Fri 2 Aug 2002
Picture of the Girls
Posted by Sandi Atherton under Daily Life, germany
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Archive for August, 2002
Monthly Archive
Sat 3 Aug 2002
Our Italian Vacation, Day 1: The Long Drive
Posted by Ken Atherton under germany, italy, vacation
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I know some of you were wondering how we were going to survive a 12-hour or more trip to Italy with two young children. To save you the suspense, I’ll summarize our day. According to the mapping program we have on our laptop, the trip from Neidereschach, Germany to Paestum, Italy takes about 12 hours and 8 minutes, including 30-minute breaks every 4 hours. This means that by leaving at 5:30AM, we should arrive in Paestum by about 5:38PM, give or take.
We checked into the hotel at 10:30 PM, having just arrived in Paestum.
Before I start talking about what went wrong, I’d like to point out that the trip was not that bad, it was just long. We deliberately set up our vacation so that we would have our longest driving day on the first day, so the good news is that it is behind us now. Also, the kids were surprisingly good, even though we kept them in the car for 17 hours. We didn’t even have to resort to letting them watch DVDs on the laptop either. We were very impressed.
Our planned route from Germany to Paestum, Italy. The map was in German because our mapping program is in German. Strangely enough, when you buy computer programs in Germany, they are not in English!
[Update: but Google maps is in english, though!]
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Here’s the play-by-play of our trip:
4:45AM: The alarm goes off, just as scheduled. Sandi says she heard the alarm in her dreams before she realized it was really going off. I got up to turn it off, forced myself not to get back into bed, and thus our day started.
5:15AM: We bring the kids down to the car, both of whom wake up. Carissa takes an interest in watching the sunrise, after I point out the light spot in the sky where dawn is starting to happen.
5:30AM: We’re on the road, the adventure begins. Knowing that we would probably face a lot of heavy traffic and uncertain road conditions, it seemed to make sense to go as far as possible before everyone else woke up.
6:10AM: We exit Germany in record time. It helps to be able to put the pedal to the floor when there’s no one blocking your way.
7:00AM: We make our first wrong turn. Both of the kids have gone back to sleep.
7:10AM: We are back on track, but we gave up the time we made up on the Autobahn in Germany.
7:20AM: The road we are supposed to take suddenly ends. We are routed off the road onto a side road with no obvious instructions about how to get back on.
8:30AM: We rejoin the Autobahn 60km south. The side trip was beautiful, but we covered the distance in about twice the time the highway would have taken. We are now 30 minutes behind schedule.
9:30AM: We drive through the 17km long Gotthard Tunnel. Unfortunately, the going is slow through this entire region, and by the time we make it to the border, we are more than an hour behind.
10:15AM: We arrive at the border between Switzerland and Italy. Actually, this is when we arrived at the end of the line waiting to cross the border. When we first came to a complete stop, I could see a sign in the distance that said the border crossing was 7000 meters ahead.
In a scenario that would repeat itself all day, we found that “lines” or “queues” or “basic civility” are somewhat a foreign concept to the Italians. Even worse, Italian civil service personnel don’t seem to have any particular interest in doing their jobs at all, much less in an efficient manner.
Keep in mind that the border crossing between Switzerland and Italy is more or less a formality these days. Both sides keep the operation going because Switzerland has refused so far to join the European Union. Between Germany and Switzerland, for example, there are customs and immigration officials posted at the border, but their job is usually just to wave you through as fast as possible. Between Switzerland and Italy, the procedure is roughly the same—if the Italian border patrol personnel can be bothered to wave their hands.
The person operating the station at the front of the line we were in was reading something that looked like a newspaper, and we had to wait for him to look up before we could proceed, which took about 20 seconds. When you multiply that time by the approximately 40 billion cars that were also trying to cross at that time, you can see that we are lucky that we weren’t still sitting there on the morning I need to return to work.
10:40AM: We (finally) enter Italy. Our mapping program had estimated our arrival at about 9:00. We are already 1 hour and 40 minutes behind schedule.
11:45AM: After passing through Milan unscathed, we hit the first of several major traffic jams outside of Bologne.
1:45PM: We finally pass through Bolonge. We’re now more than 3 hours off schedule.
3:00PM: We stop for lunch at one of the little “Autogrill” rest stops that are common on Italian toll roads. This was actually the second stop we made after the traffic jam, but the first rest stop was so packed with people (who also just survived the traffic jam) that Unfortunately, we can’t figure out how to order lunch from the grill, the cafeteria will take too long, and the native Italians have already developed a knack for pushing around anyone who takes too long. So we give up, buy some snacks, and return to the road, now even further behind.
4:00PM: We stop at an Autogrill rest stop that contains a Burger King. One Whopper meal and 2 orders of Popcorn Chicken later, we are on the road, happier than before. We have an expression in this family whenever we see a McDonald’s or Burger King in Europe: “We’re saved!”
5:30PM: We drive through Rome. This is when we are supposed to be arriving at our destination, but we are still 5 hours away now. We’ve been slowly falling behind at this point, but not due to any particular problems. Traffic is just heavy, and sometimes slow. On the northbound route on the other side of the median, we have seen multiple traffic jams stretching several kilometers each, especially around Florence. I’m not looking forward to driving that route home.
8:45PM: We finally exit the A1 toll road in Napoli. We first entered the road in Milan, received a ticket showing that was our entry point, and then paid a toll of € 38.75 to exit at the other end.
9:15PM: Somewhere near Salerno, it starts to rain. It is dark now, the road we are on seems to be permanently under construction, and Italian drivers are insane. We’ve got the GPS on, though, and we can tell we are making progress in the right direction.
10:00PM: We finally arrive in Paestum, the town where our hotel is located. The GPS is no longer useful since we don’t have an exact location for the hotel. We follow the signs to the hotel, but one of the turns isn’t clear. There are several possible choices for the turn, and all of them seem to lead into, um, bad neighborhoods.
10:30PM: We finally guess the right set of turns and arrive at the Hotel Le Palme.
Local Tags: autobahn, burger king, carissa, celia, construction, driving, florence, germany, gotthard tunnel, hotel le palme, italian drivers, italy, ken, milan, niedereschach, paestum, rest stop, rome, sandi, switzerland, vacation
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Mon 5 Aug 2002
Our Italian Vacation: Day 1, Northern Italy
Posted by Ken Atherton under germany, italy, vacation
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Here’s an observation I really wasn’t expecting:
The major difference between driving on the A1 in northern Italy and on I-65 in southern Indiana was that the dilapidated farmhouses along the road in Italy looked like they might have been commissioned by Emperor Nero—or perhaps one of his predecessors. Beyond that, both locations are flat and full of cornfields.
Of course, as we progressed further south, the landscape changed significantly, and at times reminded us of other places we have been to, but the change to corn fields was the most striking.
The similarity is really eerie. If it wasn’t for the occasional road sign written in Italian, I could have almost convinced myself that I had driven to the United States. I’m pretty sure I even saw a billboard that said the Italian equivalent of “Eat Here, Get Gas.”
[The photos that accompanied this post have been lost. Don't worry, though, we swiped them from a couple of websites.]
Local Tags: corn field, driving, germany, house, indiana, italy, vacation
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Mon 5 Aug 2002
International Warranties and The Death of a Laptop
Posted by Ken Atherton under Daily Life, germany
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Our main hard drive in our laptop crashed on Saturday night while we were online chatting with my parents. This wasn’t a complete surprise– the computer had trouble booting at least one other time earlier in the week. I had been very careful since then to make sure that we copied all of the important files off the computer onto a different hard drive.
On the plus side, the computer is still covered under a warranty, and the warranty is valid internationally. Besides making sure that the laptop could run on 220 volts, the warranty was one of my major criteria for selecting that particular computer in the first place.
The downside is how to get service. Toshiba alledgedly has a number that you can call to coordinate an international warranty issue, including pick-up and delivery of the computer. The number seems to be missing a digit– the area code only has 2 numbers and the main US help line is clueless about what the real number is. Instead, they tell me that I should call the local service center, which is located about 4.5 hours away. And of course, the people who answer the line on the other end when I call only speak German.
Clearly, this is going to be a lot of fun to fix. We were really counting on having the laptop with us when we left for vacation two weeks from now. We were going to use it to entertain the kids and provide emergency map assistance. That’s going to be hard to do now.
We will have internet access while the laptop is down, though. I have set up my work laptop to connect to our DSL modem (it’s how I’m writing this message). So we haven’t gone back to the stone age yet. I don’t know how we would survive!
Tue 6 Aug 2002
The Strangest Feeling
Posted by Sandi Atherton under Daily Life, germany
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I took my kids to the doctor to get a check up that is needed for school and while in the waiting room my 3 year old was very talkative. Everyone was staring at us and I saw the other kids whispering to each other about her speaking English. I found myself trying to say as little as possible and when I did have to speak to my kids I would try to say it in German. If I did not know how, then I called them over to me where I could whisper in English to them. In retrospect, I realize that I was embarrassed by the fact we were talking in English. Strange how I miss having good English conversations and yet here it embarrasses me. I’m not sure if it is the fact that I am not used to the staring yet or if it is the fact that everyone knows we are different from them. Am I just way to hung up on what others think of me and is this something that fades with time? I wonder what I will do in a similar situation a year from now. Will I still hide from my background or will I become proud of the knowledge that I am different? And at what point does speaking German become hiding verses good learning?
Mon 12 Aug 2002
Chinesischer Turm
Posted by Ken Atherton under germany
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GUYS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT! NO GIRLS ALLOWED!
I’m going to try to keep my voice down so Sandi won’t hear us.
Here’s the story: We took a trip to Munich last Saturday. If you aren’t already aware, Munich is German for “Beer Mecca”. I talked Sandi into going with me to check out one of the many beer gardens. The place we stopped at is called Chinesischer Turm (The Chinese Tower). It’s one of the largest beer gardens in Munich, and it is located in the Englischer Garten area, a large park near the city center. I picked this particular one due to its high rating in The Beer Drinker’s Guide To Munich.
It was rainy and overcast while we were there, but you could clearly see the potential of the place. A German band provides the atmosphere, and on a warm day, this place is packed.
Here’s a picture:
The beer is served in giant mugs that hold an entire liter, and the cost is only between 3-5 euro depending on the beer. Of course, you have to pay a deposit for each of the mugs, but that is quickly refunded at the collection points.
I tried both a Pilsner and a half-liter Hefe-Weizen, and they were both excellent. There’s nothing like a really fresh beer from Munich.
If you are planning a trip to Germany, and you are going to go anywhere near Munich, you have to make a trip to one of these places. If you come to see us, we’ll have to work out a plan to ditch the girls (there’s a lot of other things to see in Munich too, or at least that’s what we can tell them), and then spend the afternoon enjoying this beer garden or one of the other fine establishments in the area.
Of course, I wouldn’t mind going back to this one. After a good afternoon enjoying the garden, we could always make a side trip to the nude sunbathing area only a few hundred meters away. Or so I hear…
Mon 12 Aug 2002
Wir Machen Urlaub
Posted by Ken Atherton under germany, italy, vacation
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It’s August, and in Germany that means that everyone is going on vacation. We are no exception. This Saturday we are leaving for a two week vacation to Italy. This, of course, assumes that we can make it through the flood waters in Northern Italy to our destination (more on that in another message).
Anyway, it seems odd to be taking this vacation. Sandi noticed that we have never been on a vacation that long anywhere. We’re planning to make the most of it, though. Not to rub it in or anything, but after I take these two weeks, I will still have 4 weeks of vacation left this year.
(OK, maybe I am rubbing it in a little! 
)
Here’s our plan:
First we will be spending a week in the Napoli region. We have reservations at a hotel on the beach, and the region is home to many other interesting sites. I am in particular interested in visiting Pompeii, the ruins of a village that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption which has fascinated me since I was in first grade. We will probably alternate each day between staying at the beach and seeing the sights.
After that, we will spend three days in Rome. We are staying at a bed-and-breakfast style pension in a district near the heart of Rome. We will let you know how it works out– Rome is a very expensive place to stay, but most pensions cost about half as much as the hotels. We have heard that this is a good way to tour Europe on the cheap, but this will be our first time to try it out.
We will follow that with a few days in Florence (with a side trip to Pisa to see the famous tower) and then we will finish our Italian tour in Venice. Hopefully, it won’t have sunk into the sea completely by then!
Wish us luck– we will be driving the whole trip, and that means riding in the car for a lot of hours with the girls. We have arranged the trip so that the longest trip is on the first day– from here to Napoli. According to our mapping program it will take between 12 and 13 hours to reach our destination. That, of course, assumes that we don’t run into any major traffic delays, and that is not a given when driving in Italy.
Oh well, one way or another it will be quite an adventure!
Fri 16 Aug 2002
European Weather
Posted by Ken Atherton under austria, germany, italy
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As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, there has been some pretty bad weather going through Europe in the last weeks. There has been a lot of flooding in Austria and Northern Italy. Fortunately, as far as we can tell, none of the flooding has washed out any of the roads we are travelling on tomorrow. It may be a very interesting trip if we’re wrong!
I’ve been thinking: when we got here in May and it rained for 2 weeks, they told us that was “unusual weather”. When we almost roasted to a crisp at the end of June, they told us that was “unusual weather”. The first two weeks of August, it was almost too cold to go outside with the girls, and they told us that was “unusual weather”. Now there is flooding all over the place, and that is “unusual weather”.
I’m beginning to wonder if the Germans know what the word “unusual” means!!!
BTW, that’s it for now. We’ll write again in two weeks. If we’re really lucky, we’ll have enough good material to make a video!
