Finally.  Thank the Lord Holy Jesus and all things sacred that I am now at a hotel with internet service, as well as at a location where I have bars on my cell phone.  You have no idea what I’ve been through these past few days with no contact with the world.  Once, I tried yodeling a message home through the Alps, but the message came back to me.  I need contact, people!!  And not the real kind.  I mean the artificial kind. O ne-on-one with my computer, my cell phone, and the people!

Anyhow, I feel much better now getting that off my chest.  My friend traveling with me, T-Nut, doesn’t even know the password to her e-mail, so she cannot understand my predicament.  But, enough of that…let’s talk Germany, y’all!

My, oh my, what a beautiful country this is!  We left Munich on Saturday after renting an Opel Astra, and headed south to the Berchtesgaden area.  Driving on the Autobahn is not exactly what I had expected.  Actually, I was a nervous wreck about driving, but after passing a few cars going slower than 100kph, I started getting the hang of it.  Before I knew it, I was trucking along at 140kph.  Still slow by German standards, but it’s not as crazy as what I had heard.  Station wagon or not, Lulu can drive the Autobahn, people.

Just to give you a quick rundown, in-a-nutshell view on the itinerary, we visited the Salt Mines on Saturday, Lake Konigsee and Mount Jenner on Sunday, and Salzburg on Monday. 

The really sad thing is, I was going to upload my pictures to Flickr for you to view; however, because I’m new to Flickr, I’m confused.  As usual.  I’m getting a message that says my monthly upload limit has been reached.  I just joined!  How is that possible?

Anyhow, I’ll try working on that tomorrow.  For now, I must sleep.  It’s 11:15pm here, and we’re getting up early in the morning to go to Neuschwanstein Castle.  I’ll get back on track maybe tomorrow.  Or maybe a month from now.  We’ll see…

P.S. Can someone please Fedex me a Diet Coke?  And my dog?

Greetings from the land of beer!  And more beer!  And believe it or not, I’ve been in Munich a full day and haven’t had one yet.  I’m just too exhausted with jet lag and the stress of actually getting here, that I’m afraid if I drink one beer that I’ll pass out right on the streets of Munich.  Crazy American.  But never fear, my peeps, Lulu will have a beer (or two) today!  I totally need one.

So, let me just give you a quick rundown of what has happened so far.

We were scheduled to leave Atlanta on Wednesday around 4:15pm, but it turned out to be more like 5:30pm due to the bad weather in Atlanta.  After I pulled myself out from underneath my seat after a crazy, rocky take-off, we were on our way.  And nine sleepless hours later, we were attempting (key word – attempting) to land at the Munich airport.  And I say attempting, because the skies over Munich looked like this:

Very foreboding.  Anyhow, as we descended upon the runway, the landing gear came out, and I’m not exactly sure how close we were to the runway, but the airplane suddenly shot back up into the sky like a freaking rocket from hell.  Again, after pulling myself out from underneath my seat, the pilot announced that due to low visibility, we were unable to land, and that he would attempt (there’s that word again – attempt) to land one more time or else we would have to divert to Frankfurt.  Diverting seemed liked a better idea to me than attempting.  Frankfurt is a beautiful city, I’ve heard.  I was all for diverting.  But, no.  That was not to be.  We were attempting.  And to make a long story short, the attempt (i.e. gamble with my freaking life) worked, and we landed in the fog in which you could not see 3 feet in front of you.  Again, Frankfurt seemed the better choice, as you can see from this:

So, after we landed, we were all like this:

Finding our cute little hotel (little being the operative word) was not as a big deal as I thought it would be.  Thankfully, many people here sprechen de English, as Lulu does not sprechen de Germany.  And what a shame it is that American schools do not require that students learn a second language.  It’s a travesty, I say. S o, after checking into our hotel around 10am, we hit the ground running and visited these sites:

Spielzeug Museum (toy and bear museum)
Viktualienmarkt
Munich Residenz

And today, we’ll be doing a tour of Munich on bike with Mike’s Bike Tours and visiting the Hofbräuhaus.  And drinking beer.

For now, this is all the time that I have as my stomach is growling and Lulu must eat breakfast—1:00am Georgia time/7:00am Germany time. My body is so confused.  But, I will leave you with a link to my pictures from yesterday.  I didn’t have time to label them so you’ll just have to guess as to where they were taken, and I uploaded them in reverse order just to confuse you even more.  Here’s the link.  (I think…I’m new to Flickr).

Prost!

Sorry, y’all.  I’m a little bit late getting back into the blogging world after a nice, long weekend with my mother in town.  But, alas, there is a winner for Lulu’s Febreze giveaway!  And so, I must give it away.

Thanks to random.org’s integer generator, the lucky integer generated is:

This random integer belongs to my 5th commenter, Kelly at Cheaper Than a Happy Meal!  Congratulations!  And I hope that winning this cheers her up just a teensy bit.  Sadly enough, I just read Kelly’s most recent post, and her dog, Emily, is very ill.  If you get chance, click over and send some good wishes her way.

I’ll be back later this week with an update on the weekend with my mother!

My mother is currently on her way here from Tampa to spend the weekend with her dear, sweet Lulu.  And perhaps her other daughter.  And maybe her grandchildren.  But that’s beside the point.  At the time of this writing, she’s boarding her plane…or at least I think she is.  There’s also a strong possibility that she’s in TSA jail.  But I guess I’ll find out in about an hour when I’m supposed to be meeting her at the airport.

You see, my mother just called me a short while ago to let me know that she arrived safely at the Tampa airport a mere 3 hours before her scheduled departure to Atlanta.  She likes to be early so that she can find her way to the gate.  Three hours is a good lead time, because God forbid the gate gets changed to the other side of the airport and she ends up getting lost in baggage claim, or the food court, or perchance the long-term parking lot trying to find it.  People?  It can happen.

Anyway, shortly after the initial Eagle-has-landed call, I get another call from my mother.  This time, she is frantic and slightly out of breath.  My first thought is, God forbid!  She’s lost in long-term parking!  With someone else’s luggage!  While eating a Big Mac!  Alas, no.  Here is our conversation…

Me (in my professional office voice):  Hullo, this is Lulu.

Mother (breathing heavily):  Lulu!  You’ll…never…guess…pant, pant…what happened!

Me:  What?

Mother:  OMG!  I’m so angry!

Me:  WHAT is wrong?

Mother:  Well, um…pant, pant…you won’t believe what happened!

Me:  GOD FORBID! WHAT?

Mother (possibly crying):  Well, I’m having to throw away my brand new bottle of mousse, a bottle of hairspray, and my tanning lotion!

Me: …

Mother:  There’s a sign that says I can’t take it through security!

Me:  Mother.  Mother!  You can only carry on containers with 3 oz. or less of liquid and it’s all got to fit into a quart-sized zip-top bag.  What do you not understand about this (as I telepathically show her over the phone):

I thought that you knew that?  

Mother:  No!  I thought that you were allowed to carry on that kind of stuff, but not allowed to pack it in your checked luggage!  So, I asked some security woman if she could retrieve my checked suitcase so that I can put it in there.  (I can only imagine what the TSA agent told her.  God bless those people.)

Me: … (shaking head)

Mother:  Do you think that I could just hide it all in my purse and try to go through security?

Me: (banging my head furiously on my desk)  Mother!  Your purse will be x-rayed and/or searched when you go through security!

Mother:  Oh.  Well, I can try it, can’t I?

Me:  IT’S ILLEGAL!!

Mother:  Oh.  Well, I have to go find my gate now.

My dear, sweet, federal law-breaking mother.  I can only hope that she makes it safely to the Atlanta airport along with her checked luggage—which by the way, contains a couple of wool sweaters and socks.  It’s going to be in the 70’s here in Georgia this weekend.  Brr.

Update:  My mother made it safely to Atlanta without incident.  And mousse.