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Yesterday we were a group of 7 persons riding our bikes under a Bavarian blue sky along the river Isar. We followed our leader Rolf, but the tour along the river turned into 45 miles over hills away from the river. The scenery was beautiful, the weather great and for lunch we had ” Radler”, which means “Biker” in English and is half beer- half lemon soda; very refreshing and you can still attack the hills with your bike afterwards.
From old German customs : In the 18th century, public auctions were held with a short candle stump lit. Auction bids were only accepted as long as the candle was burning. A law stated that the buyer had to pay for the wine, which in turn made the transaction legal between seller and buyer. Much more fun than a signature. By the way,the Romans and old Germans used already this custom. From Bad Toelz, Lothar

I survived the 1st two of many days of biking. First day was a short uphill mtn sring through the rain:sad:. Yesterday we had a nice 25km ride up a mtn, then on top of the mtn and then back along the river to get to our apt. Lothar keeps telling me”we wanted to get in shape this year” He thinks he’s encouraging me:shock: Little does he know I have plans of retaliation– just having figured them out yet:twisted:
Today a 60 km ride is planned. Will I make it–only if I keep visualizing the Weissbier at the end of the trip.:grin:
Well, the internet can only be used for 15 min at a time here- so I’m off!
If hope I write in the next couple of days… it would mean I survived….
Gloria Gaynor, I’ll be riding with you today………… I will survive:::::::::::
Gabi

We are in Bad Toelz in southern Bavaria and went on a bike tour with sun and rainshowers. We are sharing a condo with our friends Maria and Rolf and plan some bike tours over the next few days. It snowed above our village today. I was reading my book about” swabian customs in the 17th century”in bed this morning and found the above mentioned law. Unfortunately impossible in my line of work.
Bad Toelz is a 700 year old marketplace and has 2 computers for internet access at the tourist office. Back to the old times : the mayor (schultheiss ) of the village often was a rich farmer who had absolute power in the village. He often was also trained as a barber and wound surgeon and you would get a shave from the mayor/ judge of the village. He was paid according to the number of souls in his village and did not enforce morality too much since children born out of wedlock also increased his salary.
Going back out into the rainshowers now and heading for a spa with whirlpool, Lothar

The sign on top of the Ulm cathedral said ” No Way Down “. We made it anyway, even though we were dizzy from the 800plus steps in the circular staircase. We took the train to Augsburg, but could not get off the train at that station since Gabi did not want to interrupt her reading. So we continued for another 90 minutes and had a great dinner with Weisswurst and Weizenbier in Munich. We took the train back to Biberach and the dinner in Munich turned out to be a 5 hour detour. On the way back was a traintrack construction and we were transferred on a bus with a large youthgroup coming home from a camping trip. We were on the bus to the Town of ” Kisslegg” (real name !) with the young people kissing legs or other bodyparts in the back of the bus. We were back on the train to Biberach close to midnight when a guy wearing an orange prison shirt with ” County Jail” written on the back joined us. He turned out to be pretty harmless and was just on his way home from work.
The next day was spent with errands in Biberach and coffee plus cake on Sonjas Villa terrace. We saw the olympic soccer match Germany-US, which the american women deservingly won. So long, Lothar

A recap of the last week–shop–walk–eat–walk—shop–arrange furniture—watch Olympics live—-walk…shop………and on it goes!:lol:
The fun part of the last week was an excursion to Ulm and Munich. The train system here is super..,on a day ticket, you can travel for lunch to one city and be for dinner in a 2nd city, and still get back to your original point, Biberach, as we did on Sun. Lothar took over the report on that:wink:
One little problem we#ve encountered is the closing of the stores over lunch and by about 6pm in the eve. As we tend to forget this, we often stand in front of closed doors:roll:. It will take some time to get used to that again. Stores close by 4 on Sat and nothing is open on Sun–hence our Sunday excursion!

Reporting from Ulm,Germany:
Sonja moved into a very nice Villa overlooking Biberach. She rents one appartment, but the landlord lets us use the whole 2 story house. The Villa has many rooms and a dungeon/bombshelter/cave-like basement floor which was drilled into the bedrock and we only dared to explore the outer entrance! It actually was a bombshelter during the bombing raids by the British Royal airforce during WW2. Times have changed and now we are flying with British Airways around the world. Gabi and I slept upstairs and woke up today with a beautiful view of the old town. We went to the train station and bought a weekend train ticket for 3 persons valid for train travel all over Germany for a grand total of 25 Dollars. We are in Ulm now and climbed the 768 stairs of the gothic cathedral’s tower and were on top of the highest church steeple at 161 meters. Lots of pictures taken from the top. Later we will continue our train travel, but left the final destination up to the mood and time of day. The last train home is at midnight. Ulm sits on the border of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg along the Danube river. Sonjas teacher here lives in Baden-Wuerttemberg and told us that they do not go into Bavaria for shopping, even though it would be closer. No special reason given.
Yesterday we saw the baroque monastery of Bad Schussenried and I spent the afternoon with my Leatherman Tool assembling modern furniture in Sonjas appartment. No beautiful wood carvings on my part. In the morning I got up before anybody else and walked for 90 minutes through the gentle hills of Swabia with view of the Alps.
One automotive note : On the way here we were cruising with our Ford Focus at a comfortable 110MPH, when I suddenly noticed that I passed a Concorde flying on my left wing. It was suspended in midair next to the autobahn at a technical museum ! Today we travel by train and enjoy the scenery.
A medical note : I saw a dentist for a broken filling and he did an excellent job. I mentioned that I had taken Penicillin prophylactically for the last 2 days and he replied that dentist in Germany treat infections with drainage and not antibiotics in order to prevent bacterial resistance. He blames US lawyers for our overuse of antibiotics! Now we are off to the next town, Augsburg maybe. Signing off, Lothar

Met some folks of Sonja’s school. Everyone is soooooooo nice:mrgreen: Saw the old and the new school, where she’ll be working—-the new still under construction and it’ll be chancy whether it will be completed by Sept 1oth, opening day–wondering if the teachers are hoping for a delay…. cause if it isn’t done, the vacation will be longer:shock:–not a bad deal—can you imagine, they would just postpone opening school:!:

Next we visited Sonja’s apartment for the next year. It is located in a villa up on a hill overlooking the city…..:mrgreen:rough life. It’s within 10 min walking or 5 min biking of school and center of town ( right out of the picture book)

Lunch at the teacher’s house—-with view of the Alps, then a trip into the next city to Walmart to buy all essentials one needs to feel comfy in a new apt…. no no, it is furnished….but beyond the basics….sheets, posters, a non-stick frying pan, a TV, etc.

Well we made it, we are in Biberach, where Sonja will be teaching for the year–it’s this great little Schwabian town, with the friendliest people and cute scenery, right out of a picture book.
But how did we get here?
Well here comes the weekly summary:
I left off in the great lounge in NY: Thereafter we had a short 5 hr flight to Dublin, where we were met by our personal escort to the VIP lounge, which came right out of the 50′s–as a matter of fact the whole airport looked like it was a blast fom the past —back to the “Old Europe”.
Then it was time to board the flight to Frankfurt. No orderly conduct here…. flight gets called and all push for the door…forget: ” and rows 21-16 may board now”, or even, “section B may board now”. No, instead we walked across the airport tarmac between planes, gas trucks, baggage cars and maitenance vehicles, reaching our Air Lingus Jet.
Here we received a typical Irish breakfast with black(blood) pudding, sausages, bacon and a roll. My cholesterol shot up 100 pts
Next we rented a nice Budget Nissan SUV to get us to Stuttgart, where we changed cars to a Sixti Ford Focus stationwagen-the price was right, 12 Euros a day….. on on on we must go, jetlag and all. Almost forgot Sonja, we picked her up again in Frankfurt at the airport, what service she got!:razz:
The drive to Ulm Gögglingen was uneventful. We then rented a room, had a Stück Kuchen, tried our satellite phone to our little tike in Grenada (thank God, it works)—I’m connected:mrgreen:…………….. small dinner and bed!

I can’t believe it but we actually have made it to the airport, after repacking suitcases at least 4 times. Air Lingus would have taken whatever I gave them to put on the plane–here I tried to stay within all weight and size restrictions Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a law-abiding citizen:shock:
I could have had a good night’s sleep, instead of getting up at 4 am and worrying about the 70 lb suitcase I had packed- couldn’t let the hubby carry that-thereafter he would have required endless days in a spa–mmm maybe he wouldn’t have minded.

I have to say flying Business Class sure has it’s perks. We checked into the VIP lounge and are actually lounging before our flight with beer/wine and cheese, plus free internet.:smile: It may be very difficult to go back to economy in the future. Will have to make sure Lothar continues his miles antics:grin:

Got to go, Lothar is serving champagne!–at an airport?–WOW–

So after hearing about tourists getting shot, robbed and beaten in Tanzania, we scratched that off the list a couple of weeks ago! Then, low and behold I’m in Borders’ today and happen to see a book “Most Dangerous Places in the World”. Not being able to resist, I peek inside and no, another one on the list-Zimbabwe–but it wasn’t on the CIA site or the British Foreign Service site—-Viktoria Falls sound so tranquil, not crime ridden–will have to do some more research–will keep you posted. I already decided a computer is way too enticing for long fingers( not to mention armed guards at borders, etc. )–so he (notice it is masculine, must be that German gender thing in me:grin:) is staying home! They do have internet cafes all over, so I won’t let my avid readers down! Why can’t all these nations just play nice:roll: