Take the "in" out of Intrepid, please

Did I mention we have a second home swap planned in France near Paris? After 2 days on the road with pit stops to see two famous cathedrals, I’m beat. First we visited the big Dom in Aix La Chapelle (Aachen)  where Charlemagne was crowned in 800 A.D. and then the huge Gothic cathedrals at Reims. built a thousand years ago and where all French kings were crowned. This included a little detour from the direct route to our destination, but both were worth it. The weather Gods seem to be thinking it’s autumn already. Mostly cloudy with rain showers and 17 degrees Centigrade max. Both times we got out of the car to do our sightseeing, the sky cleared up temporarily so that we could walk to the cathedrals on dry foot and even have a bite to eat sitting outside, wrapped in a blanket, however. Restaurants in Germany provide those when the weather just wouldn't comply. We drove through the beautiful countryside of the Ardennes in Belgium, very hilly and deeply forested.Lots of battles took place here in both World Wars, Even the 120km from Reims to Paris showed us lovely, green French countryside, surprisingly devoid of populated areas.

The car’s navigation system took us right into evening rush hour Paris, a place you do not want to experience. Everything was choc-a-block and Miss Navi constantly rerouted us, sent us on U turns to avoid the “traffic problem”, as she called it only realizing when it was too late that there were more of the same in the other direction. We had an unscheduled free two-hour-long sightseeing tour of Paris, the Internal Peripherique as well as the External. Trying to get over a bridge to cross the Seine was the target to take us out of this bedlam. There may have been traffic rules in the olden days. Now everybody seems to fend for himself, the survival of the fittest. Motor bikers weaseling their way between cars in a dangerous fashion domineering the roads.Well, if some don't make it, it only proves Darwin is right; let's not forget that kidney donors are badly needed and derive form this pool of humanity. I drove while hubby tried to reconcile Miss Navi and his own GPS (mentioned before!) as well as juggling a map.

People cut in in front of me from all sides; I wasn’t the typical alpha male Parisian forging through and our foreign number plate didn’t earn us any sympathy. I had done trips from Ireland to Germany that took me through the French capital before. I wonder how I ever navigated the Paris road system on my own, without a GPS or navigation system or a hubby in the passenger seat. 
We made it to the house just before dark, found the keys and were able to disarm the alarm. We also brought in all our six Big Berthas without the skies opening again on us. We were at the “Final Destination. But sometimes it's happier to travel than to arrive…

In the meantime a little storm had been brewing back home. The change over from one family to another in one day required some careful planning on my part, i.e. to have the taxi in place at the appointed time for pick up and drop off. And the more important thing for me was to guarantee a clean house for the newcomers. For that purpose I had hired a cleaner to tidy up after the Germans and change the sheets and wash the towels. It's no fun to arrive to an unmade or dirty house after a transatlantic flight and travel time of almost 24 hours.

The cleaner sent me an email “You won’t like this, but…the Germans locked the door from the kitchen to the garage which has a deadbolt.” The cleaners couldn’t get past the garage for which they had the lock number. So the house remained uncleaned, the next, the French family couldn’t get in the way they had expected. They had to find the hidden key in the dark in the slashing rain only to face unmade beds at midnight. Why the Germans locked the door thru which they had entered themselves initially and why the cleaner didn’t call me, remains a mystery. I would have told them how to get in.

Why the French, however, weren’t fussed over the state of the house and its cleanliness is pretty clear to me now. People have different standards and concepts of what is clean.

But more tomorrow.

Was it worth it?

People who are reading my blog ask me to report at the end if it was worth it.
We're only at the half-way point and I can safely say, ‘we enjoyed it’. We saw parts of Germany we would never have dreamed of visiting, as they're not considered too touristy. We stayed in a very comfortable house for 4 weeks for nothing; eh, we offered our own in exchange. If you think about the benefit of that: we were told when the sprinklers didn't work as set, we got updates about the state of the lawn--when the lawn man didn't turn up, that the newly repaired washing machine still presented with the same problem. Somebody kept an eye on the mail and watered our plants. The house is and looks lived in which gives us a good feeling although we have a house alarm. In addition, we had a car at our disposal. An outlay not to be underestimated. We stayed in a house that really had everything we needed except for the ice maker and AC which we didn't miss. Well, most Europeans have a smaller fridge than Americans. That is one thing I definitely would change if we were to live in Germany again.
We met the family we swapped homes with, a delightful family. It's a great bonus if that happens. The next family from France we'll only meet after our stay when we're back in FL and they are about to vacate our house a day later.
There was no report about anything getting thrashed. The cleaners might rectify that tomorrow... It was my son who broke a coaster in this house. As way of compensating for that our exchange partner bought one of my books. Hey, a sale was done, too!
With all these modern technologies it's easy to keep on top of things. We email almost daily, when a crisis lurks -like I couldn't switch on their TV one day we skyped. Mail is being forwarded to our current destination although with a hiccup on the part of USPS. Cheap telephone lines make communication in both places easy.
We also met their parents who may have kept an eye out without us knowing and I got two jars of my beloved quince jelly which I'll never make myself in my life again.
In comparison, the really nice flat we rented last year, lacked certain mod cons or they were not functional in spite of us paying EUR 1000 for just one week. Obviously our rental car was on top of that.
It gave me ample of time to update my impression and adjust my memory. That will keep me going when away again form my native homeland for a while. We stocked up on Rumkugeln and other goodies. Enough to see me through a few weeks, unless Hubby partakes too much. He also grew find fond of Broetchen etc.
There are many websites to choose from, but this one has a lot of members worldwide and over 1000 in Germany. Have a look for yourself It's like browsing a travel catalog.
Will we do it again? Yes, we are. going to....tomorrow. And if that experience proves anything positive like this one, we might add another month next year. If we wanted more, my American husband would run into Visa restrictions. But there is a way to deal with that. I'm very grateful he arranged his heavy work schedule around my needs of being in Germany. In France, at last, he'll be on vacation for the most part. I'm so glad.

The oldest castle fortification in Germany

After the road blocks were removed and we were able to get out of Dodge, we drove to Friedberg. The Iroman cyclists had gone thru it and the reporter mentioned that old fortification built between 1171 and 1180 by King Barbarossa. Hubby needed some fresh air after his trip back from CA and having slept for hours. Cute little town.If there was more time, I'd go back for some shopping,but hey--I'm off to Paris next.
The castle's gardens had an exhibition of unpublished photos from a private collection of the Tzar family.It commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Tzar and Tzarina coming to Friedberg in August 1910. Buddies Nick (Nikolaj of Russia and Will, Wilhelm, Emperor  of Germany, enjoyed the summer here with their children..Four years later, World War I broke out and their were arch enemies.The exhibition referred to it as an almost forgotten war here in  Germany in contrast to other countries, e.g. England who commemorates it on Poppy Day.
Fortified with an umbrella we walked the grounds and took many good pics. It got quite chilly alright.We warmed up in a local brewery and were glad we had done this little trip on the spur of the moment. See glass of beer. We didn't go to one beer garden during our stay as expected.Too wet and cold.

Men made of iron

In contrast to the prevailing heat wave in the US, the weather here is cool, mixed with the occasional rain, temperatures are hovering around 15 degrees Celsius. Almost deal for today's triathlon.The competition starts at 7 a.m.with a 3.5 km swim through the Langener Waldsee (Lake Langen) , then a 180km bike ride, twice from Frankfurt to Bad Nauheim and back.That's a similar distance of an 'etappe' of the Tour de France. A soon as that is completed, they embark on a marathon.That's right, as if the previous sport activities wouldn't be a huge achievement on their own, they run 42 km!.I knew marathon runners in Ireland, saw them train and saw them sweat. Doing a marathon after that 'etappe' de Frankfurt plus the swim, is beyond my imagination. But I couldn't run for the bus, as they say in Ireland.
We watched it a bit on local TV and went for a ride. The photo shows some neighbors who had been watching the race under the shelter of a bus stop and were still partying.

IRONMAN is coming

The town is bracing itself for the advent of a true athletic event:Ironman.de.The European championship of  an US triathlon event :Ironman. Streets have been cordoned off and tomorrow when they race past, we have to stay put. There is no escaping between the hours of 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. Suits us- we have to pack out bags, remember? 6 "Berthas".
Hubby arrived on schedule back from CA. At the moment, he doesn't quite know where he is and what time.
Since I had no insurance, the (emergency or urgent care) charged me like a private patient:EUR 15 for consult and 10 for extensive physical. That is about the equivalent of my co-pay!
The next step of obtaining the medications also made me wildly aware of a difference between "socialized"
German Healthcare and the US system. Here you take your prescription to a Apotheke (pharmacy-most of them are privately owned. No chains like ..you know who). You hand your piece of paper to the competent pharmacists; he disappears into his storage or shelving area, comes out with my  medications, puts them in a bag, and rings up the money. The transaction is over in less than 5 minutes unless you ask him for advice. If they are out of a certain product, they will procure it within a few hours, often even deliver to your house, as my good pharmacy friend in Stuttgart always does.Their individual packaging makes it easy to tell them apart. No five bottles that look alike and could easily be mixed up.No waiting for pills to be counted. Individual leaflets of how to take them etc. are inside each package. See for yourselves. I wonder why can Germany do it and the USA can't?

Warning: Don’t trust Google Maps!

Today is hump day! In 4 weeks time we’ll be on the plane home. Due to more internal discomfort, I had to make a trip to another doctor on a Friday afternoon. The local telephone book connected me to an emergency service. Since I hadn’t visited that neighboring town, I trusted Mr. Google with my quest for the location and route: 7.4 km and 14 minutes. Big mistake, and not for the first time. We had several bad experiences over the years which caused marital disharmony when hubby totally relied on the all-knowing map provider; I knew my hometown better and would have bet the farm the searched for location was not there. Another time, He (yes, I always call him Mr. Google; a woman is better at directions…}) on the way to Yosemite Park on our honeymoon of all occasion, he made us take a road up to a mountain top which ended in a dirt track. The mountain ranger was curious what business we had up there until we explained. Then he nodded knowingly. We've now developed a system in which I drive according to my husband’s directions which he gets live from the GPS on his I-Phone. He would do both at the same time if my female persuasion skills didn’t prevent him from doing so. But he wasn’t here and I had to fend for myself.

Yesterday’s wild goose chase included my search for a local branch of Deutsche Bank which is the corresponding business partner of Bank of America. An online chat with a BOA associate had revealed that. Corresponding banks don’t charge the usual fees for ATM withdrawals and cash transactions. Besides, only Deutsche Bank is authorized to accept $100 bills and has the facility to check if they are counterfeits. Mr. Google sent me to a Sparkasse in the same location. No wonder, the locals had shaken their heads in response to my question. They didn’t know Deutsche Bank had come into town. And the town has its own Sparkasse. I needn’t have driven the 5kms. Except it tuned into 15mls when I got a little lost between villages, because I had not googled the return route….}. For my next inquiry into an insurance company I proceeded with more caution, called ahead if they were who Mr. Google claimed and if they were it said location. It turned out, the friendly representative answered my questions satisfactorily and I didn’t even have to drive there.

I’ll stop here. Enough gripe for one day. Coincidentally, the dictionary tells me the word gripe also explains my aforementioned internal discomfort.

A quiet day back on the ranch

We're getting lazier and lazier here. If the weather persists, we'll barely make it out of the house. Miraculously, it clears up in the evening so that we can get our constitutional. Not much for a strapping young man who plays American football for fun.I found a few more objects worth taking a picture. A US mail box, rather unusual here. We had one on the Irish farm, but just a simple, regular model, not as cute as this one. And this one here doesn't even go with a farm.
The other picture shows a phenomenon that I noticed last year already further south, Bavaria way. Most private houses have solar panels. How this is feasible with far less sunshine than in Florida, bamboozles me.
The fruit is a rare find:a quince tree.Makes for wonderful jelly, but a lot of work. And a tiny personal success: my son made me overcome my fear of horses by asking me to feed them carrots tonight. In spite of having lived on a farm and having horses, I have been too timid to go near them.Some bad experience that I should reserve for my Irish blog:www.Ioncehadafarminireland.blogspot.com.