Germany

19 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                The train arrived on time to Munich.  Here we would change trains to an ICE high-speed train to Nuremberg.  This train was awesome.  It had internet access (not free of course), electricity, and went about 266KM an hour.  We arrived in Nuremberg an hour later.  Here we needed to change trains to go to another station where Anna’s friend Stefan was going to pick us up.  This station was near where he worked.
                The train arrived on time, and Stefan soon arrived to pick us up.  Anna wanted to see Adidas head quarters, being she had worked for Taylormade (owned by Adidas) for such a long time, and Stefan worked here.  Arriving at the HQ, Stefan got our visitor passes, and showed us to the cafeteria.  The cafeteria was two floors, and had a large variety of food to choose from.  After lunch Stefan showed us around the campus (which was a former US military base during WWII) little bit, taking us to one of the marketing buildings showing us the history of Adidas.
                After the tour Stefan dropped us of at the outlet for a couple hours while he went back to work.  At the outlet we hung out, Anna got a cup of coffee, and we played a game of chess.  There was supposed to be a shuttle to take us into town from here, but it didn’t come.  So we went across the street to McDonalds for some fries, a milkshake, and another game of chess.  After the chess game we went back over to the outlet store to read, and wait for Stefan.
                Stefan arrived around 4:30pm.  We bought a couple items, and he drove us back to his place in Lauf.  This is a small village outside of Nuremberg.  At Stefan’s we met his girlfriend Biggi.  The plan was Biggi was going to make us some traditional Bavarian food.  This was great.
                We all chatted while she prepared dinner.  The dinner was fantastic.  The meal started off with a dumpling soup, to follow was pork, and some more dumplings (different ones).  The four of us chatted eating and drinking beer for a long time.  Finally around 9:30 we decided to stay in.  We had been up since 5:30, and were about to fall asleep.  Stefan and Biggi then retired to their room while we stayed in the front room on the hide-a-bed.

20 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                The morning began with a variety of items for breakfast.  After breakfast we got ourselves ready for the day and went to the train station.  There was a Beer festival going on in Nuremberg, and we also wanted to check out the city.
                At 12:00 we catch the train to Nuremberg, arriving about 25 minutes later.  The city was quite cool.  After Biggi, and Anna got their coffee, they showed us around the town a bit.  There was a castle at the other end of town so we proceeded to go to the castle.  We hung out at the castle for a while taking photos.  After the castle we had lunch at one of the restaurants famous for their sausages. 
                For lunch the four of us shared a basket of pretzels, a plate of sausages, and a cheese appetizer.  The cheese appetizer was really good.  The dip was a mixture of cheese, cream cheese, garlic, and onion.  After lunch we walked around some more.  Anna and Biggi dropped the guys off at the book store while they did some window shopping.  By now it was around 4:00 in the afternoon.
                Anna and Biggi met the guys in front of the big church.  Together we walked to one of the souvenir shops.  Doug wanted to get a traditional German stein for himself, and for his grandpa.  Now it was time for the beer festival.
                We walked to the other side of town, and found a place inside one of the restaurants.  It was quite cold out, and we needed to be inside.  Stefan ordered a liter of beer for himself and Doug.  Biggi ordered a radler for herself and Anna (only a ½ liter).  A radler is a mix of one half white lemonade, and one half beer.  It wasn’t too bad, Doug didn’t like it though.  The four of us hung out at the restaurant for a couple hours.  Around 6:30 a couple of friends of Biggi and Stefan joined us.  A short while later we ordered a plate of food to share. The plate of food contained some of the cheese dip, sliced radishes, and some meat with bread.  Doug ordered a plate of sausages for himself.  The friends stayed a couple hours, and then said their goodbyes.  We hung out until around 9:30.  It was now time to take the train back to Nuremberg. 
                Arriving back at Stefan and Biggi’s we said goodnight, and went to sleep.

21 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                After another wonderful breakfast we started getting prepared for a brewery hike.  A bunch of Stefan’s friends had organized a hike around to different beer breweries in the countryside and Stefan said we could join them.
                Anna was especially excited when we got on the autobahn and Stefan was doing 200kmph to get us to the rendezvous on time.  Shortly after we arrived we were joined by Stefan and Biggi’s friends.  Altogether there were 11 of us.  We left the cars in a parking lot and set off along a trail into the country side.  After about two hours of rolling hills and farmer’s fields we reached a small town.  The restaurant brewery was packed with people.  The hostess (a shrewd business woman) decided that 11 people was too much to pass on and she opened the living room in the back of the restaurant for all of to use.  The owner ran his own butcher shop and brewery, so our food and drink was about as fresh as you could get anywhere and was excellent to boot.
                Everyone left with full bellies and high spirits.  We set off for a couple more hours and finally reached another brewery that was at the base of a castle.  We all had more beer and just about everybody split a few slices of cheesecake.
                The group headed off back to the parking lot and split up.  Stefan and Biggi wanted to take us to the town that held the world record for most breweries per capita of any city in the world.  Aufseβ set the world record in 2000 with a record of 4 breweries and only 1,500 people.  We stopped in at one of the breweries and had a beer before heading back to the house.
                Back at the house Anna went full speed ahead on making her not yet but soon to be famous fajitas.  We all went to bed with stomachs that were so full, it hurt.

22 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                Stefan and Biggi had to go to work today.  We managed to find the train station and get a ticket that allowed us unlimited train travel in Bavaria for 24 hours.  We then caught the train to quite possibly one of the well known festival in the world…Oktoberfest!
                When the train arrived in Munich it was raining.  We wanted try and get a little culture while we were in Munich so we headed off to a nearby church and quickly gave up when we couldn’t even take a decent photo without drops of water getting all over the lens.  We gave up and culture and decided to try our luck at the beer tent.
                Oktoberfest was originally a wedding celebration.  The festival was bumped from being entirely in October to September with the festival ending in October in order to attract more people because the weather would be nicer.  As we approached the festival it reminded us of a big county/state fair complete with rides and expensive games where you can win cheap prizes.  Within the grounds are 14 beer tents.  We came across the “fish tent.”  We knew in advance that a reservation for a table in one of the tents was expensive and nearly impossible.  Stefan and Biggi recommended going early and trying to find space.  We came in the tent and started walking down the rows of tables.  The second table that looked like it had space had a couple Americans from Connecticut there.  They invited us to join them.  Right behind them was a table full of college students from Colorado.  The server lady showed up and took our orders and came back with two 1-liter beers for us.  We were soon cheering everything we thought deserved to be cheered and chased it with beer.
                A Spanish couple soon joined our table and the Connecticut couple left to be replaced by a couple from Munich.  We ordered some pretzels and later some potato dumplings that paled in comparison to Biggi’s dumplings just a couple nights ago.
                After a few hours of drinking numerous liters of beer we stumbled off to catch our train back to Luaf.  We missed the train we hoped to get but thankfully our pass worked for anytime we needed.  We caught a train not much later.  On the way back Doug passed out and Anna stood guard making sure we caught our connections.
                Once we finally arrived in Lauf we managed to find the house and Stefan and Biggi let us in and wanted to hear all about Oktoberfest.  Not much later we were passed out on the hide-a-bed.

23 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                If the beer festival, brewery hike and Oktoberfest weren’t enough, we set off for Regensburg where we could visit some monks that brew beer.  We caught the train to Regensburg via another town.  Anna was able to get directions to the info center and a map from a couple that was leaving.  At the info center they told us we would have to catch another train and then a bus followed by a ferry to go see the drunk monks.  We didn’t have the patience for that many rides especially considering we would have to repeat them all to get back.  We decided to just check out Regensburg instead.
                For lunch we stopped in at a place with famous sausages and had lunch.  Then we toured around the city admiring a wonderful stone bridge and a very nice gothic cathedral.  We did some window shopping and then headed back to Lauf.
                For dinner Stefan and Biggi had a special treat for us.  They put together a bunch of items, bread, salami, sautéed chicken, veggies, and cheese.  In the middle of the dining table was a sort of oven.  Every person had a small tray which was a couple inches square.  Then you would put in meat, veggies and cover it with a slice of cheese and put it in the over.  After a few minutes the food is cooked and cheese is melted.  You push the food off the tray and eat it with bread…very very good.
                We stayed up a while longer chatting before going to bed.

24 September 2008
Lauf, Germany 
                Today we wanted to visit Bamberg.  The guide said it could quite possibly be the most beautiful city in Germany.  Well we had to check this out for ourselves.  To get to Bamberg we had to catch a train back to Nuremberg, and then another one on to Bamberg.
                We arrived in the city around 10:30 or so.  Once we figured out where we were and where to go, the city was quite nice.  It looked like a bigger Regensburg with a river snaking in and out of the city.  There were little bridges everywhere, along with massive cathedrals, and cute cafes.  After walking around for a couple hours we found a bakery.  Anna got her coffee, and a couple pastries to share.  They were quite good.  The both of us wanted to give Stefan and Biggi a little gift for their wonderful hospitality.  There was a photo shop nearby so we had two photos printed out; one of Stefan and Biggi alone, and one with the four of us.  We also bought a photo frame which allowed two pictures to be put in horizontally.  After the photos were printed we walked back to the train station.
                Biggi only had to work a half day, and we wanted to get back to meet her.  We still need to mail a couple packages, and post cards.  She was nice enough to take us there.  Arriving back at their place Biggi assisted Doug in writing a post card to his grandfather in German.  Since Grandpa was from Germany Doug thought it would be nice to send him something from his home country.  After everything was packed up, we walked to the post.
                The woman at the post office was very nice, and the packages were sent.  Next we needed to go to the food store for some items for dinner.  Biggi wanted us to try a traditional sausage from her part of Bavaria, Munich.  These were the white sausages.  The three of us walked to the food store. Today it was finally warm enough to enjoy the outdoors a little.  The previous days were pretty cold and rainy.
                Back at the flat we waited for Stefan to arrive from work.  Biggi made dinner for us.  Once we finished dinner we all watched the football match of Munich vs Nuremberg.  They said this was a big game for the area, being both cities are rivals.  Munich ended up beating Nuremberg, and since Stefan bet Biggi Nuremberg would win, he had to wash the dishes. 
                Once the game was over we all sat chatting for a while before going to bed.

25 September 2008
Lauf, Germany
                Today we were leaving.  Anna asked to say goodbyes in the morning before Stefan, and Biggi went to work so the goodbye was short.  We had had such a great time with them, crying did not need to be necessary (on Anna’s part).  They woke us up and we all said our goodbyes. 
                We soon got up after they went to work.  The bags needed to once again be packed up.  The train we were going to take to Plzen, Czech Republic didn’t leave until 12:45.  So we had a lot of time.  The morning was spent cleaning up, and doing internet research on future plans.  One thing which happened during the morning which was crazy was we got an email from a Czech girl we had met in Laos.  Anna remembered she and her friend were getting back from traveling 3 months in SE Asia the week before.  But Anna wanted to wait to email them, to give them time to get settled back.  Well Eva had emailed us the day before.  Anna responded to her email letting her know we were going to Plzen that same day, she soon responded letting us know she lives in Plzen.  This was really cool.  She said she would meet us at the train station.
                At 12:15 or so we left Stefan, and Biggi’s flat for the train station.  On the way to the station, Anna stopped by a market to get some bread rolls, and cookies for the journey.  The journey to Plzen entailed riding 5 trains.  The first couple legs were short.  We ended up at the border on platform 111 a couple hours later.  When we arrived at platform 111 we thought we would have 20 minutes to run 110 platforms to platform 1.  Well once we arrived it turned out platform 111 was right next to platform 1.  And we went from an old train with 4 cars, to an ancient 1 car train (see photos).

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