The catalyst for this was that I was going through my phone
a couple of days ago and realized I’d put a bunch of notes into it from when I
was in Europe and I needed to clean them out.
But before I do that, I’m gonna toss them up on here…so, here you go. Oh; the notes jump around a lot, and the verb tenses are all out of whack, but bear with
me.
Wednesday; I arrived, met up with Erin, and went to an Irish
bar for a beer. Why Irish bar? It’s the only kind that’s open in the
afternoon. (Lucky Irish!)
Thursday; Went to the Gruyers museum. While Erin is driving, I’m paying attention
to the highway/roadway signs so that I can learn them I’m gonna need to know what they’re telling
me when I’m off on my own oh the bike.
They have a good system here; just about all of the signs
are pictures. No confusing different
languages to mess with, and most of the pictures are fairly simply to
understand once you get the hang of things.
Speed limit signs are just numbers, signs for passing/no passing are
just a picture of two cars side by side.
If there’s a slash running through the car on the left side, then
there’s no passing. If it’s a picture of
a truck on the left side and there’s a slash running through it, then no trucks
allowed in the left lane. Simple,
right? My favorite sign was the one for
“trucks, test your brakes”; it’s a picture of a truck with all of its wheels on
fire. I wanted to snap a pic, but
didn’t, assuming that I’d be able to find one on-line. I searched and searched, but no luck, though.
Oh yeah; the tractor-trailers over there are different than
back here. First off; they’re almost
immaculate. Extremely clean, they all
look very safe, no damaged parts, no scratches, no dirt anywhere. Also, the axles are single-wheel, rather than
double, as they are over here. There are
three axles in the back, and two in the front, and then two for the cab.
Traffic lights over here are great; when changing from red
to green, they first flash both the red and the yellow, together, and then it
goes green. It’s like being at the drag strip! Everyone GOES! There’s no delay, no hesitation,
nothing. The whole line of cars just
goes. It’s awesome!
Safety is a huge concern over here, too. Trucks, pickups…towed trailers…anything that
was carrying a load of any kind, that load was completely covered and strapped
down. Nothing loose, nothing flapping,
and definitely nothing flying out.
Bike lanes. They have them over there, and sometimes they’re
in the middle of the road. In the
middle! So cars are zipping by on either
side.
Scooters and motorcycles slice around cars in traffic like
they were standing still.
But despite the apparent chaos, everyone over here seems to
be a very good driver. I didn’t see one accident,
anywhere. Everyone was paying strict
attention to the roads. NOBODY WAS ON
THEIR PHONE!! It was amazing! In the two+ weeks I was there, I think I only
saw two people on their phones, and we spent hours and hours on the roads and
highways, traveling around from place to place.
We could learn a lot from the drivers over there.
Oh yeah; and traffic enforcement? I think I only saw cops doing traffic
enforcement TWICE! Aside from that, they
weren’t to be seen anywhere on the highways.
ANYWHERE! I asked about this and
was told that here in Europe, the cops focus on solving crimes, not handing out
tickets for revenue generation. What a
novel idea…
Ok, moving on. Friday,
we headed off to Munich, Erin decided
that we “Must do something cultural thing before we can start drinking”
thing. Stupid culture.
Something really special happened at one of the beer houses
in Munich, the waiter recognized us as Americans (me wearing my ALR vest, and
all of us talking English). He thanked
us, saying there would be no Kosovo (his homeland) if it weren’t for
America. He went on to thank us
repeatedly, and then said “Ich libe Americana”, which was his broken-way of
saying he loved America. That was pretty
cool.
Everywhere we’ve been tonight, the bathrooms are downstairs… Everywhere.
Why?Saturday; still in Munich. We were out at some beer house and were laughing so loudly that we literally got shushed by a neighboring table. In a beer house! (We were pretty loud, though.)
Went to the bathroom (again; downstairs), and the doors are
marked as “H” and “D”. I figured the “D”
was for Damsel or something, so I went into the “H”. Glancing around…no urinals. (shrug) ok, I’ll just use a stall. The urinals must be around the corner or
something. So as I’m standing there in the
stall, it suddenly hits me…no urinals!!
I must have chosen incorrectly – I’m in the ladies room!!! I pushed as hard as I could to finish up as
fast as possible before any women came in, and then as I was hurriedly washing
my hands, I noticed that the back wall had water trickling down it. And there was a thin grate at the bottom of
the wall on the floor. Huh? What the…wait…the back wall was the
urinal. The whole wall! You just walked up to it and pee’d on
it. And I’m not talking about some run of
the mill wall. The entire bathroom was
upper, upper class. Full marble
everywhere, even the back wall. So men
are just supposed to walk up and piss on this beautiful marble wall. Weird.
Sunday morning; there are churches in Munich. Lots of churches. Churches have bells. Churches ring their bells on Sunday
morning. Lots of churches means lots of
bells. Which rang. All morning.
But despite having a slightly foggy head, they actually sounded very
nice.
Monday; arriving back in Switzerland, we drove by Erin and
Jack’s local police station. The windows were all taped up on the inside, and
there were bullet holes in the glass.
Someone had shot up the police station over the weekend. Whoa…
Tuesday; Bike rental day!
My helmet isn’t legal in Switzerland.
At first, the guys on bikes that I passed didn’t wave back, so I figured
waving wasn’t understood over here, so I stopped. Then I passed a guy on a Harley and he
waved. So I started waving to other
bikers again. Outside of the city, just
about everyone waved, but their idea of waving was to lift a couple of fingers
off of the clutch lever. Even later,
when riding the old passes, nobody would let go of the handlebars. I’d be sweeping around the switchback corners
with one arm off the bars, hanging low to give the oncoming guy a wave, and I’d
get one or two barely raised fingers in return.
C’mon guys, lighten up! Enjoy the
roads! Love the lean!!
At the top of the passes, the clouds would move in over the
tops of the mountains at times, blocking the peaks from view. Then they’d thin a bit, revealing a pale,
shrouded visage of the peak, appearing like a ghost, peering through the fog.
At other times, a cloud would start passing over/around the
peak of a mountain and then seem to come to a complete standstill, as if the
mountain was holding on to it.
Another observation I had was how clean the highways were
over there. No trash, no dead animals,
they were basically immaculate. How is
this possible? They’re highways!?!? (I got my answer on the following day when I
was caught in traffic in the early morning.
The highway had lane closures…for the street sweepers! Really?
They run street sweepers on the highways!)
After the first day of riding, when I stayed at that hotel
I’d found, I sat down for dinner and was handed a menu entirely in German (no
pictures). Perusing things, I found
something that said “raviolio con casa” or something like that. Assuming that it was the house’s ravioli, I
figured that would be a safe choice. So
when the waitress asked me in broken English if I wanted it with fish, I
thought “uh-oh…I don’t think I’m getting ravioli…”. I said no, no fish, so she then asked if I
wanted cheese and nuts. Sure, let’s go
with cheese and nuts and see what I get.
Well, it wound up being ravioli – hugs ones, filled with a delicious mix
of what I guess was cheeses and crushed nuts, and they were smothered in the
best tasting cheese sauce I’ve had in ages.
Frikkin’ Yum!
Seated near the bar was a big round table that had 4, then
5, then 6 guys. It appeared they were
returning from work – they shared a bottle of wine (just one – everyone over
here seems extremely anti-drinking and driving) and chatted and laughed for a
couple of hours, then mosied on out to their vehicles and headed into the
township that was nestled on the mountainside behind the hotel.
After my dinner, rather than head up to the room (what for –
I was alone), I just went outside in the parking lot and watched the sun set
behind the Alps. It was amazing!
Oh yeah; the grass all around the hotel…and behind it…and
stretching up the sides of the mountains all around. It was bright green…and looked incredibly
manicured. But how? It was all the same length, very low…like
it’d been cut, but there was no way to get a mower up some of the slopes on the
side of the mountains. Could it be
grazed by livestock? Doubtful, they
usually leave patches and an uneven height.
I was at a loss.
Also on the mountainside behind the hotel were little
house-like structures. There didn’t seem
to be any way to get to them, though.
Incredibly steep slopes, no paths, certainly no roadways. Maybe they were only accessed in the
wintertime? You go up the side of the
mountain somewhere else, and then ski down to these things? Again; I was at a loss.
The next morning, I came down for breakfast and sat down in
an empty seat. The waitress comes over
and asks me in very broken English if I was there for breakfast. I said yes, and she motions for me to follow
her. Ok, maybe they do a buffet style
and she’s bringing me to it. I get up
and follow her…right to the center of the room, where she stops and turns to
face me, expectantly. Uhm…I have no idea
what to do. There’s no buffet anywhere,
but there she is, just standing there.
So I asked her “Yes?” and she motions toward a table on the other side
of the room. With a place setting. For one person. I found out later that that’s how hotels do
it over there; they know how many are staying in rooms, and have place settings
set up ahead of time. I’d merely sat in
the wrong spot, so she was moving me to where they wanted me.
She asked me what I wanted for breakfast and I paused, so
she, having realized I was American, asked if I wanted scrambled eggs. (Scrambled eggs are not very big over there,
but they understand that we love them.)
So I said yes to the scrambled eggs, and off she went….and returned with
a basket of bread…and a basket of croissants…and a plate of jams and
butters…and then a plate with scrambled eggs, and 4 different kinds of cheeses,
and ham slice..holy cow – this was awesome!
Riding around during the day again, it struck me that so
many slopes of the Alps are incredibly steep – with a vast majority of them
being absolutely vertical. And so much
of it has cracks and fissures running through it. HOW COME IT ISN’T ALL CRASHING DOWN AROUND ME
RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!?!?
Back through the passes again, I passed many herds of
cows. And every cow has a bell around
its neck. *Every* cow. Has a bell.
So all you can hear is the constant clanking of these bells. It was pretty cool, actually. Even when it was dusk, and I wasn’t able to
see too far off the roads, I’d know when I was passing a roving herd of cows by
the sounds of the bells floating out of the darkness.
At one particular gas stop, there was a bus of Japanese
tourists milling about. One came up,
took a picture of me and the bike, and said in broken English “Your bike is
cool!” and gave me the thumbs up. Hey, look
at me; I’m internationally famous now.
Heading back up the Gotthard pass, the highway cuts back and
forth across the face of the mountain.
Except when they need to do a switchback and there isn’t room on the
mountain – in which case they just continue the road out into the open space,
and then curve it back onto solid ground.
What fun! Watch out for those
long drop-offs in the corners…
At the top of the Gotthard pass, I’d wanted to hammer the
ancient roadway one more time, but I was out of time and luck, as you saw in
video I posted on FB a while ago. There
were so many more pics I wanted to take, though. The clouds and fog pouring
over the tops of the peaks around me – it was like the move The Fog, when it
rolls into town. I was amazed at the
speed with which it was moving. And
speaking of moving, it was time to get moving!
(Riding down the mountain was like driving in white pea soup. Visibility was nil, and I was moving at about
20 mph, until I got low enough that it cleared off.)
I’d gotten super lost when I’d picked up the bike – it’d
taken me about 45 minutes to find my way out of the city. Luckily, the directions back into the city
and to the rental place were perfect, and I zipped right to their door. However, since I’d dared not stray from the
directions for fear of getting lost again, I hadn’t managed to top off the gas
tank, so I owed them for the fillup.
Which wound up coming to a whopping 12 Swiss Francs. Which worked out great because it gave me
enough change to buy the trolley ticket back to Erin and Jack’s house (the
ticket machines didn’t take bills, only coins.
Oh yeah; their paper currency only goes down to $10. Below that, it’s coins; $5, $2, $1, etc.).
After finishing up at the Harley dealership, I went out to
the street to get everything I’d had on the bike stowed well enough so that I
could carry it easily while walking to the trolley. I also took advantage of the time to go
through my maps and make sure I had my bearings to find my way back to Jack and
Erin’s place, which trains to take, which routes, etc. But this delay wound up working in my favor…
…because as soon as I arrived at the trolley stop, the phone
Erin had lent me was ringing. What
the…who is calling me on this phone? It
was Erin. She was on the trolley that
had JUST pulled away, and she’d seen me come around the corner. (If hadn’t delayed after leaving the dealership, I
would’ve been gone before she’d arrived and she never would have seen me.) “Wait right there” she said, so I did, and
she hopped a return trolley, and then we went and grabbed a beer…at an Irish
pub, because they’re they only…well, you know by now. (Oh, and when it was time to pee, the
bathrooms were downstairs again. Why is
it always downstairs?)
The next day, I did a solo walkabout in Zurich. Lots of great sights and places. At one point I’d stumbled into the ritzy,
ultra-rich area. Everyone is wearing
verrry expense suits, huge gold watches, expensive jewelry…money is all around
me….and I’m wearing mandals, shorts and my Alcatraz T-shirt. (The Sesame Street song “One of these things
is not like the other…” was running through my head…)
Something else that didn’t seem to fit; there were lots of
folks around the city that were wearing shirts and hats that had US places on
them. LA, Texas, Boston, even Brooklyn
with a pic of Biggie Smalls. All kinds
of locations. But to look at the folks
that were wearing them…I don’t think they even knew where these places were,
but I could be wrong.
Let’s see…where are we up to…ok, Friday, after being in
Heidelberg for a day, a few of us went to the Lorraine American Military
cemetery. That was very moving. We were the only ones there in the entire
place. It was completely silent, save
for a slight breeze moving through…which ushered in some rain, so we got a bit
wet, but it didn’t deter us from exploring the whole grounds.
After the cemetery, we stopped (in France still) at a
McDonald’s. I wanted to try the
cheeseburger for comparison. The girl
behind the counter was HOT! But she
couldn’t understand English, so we never would have worked out. After one of the other crew translated for me
and I had my order, we were waiting around for the food, and Erin smacked a
little kid in the face. Ok, not
really. The kid walked into the corner
of a kiosk and banged her face. Looking
up in bewilderment, the first thing the little kid sees is an unfamiliar face –
Erin’s, looking on in concern. The kid
somehow connects Erin’s unfamiliar face to having walked into something that
hurt, and immediately turns, runs back to her mother crying, and pointing at
Erin. Nice, way to go, Erin. :-D
Fortunately, the family had seen what had happened and wasn’t upset with
us.
Also present inside the McDonald’s was a group of
bikers. Wet bikers. It was raining, remember? I felt badly for them, having been in that position
many times myself, but they all had what appeared to be more than adequate wet
weather gear, so they seemed to be ok.
The food came…the cheeseburger was smaller in size (height,
and diameter) than back home, and tasted different. Someone said something about the meat used
here in France was horse meat. (shrug) I don’t know if that was true or not…probably
not.
After eating, I strolled outside while waiting for the rest
of the crew to finish up. I spotted a
McDonald’s playground, so of course I climbed inside the contraption, made my
way (eventually) to the slide, and slid down head first on my back…right into
the puddle at the bottom. It was
raining, remember? (I’m not that
bright.)
(Again; my phone notes are out of order so I may not be
relaying things in the proper order, but you get the gist…)
Ok, so we’d done the one-cultural thing for the day, now it
was time to drink! Monica brought us to
a place called the Red Bull and after we were seated, she talks to the waitress
for a bit…in German. I have no idea
what’s being said, but Erin was listening and her face brightened up. She turns to me and says “Wait ‘til you see
what Monica just arranged.” Ta da! The
waitress arrives with a 2 litre boot of beer!
Wheee! We all took turns passing
it around, and it was gone in no time.
Some of Kerry’s friends then arrived and as folks were saying their
hello’s and catching up, we had another single mug, and then moved on.
At some point in the night, Kerry pulls out a PGR challenge
coin. Wow! I need to get me one of those! Wait, what?
Ha! Kerry challenged me, so of
course I pulled out my ALR coin. (She
didn’t owe me a beer because the coins were of different nature/groups.)
Also at some point, we wound up at another brewhaus, this
one called Scheffel’s, and to go to the bathroom, it meant a trip…yep;
downstairs again. But the cool thing
about this bathroom was they had music playing.
Good music! AC/DC was on, for my
first visit. Red Hot Chili’s were on for
my second.
After that it was off to the place that served a wooden slat
(kind of like a ski) with six (SIX!) mugs of beer on it! Amazing!
(Wait – the pee room in this place was UPStairs…too bad it shares it
with a nightclub and pounding music which is just getting going. Oh well, time to move along…
Monica then took me to the Absinthe bar. Sweet!!
An authentic Absinthe bar!!! I
look at the menu – they have a menu?
Yup! All kinds of different
flavors of Absinthe! And…it’s all in
German. Monica translates for me and I
decide to go with the one that appears to be the closest to Black Sambuca. And hey, whaddya know; it also happens to be
the strongest. How about that.
While we’re waiting, I take the place in. It’s packed; elbow to elbow! We’d happened to luck out that some folks
were leaving the bar as we’d walked in, so we had a seat. The bar had several guys behind it and the
one that was helping us seemed to be running the place. He was huge!
He looked absolutely like a native American Indian. Behind him on the wall was a CD collection of
70’s music that would have put any radio station to shame. The big guy would pop a disc in, pick a song,
let it play about ¾ of the way through, yank out the disc, put another one in, and
so on. Nobody seemed to care – it was a
very relaxed atmosphere.
Our drinks arrived…or should I say our shots. They were tiny little fluted glass container things. Monica informs me that we need to add water
to them (our drinks had come with little pitchers of water). I laughed and told her that I’d be quite
fine, thank you. I drink Black Sambuca
all the time. So she smiles and tells me
to go ahead and try a sip. I do, and
BAMMO – instant fire coursing down my throat!
Ok, how about some water to this thing…
We took our time to enjoy the shots and then went and caught back up
with Kie and Kerry for a couple more beers…
Ok, moving on.
Another day, I believe, still in Heidelberg. I met up with Michael and Kie at a place
called Bar Central. KP arrived! Haven’t seen her in probably close to
decade. After some cocktails we all
mosied off to the place we were having dinner (Schnitzelhaus?). Along the way, Monica filled me in on the
Jewish history of the area, including how the streets had little plaques in
front of houses where Jewish people had lived when the Nazi’s took over. (These plaques listed if the people had lived
or not. Sad! Monica actually located some plaques to show
me, later in the weekend, as you’ve seen in the pics on FB.)
At some place called The Crocodile, we had a late night
dinner…this was probably a different night than the Schnitzelhaus). I ordered “pork” cordon bleu. They didn’t have the chicken version. In fact, chicken really hasn’t caught on over
here as a meal option. No idea why not.
Oh yeah; Michael had just returned from a business trip to
Ethiopia. You know; hotbed of
Ebola. Thanks Mike! Not shaking hands with you…
Sunday morning, we all went to breakfast at a Disney themed
place. All the menu options were named
after (or very similar to) Disney characters.
And then we ordered mimosas.
What? Disney can be considered a
cultural thing, so now we get to have a drink.
What else – the beer garden we stopped in at after visiting
the Nazi amphitheater had outdoor seating.
And large, warm blankets for patrons to use if they got cold. I thought that was pretty cool…er; warm…er…interesting.
As the days passed by, it occurred to me; how have I been
able to maintain this pace? Long days of
beer and laughter, short nights of sleep, and not one hangover. Ok, some draggy mornings, but no
hangovers. Do they use better
ingredients over here? I’ve heard of
purity laws…Man, if that’s their secret, I should look into drinking beers back
home that are also made according to the purity laws.
And at the very end on Sunday…it was the last night in
Heidelberg, and it was over. Our
entourage had splintered into smaller groups, each going in their own
direction. It was almost midnight, I’m
standing on the balcony, looking out over a city I’d just met, and which had
given me such a memorable stretch of days.
Culture, history, awesome beer, and an amazing set of people who made me
laugh seemingly without end. I don’t
want it to end. At least when Munch was
over, I still had plenty of vaca (including the upcoming bike rental!) ahead of
me, so that prevented this end-of-vaca, will-this-experience-ever-be-repeated
feeling from happening. But there I was;
almost at the end of things, and feeling melancholy. Still, though; it was late. I knew I needed to turn from the nighttime
view, go inside and get some sleep. So I
did.
The next day, Erin, Jack and I were headed back to
Zurich. One thing about being a
passenger in a car, it obviously allows you to look around more and take in
more sights. Like the group of bee hives
in the corner of a field that were in the shapes of houses, and painted/decorated
like the old-style houses we’d just seen in Heidelberg. Very cool!
On the flight home, passing over Greenland; I could see
snow-covered peaks poking through the clouds below me. At first, they appeared to actually be mountains
of cloud. Then the clouds begin to
break, revealing that I was indeed looking at the snow-covered tops of
mountains poking through the blanket of clouds.
And then the clouds broke even further, finally opening to reveal a vast
landscape of mountains and craggy terrain…and glaciers! Glaciers, snaking between the mountains and
leading to the sea! And in the water –
Icebergs!! Icebergs, looking luminescent
in the green water…So Beautiful!!! But
then all too soon, the wisps of clouds return…slowly fading the scenery below,
until finally the landscape below was nothing but white once again.
Which reminds me; I took some pics of this, which I never
posted…so here ya go…
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That’s all I have for phone notes on the European vacation. Well, all except for the takeaways. What are takeaways? Takeaways are key facts, points or ideas to be remembered. So with that, I give you the takeaways from my trip to Europe (these won’t mean much to most of you, but there are some reading this who will laugh at being reminded…);
“'Friend' is a strong word.”
“You want out?”
“Idiot!”
“This story sucks.”
“I’m glad this happened.”
“Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations.”
“You can’t have a lemon party without old Dick.”
Pointing at things with just your middle finger.
“Bravooohhh”
“Clean yourself up.”
“It’s not going to suck itself.”
Family Guy skits and drunken monkey imitations.
Ok, I believe that's everything. Now to start saving up so that I can get over there again...
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