Tuesday, April 2, 2002

This morning I noticed that the cleaning lady had the bucket which I had left full of drain-cleaning rags. Dang. I'd meant to wash those out yesterday. She said she'd make them go away. I don't think she did. D'oh. My stock may fall. McDrive Story. Today's tourist thing was a trip to the salt mines. Katie had been to the salt mines as a kid. You dress up in salt-miner costumes, ride a train deep into the mountain, go down some slides, walk around, learn about how salt is mined, and so forth. There are two we're trying to choose from. One in Bad Reichenhall, and one in Berchtesgaden. We decide to go to the former, which is half again as far away as the latter. When we get to Bad Reichenhall, there's no sign of any salzbergwerk that we can see. We drive around a bit, then I stop at a tourist info place [Katie and my roles there are generally reversed from the normal sex roles. I'm ready to stop and ask at the drop of a hat, while Katie never wants to]. Katie goes in to look around, but doesn't want to ask so I go in to see if they speak English. "A little". Ah. It turns out that the salzwerk here in Bad Reichenhall is a processing plant that processes the brine sent over from the mine in Berchtesgaden. You can tour it and all, but it's not underground and has no slides or trains or spiffy costumes. Well,then. Off to Berchtesgaden. Berchtesgaden Saltbergwerks Sesselbahn to lunch schnell essen ice cream parmesan cheese Radler More mountain driving Traunstein Obi Menard's only much cleaner. Wierd paintbrushes. Another pushy German in line; I stepped out of line for a moment to look for a battery and a guy from the next line over took my spot almost before I'd taken a step. Walmart Could be Eden Prairie. Looks the same as the US except everything's in German and the store's way neater. Umi asked what "her butler" wanted for his birthday. I demurred, but Katie suggested an ashtray to lick per our standard joke. SO, Umi goes off to get an ashtray her mother had brought from Poland. Lead crystal, by the look of it. Gorgeous. She appears to want me to take it. 3:29:59 PM     Monday Wildpark for easter egg hunt; didn't find any, but fed lots of animals and saw ducks knocking boots. Drove up winding road to park; Katie barely breathed the whole way. I left a 8 Euro tip on 40 Euro bill at lunch [well, I handed it to the server]. Confused the server; Umi was shocked. Modellbahn; tiny, beautiful. It's in an industrial building. Decided not to do Marquartstein for a couple hours, instead went to a trubelmarkt. Trinkets. 1 Euro for 20 chocolate egg toys. Ice cream; feel like we're in a fishbowl. Blown breaker in basement. note to Umi; hadn't found fusebox. She showed it to me; blown breaker, reset it as she panicked [whole house?] Katie arrived, explained breakers, etc. 3:27:19 PM     Sunday Overslept; Umi had Easter breakfast waiting and we didn't get up until 11 or so. Ooops. Aad breakfast, the kids searched for hidden baskets. Much chocolate enjoyed. Kuki's apartment, Krankihaus Mcdonald's. Walk by canal. Kitchen drain clogged; removed and cleaned out. Snaked out the pipes behind the wall. All better. Left rags [Rudi's old undies] soaking in soapy water outside to clean in the morning. 3:26:00 PM     Saturday: Katie and Grete went shopping in the morning; when they came back we had lunch, napped a bit, then got things together to go to the Maerchenpark. Dropped Grete off downtown so that she could get the battery for Rudi's hearing aid, then off we went. Last time we did the Maerchenpark in Marquartstein, so this time we picked Ruhpolding for our first. Nice drive. I like this Opel. Got to the park and had coat issues; should we take them, should we not? Good thing U & O didn't come with; the parking lot is at the bottom of a 200m 10-20 degree hill. Decided to buy a punch card we can use at Marquartstein as well, and since we were confused and the clerk was new, we ended up with a 200-point pass for the price of a 100-point. Score. These parks are strange; they'd be public parks in the US, really. There are little storybook dioramas all over; push a button and a song plays or a story gets told and the stuffed zwerge move. This one had one carnival-style ride; one of those really-fast-in-a-circle things that blasts loud music at the state fair. This one was a dragon with somebody cutting his tail off. Jingly Bavarian music. Fast as all get-out. One woman was riding with two kids; all three in the same car, so they couldn't have been more than 3 or 4, Just before it starts, Dad jumps on with the 1-year-old. She had a great time. Not. The other "rides" are swings, wooden climbing apparatus, and so forth. The focal point is a potato-sack slide ala State Fair, Major scene with Emma. She decided she was "hot" after playing on some of the stuff, so she took off her coat and stood under the runoff from one of the roofs. This on a 45-50 degree day. Then she put her coat on top of here head, soaking it, too. Ach. 3:24:23 PM

© Copyright 2002 Chaz Larson. Last update: 4/2/02; 3:24:25 PM.