Welcome to Germany

We arrived successfully in Bacharach, Germany on Friday -- after making no fewer than three train connections (Haarlem to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf to Bingen, Bingen to Bacharach). We're now beginning to feel pretty good about our ability to manage the train network here.

Bacharach is a picture-postcard medieval town on the Rhine, not far upstream from the famous (albeit somewhat disappointing to look at) Lorelei stone. Upon our arrival here on Friday, we went to the small market here, bought some provisions for breakfasts and lunches, and some frozen pizzas for Friday's dinner, and then took a look at this town. We did the Rick Steeves self-guided walk, and have since then seen at least three other groups of American tourists doing the same thing! We've taken to counting the number of blue-covered guidebooks we see on each outing.

The apartment is great -- kitchen, full bath, a proper bedroom for us and two twin pull-outs in the living room for the kids. It seems to have recently been renovated and is well-laid out. There is even a tv with cable (on which we've seen the international version of CNN). Except that it has no internet and no washing machine. We've had a lot of success doing laundry in the sink, but the lack of internet has been a real pain (about which more later). We've also struggled a bit with the language. Our landlady, with whom Susan made the reservations and who speaks English, has been away -- at a family funeral, as I learned today -- and we've been communicating with her husband who speaks slightly less English than I do German. But he's been as helpful as possible, under the circumstances, and we're managing pretty well.

On Saturday, we took the Rhine boat cruise from here to St. Goar where we visited an amazing catle ruin (Rheinfels).

Here's a sample of what we saw from the boat:

The ruin was everything John wants in a castle -- walls, towers, lots of emplacements for shooting arrows, dangerous precipices, and dark tunnels! We had not planned ahead to bring a proper flashlight (though, naturally, we have one in the flat) so we used Susan's tiny emergency light, which got us through and made it more of an adventure.

Here's a shot of John and Margaret standing among their favorite ruins:

There was also an excellent children's activity, but it existed only in German. My German was not quite good enough to read the whole children's story that came with it, but the activity was to look throughout the castle for some hidden letters (the rooms where we were to look were marked with a little shield with a rampant lion). We found all of the letters, except for those that were in the great cellar, which was blocked off for a private event. When rearranged, the letters spelled out the name of the family that built the castle: Katzelnbogen. Anyway, the kids loved it.

The day ended with a wonderful meal in Das Altes Haus, a restarurant here in Bacharach in the oldest building in town (1536, I think). Turns out that John loved his schnitzel! Who would have guessed? We, on the other hand, are discovering a taste for Rhenish wine.

Sunday was more adventurous still. We took the train to Koblenz, then to the small town of Moselkern. Thanks to a friendly local at the train station and a bit of half-remembered German, we figured out that we could get a family ticket to visit the Rhein-Pfalz area and saved a bundle. After the train ride, we walked about a half hour through town then about an hour through the woods to Burg Eltz, which Rick Steeves claims in his guidebook is his favorite castle in Europe. As you can see, the hike was tiring:

It is certainly very impressive, and it is definitely refreshing to see a castle here that was not destroyed by the French (anything Louis XIV didn't destroy, Napoleon pretty much did). John was very disappointed to find a castle not in ruins. Here's a picture of Susan and Me with the castle in the background:

Dinner, however, posed a problem. We had not found a place to buy any food in St. Goar on Saturday, and all the stores would be closed in Bacharach when we returned, and we knew that the kids could not stay out for another late night. So we took the desperate measure of eating at McDonalds in the Koblenz train station -- buying the food was one of the few transactions we undertook entirely in German thus far. Good thing I took a couple of semesters of German in grad school. Too bad I didn't do more. (Having failed to bring a phrase book here, I ended up buying a German to English phrase book in a German bookstore in Koblenz, and it has been surprisingly helpful).

Today, however, we seem to have lost our German mojo a little bit. We contine having trouble getting the local cash machines to give us cash, and no one around here takes credit cards. They all seem to be on a new debit-card system using cards with built in chips like the Colby cards, but our cards are not useful except in the biggest places. We had hoped to rent bikes, but that place was closed today. So we had the kids spend the morning doing schoolwork (spelling and fractions for John, history and math for Margaret) and writing in their journals. After fighting over the journal writing, we have taken to paying them: John gets 1 Euro for 50 words, Margaret gets 1 Euro for 100 words (bonus Euros for lots more writing). Now that they have their own pocket-money, it is much easier for us to say no to impulse-purchases in gift shops, and since it is their money, they are being very careful with it!

In the early afternoon, we took a lovely hike around the old city walls and are contemplating some more serious hikes for tomorrow, or a bike trip if we can get bikes tomorrow.

We expect better access in Dresden. At the moment, I am writing in a church youth center basement with German rap music playing loudly in the background, and am surrounded by German teenagers. It has a certain ambience, but it's not quite like working at home! Especially since the German keyboard switches the keys for y and z and has a host of other minor, irritating differences. Where is a Starbucks with a wi-fi hotspot when you need one?

cheers,
Joe