Happy new year!

A little late (about 45 minutes) from our side, but still a good 7 or
8 hours ahead of our west coast friends. Happy new year everyone!

Koln

Prost From Koln! On our flight to Germany a guy sitting behind us recommended a specific beer from Koln so naturally we had to give it a try. After a bit of window shopping we found a resturant with a view of the Rhine for lunch where we sampled Kolch, the towns famous drink. From there we made our way over to the cathedral which was much larger than the one we had seen yesterday in Aachen. It was pretty dark inside so the camera phone wasn't taking great pictures but I think Liz got a few with the regular camera that we can share when we get home. I've uploaded whatever came out ok to the slideshow. We're on our way home now and still haven't quite decided where we will be spending new years. It's currently a toss up between a small(er) party at the Bearmann's home or a larger get together of Mareike's friends. I think we'll have a better idea after a nap at the house.

:-)

Wassenberg - the "local crowd"

Last night after dinner Liz and I walked 10 minutes down the road with
Mareike to a friends house where we met up with 15-20 other Germans in
our general age group. Most of the evening was spent with Liz and I
people watching, and some broken conversations through Mareike and my
horrendous German. I did manqage to successfully ask one guy if they
ever played beer pong since there was a table at the house but
everyone was simply playing regular ping pong and drinking, and this
just didn't seem right. You can imagine our dismay to hear that beer
pong was not played amongst this group of friends, but also our
excitement to share a cultural bonding experience. Unfortunately we
were visiting on an "off night" for drinking, and playing would have
invariably driven everyone past their normal slow night of 8-12
drinks, so we told Mareike that we would write down the rules and
issued a challenge for the next time we visit.

In closing, and to satisfy my conscience for the business class
upgrade, if anyone from work is reading this can you please pass on
that I intend to complete my timesheet before the end of the day.
Thanks!

Aachen und die autobahn

Aachen was sweet. Good food and great coffee. The cathedral, treasury,
and town hall had lots of really neat (old) stuff. We also caught a
glimpse of the hot springs on the way out that basically was the
deciding factor to start the town of Aachen when Karl the great set up
camp in the area "like a gajillion years ago".

Taking the autobahn into town this morning was especially fun for
reasons that I have been sworn to secrecy until I return to the
states. The most I can say is that its a german thing and that I was
able to experience a portion of the autobahn that I suspect some
Americans never do.

Wassenberg day 1

Last night after arriving at the Baermann's and getting the full house
tour, we had a delicious dinner of cheese and broccoli manicotti and
shared gifts from California. Andrew, Mareike, Pascal, and Nook, the
Baermann's Thai daughter, went to see The Golden Compass, while I
stayed behind with Jens and Astrid. I managed to fall asleep at a
reasonable hour, which was good since we woke up in time to walk down
to the bakery for fresh rolls for breakfast (with nutella or meat and
cheese). This afternoon Jens took us to Aachen, a city nearby with a
lot of history and a good portion of Charlemagne's remains. We ate
lunch at a "typical German" restaurant and after our tours, had a
coffee. Looking forward to roulade for dinner :)
<3 Liz

We have arrived

Just touched down in Frankfurt. Grabbed our bags and hopped on the
first train to Koln. Spotted a few castles already (they could very
well just be big houses, but I'll pretend for now).

Liz wants me to pass on that she intends to never fly coach again, but
we'll see how that works out two weeks from now.

I uploaded some pictures before we left for Germany so those should be
in the slideshow rotation well before you get to read this.

OMG!!! Free Business class upgrade!

I'd like to thank Tony Borek and Tecolote Research for instilling a
sense of never truly being away from work. Allow me to explain. When I
approached the ticketing counter in SFO for our international leg, I
intended to put on a smile and prepare my best one liners in a sad
attempt that almost invariably ends up with no seat upgrades. This
time I was armed with a nifty piece of intel from the Santa Barbara
ticketing agent that the coach section of our flight had been
overbooked. When I told the agent in SFO that I had heard about the
overbooking, and offered up some line about possible upgrades, I was
asked if I was traveling for vacation "or something". I said yes, but
knowing that I would most likely be looking at some form of tecolote
email or submitting a time sheet, I made some crack about electronic
leashes and how I would probably end up "doing something business
related". Without saying much, she punched away at the keyboard and
eventually tore apart our current boarding passes and handed me two
seats in business class. I had originally asked if an upgrade to
Economy Plus was possible since I didn't really know the difference,
and I'd love to explain it to you but the champagne tray is walking by
so I have to go...

The transfer in SFO

So the flight from Santa Barbara to San Francisco was a little choppy.
Very strange weather systems that city has. We experienced almost no
turbulence up until we were probably three or four hundred feet above,
what looked like, calm fog. At which point the plane hurled itself
around in all sorts of interesting fashions that I have not felt a
turboprop do in a while.

But we landed safely and are now taking the shuttle across to the
international terminal.

Packing complete (finally)

After a fair amount of last minute shopping on my part, I think I've finally crammed all my crap into my new eagle creek luggage (sweet Christmas gift from Mom) and should be all set assuming I didn't forget to pack 20 things.

On a more interesting note, welcome to the eurotrip blog! Over the next two weeks I'll do my best to keep this puppy updated as Liz and I travel through europe. Of course all talk and no imagery is boring and nobody wants to wait until you actually get back to see your pictures, so I've setup a slideshow over to the left of this page that should (in theory) update itself with the latest pictures that i've uploaded to my flickr account. This won't be all the pictures, but probably a select few from each day that I can snap with my camera phone. If it doesn't work while we're abroad, I'll at least pick one good picture from the day and include it in that days post (which will show up in the body of these posts instead).

I'm off to the airport in a couple of hours where I hope to be sending the first of many updates... see you guys then!