Phoenix's Europe Tour
This morning started out well, with both Chris and I managing to wake up around the time that my alarm went off (we are using my PDA and his iPod as alarm clocks in lieu of actually bringing the travel alarm that I had meant to bring). The weather outside the window wasn't exactly sunny, but more of a mix of overcast and rain. I once again forced Chris to take first shower of the day so that I didn't need to drag my butt out of bed and he managed to shove a towel under the shower door so that we didn't have the same problem with a flooded bathroom as we did the previous day. I decided on shorts again, and my silly Capt. Ernie's Old Navy shirt - people always ask about it and I have to tell them it's a fake unfortunately, I should try to find something like it that's authentic. I figured even if it did rain today, it would be warm enough to make due, and I would bring my jacket to keep on the bus.
Breakfast was a duplicate of the previous day, with the only noticeble change the addition of headcheese to the deli meat tray. I of course avoided this particular change and did the usual, cereal, egg and normal deli meat with cheese breakfast followed by some yogurt with mixed fruit. After breakfast we had time for a bit more lounging in the room before we needed to load the bus. The only things I got ready was my music for the night and another bottle of ice tea powder. I have been drinking the ice teas from the mixes using the tap water, but still prefer coke when I have the chance. I seem to be stuck drinking coke here as we rarely seem to see any Pepsi. The only thing on the itinerary for the day was a trip out to Bernkastel for some daytime wandering and a wine tasting with informal concert tonight.
On our way down the mountain, Sasha had scheduled a special stop for us. Apparently when we were backing up to drop off after last nights concert in Treis-Karden, we woke up one of the residents. When we found this out in the morning, he promised her that we would make up for our intrustion on her sleep last night by singing her a song. So, partway down the hill, we all piled out of the bus to serenade her on her balcony. We sung a half decent rendition of I Can Tell the World - my favourite sprititual ever, or course ;-). She loved it and was almost brought to tears. It made for a nice start to the day to make someone so happy.
Back on the bus, I took a moment to look over my music again, as tonights music is mostly memorized and I needed a bit of a refresher on the roadmap and lyrics in some songs. A couple of the pieces we are singing at the wine tasting we haven't yet rehearsed here, including Goodnight Sweetheart and It Don't Mean a Thing. Some of the songs we have been preforming, but not from memory, so tonight is a bit of a test in a relatively safe environment. I am fairly certain that the wine tasting tonight is being provided by a familly member of friend of Ramona so I think we will have a supportive audience no matter what! The bus ride itself was uneventful, with some good views of the countryside and a reminder of the numbeer of vineyards in the region.
We arrived in Bernkastel, which straddles the river, in the late afternoon and had a long time to wander around and check things out. Chris and I have a few things to check off on our list (food, gifts, phone cards and Internet!!) We first arrived in the most touristy part of town that had many small shops that sold souvenirs, postcards, beer steins; and restaurants and cafes. In the centre of the square was a big statue. A quartet of german singers, all male, set up camp in front of the statue almost as soon as we arrived, singing what sounded like traditional folk tunes accompanied by accordian. One of our first stops in town was a grocery store where I restocked on my water and juice supply and picked up some more Rittersport :) We wandered up the streets of the town to a small church and took some photos. We ran into Barb who said we could get a fabulous view of the entire town from the attached graveyard, but I was a bit wary of wanderring through it just for a photo op. On the way back to the centre of town I also popped my head into a few stores, Chris picking up a very nice blown cobalt glass decanter as a gift while I wandered over to look at the brunnen baeren fountain around the corner, then but we were on a mission to fill our shopping list. Our first attempt to find an internet cafe was a stop at the visitor information building. We weren't sure that there was anything there that would help us, although Chris noticed a sticker for a T-Mobile hotspot on the door. I'd try to use a hotspot at the airport, but with the instructions completely in German, I had given up. Now that we had been connectionless for most of a week, we decided to give it another try, filling in the fields that we could figure out. Everything seemed to be going great even though I missed a couple fields the first time through. The payment went through and just as we were about to hop onto the internet highway (at 2 Euro for 15 minutes) my LifeDrive crashed! Argh! And it takes 2 freaking minutes for the thing to reboot - wasting my precious, expensive Internet time. As soon as I got rebooted, I hit the Web button and then...bam...crashed again. Some part of the secured, paid connection that T-Mobile set up was incompatible with the Blazer browser and crashed it every time I tried to even open a web page. So that was the end of that attempt. It was still relatively early at that point so we dediced that we would hold off on finding some lunch and head across the bridge to the less touristy part of town in search of the post office and internet cafe.
Halfway across the bridge we ran into Don, our recording engineer, let us know that there was an internet cafe immediately at the other end of the bridge - Woo hoo! It was in a place called the Golden Nugget...and the atmosphere was a little strange with a smokey smell and a large grouping of video lottery terminals. I was a little concerned it was a burlesque house combined with an Internet cafe, but when we went inside Henri and Julie were already there so we were a bit relieved. Since they were on one terminal and the other was occupied as well, we decided to head out in search of the post office and somewhere to buy long distance phone cards. This side of town was definately not as touristy as the other, but was where you find the necessities more readily. We passed some grocery stores, discount stores, copy shop and finally, came upon the Deutch Post above a massage therapists office. After a bit of fractured hand gesturing I managed to communicate that I wanted some stamps for my postcards, and a few extras so I don't need to hunt down a post office again. As soon as we got outside we noticed that they had a machine outside that sold postage...and had English instructions! I would have stocked up on stamps but the machine only takes credit cards that have a smart chip installed and I was running low on coins. After the postage we wandered back to the Golden Nugget and finally made contact with the online world. I only managed to get online for 25 minuites or so, only enough time to look up some missing addresses for my postcards, check my mail, send a short note to Ken saying that I was having a good time, but missing him, and a let my parents know that I was still alive and would be in touch again soon. Having checked most of our shopping list off, we head back over the bridge to find something to eat.
Back on the touristy side of town we head back up the hill we had been up prevously, making a quick stop at the bookstore where Chris finally managed to find an English to German phrasebook, where we again ran into Don who decided to join us for a drink while we ate at a restaurant just a bit further up the road. Soon after we sat down, Janet asked to join us as well for a drink. The restaurant we chose had a nice big awning covering the seating area, which was appreciated since it had been sprinkling for the past few hours leaving many of the seats at neifghbouring cafes damp. Thankfully the waitress spoke perfect Enlgish which made orderring much easier since we without any German speakers at the moment. I dediced to try the schnitzel with onoins and bacon with french fries, which was very good although the bacon was probably the saltiest thing I had ever had. I managed to clean my plate nevertheless. We were a bit tight for time at lunch so quickly settled our bill before running partway back to the bus. We had learned that they bus will not wait for anyone a few days ago when the bus left without Chris even though I protested that he was on his way.
The drive to the winery for the tasting was very short, since the winery as only on the other side of town across the bridge. The tasting started with a tour of the underground wine making and cellar full of handmade oak barrels as many as 100 years old, and which lead to another underground room that was used for the wine tasting. The room was built in the 13-14th century and was used as ice storage and a wine cellar. It was dark with very low ceilings, strongly resembling some sort of catacombs. The room was set up with 2 low tables and benches set with wine glasses and baskets of bread. The alcoves in the walls held candles to add some medaeval ambiance. Our tasting schedule included 6 different reislings, all white, and nothing that I had ever tried before of course. Before each course, our host told us a bit about each wine, describing whether it was dry, semi-dry and what not as well as pointing out the different vintages and qualities. Between each round of tastings we sung one of our memorized pieces, which sound huge in such a small space. After a few drinks the songs became a bit more boisterous...Tim, who was turning a shade similar to boiled crab was particularily animated in his singing :-D I think the tasting was a good experience, although it didn't make me a wine convert. I found that I preferred the drier wines at the beginning, with my tastes really steering away from the sweeter wines that came near the end despite their better vintages and higher cost. I also made sure to fill up on the bread and crackers between courses and was glad that I had eaten immediately before coming so that they 6 half glasses of wine didn't go to my head too much. The final course of tastings was followed by some very nice open faced sandwiches, my favourite being the wholewheat bread topped with procciuto and dill pickle - mmmm, pickels! As the even came to a close, and more wine bottles were opened the group became a bit too loud for my liiking, especially since the largest effect that they wine seemed to have on my was making me drowsy. I was happy when we finally burst back into the sunlight outside at around 7:30 and loaded back on to the bus for the trip back to R. Schuman Haus. Although there was still some sunlight left when we arrived back, I still couldn't muster the energy to do anything other than pass out on my bed when we got back. Chris and I had thought about taking a hike down the hill into town in search of a pay phone, but as the sun faded and my energy continued to fade, we decided against it and just turned in a bit early for the night.
Breakfast was a duplicate of the previous day, with the only noticeble change the addition of headcheese to the deli meat tray. I of course avoided this particular change and did the usual, cereal, egg and normal deli meat with cheese breakfast followed by some yogurt with mixed fruit. After breakfast we had time for a bit more lounging in the room before we needed to load the bus. The only things I got ready was my music for the night and another bottle of ice tea powder. I have been drinking the ice teas from the mixes using the tap water, but still prefer coke when I have the chance. I seem to be stuck drinking coke here as we rarely seem to see any Pepsi. The only thing on the itinerary for the day was a trip out to Bernkastel for some daytime wandering and a wine tasting with informal concert tonight.
On our way down the mountain, Sasha had scheduled a special stop for us. Apparently when we were backing up to drop off after last nights concert in Treis-Karden, we woke up one of the residents. When we found this out in the morning, he promised her that we would make up for our intrustion on her sleep last night by singing her a song. So, partway down the hill, we all piled out of the bus to serenade her on her balcony. We sung a half decent rendition of I Can Tell the World - my favourite sprititual ever, or course ;-). She loved it and was almost brought to tears. It made for a nice start to the day to make someone so happy.
Back on the bus, I took a moment to look over my music again, as tonights music is mostly memorized and I needed a bit of a refresher on the roadmap and lyrics in some songs. A couple of the pieces we are singing at the wine tasting we haven't yet rehearsed here, including Goodnight Sweetheart and It Don't Mean a Thing. Some of the songs we have been preforming, but not from memory, so tonight is a bit of a test in a relatively safe environment. I am fairly certain that the wine tasting tonight is being provided by a familly member of friend of Ramona so I think we will have a supportive audience no matter what! The bus ride itself was uneventful, with some good views of the countryside and a reminder of the numbeer of vineyards in the region.
We arrived in Bernkastel, which straddles the river, in the late afternoon and had a long time to wander around and check things out. Chris and I have a few things to check off on our list (food, gifts, phone cards and Internet!!) We first arrived in the most touristy part of town that had many small shops that sold souvenirs, postcards, beer steins; and restaurants and cafes. In the centre of the square was a big statue. A quartet of german singers, all male, set up camp in front of the statue almost as soon as we arrived, singing what sounded like traditional folk tunes accompanied by accordian. One of our first stops in town was a grocery store where I restocked on my water and juice supply and picked up some more Rittersport :) We wandered up the streets of the town to a small church and took some photos. We ran into Barb who said we could get a fabulous view of the entire town from the attached graveyard, but I was a bit wary of wanderring through it just for a photo op. On the way back to the centre of town I also popped my head into a few stores, Chris picking up a very nice blown cobalt glass decanter as a gift while I wandered over to look at the brunnen baeren fountain around the corner, then but we were on a mission to fill our shopping list. Our first attempt to find an internet cafe was a stop at the visitor information building. We weren't sure that there was anything there that would help us, although Chris noticed a sticker for a T-Mobile hotspot on the door. I'd try to use a hotspot at the airport, but with the instructions completely in German, I had given up. Now that we had been connectionless for most of a week, we decided to give it another try, filling in the fields that we could figure out. Everything seemed to be going great even though I missed a couple fields the first time through. The payment went through and just as we were about to hop onto the internet highway (at 2 Euro for 15 minutes) my LifeDrive crashed! Argh! And it takes 2 freaking minutes for the thing to reboot - wasting my precious, expensive Internet time. As soon as I got rebooted, I hit the Web button and then...bam...crashed again. Some part of the secured, paid connection that T-Mobile set up was incompatible with the Blazer browser and crashed it every time I tried to even open a web page. So that was the end of that attempt. It was still relatively early at that point so we dediced that we would hold off on finding some lunch and head across the bridge to the less touristy part of town in search of the post office and internet cafe.
Halfway across the bridge we ran into Don, our recording engineer, let us know that there was an internet cafe immediately at the other end of the bridge - Woo hoo! It was in a place called the Golden Nugget...and the atmosphere was a little strange with a smokey smell and a large grouping of video lottery terminals. I was a little concerned it was a burlesque house combined with an Internet cafe, but when we went inside Henri and Julie were already there so we were a bit relieved. Since they were on one terminal and the other was occupied as well, we decided to head out in search of the post office and somewhere to buy long distance phone cards. This side of town was definately not as touristy as the other, but was where you find the necessities more readily. We passed some grocery stores, discount stores, copy shop and finally, came upon the Deutch Post above a massage therapists office. After a bit of fractured hand gesturing I managed to communicate that I wanted some stamps for my postcards, and a few extras so I don't need to hunt down a post office again. As soon as we got outside we noticed that they had a machine outside that sold postage...and had English instructions! I would have stocked up on stamps but the machine only takes credit cards that have a smart chip installed and I was running low on coins. After the postage we wandered back to the Golden Nugget and finally made contact with the online world. I only managed to get online for 25 minuites or so, only enough time to look up some missing addresses for my postcards, check my mail, send a short note to Ken saying that I was having a good time, but missing him, and a let my parents know that I was still alive and would be in touch again soon. Having checked most of our shopping list off, we head back over the bridge to find something to eat.
Back on the touristy side of town we head back up the hill we had been up prevously, making a quick stop at the bookstore where Chris finally managed to find an English to German phrasebook, where we again ran into Don who decided to join us for a drink while we ate at a restaurant just a bit further up the road. Soon after we sat down, Janet asked to join us as well for a drink. The restaurant we chose had a nice big awning covering the seating area, which was appreciated since it had been sprinkling for the past few hours leaving many of the seats at neifghbouring cafes damp. Thankfully the waitress spoke perfect Enlgish which made orderring much easier since we without any German speakers at the moment. I dediced to try the schnitzel with onoins and bacon with french fries, which was very good although the bacon was probably the saltiest thing I had ever had. I managed to clean my plate nevertheless. We were a bit tight for time at lunch so quickly settled our bill before running partway back to the bus. We had learned that they bus will not wait for anyone a few days ago when the bus left without Chris even though I protested that he was on his way.
The drive to the winery for the tasting was very short, since the winery as only on the other side of town across the bridge. The tasting started with a tour of the underground wine making and cellar full of handmade oak barrels as many as 100 years old, and which lead to another underground room that was used for the wine tasting. The room was built in the 13-14th century and was used as ice storage and a wine cellar. It was dark with very low ceilings, strongly resembling some sort of catacombs. The room was set up with 2 low tables and benches set with wine glasses and baskets of bread. The alcoves in the walls held candles to add some medaeval ambiance. Our tasting schedule included 6 different reislings, all white, and nothing that I had ever tried before of course. Before each course, our host told us a bit about each wine, describing whether it was dry, semi-dry and what not as well as pointing out the different vintages and qualities. Between each round of tastings we sung one of our memorized pieces, which sound huge in such a small space. After a few drinks the songs became a bit more boisterous...Tim, who was turning a shade similar to boiled crab was particularily animated in his singing :-D I think the tasting was a good experience, although it didn't make me a wine convert. I found that I preferred the drier wines at the beginning, with my tastes really steering away from the sweeter wines that came near the end despite their better vintages and higher cost. I also made sure to fill up on the bread and crackers between courses and was glad that I had eaten immediately before coming so that they 6 half glasses of wine didn't go to my head too much. The final course of tastings was followed by some very nice open faced sandwiches, my favourite being the wholewheat bread topped with procciuto and dill pickle - mmmm, pickels! As the even came to a close, and more wine bottles were opened the group became a bit too loud for my liiking, especially since the largest effect that they wine seemed to have on my was making me drowsy. I was happy when we finally burst back into the sunlight outside at around 7:30 and loaded back on to the bus for the trip back to R. Schuman Haus. Although there was still some sunlight left when we arrived back, I still couldn't muster the energy to do anything other than pass out on my bed when we got back. Chris and I had thought about taking a hike down the hill into town in search of a pay phone, but as the sun faded and my energy continued to fade, we decided against it and just turned in a bit early for the night.