Patrick showed up rather like room service on the morning of the 10th. Yes it was great seeing him, and the rest is personal! Anyway the day before, I had FINALLY found a grocery store, and once we got our stuff together, we hiked out looking for serious things like laundry mats and beer. (We never found the laundry BTW, and I wound up doing it in the tub. YOU try washing a desert uniform in the tub! <grins> But it rinsed out well and dried quickly.) It was a long hike to town, but we did it many times, and eventually figured out the bus routes, and were able to get to the Airport (Flugelhapft) for about 2E. One thing we didn't find was ICE, so the beer and wine was warm in the room. Hopefully all the beer I drank was balanced out by all the walking I did!

Pat, good sailor that he is, solved the ice problem by finding a sidewalk Bistro and drinking the beer cold right from the tap. The Bistro was called the Motion, and seemed to cater to Hookers, bikers, dog lovers, Gay folks and general hep types, late into the night. Germany is a wonderful country, even the junk beer is good. And yes we drank some beer, and talked far into the night (I think we closed the Motion that first night…… it was late and rainy and dark, I know that). We staggered home to the hotel, and it was just like old times. Pat and I have this funny relationship like the 60's "if you remember it, you weren't there" our friendship is like that. So don't make me swear to any of this, but we definitely had a good time.

Once we compared notes, Pat was horrified to find the rail tickets were so high. He definitely wanted to see some Gothic architecture, and I was all for going anywhere. So the morning of the 11th we found a bus and embarked for a ride to the airport. Investigating the Hertz rentals, we decided a car was the way to go and rented a cute little blue Puegot. We were immediately glad we did, as there was air con in it, and we needed it by this time. Since I had already been to Koln and gave a good report, Pat was all for going back. So we did. It took more than two hours by Autobahn (so far I was driving, because I had the International driver's license). We parked, looked at the Dom in depth (Pat was suitably impressed!) walked around some, did we eat? (can't remember, Pat is an irregular eater indeed!) came back and the "Oberburgermeister" (mayor) had left a printed note on our car. I still don't know what it said, but it didn't look like a ticket, so we filed it and drove off for Frankfort and our little hovel in Walldorf. It was a long ugly drive back in the dark [I think we saw one of the Persieds tho], it doesn't matter what speed you do on an Autobahn. As per legend, people pull up behind you, flip their lights and pass you like you are tied to lead balloons. God they are CRAZY drivers!

>>>>click here to see my photos of Koln. <<<< I'm sorry I didn't get clearer shots, especially of the gargoyles guarding the rain gutters, maybe Pat will send me a good jpg shot of the beasties. I'm especially sorry my scanner seems to be very ill, perhaps blew out a color tube. It's very old. Oh well you get the idea.

WELL now that we had a car, there was no holding us! I wanted to see a place my parents had recommended, the Technical Museum in Sinsheim, to the South of us. We found it on the map, and checked out of the Walldorf, throwing everything (even Godzilla) into the car. The tech museum WAS wonderful, they had about 10 planes on static display, up on tall tall pylons, and you could climb up and crawl around inside them, even unto the Concorde, and the "cheap Russian knock off Concorde". That gave me the willies…….. I didn't stay up in it long and went back down to the slippery metal deck where I felt safer (we were having a thunderstorm at the time, and those planes were very metal and very high up…….). There was also what must be the longest slide in the world, the top being in an old DC10(?) up on a pylon, and it's a long long silver tube that ends on the concrete deck about 10 stories below. The kids loved it! It was tons of fun and every machine (cars trains etc) from any time you can imagine was in there……. I even found an antique long-arm Singer quilting machine! AND they had the last existing 8 player pianos "musikers" on the continent, which WORKED with their folding cardboard music and animated shows; one even played "YMCA".

The rain came down and we closed the place out. I have to say, that was one of the most romantic times I've ever had. There is something about turning two aviation techs loose in a technical museum, rain, then giving them beer, that sets fire to the soul. We finally went back to the car in a mist, and after running into numerous places, found a B & B not too far down the road. There was a great biergarten next door which was all the same family, so we drank and ate and went upstairs and flopped over and slept……….. only problem was it was on a busy street and kinda noisy. But it had cute little shutters, and a nice shower so we didn't complain.

A change of underwear, and some breakfast, fed the ducks, and we were good to go; decided we liked the rates at the Walldorf Hotel, so we headed back there. On the way we went by Wurtzberg, Pat had spotted some castles there in the guidebook, so we stopped for lunch. We found a great place on the Rhine (the Main?) which actually served Harvey Wallbangers! (I chuckled over that and pointed it out to the waitress, I don't think she got it). It must have been a student hang-out, the ladies restroom had a seat made of barbed wire set in resin.

About this point it gets hazy all the details. I know we saw a lot of Gothic churches, many in some state of restoration. So many Doms were near city centers and were damaged by bombs in WWII. Some escaped tho, there was one church the Allies took pains to miss, there were photos showing the town leveled around it, and the church still standing. But in another town, the church had scored a direct hit, as the building next door was a former palace of German royalty, and of course the Nazis had used it for headquarters. It was all obliterated, and the new buildings replacing them (incorporating some of the wreckage) were woefully less than the originals. This makes sense from my limited history memories of the time, Germany's great (military) industrial centers were all on the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Main rivers, in the Rohr valley, and that is mostly where we traveled around. One visit took us walking over the Rhine on an old bridge, and it was lined with all these medieval statues, a wonderful old bridge, which somehow must have survived war. There were locks in the river, and it obviously at one time had a mill race, and had generated power….. that was all gone.

The bomb damage made me sad all these years later; if for no other reason we should always avoid war at all times, because of the cultural loss that always comes with it. But as my parents are fond of saying "We didn't start the war, but we sure as hell finished it" Amen.

I still got frustrated trying to sort out "what was real old" and "what was restored". Pat reading the tour book found "the oldest Gothic church in Germany" Die Elisabeth-Kirche in Marburg so that was a good day trip. (Also the only place they charged for the bathroom). I know we got to Wurms too, and saw where the Diot of Wurms was nailed up. We kept running into Greek restaurants and I went for the calamari, Pat played it safe and stuck to sausage and kraut and beer. We used up the three days on the car, then decided we needed it for three more days, and checked with the Hertz people at the airport. Turned out Pat COULD drive with only a military ID, so I happily turned over the keys to His Nibs. He got a fiendish glint in his eyes, muttering about "the Autobahn". Hah…… they STILL passed us like we were tied, but Pat dutifully tried to uphold our honor and hit the gas anyway. He had fun.

One other place I must mention……. We had the car a total of 6 days, and drove all over the place, but mostly to the base where we finally found ice (and an Internet access), and then to the grocery for more beer (cheaper in town than on the base). Anyway we kept going past this sign that said "Zeppelinheim". Not being totally ignorant, and seeing the airbase right near, I decided it was worth checking into. You guessed it, it was a modern museum dedicated to Count von Zeppelin, and the German airships. They had old instruments, wonderful photos, melted bits of the Hindenburg, and A ROTARY ENGINE. I really loved it….. sadly none of the folks spoke real good English so I couldn't brag about cousin Harry Kirschner who was on the USS Los Angeles and USS Shennadoah, but it was wonderful anyway. I got a poster (had to pick through them for one without a Swastika on the tailfins!) and other things, plus lots of pictures. Zeppelinheim, and the technical museum were almost worth the trip between them!!

Aug 17: Our last day with the car, we stuck around Frankfort and visited their downtown "Der Romer" which is the Roman ruins and the ubiquitous local Gothic church. Somehow the complex had been built over old Roman ruins, and they found 'em underneath, old Roman baths and such. Then we had lunch at the main square, where there was a fountain of mermaids with water coming out of their breasts. Weeee! It was interesting but we 1) had many many wasps sharing the meal 2) it was hot 3) after Pat was foolish enough to tip a Gypsy musician, we had two more try to panhandle, I told them "Nein!" 4) we saw two nuts talking to themselves, one was loud, raunchy and probably on meth; the other looked like a fat lady tourist who had lost it 5) got something really weird for lunch, green sauce with boiled eggs in it………. strangest thing I've ever seen on a plate. Other than that it was sorta fun, and we shared a laugh with the Germans at the next table over some fat Spanish ladies who bitched about the bill. (They were funny, ate the pork joints first, and then bitched after it was consumed……..) We saw a Latin inscription over an old bank, I didn't get it all, but some of it said "fleet of feet" and "brotherly discord" a bit amusing, rather like something Gringott's would have over the door. I have to confess I was reading the Latin better than the German, and that's not saying much for me either way.

Aug 18, 19: On occasion I would wake up in the night, and our room was thrashed like something out of a Hunter Thomas book. Yes we had a good time. I guess if you are keeping track, we had a couple of days without the car, and one day we holed up in the room, rested and watched movies on Pat's laptop. (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, both I thought were really good movies). We tried to watch A Knight's Tale the next night, but I kept falling asleep. It was good too (strange indeed!), based on the Chaucer tale. We had Mongolian bar be que one night too, that was super good. We also watched what we could of the Olympics, including the lighting of the torch live, and enjoyed the victories of all the contestants. Germany had about 4-5 different stations covering it, a treat after the one station we Americans have covering it. We both were excited for the Iraq soccar team.

Aug 20: Our last night, we tried to walk down to the billiard hall nearby, but it was RAINING when we got out there at midnight, too much for a short walk. I want to say we romantically walked in the rain, but we didn't. Even drunk, both of us are far too stodgy for such jaunts (Pat is the only person I've ever seen pop more sinus tabs than I do). So we talked about it, got a little wet just to say we had tried, and went back into the room for some shut eye. All too soon morning came; it was time for me to fly home, and we sadly rode the bus past the great Euro sign at the Frankfort Flugelhapft. I wish I could say we were wild and crazy and cavorted down the street, but Pat and I were surprisingly sedate. We had seen some youngsters in Koln, running around giggling and laughing, throwing water on each other, the nasty little girl with her undies showing (a fashion trend actually); there was something whistful and wonderful about it. Ah to be young again. Well, we old farts had a good time anyhow, and vowed to do it again someday.

I do care a good deal about Pat, so much that I brought him coffee in the morning and did his laundry. My only complaint is that he is damn hard to pry out of bed in the morning. Actually even that has a trick to it, which I don't feel like explaining, or my family and friends will know what a REAL hussy I am. Anyway, we had a good time together. Maybe you all can meet him some day too.