Germany/England - 2005

Welcome to our Germany and England trip.  This travelogue details our travels in those two countries between September 22^nd and October 9^th.  As always, how we ended up in Germany is a story in itself.

Our good friends, Kelly and Denise Kafeyan, were stationed at Ramstein Air Base in September 2003.  It wasn’t long after their arrival that they started asking when we’d be over to visit them.  We had tossed around a trip in the summer of 2004.  But, I backed out of that trip thinking that terrorist activity would happen in an American election year.  When that possibility thankfully didn’t come to fruition, we started planning again.  As the spring of 2005 approached, it seemed that a fall trip was a definite possibility.  But, Kelly got word that he would be changing jobs, and I got word that I would be on a payroll system implementation team at my work.  It again looked like we would have to skip Germany.  But, Kelly’s work situation cleared up, and my work duties resolved themselves.  So, about a month before we left, we booked tickets and headed off.

Now, I wasn’t crazy about visiting Germany.  Not that I was against going, I just didn’t know of a reason why I should go.  I reconciled my ambivalence with the memory that I had the same feelings when I first visited Great Britain, and I ended up really loving that country.  However, now that I’ve been to Germany, I can state that my ambivalence remains.  There’s no denying that the country is drop dead beautiful.  The natural scenery, especially in the Bavarian Alps, rivals anything I’ve seen anywhere in the world.  But, there were some social and cultural factors, both on the American and the German sides, which left me somewhat uneasy.  I probably would return to Germany; but, it’s still not high on my list of places to visit.

All three long time readers will notice that I’ve used the “daily diary” format for this travelogue.  I did make a change in the photos I’ve used for this page.  For the first time ever, all the photos on this travelogue are from a digital camera.  In the past, I’ve taken film photos with my trusty 25 year old Canon and scanned the pictures with an HP scanner.  For this trip, I succumbed to the digital photography revolution and bought a Canon Digital Rebel XT with two Tamron lenses and a 2 GB card.  This camera was so easy to use, and produced such good pictures that I’ll never go back to film again.  I haven’t been paid by Canon to endorse their product; but, I’ll be glad to do it for free.  It’s worth your time to buy this camera if you want great pictures of your trip.

As always, your comments about this travelogue are greatly appreciated.  As for our next trip, we don’t know where we are going or when we are going.  But, wherever and whenever we go, I will write about it.  Thanks!

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Unless otherwise noted, all pictures and text are copyright Michael Lima. You can contact me at mikvs@ix.netcom.com.

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