I'm trying to remember what all I did while in Germany, but to be honest, I didn't do much more than visit a couple old breweries, a bar or two, and one day, a couple of car museums and an antique motorcycle show.
Saturday (the day after I arrived), The German had a b-day celebration and invited a bunch of people, maybe 35-50 overall. He rented a hall, bought a ton of beer (I mean, a *ton*! I remember counting at least 18-20 cases!) along with dozens of bottles of various liquors which were left over from previous parties. He also bought maybe 10-15 kilos of various meats (spare ribs, chicken legs, ground beef for burgers, bratwurst, etc). It was a full-on bash - he even had his friends' cover band play 3 sets (native German speakers singing in English is quite entertaining, but they did a great job!). It was a great night, and the beer (and a few shots) really helped my German communication skills. I ended up hanging out with the band quite a bit (only one of them spoke a reasonable amount of English), but I managed to converse fairly well. Overall, a great night. Want to hear something funny though? Try as they might, the band still couldn't get me to go up and play guitar/sing a few songs for everyone, even though I was in another country, and drunk enough to speak German fairly well. My stage fright/social anxiety/shyness apparently knows no bounds!
Most of my time was spent either relaxing in the back garden, soaking in the sun in the crisp autumn air, or tagging along/being chauffeured on various errands/road trips. I think it was Monday or Tuesday when my other friend (I'll call his TS for now) took me to an old brewery in a town called R�dental called "Gr�sch", for some traditional German food & drink. The brewery was founded in 1425. Yes, you read that correctly - 1425, and it's not anywhere near the oldest!! But stop for a minute & think about that - Columbus hadn't even been (incorrectly) credited with discovering America yet at that point. It would be another almost 70 years until that happened! That just kind of blows my mind...
Anyway, over the course of the week, I ended up meeting/making friends with 8-9 new local musicians, and picked up several cds from them. I also got to go back to my old "stomping grounds", Cafe No133, and see my (bar)friend Uwe (pronounced OOveh). He's the manager/owner of the bar, and it became a 2nd home to me last time I visited (he even gave me a ride home to The German's a couple times back then). It was good to see him again, but as is so often the case, it just wasn't the same this time.
On Thursday, TS drove us about 2 hrs to an old car museum that was located in what I can only describe as a castle/fortress set high upon a hill (Ok for Michigan, it would have been classified as a mountain!). I have a few pics looking out over the valley from the gate. I'll try to post these sometime this week. I took a lot of pics of old motorcycles (of which there were hundreds!). I won't bore anyone with those, besides, I'm currently unable to get any of my Germany pics off my phone unless I email them, so for now, there will only be a few pics of the German end of my trip. We spent a few hours there, and then took off for another museum that was close by (The German found it while we were traveling, and sent us a link to the website for something to visit on the way back). There were a couplefew interesting vehicles there I just might post. Spent another 1-2 hrs in that place, which was a museum for Horch, which is what eventually became Audi. There was one car there that actually had a fold-out sink built into the passenger fender! The Horch 930 S. All in all, it was a pretty cool experience!
My last night there, we did little more than head up to the Cafe No133. It was TS, The German, his wife, and me, although he made a call & got an old friend to come out. Andreas & his g/f (fiance?) showed up a little later and hung out with us for a bit. I met Andreas on my first trip over, and I swear he hadn't changed in the least bit! It was really good to get to talk with him again, and his lady was pretty cool too. Attractive as well - every so often, I'd catch her looking at me, and she wouldn't look away immediately, which was fun, and made me feel pretty good! Sadly, that was the closest I got to meeting, or even flirting with anyone while in Germany. *sigh* And I was really kind of hoping to meet someone interesting while I was there, but it wasn't to be, I guess. Oh well, was still a great time!
TS drove me to the airport on Saturday so I could catch my flight to England. Fortunately it was in the early afternoon, so we didn't have to set out too early. It was both a little sad (as I wished I had more time with my friends there), and a little exciting, (as I was heading out to meet someone I'd only known online for a few years, for the first time).
And I guess I'll stop there for now and leave England for another entry. I know I haven't done this part of my trip any justice with my poor descriptive skills - I've never really been a story-teller - but it's the best I can do. I really should start taking video blogs each day while I'm on a trip! I thought about doing that when I rode to Key West, but as I'm a total slacker, I never did.
Tsch�ssi!
10:53 p.m. - 2013-10-22
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