Maps courtesy of www.theodora.com/maps (with permission).

Saturday, November 13 to Friday, November 19

Leaving Venice, we drove through the Dolomites, a southeastern offshoot of the Alps and the relatively warm weather deserted us, never to return for the remainder of the trip. Finally leaving behind the last of the toll roads, we entered Austria and I had a wonderful lunch of wurst (sausage) and fried potatos. We drove through lots of tunnels, some of which didn't go through a mountain, but rather just served to keep the snow off the roads. Again we did a lot of night driving and the rain and snow made it even more difficult, but we had the luxury of being able to switch off on the driving which kept us with a fresh driver.

Slovakian girls with castle mascot.

We crossed the Danube into Bratislava the capital of Slovakia. We found one that was 82 euros and I was so tired I said that was fine, but Frank thought that was too expensive so we drove around for a while longer and finally found one for about 70 euros. I withdrew 2000 Slovakian korunas ($65.90) from an ATM, only my second and withdrawl of the trip. On the frigid windy night we walked down to an internet cafe to check out our e-mail. I ordered a hot chocolate that tasted so rich it seemed like it was made from melted chocolate bars. Initially, I had trouble with logging in because the keyboard was different to account for all the extra letters that they have in their language.

We dined at an upscale restaurant. This was a university area and throughout our walk we had seen many college age kids. Frank wanted to go to the disco again and kept pressing, but I was just too tired, sore, and cold. We took the long walk back to the hotel and then Frank went to the disco on his own.

On Sunday, we were up at 8 at down to the town center, but the tourist office was closed and so were a couple museums. We drove up to a castle and saw an art exhibition which involved lots of painful stair climbing for me. We started driving west toward the Czech Republic and just before the border, a policeman stepped out into the traffic lane and waved us off the road. He said that we had been driving too fast and demanded a 4000 korunas payment. Frank offered him 1000 korunas and the officer accepted. Frank later told me that since the officer didn't give us a receipt, we could have gone to the police station and reported the officer. The officer would have lost his job and we would have gotten our money back, but it would have taken a lot of time.

A bridge across the Danube with endless eastern european apartment complexes in the background.

Frank discovered the car had a navigation system and was dying to try it out. He set the destination to Prague and off we went. The only problem was that it directed us incorrectly. For awhile Frank followed it and it just seemed to be sending us on a tour of the country and then back where we started from. Finally, Frank gave up on it and we drove on, stopping at a large roadside motel for lunch which had only two cars in the parking lot. When we stepped into the restaurant, there was no one. This scene would have sent me out the door, but Frank said let's stay. The food did turn out unremarkable except for the fact that I tried snails for the first time -- not bad (but kind of slimey going down).

I took over at the wheel and Frank turned the navigation system back on. It kept pointing us in the wrong direction, but now we were ignoring it, except for comic relief. We arrived in Prague, a city that Frank had said he wanted to visit and one I think he had been to before. The only problem was he didn't seem to know what he wanted to see. He asked me if I wanted to stay for the night or return to Germany. Considering I didn't have many days left and other places still to go, I voted for Germany. So, off we went after taking a couple photos.

Maps courtesy of www.theodora.com/maps (with permission).

We stopped just short of the German border to load up on greek food. The town had a large vietnamese population and many discos and souvenir stores (due to its border location). I bought some gifts and we continued on arriving back at Frank's house in Herrsching at 12:30. Again Frank asked me what time I wanted to get up... I said 8.

A small section at the Andechs restaurant is reserved for dog haters and non smokers.

On Monday, we had lunch at Andechs Kloster, a monastery where they brew a famous beer and produce lots of hearty food. I tried calling Cathrine, the next friend I wanted to visit, throughout the day, but I couldn't reach her. I was worried since I knew she was close to delivering her first child. In the evening, Frank and I went into Munich and ate chinese food and watched an IMAX movie about coral reefs. Again Frank asked me if I wanted to go to the disco and this time I agreed, but Frank changed his mind and home we went.

Regina, Sabine, and Frank, my co-pilot for a 4000 kilometer journey.

On Tuesday, I finally reached Cathrine, but woke her up in the process. She had been in the hospital on Monday with labor pains, but had returned home and was feeling better. I also spoke with Ulli, from Lienz, Austria. I had wanted to visit her on the trip, but just ran out of days. Looking at the map before the trip I thought it could be a short little trip from Garmisch, but was told it would take a number of hours by train. Frank dropped me off at Cathrine's place in Grainau and we had lunch at an italian restaurant in Garmisch-Partinkirchen. On another frigid day we walked around, doing some shopping at the small stores there. Cathrine and her husband Uwe cooked a wonderful pasta dinner.

On Wednesday my ears and teeth were hurting and I just had enough of the cold so I stayed inside all day and wrote, read, and watched some of their complete Friends television series DVD collection. We had dinner at a chinese restaurant in Garmisch.

Cathrine, Uwe, and Moma Elfiede.

On Thursday Cathrine and Uwe dropped me off at the Garmisch-Partinkirchen train station. With the day of rest, I really did feel better. I took the train to Munich and then took the S-bahn towards the airport. The S-bahn train split with only part of the train going to the airport. Fortunately, I chose correctly. This is the first time I've ever seen this type of train split. The S-bahn is essentially and above ground subway. Regular trains split all the time and one has to be very careful of which car he gets on. You can get on the right train, but end up in the wrong city!

The plane was to be late taking off and I asked the clerk if there would be any problem catching my flight and she said no. On arrival in Frankfurt, I left the plane and started searching for a CRT where I could find out what gate the plane was leaving from. There weren't any. So I found a manned desk, learned the gate number, given confusing directions, and wasn't told there would be any problem reaching the flight in time. I walked quickly towards the gate, but was held up at a security check where they decided my toe nail clippers posed a safety hazard and were confiscated. Finally reaching the gate, I saw the plane, but was too late to board.

I did not have time to visit Ulli in Lienz, Austria.

I remember in the past, airlines helping people while on the plane, giving them information on connecting flight gate numbers, telling them whether they would reach the flight in time, sometimes arranging to take the passenger on a powered cart to make sure they reached the connecting flight in time. Lufthansa did absolutely nothing to help me and things only got worse.

I was given confusing directions again on where to go for reticketing, but I teamed up with a German speaking guy who had the same problem. Eventually, we found the ticket counter, but were told it would take one and a half hours and directed to another ticket counter fifteen minutes away that only took one hour. All the walking and standing was doing very bad things to my right leg which was giving me numbness and pain at the same time. While waiting in line, I kept readjusting my position to mitigate the pain.

Finally getting up to the front of the line, I asked for any flights that day on any airline that could ultimately get me to San Francisco. She said there were none. That was of course a lie! With all the flights going out of Frankfurt (I think the busiest in Europe) and all the flights going into San Francisco, she couldn't find one route that would get me there? I don't know her reason. Maybe with the huge line, she didn't want to take the time. Maybe the system she was using didn't provide her with access to all the flights. But it would have been nice if she would have been honest with me.

Members of the Spectacular Skate team from Bologna, Italy.

My German speaking friend was reticketed as well. He let me use his cell phone to leave a message for Lyn on my day late arrival. We were booked into a hotel near the airport. A sign in the room stated the rate at 249 euros a night, but to me it compared to a nice Motel 6. The buffet dinner and breakfast were good. I even noticed another passenger from our flight who had missed his connecting flight. The next morning I decided to allow a little extra time to get to the airport and realized it was prudent when I saw the mass of people waiting to get on the hotel airport bus. I managed to get a seat, but there were several left behind.

Lufthansa played the same crummy movie on the inbound flight to S.F. as on the outbound flight, however, the food was pretty good. On the flight there was a ladies artistic inline skate team from Bologna who were to compete in Fresno, an agricultural town out in the middle of nowhere. Why couldn't they have competed in San Francisco, where there are lots of skaters? I would have gone to see them if they had competed closer than a four hour drive. My kids and my loving spousal unit gave me a wonderful welcome back home and I will have memories to last for many more years!

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