On Tuesday we drove down to Oberlahnstein, parked, rode a train down to Rudesheim, and then took a boat back up the Rhine. This route is loaded with castles and vineyards galore. We followed the map to Selters and discovered we were in the wrong Selters. We found Bethel without difficulty on the second try in a town called Selters about an hour away. The brother at the desk informed us we were fortunate to get it right the second time; there are apparently four Selters in Germany.
On Wednesday we toured Bethel in the morning and drove to the Mösel valley in the afternoon. We toured a castle called Burg Eltz, a somewhat smaller one, but still spectacular. After a failed attempt to access the recreation area of Bethel upon returning (our guest keys weren't powerful enough), we bumped into some brothers and sisters who invited us over for pizza. All three spoke excellent English, and we had a splendid evening.
After leaving Bethel on Thursday, we drove down to Rothenburg, a fascinating city that in ancient times used to be the primary stop along the trade route from Paris to Vienna. The old part of the city is surrounded by a wall, which we walked around, and the inside was like something out of the middle ages, except for all the cars and tourists.
From there we traveled to Munich (München), where we have stayed the past two nights with Andreas and Tanya Hahn. They live just a short walk from the city center, and today we spent the entire day just soaking in the culture. We climbed a tower to get a view of the city, toured the "Munich Residence," (which is a bland name for an extravagant palace, the residences of kings past since the 1300's), and drank beer at the Hofbrauhaus, a famous restaurant that serves beer in 1 liter steins. Very impressive. As usual, we played a lot of chess.
We're approaching the halfway point, and all is well. As expected, the time is flying by, but I'm happy with how much we've done and seen so far. More to come ...
Day two of the trip is drawing to a close, and since I have access to the net where I'm staying, I figure it's a good time to provide an update. That way I don't have to write anything down.
We arrived in Brussels yesterday morning. Jerry's plane arrived about 30 mins after mine, and we had no problems connecting and getting the rental car, a jazzy little Ford Fiesta. We took a spin around town, checking out a park and some fancy old buildings, then headed north to the modern port city of Rotterdam, Netherlands. We didn't have time to make it to Amsterdam like we we're hoping, but we got a nice sample of the diverse Dutch culture in our short stop.
Then to Duisburg, near Düsseldorf. (notice my use of the umlat? that's much easier on this German keyboard. everything else, however, is much harder, and this is taking longer than usual ...) The couple we have been staying with these past two days is Detlef and Gabi Harting. They have been awesome, even taking a vacation day to take us around Düsseldorf, and treating us to some fine German sausage, cheese, and beer. (The folks in Wisconsin have the right idea, but they would do well to revisit their roots and get it right.)
Thanks to Micah, we have a camera and are getting some good pictures. However, I stupidly forgot to get a picture of our dinner tonight. I will try to be more attentive in the future. Since we don't have a cable to upload to the net, I'll have to wait to post until we get back to the States. Tschüss!
Google long ago became the de facto standard for any web surfer adventurous enough to stray from the confines of his preselected MSN, Yahoo, or AOL home page. Why? Fast, relevant results, of course. Wouldn't it be cool to have that Google searching power for you own PC? Enter Google Desktop.
If you've ever tried using the built in Windows XP search utility to find that document you buried last winter containing the words "Death Star," then you have an idea how cool it is to pop the search criteria into the standard Google interface and have it instantly return the doc called "Day Care" (yes, it's a parody about day care on the Death Star). Included in its indexing are local web pages, chat logs, and emails (if you use Outlook or Outlook Express). I've only had it installed for three days and it's come in handy several times.
Google has licensed its search technology to businesses for years, but it's nice that they now provide it free for individual users. There are still significant limitations (it's still in beta), and privacy concerns abound. For example, if you delete a private document from your PC, it will remain available in Google's cache. I wouldn't use it for a public machine, but for the average home user, this free tool is great.