Because Adam’s great-grandparents were from Denmark, we headed up there to find the old family home.  I have a vague idea that somewhere in my father’s background is someone from Denmark, but that’s about as specific as it gets for me.  We had to take a train back to Munich in order to catch the night train to Copenhagen, so we ended up spending the day there.  The train station was much quieter than the week before since it was devoid of the hundreds of drunk Oktoberfest revelers.  We passed most of the day in the Deutsches Museum which is the largest museum of science and technology in the world.  In typical German fashion, the museum covered every possible branch and twig of the scientific world.  It is one of those places that you wish would go on forever because its so amazing, but at the same time you wish it would end already before your head explodes.  Continue reading “Would You Like Ketchup with That?” →

Although my German truly is shit, we didn’t have any trouble communicating with people in Germany.  We learned that if you ask someone if he speaks English and he says, “a little,” you can expect that person to be completely fluent with an impressive vocabulary.  A “no,” means that the person will still endeavor to speak English to you after hearing your pathetic attempt at the language.  Continue reading “Ich Liebe Bavaria” →

Well, not quite yet, anyway. But it wouldn’t hurt to pick up some lederhosen anyway. So versatile!

Our first day in Germany was one of the best days we have had on this trip. We ended up renting a house in Bischofswiesen which is very close to Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps near the Austrian border. We got there around 10PM on the first night. We were welcomed by the elderly German man who owns the house that the apartment is attached to. He had insisted that we call him when we got there so he could pick us up, but we took a cab not wanting to inconvenience him. When we arrived he showed us every tiny detail of the apartment including how to turn on the television, but he was the nicest man. He kept running back and forth from the apartment to the house to grab something else for us—a map, some tea, a bus schedule. Continue reading “Pick up Some Lederhosen; We’re Moving to Germany!” →

After we got off the ferry in Calais and I had assured myself that there was no way that I could communicate with anyone in French, we went to find our hotel. Now if I had been by myself, I would have written down directions meter by meter if I was going to walk, but more than likely I would just take a taxi to make sure that I didn’t get lost. Adam, however, has some sort of GPS chip in his head, so he just looks at a map and sort of walks towards where the place should be until we end up right in front of it. Even with a map in front of me it would take me longer to find a place than it would for him to find it without one. I don’t understand this gift, but I do appreciate it. Continue reading “From Foie Gras to Bratwurst” →

After five hours of driving from Skye to Edinburgh in the sunshine, we dropped off the car and it promptly began to rain. We took a bus back to the city center and ducked into a pub to have breakfast for dinner. The Scottish (or English) breakfast is a thing of beauty. There are always slight variations on the contents depending on where you are, but the bottom line is that it always contains a shit-ton of food. The most amazing thing is the variety of food on the plate. Ours had eggs, toast, hash browns, sausage (the real stuff, not those shriveled up breakfast sausages), beans, mushrooms, and grilled tomato. Denny’s could never hope to compete with such a wonder as this. It took me several minutes just to decide which items I was going to eat together—always a difficult choice. Continue reading “From Haggis to Foie Gras” →

It took us four days to get from Scotland to Germany. OK, so four days doesn’t really compare to the 20 years that it took for Odysseus to get home, but Odysseus never had to ride an overnight bus from Edinburgh to London. If he had, it is certain that at least one person would have been slain. Here is a rough sketch of our journey with details to be described in later posts. Continue reading “Talk About an Odyssey…” →

One of the most exciting events of our trip happened when we got to Skye. After over two months of sharing bathrooms with other people, we finally got our very own bathroom inside of the cottage that we rented. This was huge because that meant that there was never pee on the seat, we did not have to wait for a shower stall to open up, we did not have to mop up the shower after we were finished, and most importantly, we did not have to walk a quarter of a mile in the dark and cold to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The cottage that we rented on the Isle of Skye was absolutely perfect. Continue reading “A Bathroom of One’s Own” →

We left Edinburgh in a rental car – an orange Renault Twingo. “What is a Twingo?” you ask. Well, I can tell you because I looked it up. The name is a combination of the words “twist,” “swing,” and “tango,” and supposedly refers to the fun nature of the car. It is a nice zippy little thing. We headed north to Stirling and then up to Doune to do something that we both wanted to do very much—visit the castle where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. Continue reading “Two Twingos and a Cottage” →

Edinburgh, as many of you know, is my favorite city. There are other cities that are flashier, prettier, cleaner, but for my money nothing feels like home away from home like Edinburgh. As we pulled into the outskirts of the city I began to get unreasonably excited even though I had slept no more than two hours combined upright in the cramped bus seat next to the giant man across the aisle snoring like a bear. Continue reading “Scotland the Brave” →

It is remarkable that only a tad over 100 years have passed since the first flights of the Wright brothers. Air travel has come so far since then. However, it still sucks. We began in Cairns by dropping of the campervan, a bittersweet moment, and getting a taxi to the airport. We felt pretty fancy since we’ve been taking nothing but public transportation. I almost forgot what taxis do. “You mean to say,” I wanted to ask the cab driver, “that we can get in this car and you will take me directly to my destination with no stops and without having to sit next to any obnoxious/smelly/frightening people?” Continue reading “How Come Every Time You Come Around My London Bridge Wanna Go Down?” →