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Compared to Deidesheim this place is a zoo. We were up and out of the hotel about 10am and the streets were filling quickly. So far so good!
Today was our first full day in Florence, Italy.  In our exploration of the city, we learned a few things:

1. Compared to small town Germany, Florence is a dirty dirty dirty city.
2. Some museums don’t open until the afternoon on Sunday.
3. Turns out everything is closed on Mondays in this city.
4. Tourism isn’t so bad when you’re looking a menu written in English.
5. It is harder to find dairy-free food here than in Germany, despite being able to read the menus.
6. When in doubt, join a line (we saw a pretty church that appeared to be closed to the public, but there was a line near by with a sign that said “free entrance”.  Turns out the line was part of a 2-day special event allowing tourists and locals into the inner courtyards of the beautiful church).
7. Most of this city appears to be older than the 16th century (Renaissance was good to this city).
8. We learned they glue the paper onto the gelato cones (Nashon learned it tastes gross when you know it’s there but still eat it).
9. They have more knock off hand bags for sale here than in China (including right in front of the actual Gucci store).

We spent the morning just walking around, and getting lost and finding ourselves again.  We visited the “old bridge”, Ponte Vecchio, where stores were built on the edge of the bridge (and out over the river), where we looked at some very pretty jewelry.  Nashon said it might be fun to buy Jamie some jewelry instead of an art piece as our souvenir.  From there we walked along the water to Palazzo Vecchio where we had lunch and enjoyed a cappuccino for our friend Kathryn (who used to live here).  We also visited the Duomo (St. Mary’s Cathedral), where we purchased a pretty print of the building.  Nashon really wanted to go to the Galleria dell’ Academia where we saw Michelangelo’s David, among other statues and paintings.  We walked from here to get gelato and walk through the San Lorenzo Market (man, there are a lot of knock off merchandise in this country)!  From here we started to look for dinner, and to waste some time before going home when we saw the Santa Maria Novella church and walked over to take some pictures.  This is where we had nothing better to do, and joined a near by line.  This line took us through the inner courtyards of the church to see all of the frescoes that were painted 400-500 years ago; many of them outside in direct sunlight.  Nashon commented that they were in great condition for being so old and exposed to the elements; sorry, no pictures allowed here either (a theme in many of the museums in this town).  We finished our night with a divine dinner at a local restaurant called “Il Porcospino”, where Jamie cheated on her no-dairy diet and enjoyed the BEST lasagna ever.  Even with many of the museums closed tomorrow, the day should be full and quite fun (though even more tiring for our poor feet).

Today has been a most uneventful day.  We woke up to the most rain we’d seen since arriving in Germany, and “enjoyed” the walk in the rain to the train station; we were on trains the entire day.  We caught the first train in Deidesheim at 8:30am, then Neustadt, to Karlsruhe.  Then a long train over the border into Bern, Switzerland.  We got a very pretty view of the Swiss Alps from the train, and even tried to take a few pictures through the windows; we’re hoping they turn out alright!!!  We also kept our eyes open, and we think we saw Heidi’s house!!  Though we were unable to agree on which side of the German/Swiss border it should have been on.  While on the train from Bern to Milan, we finally found lunch (train food is only a slight step up from plane food), crossed another border and changed trains yet again in Milan.  The final leg of our trip was the three hours spent on the train from Milan to Florence, arriving at 7:44pm.

Unlike the last arrival, we found our hotel while there was still someone at the front desk!  In fact, there is someone there 24-hours a day; we know this because they don’t want us taking the key out of the building, leaving it at the front desk until we return instead.  A quick dinner at McDonalds (yes, McDonalds was close, cheap, and open…), and we retired to our room to plan the next day’s adventures.  It should be nice to be within walking distance of many of the sights here in Florence.

Our plans for today involved getting up, starting the laundry (we packed for only 7 days knowing we’d have a washer here at the time share), and get on a train as soon as possible to go see the castle in Mannheim. However, it turns out that the washer is smarter than the American’s!!! Without being able to read any of the words, and the pictures not really being obvious enough for us, Nashon finally got the help of the manager and our clothes got clean; then comes the battle of the dryer. This time we got the “turn on” part down just fine, but they just wouldn’t dry!! They had pictures of water drops (one drop = 10%, 2 drops = 20%, and 3 drops = 30%). Nashon interpreted this to be “how wet are the clothes you’re putting in.” After two rounds of 30% (the highest number possible), Nashon gives up and talks to the manager again. The manager just shakes his head, places it on the lowest setting, and enters a new coin to make it go. Turns out the % is for how wet do you want your clothes to be when the dryer finishes (i.e. he put it on -2%).  So, our laundry that should have taken a total of 90 minutes instead took us until 2:30pm. We planned on catching the 2:41pm train, but weren’t quite fast enough to the train station, so we caught a train at 3:15pm instead. The reason we weren’t fast enough, is because we stopped at the bakery for a snack before heading on the train. We saw some really yummy looking cinnamon strudel cake, and Nashon was in charge of ordering. He speaks no German, baker speaks no English. There are two cakes in the window (1/4 of a round, and ½ of a round cake with a diameter of 18 inches). She gestures at the big one, then the little one, and Nashon thinks “oh, the first looks yummier” and asks for “two”. Turns out, you don’t get slices, you get the whole cake. So we took a half of a giant cake to snack on for all of today (and probably most of tomorrow)!!!

We learned something today…German’s are very big soccer fans. The second train station we got to had tons and tons of people (big and little) waiting for the train wearing red clothing, scarves, and holding signs. They were all singing songs and being generally annoying (Nashon would say “entertaining”). We had 4-minutes to get from platform 1 to platform 4 to catch the next train (which we’d done successfully every other day here), but were just seconds too slow today and missed the train…Hence missing the palace in Mannheim since it closed before we got there.

So we went to Mannheim anyway, found the castle (now part of the university), and took a few pictures from the outside. We spent some more time walking around the city and looking inside of another Catholic cathedral. We found a mall where we had high hopes of finding German linen. However, the one store we found that may have had something closed about 30-seconds before we walked up, a theme today. So we left the town empty handed after enjoying some Turkish food. Yes mom2, that means that on this trip we’ve had German food, Italian food, Turkish food, and some other things that we don’t really know what they were. J Our high point at the Turkish restaurant was when the owner asked one of the waiters if he spoke English and a young man came over and said “a bit”. He needed to use his English to tell us “5 minutes”, and “please stand here”. I think he may have even used it to say “thank you, goodbye” as we were leaving.

So the short story is that we have nothing big to report today. We spent time waiting for the wash, checked out of the apartment (we leave before they open tomorrow), and watched the ants on the ground while waiting for the trains. Tomorrow will be 12.5 hours on a train through Switzerland to get to Florence.

Today we managed to ignore the rain and catch the train to Heidelberg to see the castle there.  We decided to pay for the guided tour, which turned out to be a VERY good investment.  We missed the first tour by minutes, and the second tour consisted of the tour guide, and the two of us…no one else!  The guide was very nice, her name was Kathrena, and it was her first tour in English.  She was excited about having such a little group, and we helped her find a few words in English (like fencing, chimney, scaffolding…).  The castle was built by a man that was part of a group of people who get together to elect the next king (I can’t remember what they were called), starting in the late 12^th century.  Each of his successors then built a new building until the 30 year war, which resulted in the burning of part of the castle.  There was more building after that, some restoration, and a few more destruction periods.  The last guy to live in the castle said “to heck with all of you” to the people of the town, and moved to Mannheim and built a new castle.  The Heidelberg Castle sat unoccupied, and the towns people used the bricks for building materials, until 1800 when a French nobleman came and took up residence in the castle, and began to restore and rebuild parts of the court.  Long story short, they continue to preserve the castle, but no longer attempt to restore or rebuild.  They maintain the changes that were made in the early 20^th century, but want to maintain the history of the destruction as well.

After the castle, we walked down more very steep cobblestone streets to the “kornmarkt” which is a really long road full of shops and restaurants.  It took us a long time to get down the road (very pretty), and we ate dinner when we got to the very end.  Today we looked for some German linens or doilies to bring home, but apparently a shopping center is not the place to find them (this was even “old town!”).  Just as we were headed back to the train, we did find a linen store that sold more than just things made in Indonesia.  We purchased what we think is a dish towel?  But will likely be used as a table center piece.  We will continue looking for something tomorrow.The only unusual activity of note today occurred while Nashon was taking money out of the ATM at the kornmarkt.  Jamie was sitting on a small brick wall waiting for him, when a young Indian man came up with his cell phone and took her picture.  No idea why (perhaps because she was blonde and there weren’t many around?), but he said something to her she didn’t understand, showed her the picture, then walked away.  Nashon thinks he wanted the picture because Jamie looked crazy, though Jamie disagrees (after all, if the young man thought she were crazy, he would have taken the picture from far away, not three feet!). The train ride each way was about 90 minutes, and we have both found that it is really hard to stay awake for long on a train after a full day of walking around everywhere!  Though the moment we get home we are both wide awake and ready to eat our pastry (our daily treat thanks to all the fresh bakeries).  However, we are mastering the train system in this part of the world, and hardly have to look at the time schedules ahead of time to get to where we’re going.  We’re pretty sure that even on Saturday when we head to Italy we’ll be able to manage without TOO much help. 

We had grand plans today to get up and catch the train to Heidelberg to see the next castle. When we woke up, we decided to change it to Neustadt (which is much closer via train), and go shopping and check out the town. But as it turned out, today was an overcast and rainy day so we stayed in Deidesheim. We finished exploring this little town, and we decided to share with you our top reasons why this town is so wonderful:

1. All the streets have brick lining the edges (much prettier than asphalt).
2. The city is full of courtyards with plants and tables and cars (instead of a normal driveway and front yard).
3. There is at least one big clock tower in each town that dings every 15-minutes, and plays a song every hour. In addition, the bells calling people to mass on Sunday.
4. Everyone has a garden. Little or big, in the city or in the sticks (i.e. the vineyards), everyone has a place for flowers and bushes, and/or vegetables.
5. People that do have driveways have them paved in stone or brick, never asphalt.
6. Everyone says “hello” or “good morning” or “good day” when you pass them (except for most tourists who avert eye contact).
7. All the shops are local without any big chains (this includes restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping).
8. There are a lot of fresh bakeries that sell all kinds of yummy heavenly delights daily.
9. A bottle of 2-3 year old local wine costs the equivalent of about US $4
10. They have trained the trees and vines to grow into each other, up the sides of buildings, across the balconies, and to join between buildings.
11. Many people in town ride bikes from place to place instead of driving cars. The train station has more bikes locked up than cars in the park and ride.
12. In a row of cars, a Subaru Outback is considered a “large car”. Everyone drives these little tiny cars the size of minis (we saw an original mini today as a matter of fact).
13. From the top of the hill it is easy to distinguish one town from the next. There is a very clear delineation between towns (clear land), then a close clumping of houses and buildings.
14. Germans have a fantastic law that requires you to recycle EVERYTHING. They have 3-piece garbage cans to separate items as you throw them away. If you fail to do so, you can get fined up to 30 Euros (it’s a lot easier than we thought it would be).

The only thing we’ve found so far that we don’t like, is that the grocery stores and many restaurants don’t have plastic bags (or bags of any kind) to take things home in.

The other thing to note today is that Nashon is “coming to grips” with the differences between traveling to Europe today, compared with his trip here 6 years ago. We have decided that he’s just getting old!!! His last trip, he was up and out of the hostel by 6:30am every morning, now he just wants to sleep in and relax in his comfortable hotel room. Then, he ate the same thing for every meal, now we’re eating at a variety of places (German, Italian, Greek.). Then, he got to go where ever he wanted whenever he wanted, now he has to make sure Jamie wants to do it too! Then, he was “go go go” to get from place to place, now he finds himself taking short breaks, walking slower (and not just because Jamie is lazy). Then, he didn’t stop all day until he was ready for bed, now he enjoys a nap mid-day, every day he can get one (this is, or course, true when at home too).

We’re having a great time, and are hoping for better weather tomorrow!!

Happy April Fool’s Day!! No jokes here, we had a very busy, and very tiring day today.

For Jamie, the day started out REALLY early. Her body seems to think that it’s not really here, or in Seattle, since she was up and out of bed at 3am (6pm in Seattle). The upside, is that the dishes all got washed, the apartment straightened, and she had 2 cups of tea. We officially started the day off by enjoying the rolls that were delivered to us this morning (a very big treat that we could really get used to), and then surprised our apartment manager!! Yesterday when we checked in, he was very surprised to find that we didn’t have a car with us (what? Non-locals can figure out the train system from the airport and didn’t get lost??!?!?! Amazing!). He gave us a map of Castle Road anyway, and told us we’d have a hard time getting to most of them; we thought we’d give it a try anyway. So this morning we set off on the 9am train to make three stops to look at castles. As we were boarding the train we changed our mind, and decided to just see two. We spent about 2 hours on the trains to get to a small town called Eberbach (the farthest one on the map for today). We got off the train, found no information booth, but we did locate a map!! Turns out though, that if you don’t know the name of the castle you’re looking for, it’s pretty near impossible to find it on a map written in German. So we remembered that it was tucked up in the mountain behind the town, and we spotted the top of what appeared to be an old tower. About an hour later we found ourselves at the base of said tower. Turns out it was NOT built in the 14th century, but rather in 1970, and housed a cell tower today. Nashon, feeling quite defeated, spotted the ACTUAL castle ruins on the next peak over.

We decided to get some lunch back in town, and decide whether or not to hike up the next mountain (which Nashon will tell you is just a really big hill). What we DID discover during lunch is that German’s DO eat chicken. It’s called Hahnchen (with some little dots in there somewhere). We enjoyed our chicken and fries, and made a choice to hike up to the ruins (better than a cell tower, right?).

Turns out this hike was a bit more work with more stairs and a steeper grade, but we did manage to make it up there about 90 minutes later. The castle grounds here had three buildings, with three different dates on them. The oldest date was 1296, 18th century, and then 1909 was on one of the buildings. Again, if we were able to read German, we might know a bit more about it. We enjoyed being there in the off season, as no one else was up there (though we did encounter a few folks on the way back down). There were great views from the top of the entire town and valley, and the river that ran nearby. We rested, drank even more water, and headed back to the train station. As we got there, we decided it was now 4pm, and the other castle would have to wait for another day (our feet were tired, and we didn’t feel like doing any more hiking). Besides, it was just two towns over, and would likely involve a taxi ride since it’s a full castle and in the middle of a really big city. So perhaps we’ll head there tomorrow and do some shopping in the city.

We navigated the trains back to Deidesheim, and found that while most of the time it can be frustrating not to speak German, that when on the train with crazy people, it’s good to act dumb! There was this lady who spoke a little English, who kept trying to open the window with a screwdriver. Something about not being able to talk with the air pressure from the AC? We just tried to ignore her. When we got off the last train we stopped at the market to pick up some things for dinner and some strudel to appease Nashon’s sweet tooth. Since our town is located in the heart of German wine country (a big tourist attraction form May to September we’re told), we are going to enjoy some nice local wine this evening. Nashon had his eye on a few different types at the market, and we’re going to get a nice Riesling (my favorite of course). It helps, that most of the local grapes go to this type of wine.

Today was a very low key day. Jamie woke up at 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so Nashon got up to keep her company for a few hours before we went back to sleep. It appears we’re still a bit jet lagged, as we didn’t get up till 11am. We tried to check in (finally), but no one was there. Jamie wasn’t feeling super great, so we hung around the apartment for awhile before leaving. We did finally get checked in, ordered our fresh rolls for delivery each morning this week, and headed to the grocery store. We have discovered that many of the local stores and eateries here don’t take credit cards unless it’s the “local German card” as was explained to us. So we limited what we bought to just dinner today and shampoo for tomorrow, because the security deposit at the apartment was cash only, and almost all the cash we had on us. We took a quick detour on the way home to let Jamie swing on the swings in the park behind the apartment. Nashon also ran to the bank today to get more cash while Jamie stayed home and took a nap. After he got back he made a really nice dinner of pork chops and rice (they don’t sell chicken in the market either!!). We took a nice walk around the gardens at sunset and discovered that German ducks can speak English (quack!!). Nashon thinks the “exotic birds” here are pretty. We tried the bakery for some strudel. Sadly, the bakery was closed so we came home to eat leftovers instead. J That really about does it for today. We have a big day planned tomorrow including a few train rides, a few castles, and a pharmacy museum?

Today we woke up (though still tired) to enjoy the nice shower at the big hotel again, and walked down to the breakfast that was included with the room. The trouble was that the menu was in German, and the buffet had yogurt, and cheese (things Jamie can’t eat). So Nashon had yogurt with some fruit, and Jamie had fruit. Not the most appetizing or filling breakfast as you can imagine. We walked back over to the resort to try and check in again, but turns out there is no manager present on Sundays either. We DID manage to figure out how to call the resort (got to dial a + before the number), and the manager buzzed us in from wherever he was. He directed us to our paperwork and room key, and said “come back tomorrow to check in” when he returns to the office.

We hiked the kilometer back to the big hotel to pick up our stuff (which they were kindly storing behind their bar), and found a shortcut back to our timeshare. After dropping off our things, we set out in search of the small town and food (Jamie was really hungry). We passed a Catholic church (with the bells calling people to Sunday mass) which was built in 1496, and managed to find a small restaurant where we could decipher some of the menu. Nashon ordered Tomatoes, mozzarella and baguette, and Jamie had spaghetti with pesto sauce. After lunch, Germany was looking better. We wanted to go to the market to buy food for breakfasts and dinner, but in this small town of 2500 people the stores are all closed on Sundays. We bought bread and jam from the “tank station” instead. We have noticed that while most of the people here speak enough English to help us out, Nashon tried to “fake it” by agreeing to whatever they say. This drives Jamie crazy since she has a hard time knowing things (like what’s in the food), if they continue to think that we speak German!!!

The afternoon was pretty uneventful. After a nice nap listening to the kids playing in the park behind our apartment, we decided to go find the market for tomorrow, and check out the train schedule. The walk from the train station last night was much shorter during the day when we could utilize public walks through the big park rather than a street map. We found the Penny Market, and found what time the trains leave to head back to Neustadt (where we will catch trains to go look at castles). We also discovered another travel center that we plan on visiting tomorrow to talk about trains again, and planning the rest of our week here. The trouble with this small town, is that it appears everyone goes home about 7pm. We found a few places open to eat, but most were bars with lots of alcohol and little actual food. We ended up back at the historic restaurant we had lunch at, where the waitress laughed when we showed up again. We have decided we really like this place, because the waitress is very nice. At dinner, she helped us decipher parts of the menu, and informed us that in the 12 pages of food, they had nothing made with chicken. Do Germans even eat chicken? We both ended up with some version of steak and potatoes (Nashon exclaimed: “I am home!”). The pasta that Jamie ate earlier in the day (with parmesan cheese on it) chose dinner time to be rejected, so we ate dinner and went right home. The rest of the evening (we got home about 9pm) was spent curled up on the couch watching CNN (only tv channel in English), and curling (the newest entertaining sport that we started watching last December in Canada), and an early bedtime.

We’re here! Or there or somewhere depending on your frame of reference, in Deidesheim, Germany.

We stopped for dinner at the airport in Frankfurt. We ordered ‘meatloaf’ because it was something on the menu we recognized. What they call meatloaf is pressed and sliced Spam. Large, thick sliced of Spam. Ewww.

Two planes, three trains and a one kilometer walk ended with us in front of our ‘hotel’ at 10pm. It turns out that at 10pm there isn’t a manager on site. There also isn’t a manager listed on the call buttons outside the building. After 90 minutes in the chilly night air, we finally gave up contacting anyone and went searching for an open hotel.

This is a small town. 2500 people. Without google maps we would have been out of luck. I love international phone networks and smartphones.

We stayed at a nice place down the road. Showers were had, feet were relieved, sleep was taken. All-in-all it was good, except the part about doing this at midnight while hauling bags on foot.

Sunday has been nice. We’ve gotten checked in at our regular hotel, seen parts of the city, generally recovered from jetlag and late arrival.

The Catholic church in town was built in 1494. Nice.

Looks like Jamie and I are going to Germany and Italy in late March for 2 weeks. In case it matters, we’re staying in Deidesheim in Germany for 6 days, then 4 days in Florence and 4 in Rome. I’ve given Jamie ‘Learn German’ CDs, so she should speak full conversational German in like 12 years.