Port A and Germany, Part 2

NOTE: This is Part Two of a two part travelogue from travels back in June.  To view Part One, scroll down, wayyyy down.

Austin-Bergstom International Airport

I freaked out slightly because when I walked into the terminal the British Airways desk was not on the same side of the terminal where the plane was and the flight was not listed on the departures board.  Could I be that discombobulated that I messed up the day of the flight?  Nope, the BA desk was on the other side of the terminal.  I checked my roller bag, got my tickets (London Heathrow -> Dusseldorf -> Dresden) and waltzed over to security.

Some of my work colleagues are taking advantage of a new program offered by the Transportation Security Administration, called Safe Traveler or something like that.  Basically you pay $100, go for an interview with the TSA and bam, you’re in.  The benefit is that you get to go through security much faster than the rest of us schlubs.  This bothers me.  I guess it’s the egalitarian part of me that hates to see people be able to pay for special privileges.  I can understand that the road warriors who are traveling all the time appreciate the reduced stress of waiting in the long line and I can see why they take advantage of it.  There’s always the possibility they’re running late or trying to make a connection from international to domestic so that might help. 

I’m not jet-lagged anymore, so why am I ranting?  Must be my sore calves and hips talking.

It’s very, very cool that Austin has a direct flight to London.  It’s the first non-Mexico international flight Austin-Bergstrom has and gives those of us traveling to Europe a good opportunity to reduce the number of flights we have to take by one if you’re flying to a city that doesn’t have direct flights from the US.  For example, it doesn’t affect getting to Munich because I can get to Munich from Chicago which I can get to direct from Austin.  But it does help getting to, say, Dresden, a city with no direct flights from the US.  The American-Statesman ran an article on the flight a few weeks ago that said it was actually doing better from the cargo angle than the passenger one.  Still, my flight was full.

The plane for the flight was the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the newest offering from Boeing.  I don’t know when their last plane came out but it’s been a while; the 747 has been around since the 1960s.  I thought the 787 would be a monster like Airbus’s A380 (which looks rather like a whale) but it actually seemed to be a standard jet, much like a 777 or 767.  I think the big innovations are in the materials it’s made of so that it gets better fuel mileage.  As a Facebook contact said about it when he took it for the first time: “Meh.”  It was cool to fly to London but as far as making it different from other flights, the only improvement was having flight staff with British accents.

I did the whole ‘get on late and make my seatmates think they got lucky’ routine; I had to burst the bubble of two Indian guys when I took the seat right in between them.  One of them had even put his carry-on bag under the seat in front of mine.  Sometimes I make a joke about them not being as lucky as they thought but it being a long-haul flight I thought it might not be wise.  If they were flying to India, the Austin-London flight is great because you can get to India direct from London, perhaps via Air India (Your Palace in the Sky!).  One of the guys was having a video conference with who I presume were his kids right up until the plane started to taxi; that was a little weird. 

I popped the Ambien right after we went wheels-up.  No messing around for me, especially as it would only be a nine hour flight.  We hit a big patch of storms right out of Austin, though thankfully not before we got near cruising altitude, bad enough where the flight attendants had to sit down, but it didn’t bother me.  There were three reasons for this:

• I was determined to get over my trepidation about flying and in particular my associating beautiful clouds with turbulence.
• I focused on my awesome abdominal muscles, eh, during the bounces, basically trying to, in the words of my former aerobics instructor, keep my core tight.  I concentrated on that staying firm.
• The Ambien was kicking in.

Whatever the reason, I was fine with the result.

The Ambien knocked me for a new result; waking up multiple times but each time being coherent enough to think that I was awake for good.  I usually wake up several times but only for a couple of seconds before going back to sleep.  This time I would wake up, look around, do a little something and then, next thing I knew, I was waking up again and doing it all over again.  It was weird.  By the time I really was up for good I kept waiting to fall back asleep but disappointingly never did.  Weird. 

I woke up with about three hours left in the flight so I only had slept maybe five.  Not bad though, good enough at least to avoid being crazy tired the rest of the trip.  I whiled away the rest of the time by listening to music aimlessly and reading part of a book of short stories that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien.  We landed in London after only circling once (that always happens for Heathrow and New York’s JFK, at least for me).  I hadn’t been in Heathrow in many years; being surrounded by people with British accents never gets old.  Plus when you’re buying food you don’t have to worry about knowing the language.  My only beef with Heathrow is that it’s one of those airports that doesn’t tell you your gate until maybe 45 minutes before the flight is supposed to leave.  This means you have to wait in a huge waiting area, waiting for your gate to pop up.  The good thing is that they tell you when you’ll know.  Still, it’s annoying.  I’m usually not hot to trot on stuff but at airports I like to be at my gate as soon as possible and stay there. 

The British Airways flight to Dusseldorf was uneventful.  I got to see a little bit of downtown London and the English Channel but before long everything was lost to the clouds.  I did a bit of psychoanalysis on myself and had the following conversation:

Imaginary Psychiatrist: Let’s talk about flying.

Me: I hate it when the stupid plane bounces around.

IP: Why do you hate it?

Me: It’s just not right, bouncing around at 39,000 feet with nothing underneath you. 

IP: (silence)

Me: But I know the plane isn’t going to fall out of the air.  I know we’ll all be safe on the ground after a while.  So rationally, I shouldn’t be bothered by it.  (thinking)  So rationally then, I shouldn’t have any trepidation.  In fact, I should go back to the old days where I loved watching clouds in all of their puffy glory.  I should go back to liking clouds.  Like Satuhara Oh looked at batting as working with the pitcher together, I shouldn’t look at clouds as my enemies but rather as my friends.  They want me to have a nice flight.  They’re there for my enjoyment.  And I will get back on the ground like always.  Any bumps the clouds provide are just that, bumps, and nothing more.  Rationally, I should ignore the bumps and just watch the beautiful clouds.

IP: That will be $500.

We descended into Dusseldorf and, if memory serves, I closed the window for a bit.  When we got below them, I opened it again.  I then realized that to fully get over my problem, I needed to leave the windows open for the next flight.  That one was going to be on an Air Berlin propeller plane, though a large one (not some little Piper Cub or Gulfstream).  And you know what?  I kept the windows open the whole time, both through the ascent and descent, though some pretty crazy cloud formations.  It was even raining lightly when we touched down.  Now, we’ll see how I do on the return flights but here’s hoping this is the last time I ever mention clouds or bumps in these travelogues. 

OK, Colombia is up 2-0, it’s 11:15pm here and I’m getting tired of writing this.  Off to bed! 

Alright, I’m at the Zittau train station two hours before my train is scheduled to leave.  Am I in a hurry?  No.  My feet HURT and I’m content to chill out on the platform in near silence and write some more of this blog.  Plus it feels good to be the only person weird enough to have a laptop out while waiting for a train (though such behavior would be the norm for an airport).

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Dresden.  Dresden is the city that famously got unnecessarily carpet-bombed by the Allies in World War II.  It is nestled in the eastern part of Germany, the part that was under Soviet control during the Cold War.  It’s so East Germany that the following three characteristics have stood out:

• There are people here with Russian names like Katja
• Many of the older generation speak Russian as their second language and not English
• People, when talking about places like Munich and Frankfurt, call them part of ‘West Germany

Disappointingly, I have not seen any incredibly-depressing fifteen story tall apartment blocks or long lines for bread.  I have, however, seen middle-aged ladies with crazily dyed red hair.  Hello, Eastern Europe!

  

D resden is a small city by travel standards.  With only 500,000 people they’re fairly limited on flights.  It’s funny, one person spoke about the Dresden airport as if it were Austin by saying a) it’s difficult to get anywhere and b) it is really an international airport since they have flights to Moscow (Aeroflot) and Switzerland (Swissair)

Awesome, a big bearded guy in a Panama hat and Hawaiian shirt just walked up onto the opposite platform.  When I get into middle-age, I want to move to Germany so I can proudly wear the following fashions:

-          Capri shorts/pants

-          Socks with sandals (paging Dr. O’Neill!)

-          Earrings

-          Muscle shirts

As I get older I keep thinking about how I should change how I do things, to become more upstanding and respectable.  Then I remember how that’s no fun and instead just keep on doing things the way I normally do them.  The only thing that has noticeably changed is that I rarely wear t-shirts anymore.  But it’s like all the middle-aged men in Germany got together and collectively declared they could give a flying flip about what anyone else thinks and darn it, they’re going to wear whatever they want.  It’s awesome. 

I’ve had to brush up on my German vocabulary in order to get around a bit better.  I’ve changed my attitude toward hiding that I’m English-speaking.  I’ll walk into a place, for example, a gas station, and declare ‘ich spreche keine Deutsch’, then follow it with ‘Englisch, Spanisch’ and shrug my shoulders.  Haven’t run across any Spanish speakers yet but it at least allows me to masquerade as a Spaniard.  Good thing I haven’t run into any actual Spaniards yet. 

So anyway, the words I’ve had to get the hang of are:

• Egal.  This means ‘whatever’.  Very useful, egal.  Basically when someone is giving you options about something and you have no idea what they’re talking about, you can say egal.  Like when the lady at breakfast this morning asked what I wanted with my tea.  Egal!
• Alles.  This means all or done.  Like when any bakery worker asks me what I presume to be if I want anything else.  Alles!
• Alles Klar.  All is clear (I understand).  I never use this because as of yet it’s never been true when trying to communicate with a German speaker.
• Ja.  Yes.  I use it even to indicate that I’m happy.  “Here is your doner kebab.”  “Ja!”
• Nein.  No.  Would be more useful except you can’t just append it to other words to indicate something.  For example, ‘Nein Deutsch’ doesn’t make any sense. 
• Gut/Sehr Gut/Super/Exzellent/Perfekt – You get the picture.  All quite useful words.  Can hopefully be followed up with a thumbs-up sign or that thing where you put your fingers on your mouth, then move your hand out and make a kissing sound.  If those are offensive to Germans, no one has told me yet.
• Tee.  Not sure how to spell this but it’s very important to order this instead of kaffee, at least for me.
• Käse.  Pronounced ‘kay-sah’.  Cheese.  A good word to look for on any German menu.  The best meal I’ve had so far had been baked potato and broccoli in some sort of cheese soup.
• Bratwurst/knockwurst/bockwurst – variations on German veal sausage.  Nowhere near as good as Central Texas German smoked sausage.  You’d think I’d be able to find some of that here.
• Zug – Train
• Bahnhof – Train station.  Good word to know in case you’re looking for it.
• Rechnung – receipt.  Though the miming of signing your own palm with your finger works from across the room.

There’s another language that’s good to know: Italian.  For some reason the waitstaff in Italian restaurants like to talk to people in Italian.  Prego, grazie and other Italian words come out of their mouths a lot.  I don’t know if it’s because all Germans know some Italian, it makes the food psychologically seem to taste better or because like an idiot I always tell them I speak Spanish and pretend that that means we can actually communicate. 

I also find that whenever people are speaking to me in German and I’m trying to think of something to say back, my Hungarian vocabulary keeps popping up, causing me to be disappointed I’m not in Hungary.  All that vocabulary is going to waste when it could be really useful!!!  Oh well, I guess it’s good that even though I haven’t used it in three years I haven’t forgotten it.  Or maybe it’s creepy.  Let’s move on.

The World Cup is going on which has been fairly neat because not only were the US and Germany in the same Group of Death, they played each other at 6pm German time my first day here.  The office had what they called a barbecue.  It felt like an American barbecue except that a) everyone was speaking German, b) they were grilling turkey steak, pork steak and bratwurst (well, I guess they grill that in the Midwest), c) they were going to the office refrigerator and pulling out big bottles of German beer and d) some kids were kicking an actual soccer ball around to amuse themselves.

The IT guys had set up a projector to show the game on a large scale on the lobby wall.  I was the lone American and, near as I could tell, the lone foreigner, period.  I had worn my 2002 US road jersey because my colleagues had asked me and also because I was going to anyway.  Although the Germans and Americans were tied at four points apiece going into this final game, the Germans were in a good mood because it was highly unlikely they weren’t going to make it to the next round, owing to their 4-0 thrashing of Portugal in the first game.  Basically the US would have to beat Germany by three goals and Ghana would have to beat Portugal by three goals for Germany not to advance.  I was my usual somewhat center-of-attention by doing the following:

• Singing the Star-Spangled Banner loud enough to be heard over the crowd (though I stopped about halfway through when I realized I was off because I’d missed some lines
• Providing a well-placed ‘Yeah!’ after the US got, finally, its first real shot on goal about twenty minutes in, after Germany had already had like ten
• After Germany scored its only goal, which would prove to be the game winner, smiling to myself for a bit until everyone kept looking at me, then yelling ‘I’m OK!’ several times and turning to smile at everyone.

So in the end it was the best possible result: Germany scored a goal and won the game while the US, though losing, still went through on goal differential over Portugal (who beat Ghana 2-1).  I made it sound pedestrian but really it was the experience of a lifetime that just happened based on pure luck.  Germany plays in the second round on Monday though I don’t know the time.  The US will play Belgium on Tuesday right around the time I’m expected to be in the air from Chicago to Austin.  Oh well.  

On Friday afternoon I was dropped off at the local shopping mall by one of my work colleagues.  A cop-out, I know, but it had a Toys ‘R Us and I wasn’t going to return to Austin without some cool German toy cars for the wee ones.

 

Geez, my legs are sore.  I hope that when I stand up after typing this or when my train arrives, whichever comes first, I can walk.  It’s cute watching people say goodbye to trains that are departing.  I guess Sunday afternoon trains are carrying a lot of people who were visiting friends and family for the weekend.  I wish I had some friends and family over here.  Traveling by yourself and only talking with strangers all the time is ok but if you can actually do stuff with people you care about, your vacation is always AWESOME (and with fewer worries).

One of the ladies at work had, after I declared that I’d walk back to my pension from Toys ‘R Us, looked it up on Google Maps and declared that, at six miles, it was too far.  I scoffed at her because my record for walking while on business still stands at nineteen and a half miles.  It’s no fun taking a taxi or a bus to where you need to be; you miss so much of daily life and opportunities to learn about a place!  And besides, it doesn’t get dark here until almost 10pm so I was not worrying about getting back in the dark, seeing as I was being dropped off at 5.

Well, you win some, you lose some and with Dresden, I lost.  The walk back from the mall had a few little highlights like seeing a bunch of houses and apartments close up, a Mormon cemetery and, um, that’s it.  What I had thought were good paths through nice parks were actually little more than footpaths through some very wooded areas.  Since I was carrying a decent bit of cash and my camera, I didn’t want to be a target for anything and besides, how can you see life when you’re in a forest?  In the end, the only possible way to go was a long, long road with a lot of traffic, trains constantly passing by (with people smart enough to ride), bikes passing by and just me as a pedestrian with next-to-nothing to see, just trees.  It was not much of an enjoyable experience but, at the same time, at least I tried.  And now I know (and knowing’s half the battle, G.I. Joe!).  

That leads me to something I don’t think I’ve addressed before.  I’m fairly fearless when it comes to wandering around by myself.  I’ll go just about anywhere at any time except in unpopulated locations at night.  Perhaps this is naive.  At the same time, I’ve gone and done and seen tons of cool things that most visitors will never, ever see.  I’ve done it by going out and seeing what’s out there.  Usually, I like what I find.  I encourage everyone to get out more and explore, especially your own area.  I end up seeing things that locals have never seen before or have long since forgotten about. 

A fly just landed on my wrist and my first thought was of Cuero and its healthy fly population.  Better not put that on the Chamber of Commerce website, Cuero.

I got back to my pension; but wait, what is a pension, you ask?  It’s basically a European name for bed & breakfast.  The one I’m staying at in Dresden is a nice three story house with a forest behind it and a main two-lane street with a streetcar line on it.  I have a third story room which is among the nicest b&b rooms I’ve stayed in since Jennifer and I visited Atlantic Canada eight years ago.  It even has a covered patio to just sit and chill in and admire the forest from.  It’s 1/3 the price of the room most corporate visitors stay in, is within walking distance (1/2 mile or so) of the office and is in a neighborhood with plenty of restaurants.  However, most visitors want to be in the thick of things which is why downtown is good place to be.  Me, I want to relax as soon as I’m back (all the better to catch up on all the work e-mails you missed during the day).  I’ve yet to stay at a hotel with rooms as relaxing as just about any b&b. 

I had a free weekend to mess around with, an unusual occurrence for me, that I was determined to take full advantage of.  With rail options being so good in Europe, I had my pick of places to get to.  Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Munich, the Alps or just staying in the Dresden area, I couldn’t lose.  Instead, I kept to my MO and chose a small, tucked-away hamlet in the very southeastern corner of East Germany (see, I was there too long): Oybin.  It’s a touristy town in the Zittauer Gebirge, or Zittau Mountains, the smallest mountain range in Europe.  Oybin is small, out-of-the-way and, as a bonus, quite close to the Czech border and not too far away from the Polish border.  I was in.

I won’t go into tons of detail about Oybin because, well, it’s now been almost two months since I was there and it’s been a month since I was laid off by the employer who sent me there; therefore, I don’t have as much verve as I usually would for such a cool part of the world.  For posterity though, here is a bulleted list of the highlights:

• Traveled via regular train to Zittau, about a two hour ride.  Then took a touristy steam train up to Zittau.  I was joined by several families with little kids, not all of them German and one of them wearing a Lightning McQueen hat.  I can’t escape that guy!
• Spent about 45 minutes wandering the small town of Oybin trying to find my hotel without consulting Google Maps or asking anyone where it was.  It was a great way to see the town but only on the first pass.  By the second pass, I gave up, whipped out the smartphone and found I hadn’t gone far enough in the town.  Doh!
•  Found that the hotel for which I thought the Dresden office had made a reservation for me in had no record of my name.  The proprietor, an older gentleman in a suit, was already grumpy with me because I didn’t speak German (and they didn’t speak English).  However, I did have the 43 euros, in cash, required to stay so I think he just downgraded me from annoying foreigner to weird foreigner.
• Oybin was definitely, definitely a town that Americans wouldn’t ever think of going to unless they were in Germany for like a month.  But the Germans knew about it.  There were a bunch there but not enough to choke on.  Actually, the town was fairly quiet.  It was perfect for me.
• I walked about nine miles from Oybin, up over a mountain ridge and down into the Czech Republic.  Thank goodness for the European Union as I didn’t have to check in with any border guards.  The Czech side felt more rustic but maybe it was all in my mind.  The walk is mapped out here if you’d like to see it:  http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
  200983458898105325612.0004761ea942254bad9cc  Look for ‘Oybin’ on the left-hand side.
• Between the Stories that Inspired Tolkien book I’d been reading and an interpretative sign in Petrovice, Czech Republic, with some on it, I thought a lot about fairies while I was walking through the woods.  I have decided that woods are even more fun and interesting if you think fairies are in them.  At least, big thick woods with tall, tall trees like you find in Eastern Europe, not the shrubby forests of Central Texas.  I’ll have to figure out some Central Texas equivalent.
• Bought four bottles of water at a bar in Petrovice, the only place I could find that looked like it sold any drinks whatsoever.  Felt bad that I didn’t know a word of Czech besides the names of Czech soccer players from the team that beat the US in the World Cup in 2006.  Good thing I’m not a sports fan anymore so I’m not still bitter.
• Ate dinner in a small restaurant that looked like it was a former wine cellar that had lost the building on top of it.  Read more of the Tolkien book and thought more about fairies.
• The next morning, I wandered up through the forest, saw a deer and thought even more about fairies.  I think the taller the trees, the more moss there is and the closer you are to weird Eastern European places, the more you think about such things.  Perhaps there’s a psychological condition for that.
• After the forest and the ascent up the small mountain, I entered a twofer ruin: an old fort that had had a medieval cathedral built on top of it. 
• Took the steam train back down to Zittau but not before scamming the one food I wanted in Germany more than any other: currywurst!  It’s essentially a sliced bratwurst, doused in tomato sauce with spices, including curry, sprinkled on top.  It’s irrational that I wanted it so much but I was determined to ride the wave.
• Got off the steam train in Zittau near the Polish border.  It was raining just enough to make me use my umbrella but not enough to make me miserable.  Still, I had a lot of walking to do.  I was also carrying all of the luggage I’d brought with me in a shoulder bag that probably weighed 30 pounds.  I really should have left my laptop back in Dresden.
• Tried to find the Polish border but it wasn’t on the walking map of the area I’d bought in Oybin.  Zittau was but it stopped just shy of the river that marked the border.  Therefore I couldn’t tell which streets would lead to a bridge and which to a dead end.  And that shoulder bag was getting heavy.  Oh well, thank goodness for Google Maps.
• The bridge over the border was a little dinky two lane affair.  Just on the Polish side of the border were stalls selling fruits and vegetables and cigarettes, lots of cigarettes.  Apparently they are cheaper in Poland and, even though they’re both in the EU, the German government limits the amount you can bring back over if you’re German and live in the region near the border.  I bought two carrots and ate them right there so I wouldn’t have any problem (more on this later).
• There wasn’t much to the Polish side.  Felt a little seedier than the German side but maybe it was psychological.  Of course, all of a sudden I was in another country where I couldn’t understand any words.  Oh well.
• I made the shoulder bag just a little bit heavier when I bought a garden gnome.  I was actually looking for one as a representative of my imaginary fairy friends/stalkers.  It didn’t bother me that I’d bought it in a country where I hadn’t been in any forests.  As a bonus, when I walked into the little Polish shop that had it, this Polish song, that I was actually already familiar with, was on the TV:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqaxe5o2Apo  It’s Graham’s current favorite.
• After walking maybe two miles paralleling the border, I walked back across.  As I was walking as an obvious foreigner, carrying a heavy shoulder bag and snapping photographs of the border signs, I caught the attention of two cops in a van.  Seriously.  They pulled over to the side of the road and asked me to step across the road to their vehicle.  Luckily, one of them spoke English.  Both were wearing more military-style gear with combat boots.  I wasn’t sure why they stopped me but they did search through my bag and checked my passport.  They of course found nothing untoward and let me go on my way.  I couldn’t read their body language to determine why they stopped me, whether they were surprised I was an American or whether someone out dawdling in the rain who otherwise looked sane was actually sane.  I did have visions of having to call my contacts at the Dresden office to have them come bail me out from the Zittau jail though.  That would have been fun.
• Walked around Zittau a little bit but between the rain and my fatigue, I didn’t feel too enthused about it.  I was quite happy to find a doner kebap restaurant though; even though it was 3 in the afternoon I ordered a full kebap just to be able to sit there and chill out for 45 minutes.
• Train trip back to Dresden was quite uneventful except that the train car was quite crowded.  I was surrounded by teenaged German boys, serving to remind me that, although I’m still mostly willfully exuberant and fun, I don’t appear young and cool anymore.  If I’d known I’d feel this way at 35, I would have made sure to enjoy my status more when I was in my teens and early 20s!

OK, so I’m writing a little more than a bulleted list so let’s go back to standard writing.  The night before my departure at 6:30 in the morning was the Germany-Algeria World Cup second round match.  It wasn’t supposed to start until 10 so I, along with the rest of the country, would be up pretty late.  I finished work around 5 and caught a ride from a co-worker to the nearest grocery store.  I always tank up with snacks before the long international flights to help avoid airplane and airport food.  While there, I got to peruse the bargain bin that had all the silly German soccer fan paraphernalia including magnetic German flags for the car, German flag side view mirror covers (also for the car) and, my favorite, a black headband with fake hair popping out the top in the colors of the German flag.  Of course I bought one for the kid’s costume box.

After stopping at my pension to drop off my stuff, I headed out to where Google Maps said was a local neighborhood restaurant.  I decided that I wasn’t going to be deterred from eating at local places by the fact that I was alone.  And this one paid off big-time.  I was walking through a residential neighborhood to get to it.  I knew I was close when I heard a TV going with the audio from a World Cup game (France-Nigeria).  Sure enough, I turned the corner and found a very small biergarten with a TV at the end.  Score.  There were three elderly people sitting in the back watching the game.  I chose a seat near them but not too close and settled in to wait for a waiter.  A few minutes later, an older man came out and spoke to me in German.  I told him I didn’t speak German and made motions for eating and drinking.  At that point, one of the elderly gentlemen asked if I spoke English.  I replied in the affirmative and explained I’d like dinner.  He then had a short German conversation with the waiter that ended with the elderly man telling me that, while the kitchen was closed, being a Monday, they could make me a sandwich.  The waiter asked the man in German what kind of sandwich I liked and I just looked at him and said ‘egal’ (whatever).  The waiter shrugged and walked off.

The waiter brought me a beer as the elderly guy and I watched soccer and talked.  Turns out he was an advisor to the Cuban army in Angola in the 60s back when Cuba had troops there and they were fighting South Africa.  Now there’s a war you never hear about in the history books.  Weird.  Even weirder was the sandwich the waiter brought out: cold herring.  Well, the kitchen was closed after all.  I was determined to down the whole thing; it actually wasn’t that difficult though the herring was the size of the submarine bun they brought it on.  The sauce that was on it and the beer certainly helped.

France won 2-0, I said goodbye to my new friend and the waiter and headed back to the b&b.  After a Skype conversation with Jennifer and the kids, I started packing and then watching the soccer game.  The question was how late to stay up.  If I watched the whole thing, I’d get maybe 4.5 hours of sleep.  Was it worth it?  The way to figure that out was to decide which I’d remember more in five years: being super-tired on my flights home or having watched the game?  That made the decision though I compromised by watching it in my room rather than heading back to the neighborhood restaurant.

The game was super-exciting but unfortunately went to extra time.  I thought that watching regulation was good enough and went to bed. 

The next morning, I found out that a) the Germans won 2-0 and b) my cab driver had had 1.5 hours of sleep.  Yikes.  Good thing the airport was only a couple of miles away.  Incidentally, two miles is not too much for me to cover with a roller bag and a shoulder bag but since the flight was so early I decided to do the taxi thing.

I struck up a conversation with the guy at the luggage security counter (gotta love small airports) and found out he’d had two hours of sleep.  I began to worry about my pilots as I was flying on Air Berlin again.  Maybe I'd get lucky and they'd be East Germany fans still resisting reunification. 

The flight to Frankfurt went just fine though there was a little problem with Air Berlin only being able to give me my ticket through Frankfurt.  Air Berlin has a reputation as being a crummy airline so I wasn’t surprised.  It still led to me having a bit of trepidation that whole flight that could only be fixed by being taken care of in Frankfurt.  British Airways couldn’t take care of me but United, with whom I was flying the rest of the way, issued my tickets no prob.

It’s always interesting after being in a foreign country for a long time to suddenly be surrounded by Americans again.  It’s mostly good but it also hammers home that you are leaving this cool place you’ve gotten to know.  Again, so it goes.  With all the Americans, and some foreigners, I flew on to Chicago O’Hare and then down to Austin.  Home, baby!  And I shouldn’t jinx it but I was cool with all the little bumps along the way.  Clouds are my friends, clouds are my friends, clouds are my friends...

And ladies and gentlemen, that is my final travelogue for my previous employer.  At this time, I am between jobs/consulting.  It’s likely I’ll get back into the trade compliance field with a position requiring me to do this type of travel going forward.  There’s a chance that I won’t.  Regardless, right now I feel totally on the outside of that life.  When I look up at the planes descending over our house, I don’t think of how I’ll eventually be going on one.  I don’t look at airports anymore with any sense of feeling whatsoever.  And I’m prepared if my life takes a turn where I don’t travel internationally anymore.  Thanks for reading these international travel missives.  Regardless of my employment status, I’ll eventually be traveling somewhere and will write about it.  Bon voyage!

Port A and Germany, Part 1

NOTE: This is Part One of a two part travelogue from travels back in late June.  This also means that chronologically, I should have posted this before the Graham and Oklahoma entry.  I think y'all can handle it, eh.

Alright, I’m on the road again so time for another travelogue.  This one’s a twofer: our annual drive down to Port Aransas and then a business trip to Dresden, Germany.  The original plan was to have the fam drop me off at Austin-Bergstrom on the way back from Port A.  However, we made such good time we went home first (past the airport) so I could help unpack the car and take care of a couple of things before Varmint Taxi Service (not drowsiness nor crankiness nor hunger nor the Cars Soundtrack can stop the...) would drop me off at the airport.  I’m in Terminal Five in London’s Heathrow Airport right now, slightly jet-lagged after Ambien-addled sleep on the flight from Austin, but am ready, willing and able to start cranking out this travelogue.  Also, I just realized my cell phone gets coverage here; I’m not sure whether to be happy about that or not.

Let’s start with Port A.  For the third year in a row, we made the trip down there to hang out at the beach for a few days with my in-laws.  The plan was to leave on Saturday and return on Tuesday (in time for my 6:10pm flight from Austin-Bergstrom).  This meant a lot of packing on Thursday and Friday.  Actually, Jennifer did just about all of the packing for Port A, leaving me to my packing for Germany and the normal tidying up of issues prior to departure.  Since it’s summer and we’ve had a decent amount of rain, I had to make sure the lawn was mowed and also that we had a neighbor looking after the garden (i.e. picking the 9,000 lbs of tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers that are ripening right now).  It’s nice to be away in the summer to get away from the heat but it’s also primo garden time.  I LOVE homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots (just finished pulling those out of the garden); in fact, I have a bag of them sitting at my feet since I’ve given up on airplane and airport food (though I may try to find some kidney pie in Heathrow before my next flight).  But I’m happy to share the bounty with others.  In fact, they BETTER pick them all!  I’ve worked too hard on that garden to let anything go to waste! 

Uh oh, maybe that’s the jet lag talking.  Ok, time to calm down.

I’ve probably written before but having the space available in a minivan to pack stuff is just awesome.  My skills at packing things into tight spaces (i.e. my Camry Hybrid) are getting rusty because with the Sienna we can just throw stuff in.  As long as you don’t crush anything, you’re good.  And with the Squirt getting older all the time (21 months), there is less infrastructure to pack for him.  Even throwing in the dog doesn’t cause a problem.

We left bright and early Saturday around 9:30.  We had originally entertained thoughts of leaving before breakfast.  Ha ha, ha ha ha.  Yeah, we were deluding ourselves.  There are just too many things to do around the house to make sure you’re ready to go.  Last-minute garden watering, last-minute clean-up, loading of the car (because I never do it the night before), breakfast for the kids and ourselves (because the last minute chores pushed us back), etc.  What’s our hurry, anyway?  No hurry actually as it takes about six hours or so to get down there with plenty of breaks for the kids.

We were joined in a caravan by my brother-in-law who had come down the day before to spend the night.  Caravanning is always interesting because you theoretically have to watch the road in front of you as well as the people in your caravan.  Well, the good thing about our route was it involved taking US Highway 183 the whole way down with some minor turnoffs past Refugio (pronounced, for no reason other than to confuse out-of-towners, ‘reh-fear-ee-oh’) so there was little worry of losing him.  Plus in this day and age of cell phones, it’s not a big deal.  I guess I am still used to the caravanning concept of the college days before cell phones and with, um, college-aged drivers (Jennifer and any old college friends reading this excluded, of course). 

As I’ve probably written before, road trips are all about the kids.  When the kids are hungry, you stop for food (or throw them snacks like feeding chum to sharks).  When the kids need to go the bathroom, at least, those who don’t use diapers anymore, you stop.  When the kids are asleep, you do not stop for anything lest you wake them up.  Squirt was out before we hit Lockhart and slept through Luling and Gonzalez (Come and Take It!™) to boot.  That meant stopping for lunch in Cuero (pronounced ‘cwhere-oh’).  Usually I do a lot of research for the trip regarding a) possible lunch stops and b) parks to eat at or let the kids play to let off steam.  I slacked off on the latter but I decided to use the ‘Legends of Texas BBQ Book’ for tips.  Turns out 183 is a good road to take for hitting Texas barbecue.  Not only does it roll through Lockhart (Smitty’s) and Luling (City Market), both of which were well-known to me, but also the Gonzalez Family Market in Gonzalez and Smolik’s in Cuero.  Goliad doesn’t have a recommended old-time Texas bbq joint but it does have the Blue Quail, a high-falutin’ little sandwich shop that seems a little misplaced in small-town Texas (not that the Goliadians or whatever they’re called are complaining). 

So anyway, we stopped for lunch in Cuero at Smolik’s.  We’d driven by Smolik’s before and, not knowing its history of being run by old-time Czechs, I was always turned off by the fact that it looked like a complete dump.  I should know better.  The place was perfect.  BBQ in general is good for us with the kids because it allows us to get the food quickly without waiting to be served by waitstaff.  But a small-town bbq joint with good barbecue and not one, not two but three old ladies fussing over our two little boys: awesome.  They gave us directions to the local park and, after stocking up on dried sausage (seriously, if you’re ever in Cuero get some of their dried sausage, that stuff is addictive) we waved goodbye and drove over to the park. 

Small-town parks are the best.  I’m going to miss it when the kids are too old to play on playgrounds and we just end up eating on benches watching other kids play while our teens are fiddling around on their iPhone 17s.  Oh well, better enjoy it while we can!  Cuero’s park was perfect in that it had parking in the shade, easily-accessible shaded picnic tables (we ate actually in the group eating area which looked like it could hold 200) and a shaded playground.  Yeah, shade in the Texas summer is kind of important.  We wolfed down our food before the 9,000,000 or so flies could get to it and let the kids loose on the playground.  Maisy the Psychopooch was left tied to a picnic table, again, in the shade, and kept barking at us so much that Jennifer felt compelled to go sit with her.  I guess I’m a bit more heartless on that score.  Anything for her on these trips is better than doggie day care or, as I love to refer to it, Pooch Prison.  Of course, she had a little fan club of kids who wanted to go over and pet her (though their parents wouldn’t let them, a prudent move).

We got back on the road and cruised down through Goliad and then stopped in Refugio for a potty break and some caffeine for me.  I’ve given up mostly on soda and have moved up (or down) to Starbucks frappucinos.  They may not be any healthier but it helps keep me off soda so I’m good with it.  Graham negotiated getting an ice cream sandwich which, magically, he managed to eat without making a colossal mess of in the van. 

We crisscrossed over backroads for a while until we got to our first view of the ocean!  Back when I was growing up in Houston seeing the ocean wasn’t as big a deal since we were reasonably close.  But I think now, for our kids, growing up so far away and usually only seeing it once a year, it’s a much bigger deal.  Actually, it’s kind of a big deal for me too.  The ocean is always just, well, cool, regardless of where you are.  There’s something mystical about the endless expanse of water and the relaxing sound of the waves constantly breaking on the shore.  Plus there’s the nostalgia factor going for it; day trips to the beach were the best as a kid.

OK, I’d gotten tired of typing in London Heathrow and am now holed up in a hotel in tiny Oybin, Germany, within walking distance from the Czech Republic border.  Seriously, I walked across the Czech Republic border today.  And made it back!  My calves and hips (Hips?!!  Is that a sign of getting old?) are sore as all get-out so sitting here and typing this with the Colombia-Uruguay World Cup second round game on mute is just the ticket.  On with the blog!

Rather than write a few paragraphs about Port A and Corpus, I’ll use a list:

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•   Tons and tons of seaweed at the beach this year.  In some places it was piled up in 10’+ tall piles.  Didn’t overly detract from the ocean experience though.
•  No jellyfish this year.  Maybe they’re allergic to seaweed.  Jennifer, the super packer, brought the meat tenderizer, just in case (and for good reason as my brother-in-law got stung last year). 
• Went to the State Aquarium again this year.  Seems wrong that the State Aquarium is in an out-of-the-way place like Corpus.  Shouldn’t all ‘State’ things be in Austin?  Then again, Corpus will forever be stung by Selena being shot there so maybe they need as much help as possible.
• Whataburger was founded in Corpus in 1950.  We ate lunch at the one near the Aquarium and pretended it was the original one.
• Little boys who are overtired are horrible eating-out companions.  At least I didn’t have to spend any time this year driving one or both of them around to get them to go to sleep.
• Watched Portugal tie the US in the 95^th minute to remind me why I gave up sports.  I refuse to give up on US Men’s Soccer though.  USA USA USA!
• Graham wanted to get out in the waves bigtime this year, a marked change for him.  Trevor, our little daredevil, wanted to as well.  Problem is they both have tubes in their ears which means putting wax in and then having the wax fall out constantly.  Graham woke up with an earache one night but it might have been discomfort from a blister on his ear.  Just because he can talk doesn’t mean he always clues us in on what’s really going on.
• The weather was actually in the mid-80s until the day we left which was really weird but not unwelcome.  It’s been a weird year weather-wise.

We hoofed it for the drive back as we realized that we had a chance of being able to drive home (past the airport), unpack, have me take a quick shower and some other stuff to help around the house and then be dropped off at the airport.  So it became a bit of a rush to, in a weird way, just to get home and not to have me at the airport on time.  Weird.  I knew that I’d be worried about something happening on the drive back but I only had to be in Germany on Thursday; leaving from Austin on Tuesday night was more desirable than leaving from Corpus on Tuesday morning (and involved one fewer flight).  This meant a double whammy when we drove through a hard rain for about five minutes south of Rehfeerio (I’m going to start writing it how it should be written); not only did it slow us down but it brought visions of shaky flights into my head.  Oh great.  Luckily it ended and we didn’t deal with rain after that.  

We were in such a hurry that we skipped the now mandatory stop at Smolik’s to stock up on dried sausage.  We actually didn’t stop until Gonzalez (Come and Take It!™) but oh boy did we stop.  The Legends of Texas Barbecue book (seriously, buy it for any Texan or displaced Texan who does any grilling whatsoever) had mentioned the Gonzalez Food Market as another old-timey barbecue place to check out.  I parked the minivan under a tree just as the tornado siren was being tested.  That freaked us out but once we saw no one was doing anything in response Jennifer realized that it was noon, the normal testing time.  But man, it was loud.  Anyway, the Food Market lived up to its billing; their sausage was super-duper tasty!  Good thing I got eight links, ha!  It was so authentic we even had two cowboys, with spurs on and everything, in line in front of us.  

Our only other stop on the way home was at Buc-ee’s.  Yes, Buc-ee’s.  It was the first time I’d been to the one on I-10; the only other one I’d visited was the one in Giddings probably ten years ago, long before I learned how much of a cult Buc-ee’s has (and only about a year before their inane billboard slogans outlived their welcome).  I needed to get some Texas schlock for the German office so I got them a ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ coffee mug and a bag of beaver nuggets (basically Corn Pops but with more sugar if that’s possible).  I avoided buying Buc-ee’s shirts, copies of their billboard ads, any of the 9,000 different types of candies, nuts and other snacks on the wall or any of the ready-to-go barbecue sandwiches.  Actually, I poke fun at Buc-ee’s but I can see why people stop.  It’s got something for everybody.  

Oh, we did stop in Lockhart at Walgreen’s so that a) Jennifer could get some more wax for the kid’s ears and b) I could check my flight schedule to make sure that the flight indeed took off at 6pm.  I was wrong; it was supposed to take off at 6:10!  Good old paranoia. 

It was weird driving past the airport on 183 knowing that we’d have to be back in a couple of hours but boy was it worth it.  I got to be the good husband for a couple of hours by unpacking the car and had a chance to shower, an important action since it would help make me less stinky at the end of nineteen hours or so of travel.  I also got to check the rain gauge (2”!!!!) and package the extra Gonzalez sausage for storage until I got back. 

We had a minor emergency on the drive down as Squirt fell asleep for a few seconds.  No Squirt!!!  If you fall asleep now you’re never go to sleep tonight! 

Oops, Colombia just scored.  Uruguay are sure missing Captain Dientes, Luis Suarez.  

So anyway, Jennifer had to hop back into the middle row to keep Squirt awake.  I had give him and the Kid some of my trail mix to keep Squirt awake for the drive back when Jennifer would be unable to do anything.  She informed me later that he indeed stayed awake the whole way home, yay!  The boys also got two bonuses as a) an ambulance and fire truck both pulled up with lights flashing as I was being dropped off and b) the British Airways 787 was in full view at the end of the drive.

OK, that's enough for Part 1.  Part 2 will be tomorrow night (Friday).  Thanks for reading!