The End

Friday, September 21, 2012

As this trip is ending, here are some additional thoughts.  Ok, yes, I loved Switzerland, but honestly who can afford to live there?  During one meal we got charged 1 Euro for 1 pat of butter.  Cokes and water routinely cost 5 Euros for a small bottle.  The car train was the only thing that was reasonably priced.

We finished out Switzerland with one night in Luzern (cool town) and a brief stop in Bern to see the bears.  Unfortunately, the bears weren't out, but it was a good chance to see the city which is lovely. After leaving Bern we headed to France and spent the night in Chamonix.  We had considered doing the cable car up Mt. Blanc, but it would have cost around $100 and we just didn't want to go that badly.  One funny thing about Chamonix was the hotel.  The bathroom was so small that in order to fit in the toilet, about a third of it took up part of the door opening.  Never saw anything like that before!  Although the hotel in Luzern and again in Chamonix promised WiFi in the room, in both places our rooms were in dead zones.  I had to do an application for work, so we ended up taking the laptop to the hotel's business center and I was able to get it done there.

The other big event in Chamonix was Brian breaking out in a horrible rash all over his body.  It stung and itched and generally looked awful.  This morning it had spread so he went down to the pharmacy. They sold him some type of pill, and so, just to double check, he stopped in at a second pharmacy.  They told him that he needed to see a doctor immediately.  Just so happened that there was a doctor right around the corner.  He stopped in and was given an appointment for a little later this morning.  She saw him promptly, diagnosed a contact allergy, cause unknown, and wrote him two prescriptions.  She had very limited English, so it was interesting to watch her try to explain when and how much of each medicine he would take.  She billed us 40 Euros, which we paid directly to her, then she wrote a note in French for us to send to Aetna.  That should be good for a laugh.  At any rate, we got the scripts filled, and went on our merry way back to Italy and to our last hotel right by the airport.

Life is Good

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

OMG, I love the Swiss! They have toilet seats, car trains, and AAA discounts. Not to be putting down the Italians, but what is with their obsession about having no toilet seats in the restrooms?? And who knew about car trains? Never saw any mention of them in the guidebooks, either. Good thing we stopped at a tourist info booth in Zermatt to ask about the shortest way to Grindelwald. By the way, Zermatt is a picture postcard village at the foot of the Matterhorn. We now have a very detailed Swiss road map (only cost about $20). We could see a shortcut, but on the map it looked like there was no road between two of the small towns. So we stopped to ask about that and found out about the car train. In the first town, you drive your car right onto the train and remain seated in the car. The train takes you through a mountain, pitch dark in the tunnel. About 15 minutes later you drive right off the train and continue on your merry way. It costs 22 Swiss francs. To have gone the long way around would have added several hours to the trip as well as costing a fortune in gas. We have been spending well over $100 a tank for fuel on this trip, so the cost of the train seemed like a real bargain. Plus, it was a very cool experience. Yesterday we went up a series of cable cars to the top of the Schilthorn. This is not the highest mountain in the area, but this is the mountain featured in the James Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" At the top is a revolving restaurant and views of the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau. We ate lunch, which was about $50. We couldn't help laughing about that and remembering the $50 lunch we had by accident in Liechtenstein two years ago. Yesterday was by far the better value, and best of all, when we bought out tickets for the cable cars, the ticket lady asked if we had AAA. We never would have thought to ask for a AAA discount, but it saved us about $30. And now you know why we love the Swiss. Not to mention the incredible beauty of this country. The most fantastic thing of all yesterday is that Cindy and Jason called us to relay the awesome news that Jason passed his bar exam. 

Catching Up

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Haven't posted in a while for a couple of reasons. Usually I'm just too tired, but we did spend a couple of days in a delightful medieval walled village and had no internet access. The town, San Gimignano, is wonderful, and we had a great hotel. The first morning after we arrived we set out for Pisa -- which was terrific-- and then headed to Firenze. That's where we got into major trouble. We never could figure out where Garmin was taking us, but we also never got close to where we were headed. We never even got to a spot that I could find on the map. Around and around we went with narrow, crowded streets and maniacal drivers, and then the Garmin died. At that point we decided to bag the Duomo and after a lot of trouble we found our way out of town. Without using the Garmin, we made it to Venice easily, got parked and onto the water bus and had no trouble finding the hotel, getting our gondola ride and seeing St. Mark's Square. No adventures to report. Today, we came across the Simplon Pass into Switzerland, and had no trouble finding our way to Tasch. Tomorrow we go to Zermatt to look at the Matterhorn. 

Lessons Learned

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

If nothing else, this trip has vividly demonstrated to us that we aren't spring chickens anymore and just can't keep up the frantic pace we used to do on trips. We were supposed to go to Capri today, but now Brian isn't feeling too great. When he told me this, it took absolutely no time for me to say, "yeah, lets skip Capri and do it when we hit Naples on the cruise next year." All I could think about was getting a chance to sleep in, read a book, do the laundry and watch a movie, while lounging around in the hotel room. We also think that this will be our last trip to a foreign country where we rent a car and drive ourselves. That's just not as fun as it used to be, either. So, no funny adventures today and no interesting pictures either. Tomorrow is another day! 

Out of the Frying Pan

Monday, September 10, 

I now understand why my brother and sister-in-law took a whole week to see Rome. At the time it just didn't make any sense to me, and so, when it was my turn to plan this trip I only allotted three days in Rome. What I did not figure in was how tired and sick I was by the time we arrived and so we didn't accomplish anything the first day. The second day I still was feeling bad but charged ahead to the Vatican. By the time we were finished there, I was completely out of energy and still not keeping food down. After an all too short rest, we went on a three hour Segway tour of Rome at night. I thought I would die, but we saw so much that we would have missed otherwise, and Segways are a lot of fun to ride. We finally got something to eat about 10:30 p.m. which was about the first food that I was able to eat in two days. The next day we did the Colosseum and the catacombs and wasted a couple of hours waiting for the bus. We had a very tasty and relaxing dinner at Campo di Fiori, and then took in the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We did everything that we wanted to do, but it was just too hard to do all of that in two days. This morning we took a bus out to Fiumicino to pick up the rental car. What a nightmare! The whole shebang took about three hours, and then to add insult to injury we have no way to charge anything in the car. That shouldn't be a problem since we have been able to charge the laptop, my phone, and my nook in our rooms. We always keep the car charger plugged in when using the Garmin, and there we were with no idea if the Garmin would last long enough to get us to Sorrento. We kept it off as long as possible but took a wrong turn as we were leaving Naples. That is when we turned it on, in the middle of some city. It was in the midst of telling us how to get out of the town when it totally died. It took us forever to find our way just using the Atlas, but when we got to Sorrento we couldn't find the hotel. Finally, we stopped at another hotel and they showed us on a town map how to get to where we wanted to go. Driving in Italy is not a lot of fun. Between the stick shift, the wild drivers all around us, the suicidal scooters riders, and the giant buses, it was all Brian could do to get us here. That's why we decided to go with the tour options for Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Both will pick us up here and drop us off at the end of the day. That is also why we are going to eat tonight at a restaurant that will pick us up and deliver us back. We honestly thought that getting out of Rome would end the crowds and narrow streets, and the traffic, but we went from the frying pan to the fire today. 

Italy for Beginners

Friday, September 7, 2012

This time we are off to Italy and Switzerland 

Got to Rome this morning, but I was not feeling all too well. Actually, I lost my breakfast on the train tracks at the airport. Maybe you don't need to know that, however. We took the train into the center city, and then stumbled our way around the Termini looking for the hop on hop off tour office. Once we took care of that, we set out for the hotel, which was very easy to find, but by the time we got here, dragging our luggage, I was so tired that I lay down to "rest my eyes". Two hours later, I came to, and was ready to venture out looking for the catacombs. We were told that there are some near the Circus Maximus, so we blundered our way over there. Of course, we couldn't find them, so back we came to the train station where we had started out. At least we got our feet wet on the Metro and have a general idea what we are supposed to do tomorrow. 

The Talk To Me Tattoo

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The “Talk to Me” Tattoo 

It happened last year in Germany when I must have had the "talk to me in German" tattoo on my forehead. Well, what a surprise! It now reads, "talk to me in Portuguese". Yep, the same thing happened--a woman beside me on a bench starts conversing with me in Portuguese. I used one of the few Portuguese expressions that I know to tell her that I don't speak Portuguese and that I couldn't understand her. So what does she do? The same thing as her German counterpart. She just spoke slower and louder!

And ok, I confess, I did get up and learn the Samba last night, but only because my son made me. We all tremendously enjoyed the Samba club and have some good pictures of the Caldows cutting loose.

Today we did the bucket list of things to do in Rio, by going up to the base of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovada, then taking the cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf. Rio is just as beautiful in person as it is in the photos.

We finished the day with Brazilian pizza, which is excellent. Well, I can't say that the day was quite finished after dinner, because we ended up playing cards til 1 am. This is significant only in that Brian's usually sound asleep by 9:45! He is really adapting to the Carioca lifestyle of sleeping in, getting a late start on the day, eating lunch in the middle of the afternoon, dinner at 8 or later, then some activity until the wee hours. We have also found that Rio time can be rather fluid.

But one last thing I need to mention. The taxis are very plentiful, but they are all wild and crazy drivers. Even the public buses race down the streets. We feel like we are on Mr. Toad's wild ride every time we go anywhere. What is truly amazing is that there aren't more crashes. And lastly, what's with all the taxi's showing empty on their gas gauge. That just fascinates us. 

Extreme Activities Rio Style

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Ok, so maybe I didn't do any of them, but Brian, Jason, and most of all, Brenda did, and I got to watch. Yesterday we started out with what everyone thought was a standard zip line canopy tour. Turns out, the zip line was the least of it. Mostly it was a very challenging aerial obstacle course. Jason inadvertently missed some of the obstacles, but Brenda sailed through them. Brian did fine until the last one. At that point he was so physically exhausted that the guide had to come out and help him. I'm really proud of all of them, because I could tell from how sweaty they all were, how much effort that they had put into it.

 After everyone caught their breath, we went on a tour of the Tijuca Rain Forest -- very beautiful! At that point we bade farewell to our driver and adjourned to the Cachaca Academy for drinks and food. Cachaca is a liquor derived from the sugar cane, and is the basis of all the Caipirinhas that we have been enjoying. 

The extreme activities continued today when we took Brenda hang gliding. This was our "thank you" to her for all the translating and guide services that she has been giving us. We thought for a long time that the clouds would not break up enough for her to take off, but eventually, those of us waiting on the beach looked up to the mountain to see the beautiful sight of the multiple wings soaring through the sky.

We will be finishing today with an evening at a Samba Club. And no, I will not be doing any of the Sambaing!

A Carioca Sunday

Sunday, July 17, 2011

I'm told that we just spent a typical Carioca Sunday. If that is true, they really know how to live! We all slept in, then Brian and Brenda made the daily jaunt to the bakery down the street for a variety of great pastries. When we finished brunching, Brenda hit the beach and the rest of us went to the Hippie Fair. This takes place every Sunday and fills up a park. There are all sorts of vendors selling wonderful things at great prices and in the center are all sorts of lovely art works for sale. 

After Brian and I had seen all we wanted to, we sat on a bench and watched the locals enjoying the beautiful day, while Jason haggled over a painting. He has been haggling with the artist for a whole month, and still thinks he can get a better deal.

 We then strolled over to the Ipanema Beach and found a spot to sit, drink caiparinhas, and watch the crowds on the beach. We decided that we should mosey along if we were going to get a table somewhere to watch the Brazil/Paraguay soccer game. Jason took us to a place he knows and ran into some friends. These friends told him that they had just seen Brenda looking for us, so we waited while he went back to the Hippie Fair and found Brenda.

 There was a very small town feeling to the whole business. We then took a really wild taxi ride to the Leblon area, found a restaurant for a Brazilian meal and watched the first half of the game. At that point we hopped in a cab, came back to Copacabana and went to a cafe for more caiparinhas and the rest of the game. And that is how the Carioca's spend Sundays!

A Glorious Day in Rio

Saturday, July 16, 2011

So maybe yesterday was just an aberration. Today was a splendid day and we got to interact with some real Brazilians, thanks to Jason's Brazilian law school buddy, Brenda who goes to law school at SMU. She moved in with us for a few days and is our tour guide. Jason is doing remarkably well with the language. He can get around, communicate in restaurants and shops, and really knows his way around the city. But Brenda's fluency has allowed us to have some interesting conversations with locals. We started the afternoon at a huge market that was clearly not for tourists. We prowled around there, stopped for a refreshing caiparinha, and then found a cab that drove us all over the city. He stopped to let us take pictures, and, when we decided to have another "drink" break, he joined us in the cafe and shared stories about his life. After an enjoyable time getting to know him, we came back to the apartment  for a break, before going to a real Brazilian churascaria, where we fed on great chunks of meat. Altogether a charming day! 

Welcome to Rio Sucker!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Ok, so I was warned that bicyclists swoop down upon you and snatch things right from your hand. Warned, but maybe not believing! We had no trouble on the flight (10 hours, but who is counting), had a driver waiting for us with our name on a sign, and safely made it to the apartment which is right on Copacabana beach. The driver didn't speak English, but we were prepared. We had printed up a note for him on Google translate, and succeeded in making our plans for pick up, sightseeing, and the trip back to the airport next week. We even successfully got ourselves fed at lunch. But after a brief nap, we ventured out to the beach. And that is where I got hit. A bicyclist came swooping at me, stuck out his hand and went for my throat. He tore my shirt open and before I could even react, was long gone down the boardwalk. It took me a minute to realize that my gold necklace was gone. This necklace isn't really all that valuable. It is just the one with the pendant filled with gold that I panned in Fairbanks. On the whole I'm glad that it wasn't my purse! So the warnings are absolutely true and I just put the rest of my costume jewelry and my credit cards in the apartment safe. Now we are waiting for Jason to get here and we will see what is on tonight's agenda. 

Rio de Janeiro

Monday July 11, 2012

Now we are getting ready to venture off to Rio de Janeiro to meet up with our law school attending son. He has been there for the last few weeks doing a summer semester abroad conducted through the Tulane Law School. He attends class in a Brazilian law school and will finish the semester the day that we arrive. He seems fairly excited about having the chance to introduce us to Rio, and we are excited about both spending time alone with him and about seeing all the things that he has been discovering during his stay. 

Home Again

Wednesday, September 16, 2010

When we started this adventure we were both a little worried that three weeks would turn out to be too long. It definitely wasn't too long, but by the time we left, we were ready to end it. We were very tired and had done almost everything that we planned to do. We didn't get to see Noah's Ark in the Netherlands, but that was ok. We also didn't go into Paris for dinner on our last night. We were just too darned tired to face the effort of getting the train in. Other than those two things we did everything that we planned and more. One of the most amazing things to us was that everywhere we went we heard American music and it wasn't current music, it was oldies. I don't understand why that is. We also found that in all the countries they show a lot of very old American TV programs dubbed into German, or Dutch, or French. We had a hard time finding any thing to watch on TV. Periodically we could find the BBC news in English, CNN world news, and even in several places we found a Russian News station broadcasting from Moscow in English. There are also McDonald's and Burger Kings everywhere. Wish I owned stock. The one thing that I couldn't find anywhere was a Dr. Pepper and that is really a shame! 

The Griswolds Do Europe

Remember when I told you about our problems at the airport in Amsterdam? You would think that we would have learned something from that, but once again, life's little lessons failed to sink in. The morning that we departed Paris, we set out for the airport with all confidence that we had it planned. The night before we had spent quite a bit of time searching for a gas station so that we could return the car with a full tank. As it turns out, the little town where DeGaulle airport is located doesn't have a single gas station. We finally located one on the entrance road to the airport so we were all set--we thought. We headed out with plenty of time to spare, gassed up and started looking for the place to return the rental car. This airport has three terminals and we were headed for Terminal 2. There was no problem finding it, but it so happens that Terminal 2 isn't just one building. There are four Terminal 2 buildings--2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D. We knew that we were leaving from 2A, so that is where we headed. To our great relief we spotted a car rental return sign and got in the lane for it. However we never saw another direction sign and pretty soon we had made a loop and were right back where we started. We were looping a circle that included 2A and 2 B. We went round again, with the same results, then round again several more times. What's the definition of insanity? By the time we had looped it five or six times I decided that we were one level up and needed to be on the ground level. I could see lots of cars parked in the center of the loop so that must be the place, right? We spotted a ramp leading down and, with a big sigh of relief, down we went. Of course, it turned out to be another parking lot and once we were in, we had to pay to get out--just like in Amsterdam. So back we went to our familiar loop. Finally Brian noticed that above the one sign that indicated the car rental return, there were some letters such as Pa, Pb, Pe, or something like that. On the next circle we spotted another off ramp with one of the P letters on it. We took it, but when we didn't see any direction signs, we finally pulled over and asked an airport employee. Naturally he didn't speak any English and we couldn't think of how to ask directions in French. He finally got what we were asking and answered us with gestures and more French. I caught the word for left, so we thanked him and headed out. Sure enough, by keeping to the left we eventually found the entrance to the car return. It turned out to be on the bottom level of the loop that circled 2C and 2D. Of course there were no signs saying that, so who knew? Sadly, by that time I was so rattled that I left my prescription sunglasses in the car. I think that we have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. 

The Garmin was a lifesaver but...

When we left Germany, headed to Luxembourg and France, we programmed our destination into the Garmin and off we went. I was a little surprised that he (our speaker is a male Australian voice) didn't direct us to the nearest autobahn, but we decided to follow his lead. The only problem is if you live by the Garmin, you can also die by the Garmin! He took us on the back roads in what would look like a short cut if you saw it in the atlas. However, he didn't take into account that the road he had us on got us in the middle of nowhere and then the road closed. We turned off on a little side road, he said "recalculate", and off he took us to another road that was closed. This happened three times and we wandered all over the countryside. I was trying to see where we were on the atlas, thinking that maybe I could get us straightened out, but neither any of the roads nor any of the villages that we went through were on the map. Of course we eventually made our way out of Germany, but it certainly took a lot longer than it would have if we had gone by way of the autobahn. Now you would think we would have learned a lesson from this, but oh, no! When we left Epernay, France headed toward Paris and the end of the journey, we went by way of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood to have a look at the battlefields. And wouldn't you know it, Garmin did it to us again and we spent the afternoon exploring the back roads of France looking for the Expressway. This wonderful GPS put us on roads that were one lane wide but there was traffic going both ways. We kept having to pull over in the fields to get by. Once again none of the roads we were on or the villages that we went through were on the atlas. Next time we are definitely going to take a better atlas. 

Castle on the Rhine

One of the best things that we did was to spend the night in a castle on the Rhine. Although it was planned to be our "big splurge" of the whole trip, it turned out to be the best bang for the buck that we had. It wasn't however without a little bit of a challenge. This particular castle was, like most of them are, located up on a very high hill. The drive up wasn't any big deal, but the parking lot was located a little way down the hill from the castle. We got the luggage dragged up alright, but I was winded by the time we reached the entrance steps. At that point a very nice gentleman offered to get my suitcase up the steps for me. We started chatting and it turned out that he lives in Aubrey, up near Denton! Any way, we got inside and I thought my troubles were over. Ha! Turns out that they had given us a room upgrade and it just happened to be at the very top of a very high tower. Of course there was no elevator, but luckily for both of us, there was a staff member who picked up both our suitcases and trotted up the stairs. It was 6 flights up and I thought that I would die. It took me a little while to get to the room (had to stop and rest a couple of times on the way), but when I finally got there it took my breath away. The bed had a crown canopy, the room was filled with antiques (including chairs, tables, cabinets, desk and a sofa), the fixtures in the bathroom were all gold, and there was fruit and a bottle of sherry on the coffee table. Best of all, there was a balcony that looked out on the Rhine and the city far below us. We had a fabulous gourmet dinner and extensive buffet breakfast and when we got the bill it was lower than the rate quoted to us when we booked it online. The only problem was to get to the dining room for the dinner and the breakfast we had to go up and down all those steps. But it was really worth it and you must know that it was nice if I was willing to huff and puff my way up those stairs all those times.   

Things We’ve Noticed

Saturday, September 11, 2010

• All over Europe we have seen lots and lots of the new windmills-everywhere. 
• There are a lot of Japanese tourists and in many places the signs are bilingual with the second language being Japanese. 
• No matter what the weather or how cold it is, Europeans love to sit outside at cafes. 
• In every country that we visited the stop signs are all in English. 
• They like to eat lunch at 2 and dinner at 8. 
• Europeans are very hearty. They walk or bike everywhere no matter how hilly. 
• The church bells ring alot and there are lots of them in every town.
• Most of the time you have to pay to pee. 
• The autobahn is loads of fun. 
• They eat lunch food-like cold cuts and cheese and pickles and olives for breakfast. 
• No hotel bed had a top sheet--they use duvets for the top cover even when it is hot. 
• Only the castle hotel had a facecloth. Not one to be found anywhere else. 
• There is a decided lack of street signs all over Europe. 
• They have very sexy billboard ads like you would never see in Texas and in a couple of places we were channel surfing-during prime time-and came upon porn being shown on regular TV. 
• The parking garage machines may be exactly alike in different cities, but they don`t neccessarily work the same. 
• In Germany we were in a restaurant where there was a Bavrian floor show. There were two young boys folk dancing and when they finished they went behind the bar and drew themselves a large glass of beer. They start them young! 
• You really can ride the trams without buying a ticket, because no one ever checks. 
• Zurich isn`t worth visiting. 

We Love Austria, but...

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Ok, so we were warned, by the car rental company, to expect Switzerland to charge us a "road tax" of about $50. However when we crossed into Switzerland, there was no border crossing station and nowhere to pay the tax. We drove to Zurich and when we left we felt pretty smug about skating on the tax. Unfortunately as we went from Switzerland back into Germany we crossed thru a very few miles of the westernmost tip of Austria. And that is where disaster hit us! There was a border guard station as we left Austria and that is where we learned that Austria also has this "road tax" and the fine for not having paid it was $160!! What really chapped us was that we had been crossing in and out of Austria for quite a few days and nowhere was there any sign about this tax or any place to pay it. At least there weren´t any signs in English and who can read all that German stuff anyway? We finally figured out, based on something the border guard said, that they just manned the autobahn crossings and we had been crossing on back roads all this time. Sheesh, if we had only known that we would have taken the back road out of Austria and saved a bundle. 

The Importance of Paying Attention

Monday, September 2010

Today we went from Garmisch to Zurich by way of Liechtenstein. We thought it would be a great idea to get a pit stop and lunch in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. We located a likely looking Gasthaus (after missing the McDonalds) and to our great delight they spoke English, had the requisite facilities and were serving lunch. Not being terribly hungry, we each ordered a mixed salad (for 6 francs each), two cokes, and an order of fries. Imagine our shock when the bill arrived and it was over 50 dollars. Seems that they brought us a different kind of salad which must have been due to someone not paying attention when we ordered. Then I happily pulled up the address for the hotel (I thought) in the GPS and off we set for Zurich. Unfortunately I had pulled up the wrong address and we wandered ALL over the whole city before we got to someone`s house and realized what I had done. We finally got to the right spot, but what a beating. We had to park the car quite a long way away, then we found out that the tram to get back to the hotel required coins, which of course we didn't have. A kind lady in a dress shop helped us out and now we are in the hotel. They are charging us a fortune to use the computer (even the coffee in the lobby isn't free), so I will sign off before we go broke.

Sure Everyone Speaks English

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Somehow, between Austria and Germany we developed new tattoos on our foreheads. Now you can look at us and see the "talk to me in German" tattoo clear as day. The German people are very friendly and quite chatty, but alas it’s only in German. We smile and laugh and shake our heads and Brian can say that we don't speak German in German, but it doesn't change anything. Last night at dinner we were sitting peacefully eating our supper and a couple plopped themselves down at our table and joined us. They didn't speak English, so we did a lot of smiling. The best part came when they ordered a drink that we didn't recognize. Brian managed to ask them what the name of the drink was and not only did they tell us that it was Beerschnaps, the fellow even held out his glass and offered me a taste. Now that's a little too friendly! We also had the bright idea yesterday to ride the city bus to the end of the line and back again, just to see what was out there. The problem came when we got to the end of the line and were the only people left on the bus. The driver started ordering us to do something. He was very loud and authoritarian and of course we had no clue what he was saying. We just thought maybe he was ordering us off the bus so we jumped up and left. The bus promptly departed and that is when we discovered that we were stuck for a half hour. I'll bet that if we had been able to tell him that we wanted to ride back, he would have let us. Anyway while we were waiting an elderly German woman sat down next to me on the bench and started telling me something. I shook my head and said in English that I don't speak German, but she just got mad and started shouting at me. You know the universal response to someone who doesn't speak your language is to talk louder and slower. I never did figure out what was bothering her. She finally stopped shouting at me and stomped off. Now we have the next two days to explore around the Garmisch area and see if we can make a few more friends!