty obvious from the architecture.  The main city was very neat to see.  I climbed the tower in the church there, which was about 837 steps, and got a great view of the whole city and I could see the Baltic Sea from there.

 The next day I went to the coast to a small park there.  There was a memorial to soldiers who had lost their lives defending the place.  The actual coast was rather ugly.  It seemed as if a huge building had been destroyed there and that they simply pushed the rubble out onto the beach.  It was covered with concrete and steel.  I am not sure if it was a communist plot to keep the people from trying to escape the country or what.  Still, it was not nice to look at.

 By this time I had been on the go for 3 weeks straight and had enough.  Many people suggested that I see Krakow in Poland, but I was just too tired of being on the go for so long.  Also, Poland was not quite as cheap as I had expected it to be.  The Hostel was very cheap, but food and other things were near the price they were in Germany.  So, I took the train the next day to Berlin, and then from Berlin to Munich I took a night train, and finally back to Mallersdorf.  The past day of rest has been really good for me.
 I am going to be heading off tomorrow to the Czech Republic for a day or two at most.  I have been invited to a wedding this coming Saturday, so I need to be back here for that.

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Chapter 5

I am back from a very short trip to Prague.  I still had one day left on my German Rail ticket, that I had to use by Tuesday or lose altogether.  I got up pretty early on Tuesday to make it to an early train to Prague.  I had picked up a pamphlet earlier, which had information about a Prague border ticket.  It was good from any border to Prague and back again (not having to be the same border) for 40 Marks.  I asked about this ticket in the train station, in Neufahrn (in der Neiderbayern, as opposed to Neufahrn in der Oberbayern), but being that it is really a back woods train station, this woman behind the counter knew nothing about it.  I imagine that I would have had to buy it in Munich.  Robert’s father, who dropped me off at the train station, thought it was funny that this woman kept speaking to me in the Bavarian dialect, even thought I was obviously a foreigner speaking High German.

 Using my rail ticket to get to the border, without any money of the country I want to travel in, has proved to be kind of a rip off.  What happens, is that I cross the border, and then when the porter for that country ask me for my ticket, I say I need to buy one, and proceed to do so.  However, the exchange rate is really bad on the trains.  I think the porters make a little money off of the deal most of the time.  In Poland, I paid 20 Marks to get to Danzig, which the porter wrote on my ticket as 33 Zwlaties (polish money, I am not sure of the spelling).  It turns out I should have only paid about 13 Marks.  It was worse in the Czech Republic, however.  They charged me 30 Marks to get to Prague, not writing the amount in crownes (Czech money).  My ticket out only cost me about 16 Marks.

 It is really not that expensive, considering how much the train fare is in Germany, but still, it is never fun to know you were had.  I guess I will have to either buy my ticket in advance or have that nations money with me when I cross the border. The landscape to Prague was very beautiful, with lots of trees, green grass, and rolling hills.  The houses were of the same German Architecture and they were in small villages which dotted the countryside.

 Actually, during the Third Reich, Hitler laid claim on most of the land in that area, claiming that it was historically German and that the people living there still spoke German.  Whether by some unknown threat or simply Germany's power at the time, the Czech Republic conceded and gave Germany that land.  Of course later, Germany ended up taking the rest of the Czech Republic.

 I got to Prague and it was quite like Spain in terms of the atmosphere.  Everyone and his uncle was a money changer, and everyone else was offering travelers a place to stay.  (In Barcelona I stayed with a woman who lived because she let travelers stay in her apartment.)  I had one lady approach me in the train station in Prague and ask if I needed a place to say, and for how long.  She said she had clean bathrooms, showers, and it was only 400 crownes.  Unfortunately for her, I had just found a room for 320 crownes a night.

 I had believed that in the Czech Republic that foreign currency was in very high demand and that one could get a good rate for it out on the street.  A guy I met in Bremen, told me to be careful, because most of that money was counterfeit.  My friend Robert got stuck with bills from the former Yugoslavia.  As I stood at the counter of this money changer, who offered the best rate I had seen, the guy behind me was being offered 32 crowns for a dollar, which I think he took, as he was not behind me when I was finished.  It hit me though, as I looked at this money changers sign, that this guy I met in Bremen, was very right.  If this Czech guy was changing real money, he could have bought American dollars from this money changer for only 29 crownes. Why in the world would he pay 32?

 There is no longer a communist hold over the country.  Foreign money and goods are readily Available to all who want them.  It is not like Russia where foreign money is hard to get and worth much more than their money, as they can use it to buy Western goods not normally Available.  In any case, I was better off going to an official money changer.

 Still, many things were very much cheaper in Prague than in Germany.  Last night I went to a nice restaurant and had Kung-Pao chicken, rice, salad, coke, ice cream, and a little Bailey's Irish Cream to help with the digestion, all for about $9, tip included.  I was able to buy bananas for pennies and it only cost me about 20 cents to ride the subway.

 I got to Prague at about two in the afternoon and had found a room by about three.  Having gotten settled in, I went for a walk about the city.  It is a beautiful city on the Elbe river.  It is also a very old city, dating back, again, to the Roman Empire.  There buildings vary in their architecture from Gothic to Barouche.  I was surprised at how well the building were kept up.  In Danzig the buildings in the main square were all wonderfully kept up, newly renovated, I believe.  But the main square was very neatly tucked into less than a square kilometer.  Prague, being much bigger, it had to be a much bigger task, which leads me to believe that they were kept up even during the communist reign.

 Prague's skyline to the West is composed of a hill, and of course, a castle on top of the hill.  Next to the castle is a huge cathedral, looking a bit, in style, like those I had seen in Barcelona.  Although, there were two very distinct styles of the domes of the cathedral.  There are, of course, castle gates, and at the castle gates, stand two young guards.  Much like the guards of the Royal Palace in England, they stand motionless, moving only their eyes from time to time as people get close to have their picture taken next to the would be statues.  Each of the guards held a rifle with a very sharp, very shinny bayonet on the end.  I would not want to make them mad. There are two words for castle in German.  The first being really a wonderfully rich palace, the second being more of what we think of - a crude armament, solely for protection.  This castle was mostly the first kind, but still having the aspect of gates and high walls for protection.  Unfortunately, I was not able to go into any rooms in the castle.

 To the South of the castle is the "King's Garden" and a monastery.  There is an old stone bridge across the river, much like the one in Regensburg, which is a pedestrian zone.  As a result, there are artists of all walks selling paintings, crafts, and jewelry there.  The central part of Prague and the main train station is across the river.  The hostel I found to say in was on the upper floor of the old train station building.  It took me some time to realize it, but I needed only to walk a few yards to get to the railway platforms.  The new train station was built underground, and so one has to climb up to get to the platforms.

 One thing that is somewhat confusing is the system of streets here.  Coming from Arizona - where things are laid out like a checker board, (very boring as a guy from Hamburg told me), and it is harder to get lost - I got lost easily.  My first trip, I wanted to get to the river.   Somehow, with the streets bending and curving and never having the same names, I wound up being about a quarter mile north of where I wanted to go with the river on my left, rather than straight ahead, as I had thought.  It turned out okay, because I wound up in a huge plaza surrounded by historic buildings, including an old four teared church and the Mozart requiem hall.  In this plaza there were a number of street vendors.  It is like park-n-swap only every day.

 The weather is also very unpredictable here.  I started out at about three in the afternoon, with a partly cloudy sky, but lots of sunshine.  By about half past five, when I was headed back - because the wind had kicked up and I had left my jacket in the Hostel - it started to rain.  I had alsoo left my newly acquired umbrella in the hostel. I was not happy with myself.

 The next day I did some more sight-seeing wandered in and out of many of the shops in the  city.  I had gotten a guide map (in French) at the tourist information office.  It had caricatures of all of the buildings worth seeing and so I pretty much walked around and saw them all.

 My last chore of the day was to go to the train station and try to figure a way back to Mallersdorf.  I check into prices directly here, and they were outrageous; about one hundred dollars to get to Mallersdorf, less to get to Munich, which was further away.  I finally just bought a ticket to the border, costing about ten dollars, and then once in Germany I bought a Bavarian ticket, good for all the slow trains so long as it is not during rush hour, for about twenty-five dollars, and I had to pay an extra fifteen dollars to get to a place where I could get a connection.

 Much to my surprise, I was able to use my German about as often as English.  I had heard that the Czech's still bear some anti-German sentiment, and so I always started with English.  Still, there were lots of German tourists, and it is good to cater to the customers.

 I guess that about wraps this up.  I hope everyone is doing very well.

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Chapter 6

 Yesterday night, I attended a German wedding.  The actual ceremony was pretty similar to an American wedding, but the reception was completely different.  There is no such belief that it is back luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.  Of course, they had to get married twice.  Weddings in the church are not legal weddings before the state.  Therefore, the couple had to get married in a civil ceremony first before they went to the church.  They did this a little before noon, I was told.  As the guests arrive to the church, the bride and groom are standing outside the church door to greet them as they come in.  The wedding was to start at 1:30 PM.

 For the procession, the bride and the groom walk down the aisle together, followed by the groom's men, which consisted of the bride's father, brother, and a friend of the groom.  There were no bride's maids.  I do not know if that is typical.  The actual service lasted about an hour and ten minutes, with the exchanging of the vows and rings, and readings from the Bible and prayers.

 After the service, the bride and groom process out together, and then waited in the narthex of the church as friends and relatives held up sticks, like they used to swords, for the bride and groom to walk under.  It was raining at this point, so they had to use an umbrella as well.  After that, all of the guests exited the church and there was a photo taken of everyone present.  Later those pictures were available for purchase for six marks.  Robert, his friend Sandra, and I were not in the picture, because we had gone back to Robert's house to finish getting the present ready.

 We then went to the reception.  It starts with coffee and cake in a Gasthof - a banquet hall.  For about an hour, people drink coffee, eat cake and dance a little.  It is during this time that the groom and bride must have the first dance, and must do the waltz.  Not many younger people can still dance the waltz well, so it was one of the first trials of the marriage.  The grooms face was as read as a tomato as he was trying his best to do the waltz.  Then later, I think the grandmother of the bride, read a poem which is aimed at making fun of the groom.  It is based on a slipper, as here, rather than saying who wears the pants in the family, it is who wears the slippers.  So, the groom is teased about being under his new wife's slipper.
 
 At some point during this coffee and cake reception, the bride is stolen and taken away to another hiding place.  The guests leisurely leave the Gasthof, a few at a time, so as not to have a lot of notice, and go to the hiding place.  This one was just across the street, in the banquet room of a small hotel.

 It is here that the real party begins.  The groom is brought in and then punished for allowing his bride to be stolen from him.  This punishments only lasted about 10 minutes, but they tell me that it often lasts over a half an hour.  The groom was made to kneel on the edge of a triangle cut piece of wood and make more vows of his unending and forever faithful love to his new bride and pledged not to be happy with his twenty marks a month allowance.  They played a few more jokes on him to embarrass him a little more and then allowed him to have his bride back.

 After his bride is given back, they pass around cigars to all the men, cigarette sized cigars to the women, and matches.  As well, the wine flows freely and many toasts are made.  Then the band strikes up and they play a drinking game.  When they sing about the month that a person was born in, then he must stand up, leaving his full glass on the table, then pick up his glass, and when they start singing, "sauf auf, sauf auf, sauf auf", he must drink the wine quickly.  [There are two words for the verb, to drink, in German.  The first is trinken, which is used for humans.  The second is saufen, which is used for animals.  It is also used when one is talking about drinking large quantities of alcohol, sauf auf, meaning drink up.]  If someone stands up with his wine in hand, he must then be punished for making a mistake.  Two men had to do push ups, while other had to do a difficult dance in front of everyone.  As well, if someone did not drink his wine quickly enough, then they would repeat that month over again.

 After this they started singing old Bavarian songs.  Many people stood on their seats, others clapped.  During some songs we took each others' arms and swung from left to right and back again.  There was another song in which everyone had to jump up at a certain time.  The great thing was that everyone was playing, from kids to people in their seventies.  It really was a party with everyone singing, dancing, drinking and having a great time.  They brought sparkling water along with the wine, so that those who did not want to feel the effects of the wine so strongly could mix the two.  The girls that Robert and I were seated next to, kept filling our glasses too full to pour any water in them, trying to keep their glasses filled with water.  Robert and I countered their attacks often, trying to keep the playing field level.

 This party went on for until 7:30, when we all went back across the street to the Gasthof for dinner.  Before eating dinner, everyone gave the bride and groom their presents.  They had been living together for some time and really did not need most things one gives to newly weds, so I just gave them money.  After giving them the envelope, I secured my kiss from the bride.

 It was a fine dinner, though I was not all that hungry.  I had been eating pretzels and these things called "peanut flips", which are the consistency of a cheese puff, but taste somewhat like peanut butter.  The dinner was made up of roast beef, spitzle (the same material as dumplings, only cut into small noodles), soup and salad.  After everyone had finished dinner, they put dessert out in another room.  I was really too full to have any, though I did try a bite of ice cream.

 After dinner, they played music and danced until just after midnight.  Almost no one left early.  They passed out candles and sparklers to all the guests, and at the end of the evening, the bride and groom had their final dance.  They turned out the lights and everyone lit their candles and sparklers.  It was very romantic and really beautiful.  (I know, men are not supposed to say things like that.)

 After this last dance, men and women formed a line across from each other and held each others' hands in the air to form and arch, which the bride walked through out of the building.  The groom on the other hand jumped on top of the peoples hands and we tossed him along the line out the door.  I do not think that all grooms do that.  Of course, I really do not know.
 
 Many people left after the bride and groom went home, which was across the street, but many people hung around for a few more hours.  We ended up leaving at about 2:00 AM.  I could not imagine being a wedding for as long as I was, but now that I have been though it, I love the whole idea.  It is really a proper (or perhaps improper) celebration of the joining of two peoples lives together.  It is a reason to have a grand party.  Now, American weddings are going to seem quite dull to me.  I am thinking that maybe I will need to come to Germany to get married.  Of course, I may just have to marry a German girl.

 Well that’s it for now.

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Chapter 7

 This is likely the last letter I will be sending out from my European home.  I had hoped that I would be able to stay a little longer, but with my wallet having been stolen, and the need to get myself back into school, I am going to be going home in less than a week.  I have been packing things today, trying to be sure that all the souvenirs that could be broken will not be broken.  A friend of Robert, whose name is Ludwig, but called Lulu, works for Deutsche BA - the airline that I am going to be flying with.  He said a great test to see if all of one's things will be okay is to throw the bags down a flight of stairs.  If everything survives, then it will likely survive the baggage handlers.

 I am really going to miss Germany.  I am typing in Robert's sister's room.  It has a big picture window, which looks out at two houses, and a street lamp.  Between the two houses is a wonderfully green field, the ridge of a hill and several houses about 100 yards away, across the field.  After the first time it rained, after I got back from Spain, Robert's mother and father collected mushrooms in that field and we had cream of mushroom soup.  I was surprised that we could actually eat wild mushrooms.  Most of the gardens (yards) in this little town are very beautiful.  The Mandls have an apple tree, plum tree, pear tree, and lots of flowers and bushes.  The apple tree produced so many apples that they got them made into apple juice by a local juice maker.  They told me that it was really cheap to do that.  They still have many apples left.  I jokingly told Robert that I was also going to miss the smell of the cows.

 It seems like just yesterday that I was getting on the plane to come here.  I was seated next to a girl from Regensburg on the plane, and we talked to each other in German most of the flight.  I was supposed to meet up with her while I was here, but I haven't done so.  It was really the best Irony to be seated next to her in the plane. Whenever I was at a restaurant, and the waitress would ask us at the end of our meal if she could get us something else, I would always reply, "A big German girl named Olga."  There I was seated next to a big (tall is perhaps a better word), very attractive German girl.  Her name, however, was Claudia.  I was a little sorry to find out she had a boyfriend.

 When Robert picked me up from the airport, he did not see me right away, so I said in a loud, gruff voice, "Du schwein, Du!"  (You pig, you!)  It was funny to see everyone turning around waiting for the fight to break out.  Those are fighting words in Germany.  The first few days I was here in Mallersdorf, were amazing.  It is a quiet little town, and yet coming from a huge city like Phoenix, it was a relief to have some peace and quite.  Going for walks or bike rides here is so different, everyone greets everyone else.  The standard greeting is, "Gruess Gott" (literally Greet God), but a less formal greeting is "Servous".  These are Bavarian greetings, not used by other parts of the country.  My first German teacher told me that he said Gruess Gott to someone in Hamburg and got a nasty reply back.

 Most of the people here that I have met have been very nice.  On Thursday, I went down to Salzburg, in Austria.  It is on the border of Germany, so I was able to use a Bavarian Train ticket to get there cheaply.  On the way back, some soldiers who had just been released from their service to the military were going home after their "we are free" party.  One man asked me to sign his shirt.  I did so, and then we started talking.  He was very impressed with the American military, as they had done a lot of training exercises together with the U.S. Army.  We talked for about an hour and another one of his buddies joined in the conversation later.  They were dressed in white shirts, with names scribbled on them in a host of colors, they had the colors of the flag on the collar of their shirts - black, yellow, and orange - and many had the same color feathers sticking out of their hats.  All of them had bells sown on to their shirts, so that when they walked, it was like Christmas in October.  Some of them had mountain climbing mattocks strapped to their backs and were wearing the Bavarian style hat with feather's the color of the flag sticking out of them.

 He told me that all German men must serve in the military for ten months.  One can get out of this by doing community service instead, but it lasts for a much longer period of time.  After the ten months, they have a huge party that lasts three or four days.  They were just coming home from this party, when I met them.  After we arrived in Munich, he gave me his mountain climber's pin.  I am guessing that one of the specialty units in Germany is trained in mountain climbing; something like the paratroopers in America.  He also at some point gave me his beer, which I drank, not wanting to offend his offer.  It is funny, when I came here, I could hardly drink beer.  I don't really like it now, but I can drink it without making faces.
 Everyone that I have gotten to know has been very kind to me.  I feel like Robert's parents have been my parents this last few months.  I am not sure what I would have done without their kindness.  Even now they keep doing little things for me so that I don't have so much to worry about, trying to get ready to go home.  I think Germans are a little more stiff, in terms of family affection, so that I might not be able to give them a hug when I leave, but I may try anyway.

 Almost everyone I have met has also told me how well I speak German.  Actually, they tell me that I speak, "Good German".  Unlike English, the adverb and the adjective are the same in German; we say good and well, they always say good.  So, I often wonder if they mean that I speak German well or if they simply mean that I speak, "high German" (good German).  I think it may mean a little of both.  Still, as I stumble with the grammar of this language, sometimes completely forgetting what verb I wanted to say (the verb goes at the end of most clauses, so that one can say a whole host of things before getting to the verb), I know that the people are being kind and encouraging me by saying this.
 Yesterday, I saw the movie "Der Soldat James Ryan" (Saving Private Ryan).  [Much of the translation got lost in the translation.]  It evoked emotions in me, against the, "bad guys" in the movie - the Germans.  I had to check myself constantly, and remind myself that all the Germans I have met have been really nice.  I talked it over with Robert afterwards, and he reminded me that most of the soldiers in the German army had nothing to do with Hitler.  They were forced to go into the army and fight.  Robert's father lost a brother in the war.  I saw the picture they take as a person enters the army.  He was seventeen years old, and he looked like a young kid in the picture.  He was just a young country boy who didn't know much about the world, except that he was a farmer.  Robert reminded me that Hitler and the S.S. (not the official German army) were the real evil in that war, and that lots of unwilling people just go thrown into it.

 As I said, on Thursday I went to Salzburg.  On some trains, they have special cars where one can bring a bike.  Wanting to be able to see more of Salzburg, as I was not going to spend the night there, I brought Robert's bike with me.  Unfortunately, it rained the whole day.  I really had hoped it would clear up.  Salzburg is on the border of Germany, and Hitler was actually born there, not in Germany.  They speak a German Dialect in Austria, similar to the Bavarian Dialect.  However, they also learn High German in school.

 Salzburg is built along the Salzach river.  I am not sure if we have another name for it in English.  The river bends around, almost forming a circle, in which the main part of the city lies.  It is at the base of the Alps.  I rode the bike at first along the outskirts of town, not really knowing which direction I should go.  Then I managed to find my way to the center of town.  I think that, like most European cities, it was surrounded by a city wall.  The streets are narrower than usual, so that all most of the city center is a pedestrian zone.  I had exchanged money - from Marks to Austrian Shillings - because I wanted to see the money there.  Most shops accepted both currencies, and had the price in both currencies.  One shop I saw, even had the price in the new European currency.  [This currency will be coming out on the first of January, 1999.  For a few years, countries will use both the Euro and the local currency, slowly phasing out local currencies.  England will not be using the currency and Switzerland is not a part of the European Union.]

 There is a huge stone cliff, near the center of town.  There is both a monastery and a castle at the top of this crest of the mountain overlooking the cliff.  I saw a few windows in the face of the cliff itself, reminding me a little of Montazumas Castle, making me wonder if they had dug some kind of a basement into the mountain.  I would have liked to have been able to see inside it.  At the base of this cliff was the Cathedral, and Mozart Platz - W.A. Mozart was also from Salzburg.  I was told that one can visit his house.  If it had not been raining so much, I probably would have ventured to do that.

 I was able to go into the Cathedral garden.  There was a spring that ran through the middle of the garden, and it looked like into the church.  It reminded me of my grandmother telling me that on her farm, there was a spring that went past the house.  Her Father built a closet over the spring, and they would keep the milk in those huge steel containers in the spring.  I wondered that perhaps they had the same reasons here.  There were several squares near the cathedral.  In one square, there were several horses and carriages waiting.  It was a bad day for tourism.  I imagine it would be very quaint to take a carriage ride through the city.

 Well, by the time I had seen most of this, I was thoroughly soaked.  I got off of my bike, took my umbrella out of my back pack, and started walking with the umbrella in one hand, guiding the bike in the other.  I did not see much more of the city.  I was really getting very cold.  I found my way back to the train station and pretty much stayed there until I could go home.  With this Bavarian ticket, I was only able to travel between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM and then again after 6:00 PM.  The first train I could get was at 7:30 PM.  I stayed in a little fast food restaurant in the train station trying to keep warm and get dry.  I had brought a book and read for a few hours waiting to get back to Freising.  I may have to buy a book of Salzburg when I get back to the States.

 This coming week is a Autumn break for the schools in Germany.  It is a really good thing, because I have to go to the airport early on Thursday.  I guess that is it for now.  I hope that everyone is doing well.

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