Heathrow Says "Hi"

In fact, greetings from the airport that I've referred to on occasion as a "seething pit of humanity".  We're in the middle of a four-hour layover before we get on a plane for Chicago, so even though it's only been, what, 12 hours since I wrote the last one of these, I did say I'd wrap up the adventure with a few final pictures and stories.

And since I always keep my word...

We're sitting in a bank of seats in the center concourse of Terminal 3, and when we sat down I noticed a purse in the chair next to me.  I didn't do anything with it, other than keep an eye on it to make sure no one walked away with it.  Then about 10 minutes later a lady with a southern US accent came running up, literally yelling "has anyone seen a purse"?  I picked it up and gave it to her, and as her eyes started to water she explained that she was sleeping, woke up, and walked away without it.  She thanked me profusely, and went on her way.

First of all, she didn't really need to thank me.  After all, I was just doing what I'd hope someone would do for me should I leave my backpack somewhere.  And second of all, I totally get it.  I know the mental haze and brain fog that early morning international travel can cause.

I was happy to do what I could, and I'm glad it worked out.

By the way, I'm not actually using Heathrow's wi-fi to type this.  Instead, I've turned my "Europe Phone" into a secure wi-fi hotspot.  In fact, Loraine's also using the hotspot to Instagram stalk Tim Civeja (but they're friends, so it's okay).  A couple of years ago I bought an unlocked phone, and every time we come over here I buy a SIM card (or, as they call it, a "Holiday Package" from Orange, which is a French phone company.  The one I get includes 20 gigs of data, plus calling and texting to the US.  I can't recommend it enough, especially because as we're out walking we just wander wherever we want, knowing that Google on my "Europe Phone" will get us back to where we need to be.

It really is a handy thing to have.

Okay.  I mentioned I have a bunch of pictures I haven't shared yet, so in no particular order...

We had hoped that in driving around I might be able to (for the first time in almost a decade) see and photograph a cow.  But alas, that was not to be.  So I picked up the next best thing--

I think it might be my new best friend.

Speaking of weird things you can buy in bookstores, let me introduce you to the coach of the German men's World Cup team--

Julian Nagelsmann used to coach RB Leipzig, the team we've come over here to see twice, so when a toy company put out little figures of the players on the team and they included him, we knew we had to get one.

Even if it really doesn't look too much like him.

Let's see...what else is there?  Speaking of things in toy stores, how about the game of Life, but in German?

Or what they sell in roadside gas stations to drivers who are feeling a little fatigued?

Because I'm a 12-year old at heart, I suppose I should include this one--

At our hotel in Frankurt last night, a freaky looking storm system moved through.  Thankfully, there were no aliens hiding behind it; otherwise, I would have been looking to Will Smith and/or Jeff Goldblum for a little help--

And for one final time, your daily wall of chocolate--

That's about it for this trip.  Loraine and I would both like to thank those of you who've been reading these.  We've enjoyed your comments, both those you've left here and on Facebook, and we're glad that you were able to travel with us virtually.  I would like to thank my esteemed travel partner, as well.  You guys don't know the amount of work she does in finding us interesting places to go and weird things to see, so if at any point you've through to yourself "Wow...that's interesting", that's because of Loraine.

She deserves all the credit.  

Well, now we only have three hours until our flight from Chicago.  Hopefully, we won't get stuck behind a seathole, as we were on the way over, and hopefully, they actually let us back into the US.  Keep your fingers crossed on both counts, if you would.  We'd appreciate it.

8-)

See you next time around!

(jimkoskimqt@gmail.com)

Happy Father's Day

If this is how Germans celebrate Father's Day, I can just imagine the blowout that is their Mother's Day.

Holiday greetings (yes, holiday) from the Frankfurt Airport Sheraton, where we'll be spending a few hours (very few, as I'll explain in a bit) before beginning the long & arduous journey home tomorrow.  As with almost everything over here, the airport is being renovated and expanded, so much like our first day in Saarbrucken it took us a bit to find our way around.  But now we know where we're going, and since we have to leave at an inhuman hour tomorrow, that's a good thing.

Right?

As I had mentioned, it's a holiday over here.  Well, it's two, actually, and because of that most businesses and schools are closed.  It's Ascension Day, and it's also German Father's Day.  They always combine the two and give everyone the day (or the weekend) off, thus allowing anyone who's a father to celebrate in the most German of ways.

You see, according to tradition (and Wikipedia), German fathers celebrate the day by dressing up in weird clothing, putting a bunch of beer in a wooden wagon, hauling said wagon to the nearest park, and then drinking the beer until they pass out.

I can see why it's a national holiday.

Because of that (and a ferocious rain storm) we couldn't do much in Saarbrucken before we left.  The skies did, however, clear long enough so that we could attend one final practice of 1 FC Saarbrucken, where, after being there four times, we started to notice a few things.  One was this group of people--

We've dubbed them "The Kaffee Klatch".  From what we can tell they actually show up to every practice the team has, although it never seems they're actually watching practice.  They just spend most of their time chatting and drinking coffee.  I guess they're like any group of older people who sit around and tell stories.  They just do it while a professional football team is training.

The other thing we noticed?  Well, because it was indeed a holiday, there were a lot of families with kids there.  One, in particular, caught our eye--

His parents were sitting several rows behind us, while he wanted to move up front so he could see everything going on, bringing with him a calendar, an autograph book, and a Sharpie, so he could have players sign stuff for him.

It was actually kinda cute.  As was this--as practice was wrapping up and the team was coming off the pitch, the new Most Important Man in Loraine's Life, Tim Civeja, waved and smiled at her.

That made leaving Saarbrucken just a little bit cooler.

Our home for these past six days was Saarbrucken's Motel One, the tenth Motel One at which we've stayed while in Germany.  We like them because they're kinda funky, and this time around we scored a great room--

One of the highlights of staying at a Motel One is their breakfast spread--

And, like all Motel Ones, they get their funkiness from tying a part of local history into their hotel.  For instance, the one we always stay at in Leipzig commemorates the protests there that led to the downfall of the Berlin Wall, while the one in Saarbrucken also deals with a wall.

In their case, they have part of the old city defensive wall running right through their lobby--

You really don't see that at a lot of hotels.  So if you're ever in Germany (or Austria, Scotland, or New York City), check out a Motel One.

Tell 'em Jim & Loraine sent you.

Since we did spend most of the day driving, there really isn't too much more to report, although before we left Saarbrucken I did take care of a tradition.  The first time Loraine and I went to Europe, back in 2004, my niece Mallory was 6 years old, and desperately wanted to come with us.  Since her mom wouldn't let her, we did the next best thing--we took along a bookmark she had given me and took a picture of it, just to show that she had indeed come to Europe with us.  Well, Mallory's now an adult and a young business owner, but you know what?

She still comes to Europe with us each and every time we go.  So Mallory, here's where you were hanging out in Saarbrucken--

Okay.  Now the "fun" part begins.  The first thing I need to do it to arrange all the chocolate we purchased into the containers I brought, so I can carry the most important pieces in my backpack and laptop bag and leave the lesser pieces in checked baggage.  And typing that line reminds me:

Here's today's wall of chocolate--

Once I'm done Tetris-ing all the chocolate into the containers, we'll try to sleep a little bit.  Our first flight leaves at 6:10 tomorrow morning, which means we have to get up around 3, which is actually 9 pm Thursday night in Marquette.  We fly from here to London, stay there a few hours, fly from London to Chicago, spend a few hours there, and then (hopefully) end up in Marquette 24 hours after we woke up.

It's not the best way to spend a Friday, but I'm guessing it beats passing out from drinking too much beer in a German park, right?

The London to Chicago leg of our flight has free wi-fi and eight hours of time to kill, so I'll post one more of these epics with a bunch of pictures and stories I haven't used yet.  After all, there are worse ways to pass a little time, right?

(jimkoskimqt@gmail.com)

Loraine Can Now Die Happy

We came, we saw, we met Tim Civeja.

For the last time on this trip, greetings from Saarbrucken, where I am no longer the most important guy in Loraine's life.  But you know what?  I'm okay with that, especially after she was able to meet her Saarbrucken football idol, the aforementioned Tim Civeja--

Actually, she did more than just meet him.  He spent 20 minutes talking to her (in flawless English because, you know, he's German and that's what they do), remembering an Instagram post she put up about him (because she tagged him in it), and even running back into the dressing room to grab some stuff he could sign for her--

We have a fair amount of experience dealing with celebrities, so we know how most of them act.  But not Tim.  Several times, we gave him an "out", a chance for him to leave, and several times he politely turned it down, because he said he was interested in speaking with Loraine.  When he finally DID leave, he invited her to continue the conversation on Instagram.  Most people with a little fame to their name don't do that, but Tim Civeja did.

And that's why, in the five hours since this happened, Loraine has not been able to stop smiling

8-)

Since the team didn't practice (and Loraine couldn't meet the new most important man in her life) until afternoon, we had the morning to atone for burning a bunch of gas Monday driving to three different countries to buy chocolate.  We did that by walking everywhere, including the part of Saarbrucken that holds the city's old castle.  The castle itself is big and elevated, but behind it were a flight of stairs that never seemed to end--

So we walked up the stairs, in the process probably burning off the calories from all the chocolate we've been buying, and were rewarded with views like this--

The whole neighborhood was kind of like Ridge Street in Marquette, elevated above everything and providing views that are second to none.  It was a cool place; once we were done, we took the stairs back down.

You can trust me on this--the stairs were a LOT easier to go down than they were to go up.

(That reminds me--someone left a comment on a Facebook post about one of these blogs asking if we eat all the chocolate we buy before we come home.  No, Renee, we don't.  If we ate all that chocolate we buy while we're here, we'd be doing nothing but climbing those stairs in an attempt not to gain 5,000 pounds in a week.  We bring them home and eat them gradually, so that we can at least have a fighting chance not to have a weight gain in the 3 or 4 figure range).

But, with that in mind, here's today's wall of chocolate--

While we were up at the top of Saarbrucken, I took this picture--

That is just one small section of the Willi Graf Ufer, a riverwalk that runs along the Saar, and has provided the backdrop for several of the pictures I've posted the past few days.  It's a gorgeous trail that has everything from playgrounds to ping-pong tables running along it.  It's named after Willi Graf, who was a member of the White Rose resistance movement during World War II.  If you've been reading these trip thingees since we began writing them, you know of our admiration for people like the Scholl siblings, or Chrisoph Probst, or Willi Graf, who was raised in Saarbrucken.

And since he's buried here, we decided another place we should walk was to pay his grave a visit.

German cemeteries aren't like American cemeteries; they are, in fact, somewhere dark and gothic--

But one of the things they do is to make it easy to find the final resting place of anyone important who's buried there, and the old cemetery in Saarbrucken is no exception--

In fact, all you need to do is turn the corner, and there you'll find his final resting place--

Complete with a monument to his short but vital life, brutally cut short by a vicious regime--

Loraine felt bad that we didn't bring anything, but then she remembered the words of Tony the Tour Guide when we visited Sophie Scholl's grave in Munich without any flowers--"the important thing is that you're here".

And we were indeed there.  Which made it kind of interesting and just a little freaky that soon afterwards, we came across this--

If you don't know anything about the White Rose group, I highly suggest you go down that rabbit hole when you have a few minutes.  You'll find a lot out there about it, because Germany, better than most countries, realizes what happens when authoritarians or authoritarian governments try to silence dissent or tries to make "the other"--someone who looks different or loves different or worships different--into an object of hate.

They do it because it's happened here , and they want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

That's about it for today.  I've been writing this for almost an hour, and the smile still hasn't left Loraine's face.  I, however, think that's one of the coolest things ever, because if anyone deserves to have a smile linger like that, it's her.

And just because I can, here's another shot of Loraine and the most important guy in her life--

Tomorrow, we attend one more practice of the team, I hope that Loraine doesn't decide to stay here permanently, and we hit the road to Frankfurt to begin our long journey home.  

So until then...

(jimkoskimqt@gmail.com)

Attack of the Killer Waterfowl

After the attack I faced today, I'm lucky to be alive.

Really, I am.

More on how I faced death in just a little bit.  First, though, greetings once again from Saarbrucken, where today was handschuh weather.  What, exactly, IS handschuh weather, you ask?  Well, I answer, handschuh is one of those wonderful German compound words, where they combine two (or more) words to make a third word.  In this case, "hand" stands for, obviously, "hand", while "schuh" means "shoes".

So what do I mean when I say today was "handschuh" weather?  Well, it was cold enough to wear gloves because in German, "handschuh" means gloves.  Or, if you were to take the compound word literally, "hand shoes".

That's right--the German word for gloves actually means "hand shoes".  The more you know, I guess.

Since we visited three countries yesterday to buy chocolate, and since Loraine's soccer team wasn't practicing at all (although we did stop at their fan shop so she could stock up), we spent today getting to know the non-touristy parts of Saarbrucken a little better.  We wandered around pretty neighborhoods--

Up & down tree lined streets (with, I might add, some of the very odd trees you see all around here)--

And just enjoyed a few of the gorgeous flowers that seem to have popped out everywhere around here--

We also ran across more sandstone buildings.  I will spare you any more pictures of them; after all, there is the possibility that I may have gone just a teeny-tiny bit overboard in that department on Saturday.  But I do want to show you one that led Loraine and I to notice some of the city's more recent history--

If you're standing on the street and look closely at the building, you can see where bullet holes were left in the sandstone when the Americans (the 70th Infantry Division, to be specific) came into the city in February 1945--

And even where part of the building must have been hit by a mortar, to be patched up at some point since the end of the war--

Once we noticed this and figured out that it must be along the route the Americans took into Saarbrucken, you could actually follow it all the way into the heart of the city, the Rathaus (or city hall), which we're guessing must have been the focal point for the troops coming in.

Being married to a World War II expert allows you to notice strange things about old buildings, I guess.

Speaking of the Saarbrucken Rathaus, they have a sculpture of a dude killing a dragon on the side of the building--

Why can't Marquette's City Hall have a sculpture of a dude killing a dragon on the wall?  Don't we deserve a sculpture of a dude killing a dragon on the wall?

I may have to bring that up during the next City Commission meeting.

World War II and its aftereffects also played a role into the other big thing we did today, and also caused the incident where I was attacked by some crazed beings. On the southern edge of Saarbrucken is the Franco-German Gardens, stuck right on the border of the two countries (literally, we turned the corner the wrong way trying to find it and found ourselves in France) to commemorate three battles--The Franco-Prussian War, and the two World Wars. In fact, the Gardens even incorporate part of the German "Western Wall"--a line of defensive fortifications they built in the 1930s--into the park--

It's a gorgeous park (even when it's handschuh weather and the windchill's down around freezing), filled with a lake, gardens, and trails--

It's also home to all kinds of wildlife, especially waterfowl.  They have ducks, geese, and these things that may be ducks or may be geese or may just be Pokemon characters--

And that's how I came under attack today, barely surviving the attempt on my life.

Let me explain.

Loraine and I were wandering around the park, enjoying the scenery, commenting upon all the little things the people of France and Germany have collectively put into it, and thinking that this was a really cool way to cement the bond between the two countries.  All of a sudden we hear a cacophony from a bunch of birds that sounded like nothing I've ever heard.  I pulled my phone out to record it, thinking it might be cool, when, and I'm not kidding here, two of the birds turned and attacked me--

I don't know what prompted the unprovoked attack. It's like I was a photographer and the birds were 2000-era Britney Spears.  All I wanted to do was record the sounds they were making.  I didn't know I would come that close to death in trying to do so.

But thankfully, I made it through by the skin of my teeth.

After that, we just came back into town and explored a little more.  All in all, it was an interesting way to spend a handschuh day, and learn a little bit about the place that's allowed us to stay for the week.  I said it last night, and I'll probably say it again, but if you're ever visiting anywhere, go where the tourists aren't. That way, you get to find out what a place is really like.  

Even if you have to risk death by waterfowl to do it.

8-)

A few random pictures to share, the first being more proof that Germans really ARE trying to fight climate change, especially with the way they deliver mail in the cities--

Football is, of course, the HUGE sport over here.  But it seems like the other football--the Lions & Packers kind--is gaining a foothold, especially here in Saarbrucken--

Right after the attack on my life, as I was contemplating my mortality, Loraine noticed that no one's come up to me with a history question or recognized me since we got here.  It's actually kind of cool being anonymous and able to contemplate my mortality for a change--

Although maybe that's why the waterfowl attacked me.  Maybe they had a history question to ask, or they wanted to comment on last week's "Life in the 906".

But probably not.

And, finally, today's wall of chocolate--

Tomorrow's already (!!) our last full day here in Saarbrucken, so all those things we haven't done yet should be taken care of, even if we have to deal with handschuh weather and/or goose attacks again.

The former I can handle.  The latter?  Well, I'd rather not go through that again.

(jimkoskimqt@gmail.com)

Oh, the Places We'll Go (For Chocolate)

I don't know if your average sane couple would do this, but we bought chocolate from seven different stores in three countries within the span of 6 or hours.

Is Europe a great place, or what?

Greetings once again from Saarbrucken, where we accomplished one of the two great tasks we hoped to achieve while over here.  Since it was cold and rainy and since we weren't sure if Loraine's soccer club would be practicing today (especially after they lost last night in Hoffenheim, although Loraine's favorite player Tim Civeja scored both their goals!) we decided to hit the road for the semi-epic trip of which we've been dreaming for lo these many months.

One of the reasons we chose Saarbrucken as a base this time around is because it's only 15 or so kilometers to France and only 60 or so to Luxembourg, which means that we would have no problem popping over the French border to both Forbach and Oeting, where we could shop at two stores with walls of chocolate like this--

Then, another 20 minutes later, we were in Creuzwald, for two more really BIG walls of chocolate--

Then we hit the road, again left France, cut through Germany, and ended up in Luxembourg, for yet another wall of chocolate--

The best thing about the stop in Luxembourg?  The chocolates we were really looking forward to getting were buy two, get one free.  It's almost like they knew we were coming and wanted to make us feel as welcome as possible, right?

8-)

The final haul from France and Luxembourg?

That should last us, what...a week or so?  And lest you think all I did was take pictures of walls of chocolate today, here's a palette cleanser for you.

A wall of beer-

As I mentioned, it takes less than an hour to get from country to country in this neck of the woods.  Even when you're driving those relatively short distances, you notice many varied differences between here and the US.  For instance, over here there are no billboards to distract you while you're behind the wheel.  You also notice windmills, solar farms, and electric cars everywhere, because Europe, one of the places hardest hit by climate change, is looking to the future for energy, as opposed to going back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

You even notice it with things like a simple bottle of water--

The water itself costs 17 cents, but since it's plastic the deposit on the bottle is 35 cents, to make sure you recycle instead of toss it.  Not only that, but you'll notice that the cap is actually attached to the bottle, so that every bit of it gets recycled.

They're serious about clean energy and a clean environment over here.  So hopefully, we didn't set back their efforts too much by driving to seven different stores in three different countries in six or so hours to get our chocolate. 

If so, we'll do our best to make up for it when we get back home by doing what we usually do, and walk everywhere.

Speaking of the countries in which we drove today, zipping through France & Luxembourg was a breeze.  However (and we noticed this last time we were here) every single Autobahn in Germany seems to be under construction at the moment.  Sure, it's a vaunted roadway system where, in some places, they don't even have a speed limit.  But more often than not, you end up plodding along at 40 kph as three lanes of traffic try to merge into one because there's a construction site ahead.

Maybe one of these years I'll get to test my nerves by seeing how fast I might go on a freeway with no speed limit.

Maybe.

Just a few random pictures to wrap up the day.  You recall yesterday when I was talking about Spargel, the white asparagus that's just come into season here?  Well, something else is now being picked and offered to you right off the farm--

We didn't actually come across any bizarre pot shop windows today (it's still illegal in France, although not in Luxembourg, if you're keeping track at home).  But once we got back to Germany...

Finally, I have to share something I saw at the store we went to in Remich, Luxembourg.  And since they offered us three Galler chocolate bars for the price of 2, and since we ended up buying (ahem) nine of them, let's give the Cactus store there a little free publicity--

It's such a cool store, in fact, that I would buy just about anything I saw in the place.

Well, except for one thing.  While looking around for their chocolate aisle, Loraine and I came across their soft drink section, which had just about any pop you could imagine.  It even had one you would NEVER imagine, perhaps the one thing that you could never convince me to buy, even if you offered it to me as a buy 2, get one free deal.

What exactly IS that one product?  Let me present to you Fanta's Banana and Chocolate soda--

Yes, that's a real product.  And no, I have no idea why.

With that, I'm going to lovingly gaze upon the 30 or so bars of magical wonder that we purchased today and, hopefully, not have too many bad dreams about (and I can't believe I'm actually typing this) banana and chocolate flavored soda pop.

(jimkoskimqt@gmail.com)