Plan B

It's a pretty rare event in a foreign country when something goes as planned.  I'm still waiting for the first one.  There are always unexpected surprises.  Yesterday was no exception, except that none of the plan worked.  Usually, the activity at least resembles the plan.

A coworker had briefed me on a great spot to hike and a good chicken restaurant. (In the Wasson family, sometimes you need to be able to find a good chicken to eat).  So we set out with maps in our hands searching for a castle ruins that dated back to 1000 BC.  We approached the castle and could see it on the mountain top.  I can see why it was built there, because armed with a car and GPS, we could not find our way up to the castle.  We decided to drive around the mountain and approach from the other side.  After about 10 minutes, I'm guessing we were about 10 km further away from the castle.

Time for Plan B.  Plan B always invokes some interesting family discussions.  We approached a little town and saw a parking lot near a playground.  It didn't look like anything special.  Here is the mountain where we parked.

Parked cars with no people usually means good hiking.  Another car pulled up so we did what we do best in Germany.  We followed them.  When in doubt, follow the crowd (that's a survival guide to Europe by the way).  Another good sign was a van labeled "climbers shuttle" was parked in the lot.  So we scavenged some walking sticks and set out for who knows what (well, we did know it wasn't a castle ruins).  Here are some things we encounter along the way.

 

Did you recognize me on the rope climbing the cliff?  Me neither.

Well, we did pretty good with our improvised hike.  Time to hit the chicken restaurant.  One thing is for sure in my family.  You do not want to have hunger as a passenger in the car for very long.  No problem, chicken was a mere 10 km away.  We had much better luck finding the restaurant than the castle ruins.  Unfortunately our German language skills are good enough now to read the sign "closed until August 28".  Another victim of European August holidays.  Now we're in a little trouble with growling stomachs.  So, Lady G to the rescue (that's what we call our Garmin GPS).  She did owe us one for not finding the castle.  Points of Interest, Food, NEAREST RESTAURANT.  3.6 km to the unknown.  Lady G delivers.  Here was our destination...

It was another castle.  There was only one car in the lot, but a sign said "open".  We approached the castle to a large set of closed doors.  We take turns being brave in Germany.  Today was my wife's day to be brave.  There was a buzzer at the door and an intercom.  Talking to strangers in a foreign country requires a bit of nerves, but the worst is phone calls from unknown German speakers and talking without any context as a reference.  With no hand singals allowed, I wasn't about to push THE BUTTON.  My wife didn't even hesitate.  She pushed THE BUTTON.  At this point, I noticed a tiny peep hole slide in the large door.  We waited to see if someone would open the peep hole.  I felt like Dorthy approaching the Emerald City or R2D2 at Jabba the Hut's lair.  Nobody answered, but I give my wife props for trying.

My wife then noticed a sign and some stairs.  Sure enough, there was a restaurant at the base of the castle.  Just for some perspective, it is easy to drop about 21 Euros for a McDonald's meal here.  At this restaurant, 25 (which included a tip) Euros bought us 2 steak meals, 2 bratwurst meals, drinks, and a large piece of cake.

Not too bad Lady G.

Oh, I forgot to mention the plan for the next day was canoeing so we stopped to find out how to make the arrangements.  They did not have any openings for the weekend (August holidays again).  I'm excited to see what Plan B has to offer tomorrow.

An American Bike in Germany

Hello, this is Andrew's bike.  Andrew was not into blogging today, so he asked if I would do it for him.  After all, I did provide all the entertainment yesterday.  After spending 6 weeks in a box breathing salt air and trying not to rust, it is about time I got a chance to hit the open road. 

It started a little rough because I was just shoved into the back of a car with another bike.  I don't think we drove very far, but I'm not sure because I was on the bottom of the bike pile.  My achin' sprockets.  Can someone tell Andrew about bike racks?

It rained a bit at the beginning and we thought about turning back.  I'm glad we didn't.  I took the family to the next town over to see what it was like.  They drive through this town with the car all the time, but I think I provided a much better look.  I turned on my bike-cam at certain points to show you what it was like.  Sorry, I'm still a bit shaky from my 6-week captivity in a shipping crate so the video is a little choppy.  I mixed in some still shots too.  Here is the link to the video on YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8U1hunPI7I&feature=youtu.be

As you can see, I'm a sucker for a good water wheel.   (Being a bike, naturally I have a thing for wheels.)  I wonder what they are driving inside the buildings.

At the end of the ride along the river, they went into a pizza place to eat.  Of course, they just left me outside.  That's OK.  It's what I do.

There's a Legoland

Well, my daughters twisted my arm and dragged me to Legoland Deutschland this past weekend.  It was a celebration for surviving their first week of school in Germany.  I had no idea there was such a thing as Legoland.  Really, a park full of nothing but Lego stuff?  I'm in. 

Just about everything, except the toilets, is made from Legos.  The park has roller coasters, rides, and many places to play Legos.  I don't have a favorite place. I have many.  First, there was the Lego Fabrik (factory).  They had small scale machines producing Lego Blocks.  My family always makes fun of me for watching "How it's Made" on TV.  They were living an episode of How it's Made and didn't even know it. 

This is the machine that stamps ink on the Lego pieces.  What a fantastic opportunity to train my daughters in the finer points of pneumatic valves and PLC controllers.  I was on my game.  I'm glad my wife took this photograph from behind.  If you could see their faces, there was a glazed look kind of like I used to have in English class conjugationing verbs.  I think one of my daughter's eyes disappeared into the back of her head for a brief moment.

This is the injection molding machine the Legos are made in.  Raw material comes in and is injected into the mold.  Ok, I'm seeing the same glazed look on your face too.  I'll stop.

The best part of the Lego Fabrik is the Lego store at the end.  Bins and Bins of Legos.  Go ahead and take it in.

My memory is a bit fuzzy after this moment.  100g for 9€.  I don't care what that translates to in dollars, give me a bag.  For about 10 minutes, I didn't have a family or a job or bills to pay.  I had to build the spaceship I built with my Legos as a kid.  Good thing my wife was there to watch the kids.  I was able to make several upgrades to my childhood spaceship design including additional firepower (added 4 new laser cannons).  After all, my first design was prior to my engineering degree.

They had a kids' driving school complete with a 1/2-hour class learning street signs and a drivers test (in a Lego car).  My daughters passed the test, of course.

We couldn't quite figure out what this Lego dude was doing perched above the driving course.  We thought perhaps he was holding a sniper rifle for those straying too far off course.

Here's a typical lunch.  Just thought you might want to see it.

There was a large exhibit of cities from around the world, all made with Legos.  It was pretty impressive.  There were trains, cars, cranes, helicoptors all moving within the exhibit.  I promised my wife I'd take her to Venice during this European trip.  I can check that one off the list now.

 They just had random Lego things throughout the park.  This guy was sporting a lit cigarette.

Here is a stocking stuffer idea.  A one foot tall R2 for the low low price of $220.

We went back on Sunday to see some of the things we did not get to see the first day.  We went into a building where you could build cars.  They had a time trial track where you could race your car and record the speed and track time.  Game on little German kids.  Smoked 'em.  If you know any of the random German kids racing their cars that day, please don't tell them the secret.  I happened to notice that the track starting line was based on the position of the front tires, and the optical sensor at the finish line was low to catch the front tire.  I just added about 12 inches of Lego parts extending in front of the front tires and low to the track to catch the finish line sensor before the front tires, essentially giving me a 1-foot head start.  I'm not sure if 2.95 seconds is a track record, but I wouldn't be surprised.  Sorry, no photos.  I have to keep some things a secret.  They also had a spot where you could build a house and test the structure under earthquake conditions. 

I think my kids may have had a good time at Legoland too.

Language Study, not for the Squeamish

So studying German language with children brings a different perspective to the surface.  I'll warn you up front, if you do not find humor in bodily functions, you will want to skip this post altogether.

It all started when my family learned the German word for Father.  It is Vater.  At first I was excited to have my family call me Vater (Luke - I'm your Father Vater) until I learned that in German V's are pronounced like F's and the a is a short a sound. 

Armed with this linguistic knowledge, I go from famous Hollywood tough guy wielding a lightsaber to walking whoopie cushion.  My family thought this was pretty accurate, but innocent until proven guilty, right?  At least THE FORCE was with me for a brief moment before it passed.

Are you starting to get the idea here?  Remember there are children involved in this language study (because I would never perpetuate such ideas).  Let's move on to the the next example.  See if you can find anything interesting in the following sentence:  Der Mann fährt Auto.  This means a man drives a car, unless you are in grade school which shifts the meaning to my Dad is a walking whoopie cushion.  Thanks Rosetta Stone for putting this little gem on the first CD.

Driving on the Autobahn, there are signs for exits labeled Ausfahrt.  My wife more elequently describes this nuance in one of her rececent posts.  It is worth the read.  (click here to read her post)

I can't even apologize for this post in German without this topic lingering: Es tut (pronounced toot) mir leid.

Ok, I know, enough already.  New topic. Mom, did you ever think your son would take to daily duschen?  Of course I'm refering to the German word for showering.

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Example usage of "f":

But the Illinois Policy Institute has rated La Salle County among the 20 out of 26 Northern Illinois county governments to receive an "F" in its "Local Transparency Project."

mywebtimes.com

Aber der Illinois Policy Institute hat La Salle Grafschaft unter den 20 von 26 Northern Illinois Kreisverwaltungen, um eine "F" in seiner empfangen bewertet "Local Transparency Project".

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Prost to Germany (Cheers)

There are three things you need to know about German culture:  1) they like beer  2) they like beer & 3) they like beer.  This region, I'm told, holds the Guiness world's record for the most breweries in one land area.  One of the more famous local breweries is called Maisel's Weisse (a wheat beer).

The Maisel's Weisse logo can be found just about everywhere.  Streetsigns, beergardens, resaurants, and yes, my children's school fund raiser party.  Brats, cheeseburgers, mineral water, and beer.  Just like your local school, right?

 
I can tell my children are adopting the culture as their own.  Evidentally, Maisel's Weisse also sponsors our homemade puppet theatre.

Meet the Neighbors

We've been in Germany now for almost 1 month.  I think 3 months worth of events have transpired in that month as we've had to relearn how to do everything from ordering a Big Mac at McDonald's to buying water (there's a story there I'll share in another post - Europeans love their carbonation).

This is very difficult for an engineer, but this blog will not be in chronological order.  Painful.  But, it is either that, or I never get started blogging.  Maybe I'll introduce you first to some of our neighbors.

 As you can see, we don't live in a metropolitan area.  Our flat is in a very small town.  The arrival of our family of four caused a 4% population spike.  The rabbit cage sits literally 10 ft, urhhh, I mean 3 meters from our front door.  Makes for some interesting smells as you exit the flat.  You either get nice flower smell, or something....else.  Garfield the cat was unavailable for photos.  I'll have a chat with his agent.

Here is the flat.  The flat owner is a very good gardener.

If you need to triangulate the area, chickens to the right of this photo, horses to the left, and rabbits & cats in the middle.