• Starbucks is the only place I’ve seen with iced coffee, and beyond that, the only place I’ve seen more than 2 lbs of ice in a single location.  Saw my first three Starbucks in Frankfurt today, but you couldn’t see the other two from the lobby of the first one, like in the Northwest.  LOL!
• In public places there are WAY less people bugging you to buy a copy of the Homeless Weekly for a buck, but when they do they won’t go away, and “I don’t speak German” does not matter – they speak every language known to mankind.
• On Sundays there is a law, that is actually enforced, that requires quiet between noon and 2pm (I might have the times wrong).  A woman I was training this week told me her husband had the cops called on him, and they showed up, to tell him to turn off his lawnmower because he was disturbing the neighborhood during mandatory quiet time.
• The rental car place let me know that in France soon every rental car will have a disposable blood-alcohol checker in it, because it is a new law for all drivers.  Legal limit in Germany?  .05, and if you’re in an accident at .03, your fault or not, you lose your license for 3 days immediately while a judge decides if you’re going to get to drive again.
• Bought a pack of 500mg ibuprophin over the counter.  Insert your own rant about the US medical and pharmaceutical lobbyists here, I’m not typing mine – it has too many bad words in it.
• The metric system kicks ass.  I mean, it’s disorienting to not really have a good “feel” for how far 1000 meters is, but when my GPS says 2km and the sign says 2000m to the exit, my brain goes, “excellent.”  It’s like we need a schoolhouse rock song for it, because I can hear Bob Dorough singing in my head “…see how convenient that is…”
• Our culture is unnaturally uptight about sexuality.  In my grocery store, Cosmo is sometimes covered up because it violates some “cleavage rule” I am unfamiliar with.  Here, Playboy is on the shelf, cover exposed, in any place you can buy a magazine (because it’s so tame).  I’m not saying there is ridiculous crazy porn everywhere, but no one freaks out over a boob – it’s a non-issue.
• On the other hand, I drove past an adult store that said, “[something in German] Erotic!” and it was right next door to a kids toy store – both shops were the size of a small grocery store.  It seems efficient, you get your toys, I’ll get mine, I’ll be right over in a minute to pay for yours.  It’s just a little jarring to see the two RIGHT NEXT to each other.  The adult store is all blacked out of course, and there is not one hint of what’s inside, so I don’t see a problem, but the uptight American I was in the car with when we drove by pointed the adult toy store out to me like it was a giant vagina exposed on the street next to the place he wanted to take his kids.  Toni and I have always been honest with our kids when they ask things, so I guess I didn’t understand how explaining “erotic” was difficult no matter what age your kid is – you don’t have to bust out soft-core porn to explain it, do you?  Shit, just say it’s an adult thing.  They don’t want to go in there any more than they want to try your tequila.  Why do adults do that gross stuff?  :-)

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Take a gander at this picture and see if you can Spot the Insanity. I’ve put that in caps in case I decide to make it a regular feature on the site. I may – tonight I’m packing up so I can check out of my hotel in the morning.

Tomorrow class is out early, kids, because the trainer is hitting the road! My tentative plan is Paris then London over the weekend, but the only thing I have reserved is a flight back here (Frankfurt) from London – everything else is up to me. Let’s do this!

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I’m on a business trip and I’ve gotta do a little working, so I had this hot plate of deliciousness served up. I actually walked the 50 ft to the hotel restaurant to order and brought it back so I could have a whiskey on the rocks before dinner, too.

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My wife will need to bring 20 lbs of ice when I finally get to bring her to Europe. If told Toni I would get her an iced water and brought this to her, she would check the calendar to see if it was April Fools’ Day!

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I got these delicious cookies – all they need is a little raspberry jam and they’d be the best peanut butter and jelly cookies ever.

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I forgot the power cord for my laptop at work today, so I decided this was one of the nights I would go explore.

I tried to go to the local version of a mall, but I got there 20 mins to 8pm, when most everyone was closing up or closed. There are laws governing what hours businesses can be open here, and most places are closed on Sunday. Nothing is open 24 hours.

So I flipped around and cruised this side of Kaiserslautern. The Germany Lonely Plant Guide tells me that this town is not high on their “must see” list, but is nice to live in. It was so completely leveled by the French in the 1600s that everything that once made it cool is gone. At one point it was the seat of German power, and then again, at one point the French could beat the Germans in battle, too. It was a long time ago.

I have been struggling with going out because I don’t speak German. I know many locals do, and of course there is a big US military base here, so it’s probably fine. A guy I’m working with has been stationed here for over a year but doesn’t speak a word of German. He said the trick is, don’t ask if they know German, because lots of people will say no when they are not very fluent or confident, but most everyone knows enough to get you through a transaction at a register.

It’s just that I don’t want to come off like a jerk, all, “Nice country Germans! What’s up? Us Americans assume you all have bent to our will by now, so I’m not bothering with your language.” I want to sound more like, “hello nice people who live here, I don’t speak German or understand your money but I am a nice guy so please don’t screw me when you make change. By the way, did you know that your comma in the price there should look more like a period? Just sayin’…”

So I’ve been reluctant. I shopped yesterday and didn’t understand they didn’t take Visa. I would contend that this misunderstanding would have happened in plain English, because she took my card, looked at it, and ran it through the machine and waited. Then she sets it on the counter and says, in German, “We don’t take Visa.”

This behavior would make me say, “What?” twice in any language.

We worked it out, me and that zany clerk, but dinner is tougher. Think about it. Your meal comes with a salad, what kind of dressing do you want? Dinner roll or a sourdough loaf? How well do you want your steak cooked? These kinds of complex concepts are not going to be conveyed to me by waving your hands over the card and saying, “blah blah blah blaktershaven, Visa” until I figure out that you don’t take Visa but you swiped my card anyway (Why?!).

With these thoughts in my head and a strong determination not to go to Burger King (I still hate you, Burger King), I scanned the road, bathed in the too-bright glow of a fully lit Burger King sign a block away from a garishly overlit Burger King as I waited at the stoplight. Not a chance, you disgusting exported crap, I’m looking for anything else.

Problem was, in Germany it’s getting late. So I pull into the first place I remember from driving down the street before – styled after an old American diner, with booths and a bar and a milkshake machine on the counter. I didn’t even realize I was in an “American food” place until I got a menu, but in hindsight I must have had some sort of brain malfunction not to put two and two together on that one.

That’s okay, it looked like a well done local owned thing – a one-off, not a chain. They bragged “no fast food here” on the menu, but the rest was in German so I couldn’t read it. The funny thing was it was just like going to Gustav’s in Washington state, where names of the dishes are in German to be more authentic and give you a “German” experience. Here, they were in English. Sadly the descriptions are for the natives.

I usually try to eat different stuff when I travel so I did an initial scan to see if I could find anything with a German kick. Maybe just a hint. Nope, pretty American (well, everyone serves schnitzel, pork pounded flat, breaded and fried, but I had that at a better restaurant last night).

Instead I decide to go back to the burgers. It’s a burger joint, there is a page and a half of them, and they all have names that sound like someone took some common American proper nouns and attached them to burgers. I scan the list and think about burger joints, where the further down the list you go the weirder things get. How weird could things be in a German American Diner?

The fourth one down is “The South Dakota Burger.” Funny, but when I think of South Dakota I think “hmmm… flat… rectangular… cold winters… farming?… Uh… I got nothing here.” if you said to me, “Brian, make me a South Dakota Burger!” I would be at a total loss. If the idea is to spruce it up with an indigenous topping (like avocado is to California on a burger menu), I might say cow patty. Sorry South Dakota! Nice people, I’m sure, but if I ever live there it will be against my will.

Anyway, I can’t read the description but I’m a smart guy. I can figure things out in context and I am looking at an all-burger page. I am also in a country where no one expects you to finish a meal in under two hours so I have time on my side. And I have ordered a burger or two in my life.

I scan my burger, the South Dakota. I figure out the description of the bun, and the meat. Then come mystery ingredients. I scan the rest of the menu and find a Swiss Burger (it’s like Inception, for diners! A German American Diner with a Swiss burger! We have to go deeper! Does it have… French’s mustard!?). It has one of my mystery ingredients – I guessed it too! Mushrooms. Nice. I deconstruct this burger and figure out it has more flowery descriptions of each component because it’s in the “gourmet” section and is $5 more. Finally I decide if my burger has mushrooms I’m happy, I can pick off anything too crazy, and order it.

Turns out, South Dakotans (if that’s what they are called and if they are still reading), your signature burger is a cheddar and mushroom burger with undercooked bacon, lettuce, BBQ sauce and too much mayo (and I like mayo). The fries came with what I assume was a sort of sour cream and chive dip that I ate far too much of, because I love to dip things. It was like an inside out baked potato. Deep fried. Okay, it was bad for me, sure, but I’m just trying to sample the local-ish cuisine.

Overall it was good. The experience was a real confidence booster, which is good because I have wicked crazy plans in the coming days. I’ll keep ya posted, but if anyone is jealous already, as some of you have expressed, you might not be able to handle my weekend posts.

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So, at first I thought it was kind of weird that the entire floor of my hotel room was marble tile. Then I found the spot on the floor where the hot water pipe runs under the floor. Now I think I’ve found the best place in the world to stand barefoot and think. .

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This could only be tastier if Toni was across the table from me saying “spicy spatzle” over and over.

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When I traveled to Germany last time a lot of people asked me what it was like.  I worked a trade show for two weeks – it was like a nightmare, with a slightly German tang to it – it was really just an international trade show that happened to be here.

This trip is different.  I flew in and rented a car.  I then proceeded to drive an hour, and I had to know where I was going and what I was doing.  The experience is considerably different than taking a train to a trade show every day with someone else, especially for someone like me who knows barely a word of German.  Here are some things I’ve noticed so far as I’ve traveled:

• Cars here are smaller.  A lot smaller.  My 4-door VW Golf is not that small, and larger than many other cars on the road.
• More roundabouts, less warning – be on the lookout.
• Having people whipping past you at 110 MPH is slightly jarring, but it beats trying to read signs in a foreign language at 110 MPH.  Most the time the freeway limit is around 60 MPH, but there are many places where it’s 80 MPH, and others where no one cares how fast you go.  I like the spirit of this – I never understood why in the US my car could go 90, but I’m not allowed to drive it that fast, anywhere.  That’s my theoretical approach.  Of course, in reality I’m usually sneaking around the buses while watching my rear-view mirror to make sure no one is rocketing down the fast lane.  I don’t need to go that fast.
• The Garmin GPS interface is stupid.  I refuse to elaborate, but I marvel at how easy it was to map and follow a route on my iPhone the first time compared to today’s debacle.  I didn’t get too lost, but being lost in a different language takes it to another level.  I had to figure out how to read a map – a skill I excel at, but alas, I speak no German and have never driven here before.  Good thing I’m really good at reading a map.  :-)
• Also, when you miss your exit or make a wrong turn and end up on the freeway you are punished severely.  It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m in a busy area like Frankfurt or here, if you miss your exit, you’re screwed.  I guess since they can drive faster they space the exits from the freeway further apart?  I dunno, but it seemed like every time I got on a freeway going the wrong way, it was half an eternity before you could get off and turn around and then you had to be really careful.  If you aren’t paying attention you’ll end up on another freeway that has no exits instead of getting off the freeway.  This can take you far off course.
• State-side I find the grocery store overwhelming a lot of the time – probably because I don’t leave my house enough now that I work at home, but also because there are 500 loaves of bread at every store, and each store has a slightly different selection.  Now imagine you’re in Germany.  LOL!  It’s about the same, except the store is mercifully smaller.  Still, completely overwhelming just walking through.  I didn’t even know what to stop and look at half the time, it was so bizarre and yet familiar.
• [If you have sensitive ears or like Burger King, skip this one]  Hey, fuck you Burger King.  I don’t like your stupid-assed signs eating up the horizon at home, but to see how you’ve shoehorned your little signs around everywhere in this beautiful old town (like, multiple signs in weird places, blocks away from the restaurant) makes me want to vomit.  If I never eat at another US fast food chain, good riddance! (except you Burgerville – you actually care about your customers and you buy locally)
• The radio is a real crapshoot, and top of the hour news sucks when it’s completely incomprehensible.  On the plus side, the radio is a real crapshoot – I got to hear some crazy German pop music, and some German folk music.  They have more FM classical stations than us, too.  I guess there have been quite a few German composers, now that I think about it.
• This isn’t a new thought for me, but I am constantly reminded that the Europeans on the whole appreciate design and aesthetics more than we do.  The menu at the restaurant boasted a bottled water that won a design contest for its bottle, and there was a picture in the menu (but almost no pictures of food).
• And to wrap this list up, my hotel is absolutely amazing.  It is very old, and has a great restaurant and bar (and wine cellar!)  The ambiance, the family owned business – it’s really awesome.  They allow pets and there is a dog that hangs out under the check-in counter.  They room key is, oddly enough, a real key that you must insert on the inside to lock it as well.  That wasn’t as strange to me as the lock on bathroom door – also a key, on both sides of the door – even if it is one of those old generic “keys” that is basically a lever.

Okay, time for me to get my head on a pillow before I pass the heck out sitting up.  No jet lag (I don’t believe in it) but only a few hours sleep in the last two days, and it’s catching up to me!

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There are cool old buildings like this everywhere – this one is across from the market I went to for groceries.

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The Germans are ready to help you with your clown nightmares. What? You weren’t having clown nightmares? Glad this sign could help with that.

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The board game Power Grid is being taken seriously here. I saw them adding more of these giant windmills – nothing like powering a city without buying resources during your turn!

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