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Homes for Vacation & Long-Term Rentals

No, that has nothing to do with gas. It’s the sign wishing you a “good trip” as you leave the parking structure in downtown Munich. It seemed to sum up the smelly start we’ve had on this trip.

As you might expect, we arrived safely at the München Flughafen (Munich airport) right on time at 4:00 PM Europe (GMT+1) time (1:00 AM PDT) after 11 hours and 20 minutes of tossing and turning. This was the first little negative of this trip compared to the previous. I took my usual regimen of Klonopin and Melatonin but woke up after 3 hours and just could not get back to sound sleep again. The business class seats were large and comfortable (way better than the sardine coach seats I saw and not much less than the First Class seats). Why even after a second pill I couldn’t get back to sleep I don’t know but it sure affected the next couple of days.

I may have made an error the night before in that my hangover didn’t seem as bad as those on previous trips. We had a wonderful sendoff dinner with Kevin, Kristin, Jeff, Rebecca and Kaylin the night before.

Kevin, Rebecca & Kaylin took us to LAX and dropped us off. Going through the new US security system at the airport wasn’t quite as bad as I had expected. This time I put all my metal in one pocket and had to take my shoes off. Didn’t make any bells go off this time. We took off in usual German fashion on time at 4:40 PM PDT. The Lufthansa flight was smooth with not a bump all the way across northern Canada past Greenland and into Europe. This time I packed much lighter taking practically no clothes and Marcia must have cut back a little also because we were able to get all our bags on one cart instead of the usual two. The Mercedes-Benz cab takes us right to the Atrium hotel for €60. This brings up the second little annoyance of this trip. The Euro has been worth about 80-90 cents for the past several years until about 6 months ago when it has risen rapidly and is now worth $1.20. This means everything costs us about 30% more than it would have last year.

The third little pain is that this Best Western Atrium Hotel (booked by Marcia’s travel agent) is a mediocre at best place but costs €172/night. We were told that it was walking distance to the Marienplatz (center of town) but that is only true if you have your running gear on. It was also located in a slightly seedy Turkish area of the city. With no sleep and really bad jetlag things were weighing heavy on me, almost wishing I was back home. I went for my run in a large park near the church down the block. Instead of a cappuccino, I had a beer at Bar Centrale.

It was refreshing and helped my mood. We took a cab to Marienplatz and had dinner in the Ratskeller in the basement (keller) of the City Hall (Rat) building. I had duck which was pretty good and a very bad Lowenbrau wheat beer. Cab back to the hotel and to bed at about midnight.

Now for the 4^th but really big snag we hit. I had wanted to go directly from the airport to the BMW plant and pick up our car. Marcia did not because she wanted to get checked into the hotel first and argued that we would also have to pay to park the car. She preferred we get it the next day (as we always had in the past). BIG mistake. The next day was Thursday. Not an ordinary Thursday, but Ascension Thursday which is a big holiday in Germany (Bavaria is heavily Roman Catholic while northern Germany is Protestant). We call in the morning and no one answers so now we are stuck in Munich for an extra night. After finally reaching a BMW person from previous years, Rolland tells me that big problem is that Friday is a “bridge day” meaning they will also be closed. The hotel lets us stay Thursday night but after that we have to find another hotel. Friday is our 33^rd wedding anniversary, and I had planned we would celebrate it with Dimitrii in Milano or at least in Sirmione, our little favorite Italian resort on Lago di Garda. Now snag #5: when we

tried to make reservations at the little Alpotel-Tirol in Innsbruck (stopover from Munich to Sirmione), we find out that they have gone out of business.

I woke Thursday at 3:00 AM and could not get back to sleep. The jetlag is getting worse on top of recovering from the cold Kaylin gave me last week and I am really beginning to feel miserable and unhappy. I finally slept from 10 AM to 4:30 and then ran to the Marienplatz and had a cap at my favorite Café Am Der Uni near the University. On the walk back I had a second one at

Café Tambosi right next to where Hitler held his 1^st large rally in Munich. While sitting there I heard live opera music from the courtyard letting me know I was back in Europe again.

I had put a call into Dr. Thomas Neuhann but he never called back so we decided to take a cab to the place he took us to dinner 2 years ago, Locanda Picolit on Siegfriedstraße (ß = ss). Cab back to the Atrium and beer and wine in the hotel bar and got to bed at 2:30 AM. We received a message from Center BMW in LA that “we could pick up the car Friday” but he was wrong.

Friday morning I wake at 5 AM, tossed and turned until the phone rang at 8:00. It’s Olivier from BMW who tells me he is going to try to contact the head of BMW to see if we can get out car. He would call back in within 2 hours. I decided to go for my run and repeated yesterday’s but brought Marcia’s new SONY 4 mega pixel camera to get some photos. After getting a cappuccino, I discover I forgot to bring any Euros with me and for €3.60, the man would not take my credit card. We fought for a few minutes and he finally let me pay him later.

I stopped at a Vodafone store to buy a German chip for Kristin’s English phone but after getting everything in the package, he tells me he can’t accept a MasterCard, only a Eurocard. Can things get better on this trip?

Well yes they did. I walked back to the hotel to find Marcia not in the room. I went to the desk and she left me a message that Olivier had come to pick her up and take her to the Delivery Center. We may be getting our car and get out of here. Marcia finally called to tell me that they opened the place up for her and were putting the plates on the 530i and Olivier was going to guide her back to the hotel. I went downstairs and cancelled our reservations at the Munich Hilton for the weekend and the one at the Best Western in Innsbruck and started to organize the bags. She finally arrived at noon and the little blue Beemer looked really nice (license # M-717-Z). We checked out and all but two bags filled the trunk (its smaller than the 740i).

Two final notes: While in the elevator with a cleaning lady, she asked if I was Americano. I said, “Yes and you?” She said “I am an Iraqi, thank you, our good friends.” I was touched.

While on a walk, Marcia was approached by a man asking her where the Bahnhof (train station) was. When she said she was from California and didn’t know,

he proceeded to tell her he has a girlfriend in CA and has a house here he is trying to sell. He wondered if she might try to help him sell it to a Californian. Can you believe it? A pick up line or what was he up to?

Marcia was a little perturbed that I had taken so long on my run and she had to get the car by herself but since we didn’t pick it up after arrival we called it even. We drove to Marienplatz parking structure and Marcia had lunch of some kind of pork in gravy with a huge potato ball (which she passed on). I took the phone over and paid for the chip in cash (€70). The phone number is 001 (+) 49-162-414-7734) and Marcia will use this until we get a new chip in Scandinavia. Tried my Cash Card in a Deutches Bank ATM and got no money out (with no explanation). I later tried a Dresdener Bank and got €350 easily. I walked over and paid the man his €3.60 and he was surprised I had returned. For one hour the parking garage was €4.60!