Germany

Germany with Fred, June 13-26, 2006.

TUESDAY, 6/13/06: 1:30PM: Start this just to have started it before waiting for the car at 2PM to pick up Fred afterwards. TOTALLY ready at 1:46PM, waiting for phone any minute now. Will play Spider until car calls. Shelley calls at 1:58 and car calls at 2PM EXACTLY. To airport by 2:45, giving him $55 because the guy yesterday said picking me and Fred up would be $45 and only when the doll of a driver phoned the office did he say it was $50, so if he didn't like the tip, tough, because $10 is a very generous tip for a $45 ride. Quickly to the desk and we both get the seats we want though she says the plane is VERY full. In by 3PM. Do lots of puzzles with a boring set of airport customers and board and pee at 4:40. NO one sits between us, and a DOLL across the aisle raises his arm to awful odor, but I'm far enough away so that it doesn't bother me, but when I turn to talk to Fred he looks at me and responds to what I say, and when something else happens, he gestures to ME to communicate his reaction: LOVELY. Off at 5:15, smooth takeoff with a few bumps, but we never go north enough for me to see anything of Long Island or anything else. Jet-trail rises higher against the horizon at 7PM. Dinner OK with a bit of chicken under yellow potatoes and something like tiramisu, but I have a glass of white wine, then a glass of champagne, then another glass of champagne, so I feel pretty good. Then it starts getting really bumpy, seat-belt light goes on, and I have to plan my four or five trips to the john to pee. Lights off at 8:35. Try to doze at 8:55 by taking all pills (6 dinner, 2 night [where I find that I didn't bring enough for the entire trip], 1 Valium, and 1 Buspar) at 9:50. Vicks nose and MAYBE nap for a half-hour. Movie's over, and at 10:10 I look out at a full moon, a piece of Ireland, a piece of England, and what seems to be the French coast. Windmill farms in Germany at 11:46. Breakfast sandwich and GOOD coffee with three creams and two sugars and four Lorna Doones and yogurt from Buffalo. Farmlands below as sun comes up and we go down at 11:37PM, 5:37AM here. #4 and #5 Frankfurt towers (first by flash) at 11:47. To #9 of Frankfurt center. Land at 12:01AM. Off plane at 12:11 to confusion: into "non-EU" line at 12:25. Wait long and walk long to gate A14 (changed from A17). I pee, do puzzles, and sit at 1:05, changing watch to 7:05. Hard puzzle (still unfinished) and flight boards at 7:37. Full plane, leaves 8:11. #10 SMOG over Germany at 8:15. #11 Hanover 8:34. #12 is WHAT? Maybe a military base for maneuvers? at 8:38. LOTS of wind-power fields. Land at 8:52 in a nice, though warm and humid, day. Off quick and get bag by 9:44, pleased to find my non-hidden strap is still on it. Exit at 9:16, to find no one. Nino walks up at 9:18, waiting for others to 10:30! Get 100€ with HSBC card at an easy ATM. To BIG deluxe bus at 10:27. Leave at 10:37, tracing route on a map in a pamphlet, #13 1901 townhouse with a concert advertised. Cross town, Elbe, and enormous windmills turning slowly. To Meridian-Stillhorn at 11:28. Room 209, unpack to 11:48. Lie down to 12:50, setting alarm, and take bus to town at 1:05-1:30. Leberkase (more like thick bologna than anything else) and appelsaft (AWFULLY sweet) for 4.8€ and .2€ tip. #14-15 of pastries in Schlemmer Markt. #16 spire to St. Peter's Cathedral at 12:06. #17 and 18 Town Hall at 2:08. (Museum in Stephen's platz with gold statue on top, advertising Dermatologik.) #19 my tongue blue from a blueberry slush for 2€. #20 street and tower at 2:27. #22 milkmen at 2:51: 684 Hans Hummel statues. #24 more towers and possible hunk 3PM. #25 inside Rathaus at 3:10, ignoring tours and Ratweinkeller restaurant two levels down. Video to mariachi band amplified from benches. On bus at 3:25, first, and tallest tower is St. Nicholas tower, church bombed in war, tower left as a memorial, stairs up (actually, an elevator), third tallest after Ulm and Cologne, and 1971 Green Michelin says this is the biggest European port after Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Marseille, but now it seems to just follow Rotterdam. Bus returns 3:35-3:50, being told taxi is 20€ to the hotel from town. I went into Vier Jahreszeiten to find a great menu for 68€ and 8 courses for 98€, but Fred doesn't want to pay 40€ for a taxi, 40 more € for a bottle of wine, and such a meal. I ask and they WILL seat us, but when I turn around, Fred is gone. I look on street: no Fred. Back inside, going to smoking room and club rooms, no Fred. Outside again, no Fred. So I wend my way back to bus with more pictures, only to have him say, "You abandoned me with the taxi to the ship during the snowstorm before the Caribbean cruise, and this is the second time you left me because I went to the john---and it won't happen a third time." He won't listen to my logic at all. Ride back 3:35-3:50, Fred changing room because the refrigerator isn't on to cool his drinks, so we're switched to 117, piling up all our stuff and going down a flight to the identical room, where the trees somewhat lessen the autostrada noise. Nino said there's really no substitute for the hotel's restaurant if we DON'T take the 50€ tour tomorrow, so we finally do. To room by 4:05, rest, and dress (wakened by my wrist alarm at 5:50) to 4:51 in chinos because it was easier to change than not, and Nino says no one should dine in shorts, but I go sockless in my slippers. Talk from 5:10-6:15, not much, having a beer while Fred has a good glass of red wine and we're explained that each main meal has ONE drink unless we're going to special places that enable four. Up with ice from the white-wine cask for two lovely glasses of water and down at 6:25. BIG buffet to 7:42, with lots of salads, including a great artichoke leaf, kidney beans, smoked ham, and a great cream sauce, then good ham of which I have one and a half slices, boiled potatoes, nasty vegetables, and a good Italian tomato soup that Fred turns me on to. No problem with bill here, up to decide NOT to go swimming because I'm so tired, but at 7:47 it's so LIGHT that I can't possibly go to sleep for 11 hours from Fred's demanded wake-up time of 6:45 to give him "at least an hour and ten minutes for breakfast," so I start typing at 7:47, agonizing when I have to keep backspacing to correct letter drop-outs, seeing Fred in the mirror going to sleep without putting off the match on TV, which I do, and needing to take a shower. But, now at 8:30, maybe I WILL see what the pool in the hotel is like! Shit, get earplugs from jeans, put on bathing suit, wrap myself in a towel and put on slippers, and leave for pool at 8:40PM. [2:27AM Thursday morning]: No one encounters me in the elevator, thank goodness, and I hit floor -1 to a golden (see dream), painted hallway with a sign "To pool" that I follow around three corners and long hallways to a door that must be keyed open with my card, where three teenage boys are in the pool: an older, cuter unknown one who's drying himself at a white plastic lawn chair among three at one side of the 4-foot, uniformly deep, brightly lit, blue-bottomed pool, and I put my towel and glasses and key card on the seat of the chair he's abandoned and make my way to the poolside, where a boy at the other end is ejaculating about how cold the water is. I step onto the drain-edge, where the water is less than an inch deep and verify that the water is cold, but not excessively so. Step down the first step and feel the cold icicle up my warm body, and say something to the boy standing on the second step, who's talking to another unknown teen standing on the side with water up to his chest, which is where I know I have to get. Lower a step at a time until the bottom of my crotch gets wet, and then it gets seriously painfully cold. Lower inch by inch, gritting my teeth, not debating stopping, but wondering how long it will take to submerge. Stretch my toe down so that I can see the shadow of the tip nearing bottom as my arms stretch to lower myself, colder and colder, and finally, agonizingly, it touches bottom and I can release my arms and submerge them and hug myself with the cold water so that finally I'm standing on the bottom as the youngest of the three, who may be the grandchild but I'm not sure, dives in completely, causing a wave to advance toward me, which I shout is a "tidal wave!" Finally he starts swimming back and forth, even underwater, as I duck my head and it becomes bearable. Swim a few frog-kicks back and forth, but it is just too cold, and I am wet enough for a shower, so get out as two leave and go to the shower, beyond which is a sauna, which I'm investigating when an older (maybe 30) German comes out in a white bathrobe and says, with an accent, "Sauna, very hot." I step in, he comes in naked with a swinging, silhouetted cock, and sits down as I leave to retrieve my towel from the chair and return to sit on it. "Where are you from?" he starts, and says he spent a year working with a friend in New York, and we talk about his job as a quality control specialist for H&M (which I don't recognize, but I later see lots of their ads) in a refinery where they ship crude oil in rail tank-cars to Hamburg, which has no oil, and I tell him about my freelance indexing work and my current trip. We chat, he dripping sweat and not really sexy, particularly when he talks of his wife and six-year-old daughter, and I talk of my jet lag and say I'd better get to bed before falling asleep here. Get myself to the shower, regulating the water, and just finish when I look to see if the adjoining room furnishes the bathrobes, which he says are either in the room or obtainable from the reception desk. He's there again, and follows me into the shower-room, where I'm drying, and thanks me for moving away from the shower head he's about to use without wetting me. I move away to get my stuff from the pool, and in exiting encounter him cooling down from the sauna in the entry-room, where I thank him for chatting with me, we shake hands, and I get back up in the elevator from -1 to 1, again with no one seeing me, and brush my teeth as Fred wakes up, thinking it's morning in the light, flabbergasted to hear it's still the same night and he's slept only about an hour, I look at my watch at 9:30, still quite light out, ask Fred, who agrees it's OK to shut the drapes, which don't really cut out the light, but leave the bathroom light on after brushing my teeth and retrieving my earplugs from my jeans pocket and taking last note of getting to bed at 9:35. Start Actualism, but fall asleep rather quickly, having taken the sheet off from around the duvet-filling to sleep less warmly under.

THURSDAY, 6/15/06: 2:19AM: Wake with a dream that finds me rather rested-feeling as I get out to bed to gather my stuff and pee and finish writing the dream, and then bring this up-to-date at 2:43AM, having slept, pill-less to conserve my Proscar on this 6-hour-short day, just over 4.5 hours, and if Fred does wake and wakes me at 6:45 as he wishes, is 4 more hours from now, for a total of just over 8.5 hours' sleep, stopping typing now at 2:45AM. Have some small difficulty getting back to sleep, but do so with earplugs and facemask against the light from the bathroom, and wake with a sensation of bright light through the mask, with the wonderful memory of the dream I just transcribed, and take off the mask to find that it's 6:54AM, the perfect time to wake, just over 8.5 hours, and go in to pee and drink water while Fred opens the window and says it's wonderfully cool out, and I type all this until 7:02AM, bizarrely feeling that I have to pee again before getting dressed for the second day in Hamburg, also feeling like I need to shit. Shit a bit hard, wash face with never-rinsing liquid soap, and dress and leave for breakfast at 7:15, pissed with Fred for leaving at 7AM while I'm shitting, before, I think, we received our wake-up call. Breakfast 7:10-8:15 with wonderful Jack, Wendy, and Cynthia, the mother-in-law who removed the pile of peppered eggs from my plate when some prankster loosened the pepper-shaker top at the other table. Eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, GREAT cold cuts of ham and salami and muenster cheese, rolls, hard wheat bread, heise schokolata thanks to 15-year-old Rebecca at the next table, and three lovely, sweet watermelon pieces at the end to join the water and orange and mixed-fruit juices from before. Up to blow my nose from pepper-sneezing while Fred shuts the bathroom door for his "three uses every morning" and I do this until 8:20AM. Down to bus in vacated seat 2 as Nino goes through the "2-up, 2-back" rotation-scheme at 8:38, and my watch is two minutes ahead of bus time. Christa is the local guide, great: I give her 1€ when others give $1. #26 geyser and towers at 9:03AM. Tower is CLOSED: no restaurant can afford the 40,000€/month rent, and no more bungee jumping. Expensive villas and demi-castles along the lake road, and #27 and #28 of lake panoramas at 9:27. #29 of inner Alster at 9:48. #30 St. Michael and devil at 10:06. #31 and #32 of tower of St. Michael's at 10:16. Long line to tower-top and leave 10:31. By 2040 if warming continues, Hamburg will be underwater. 1964 flood came up to base of center of town, totally submerging many lower-lying houses. Hansa is an association of towns. #33 "Charcoal" bridge (since it's over an area that used to make it, but I don't know the German word), highest in Germany, called the "Golden Gate of Hamburg" in 1974, and #34. 8.1 million containers through Hamburg last year. VAST port, and we pass it all. Rains at 11AM. 34° here last week, almost 100° Fahrenheit. #35 bridge and trucks of industry at 11:07. Elbchaussee at 11:23 VERY rich, two stars from Michelin. #37 oldest Elbe tunnel at 11:34. Roll 2: 2:45 return to bus. Stop at 11:45. To department store, turn left to museum. St. Nicolas tower 3€ for elevator at 11:58. #2-3 of port from top, then video of carillon. #5 Rathaus at 12:18. Asparagus lunch in Ratweinkeller 12:25-1:25, sadly poor ham, particularly compared with lovely breakfast-buffet ham, good local white wine for 3€ for generous glass. But Fred pays 40€ bill. 6€ into museum after long wrong-way walk at 1:51, old masters #6 and #7 and video of St. Bertrand until 2:01. #8 Cranach: Electors of Savoy at 2:07. Leave at 2:08, take a good free pee, start back at 2:13, #9 "opera festival" art at 2;30, good macadamia ice for .7€, and on bus 2:42, some complaining when Nino wants to leave at 1:55 but Fred saw people sitting at a far table and has Nino wait for them. Nod on bus. Back about 3:20 and lie for a while, then shit, then type this to 4:02 and start looking at Lubeck. Do some puzzle until my eyes just start closing, so I lie down again until 6:12 and up into an ill-advised long-sleeved shirt and to bus 6:31-6:50, just 11 of us, to #10 Restaurant im Hof at 6:53, not that great a place, and after I try a sip of the red wine, change to beer to the thinly disguised displeasure of the dour waiter who served us entirely. Salad not great, so I don't finish, but the turkey, pork, and steak cutlets were good, as were the potato croquettes, but the mixed fruit in syrup had that same uniformity of non-taste that's not that appealing. Table is lively enough, the two Gregs and Catherine talking about Morocco and anything else that passes through their minds. Out to pee at 8:40 after two beers. Video of St. Michael's trumpet at 9PM. Walk Reeperbahn, very many beggars, dirtiest sidewalks (but maybe more for the effect of being "dirty" than in reality), typical Hollywood whores, 2000 of them licensed, with straight, blond hair and dead eyes and too-tight clothes with tottery heels and painted-on faces. Walk to 9:43, tacky, maybe two sexy guys. #13 water music for water-fountains at 10:08, which we get to just as it starts, and video some of the better music to 10:27. On bus at 10:33, still bright enough to see everyone, and back to hotel at 10:55. Bed at 11:07.

FRIDAY, 6/16/06: 12:57AM: Up to pee, surprised it's just 1:50 since I went to bed. 4:11AM: Wake with vague memory of a TV-plot-type dream, pee, and type, thinking of which clothes to change today, until 4:17AM, much warmer in closed bathroom than in fanned bedroom. Up at 6:12 (Fred saying he was already awake) and shower for relief from the tacky skin from humidity. Change shorts and socks and shirt and pack FAST to get bag out at 6:40 and down to breakfast 6:45-7:20, trapped at the table with the Irish brother and sister who WILL NOT stop talking as I go through muesli, mixed juice, hot chocolate, cold cuts, a bit of eggs, one sausage, one slice of raisin bread, a glass of orange juice, and some water that I hoped was fizzy but wasn't. Go upstairs to pee again at 7:23, having checked out at the desk for no charges when Jack reminds me by doing it, and she assures me our bags will be picked up at 7AM, and then someone says we're the ONLY group here, so the bag HAS to be OK, though Fred complained LAST NIGHT about not getting a wake-up call, and we didn't get one this morning, either. Type this up-to-date at 7:36, ready with a bus-bag with lots of junk that I don't have to carry around with my shoulder bag when we sightsee Lubeck, but maybe I should have kept my umbrella out for the rain, though I do have my jacket. Fred leaves at 7:37, taking both keys, and leaving me to shut off the lights and fan. To confused bus, most in front prefer back, so Fred and I sit across from each other in the second seats. Off at 7:46AM, bus time 7:44AM. To Lubeck at 8:48, nothing much to see between, cloudy and cool. Hans is our guide for the Hanseatic capitol. #14 Gate covered with a canvas painting of the gate-under-restoration at 9:04: the major sight denied us! #15 Abramovich yacht, Russian who owns Chelsea soccer team, helicopter on roof at 9:08. #16 Hanseatic facade, "burning bricks" for three years at 9:17 makes the "stone rich" of the town. No half-timbered houses after three fires destroyed the town before. #17 9:17 of more lovely inside courts. #19 church 9:33. #20 St. Mary's Church towers from alley at 9:41. Video inside 1530 Haus Des Schiffergesellschaft at 9:52. #21 in Holy Ghost Hospital, founded 1227, to 10:10. #24 student walkers and crooked bell tower at 10:12. #25-26 Town Hall and Mariankirke 10:36. #29 marzipan at 10:57 with video inside Mary's church and marzipan factory. #31 famous gate at 11:07. To bus 11:11. Through East German underground, fields. NO towns. Nod out. Through Rehna 12:25, but it turned out to be the main road! Surreal abandoned countryside, only a few cows and horses and maybe 10% of the fields appearing to be under cultivation. Route 24 seems OK on Cathy's map, and finally at 1PM there's a SIGN to Berlin. Trucks from Hungary and Poland and Czechoslovakia. 1:30, at Ludwigslust, a TRACE of sun-shadow. Stop in Autospa for noodles and mushrooms and cream and Pinot Grigio for 9.6€ to 2:26 to bus. Video windmills 2:45, many going extraterrestrially. #33 windmills 2:56. To Berlin hotel 5PM, Hilton, enormous hallways, hot room that guy comes up to check and says there are no fans. Room 4049, and unpack to drawers and finish this at 5:53, tired, dress casual, leaving for tonight's tour at 6:45PM. Dress to 6:40, and on bus amused that there's a sex show, with three handsome men naked in a middle poster, at the corner of Kantstrasse and Liebnizstrasse. To Ziko's at 7:15, shown to a corner table, where I take the first seat, next to Fred, who's next to the woman with short hair and old bald husband, across from the Grandmother and Alex, who turns out to be rather charming through the evening, eventually taking a taste of my Sambuca with his grandmother's reluctant acquiescence, but having only soda while I start with a glass of white wine, not bad, go to beer just to taste it, have a taste of the dunkel that looks like it might be better but isn't, and have a mediocre salad that I eat not much of, having started with the "clear ox-tail soup" that just tastes like chicken broth, but the leg of lamb is well-cooked and tasty with potatoes and vegetables, but by that time I've had a Sambuca and a glass of red wine and am well on my way to being plotzed. We talk of travel and occupations and I keep drinking, going to pee at the end and reeling somewhat, and have another tour-drive through the lights of town back to the hotel at 11 where I simply FALL into bed at 11:03.

SATURDAY, 6/17/06: Wake at 2:17 to pee, feeling headachy, and phone rings at 6:03, for which neither of us seems to have left the call. Only 7 hours' sleep doesn't seem nearly enough, sadly, since I'm terribly hung over with a fierce headache that thankfully vanishes after two aspirin. The room is fiendishly hot and muggy, relieved when we finally open the window to the cool morning. Turns out EVERYONE suffers the same, so it's not just our room that's faulty. Shower at 6:30 just to get rid of night-clammy sweat, over at 6:40 and dress to get to breakfast 6:50-7:45, really great with two glasses of hot chocolate, three of absolutely delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice, two fried eggs that had sat so long their white edges had essentially turned to plastic, though the yolks were half-soft and vaguely warm, good with a buttered croissant. Lots of fruit, cold cuts, and other goodies, with everyone chatting amicably and Jack and Wendy moving from next door to sit with mother-in-law Cynthia. Rebecca points to the conference room next door (Fred "right again" and taking the SPECIFIC elevator to 1 for the breakfast room, not the usual elevator at the EXTREME OPPOSITE end of two very long corridors from where we are), and I go up for my notepad, which I don't need to use. Lecture on Berlin with a laughably mannered, gay former American who tolerates my questions about what came BEFORE Yalta to make the "Allies" angry: Russia wanting more of eastern Germany than America and Britain wanted to give, and then the differences over the PARTITIONS of Germany and the SECTORS of Berlin. Talk to 8:55, and put on shoes and pee and leave Fred behind in room. Onto bus 9:10. Tour leader is Conrad at 9:15. #34 "Old Museum" at 9:26. #35 Dom Royal-Family Cathedral built in 1905 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, where Hohenzollerns are buried, while Frederick the Great is in Sans Souci in Potsdam, to be moved to the Dom when the monarchy is restored to Germany, which will probably be never. #36 National Monument, but no longer soldiers on guard duty outside, on Unter den Linden. #37 new "biggest European train station" at 9:46. Roll 3, #1 station-side. #2 "Sandsation" 9:48. All #3-5 from Wall Memorial, around, from moving bus. #6 Panorama, details on video that I took with Conrad being uncooperative about describing details I wanted described---we never DID get a good view of the new Reichstag roof. #7 Reichstag back 10AM. #8-9 Brandenburg Gate and football for the match, #12 ball, Berlin bear, tower, rushed from bus for only 20 minutes to take pictures with great Tiergarden trees blocked by "Fun-Fest" for soccer matches. #14 aspirin tablet 10:15. #16 inside ball, chaos of television and people. #17 2,711 stones of monument to Holocaust, no significance even from designer as to why THAT number of stones, with displays and museum underground. #18 zoo-gate from moving bus at 10:56. #20 inner wall at 11:20. #21 outer wall. #22 Museum at wall (Vatican Baroque) at 11:24. #23 old Checkpoint Charlie at 11:36. #26 books in book-burning square, bears on left at 11:46. #27 outside statue at Pergamon, with new facade, and Nino hands out 10€ tickets to everyone, which was later combined with our 4€ to make a whole-island combined ticket for the next two museums this afternoon. RUSH through the altar, with new displays around side, new English-detailed speakerphones on head with camera and video from checked bag needed. Photos through #32 of various exhibits, leading Fred from area to area, some familiar, most not. Videos to 12:52 back to bus. Spend 25€ for two books, one on Museum, one on Berlin for all the photos I didn't take, in better light. To hotel to drop stuff off after eating lunch in Moredos for 31€ on poor ribs and iced tea, Fred getting charged twice for salad, loud Spanish family in middle of restaurant, almost everyone speaking some version of English. Lunch to 2:20, tired, to hotel to shit, feeling like maybe resting, but Fred says he'd come along if the Concierge said it was a short walk, or take a taxi, and it WAS a short walk, past an art show where Jack and Wendy had lunch near the bear-circle, then to St. Hedwig's Catholic Cathedral in the shape of the Pantheon, and then across lawns to the Altes Museum for the Classical Antiquities starting with the Cyclades to Egyption Art, including many representations of Nefertiti, and the spectacular graywacke man's head. Lots of people, could have taken lots of pictures, but I'm getting tired. Roll 4 #1 Prometheus from Pergamon for sexiest body, then to the Alte Nationalgalerie for the third-floor Caspar David Friedricks, not that great up close, and others from that era, and a quick go-through for the statuary on the ground floor and the rotunda, but have to leave, leaving Fred behind to return to hotel. Then we subway to CaDaWe, which he wanted to do, to 4PM, and I'm back to hotel at 5:07, past both cathedrals, which are now museums. Bus goes 5:31-5:38 and place isn't open yet. Nino phones and waits and Jack slaps my knee as he passes my front seat in bus and says, "Wake up," which was a shitty thing to do, I thought. Back in bus at 5:46 and to Nolle under Friedrichstrasse Hofbahn tracks, where we get periodic earthquakes from trains right above, interrupting the screams for the soccer match on the huge projection screen. Wendy impresses me as a flake with her phumphering with the menu, and I start with good-sounding potato soup with vegetables and ham, but VERY little ham (one piece, to be precise) but hearty and filling, while most others of us 16 got salads while Nancy keeps insisting we won't make it, and I really don't give a shit. My pork cutlet with mushrooms is ordinary, but the rösti potatoes are the best of the lot, which is why I ordered the dish though I had pork for lunch. Long wait between courses, but it turns out the show starts at 8 and we're just two blocks away. Out at 7:40 to find it had rained, and Nino orders the bus just to make sure we're not wet though we could have walked to Palastplatz, and I told Fred at breakfast that maybe Nino even PLANNED it that way, since the first place looked nicer and more expensive, but this was cheaper and close to where we were going. Seats cost 61€ each, we could order one drink, and the show Casanova was a farce. Tiny introduction in German and English, but then all the singing (rather poor) was only in German and the plot made NO sense, interspersed with bare-buttock-costumed trampolinists, women whirling on ropes suspended under bells, three American-style break dancers with the best bodies (except for the enigmatic, bikini-clad man in a bubble for about 20 seconds), one of whom did at last 150 head spins without putting his arms or legs down to get more momentum, truly a unique tour de force. Lavish costumes that made no sense, bare-breasts in slipped-out push-up bras with scrawny nipples twice, 33 girls in a Rockettes kick-line, a huge, rotating swimming pool that rose ten feet above the stage with the dancing-Casanova underwater for no apparent reason, and women flirting with the audience only two feet from the water-panes. Huge scenery pieces like wedges crossing the entire stage for no reason, Act II starting with him escaping from a hole in an enormous roof, MEN gasping with disgust at his lifting on a rope to the ceiling and jerking off to a shower of silver-dust below, vulgar "heads under skirts, slavering lips on the way out," with rolling eyes from both men and women, an older singing-Casanova with not THAT bad a body, but he shouldn't have shown that much of it. Much made of long, sheer stockings, a transvestite soprano who briefly bared a male breast and relapsed into his lower octaves, and pretty-faced male dancer featured who danced less well than others who weren't so facially endowed. [Fred sings "Anal-weiss" and I joke that he said "Anal-VICE" and he said, "Write that down."] Everyone applauds when they're supposed to, ending with the rhythmic applause so characteristic of European audiences when they endlessly lengthened the curtain calls. Can't imagine that these people can keep a straight face through such awful songs and dances. Only 20-minute intermission, no one really pushing the 5€ programs, and the 8.7€ book had nothing of note of previous productions. Huge theater not even half full, semicircular curtain rising and falling, and a pyramidal laser-beam that could have been effective if better used. Smoke effects, big orchestra, over at 10:22 and everyone goes back to bus, Nino finally making the announcement of the first tour's leaving-time, Potsdam leaving at 11:45AM, breakfast 6:30-10:30, and back to hotel at 10:40. Fred's in bed with window wide open, and I undress and get to bed at 10:56PM.

SUNDAY, 6/18/06: Transcribe dreams and pee at 3:42 and 7:10, and wake to Fred's call at 8:34 to start typing to 9:10 to catch up mostly, then to good eggless breakfast to 10 and type to 10:50, when I get message (never got before) of "low battery power" and can't do anything. Let it rest until 11AM and finish this to date. Shit and move stuff around to 11:15, then do my teeth COMPLETELY while reading New Yorker. Finish teeth and sorting stuff out to 11:37, gotta get downstairs! Leave at 11:54, waiting for Jack and Wendy and Cynthia as usual, get to Potsdam at 12:42, lunch at Kambodschinesche Spezialitaten 1:05, 3 huge shrimp with sweet-sour sauce and a big salad, with Lycheewine that tastes rather like sherry. Take card from My Kang when I leave after peeing, running back to get to bus at 1:42, but trio isn't back, so I'm out for #9 of Potsdam (no, before) at 1:37 and #10 (this one) Potsdam gate at 1:43. They get back 10 minutes late and I start hissing and booing them, and tell Jack if he sits next to me he can enjoy my cold shoulder, and he blames it all on them, of course. #11 Concilianhof at 2:06. Table came from Russia; Stalin a day late; German border set, talk to 2:33. Rather boring tour (Fred loved it) to 3:04, free pee while others pay .5€, to bus at 3:09. #12-14 of Sanssouci, as they run it together 3:26. #15 fountain 3:40. #17 Frederick the Great's grave 3:43. He introduced potato to Prussia. #18 ruins on hillside and gate at 3:49. #19 then-most-modern form of windmill 3:55. Lemon ice for .9€, leave 4:35, tired, Jack telling me about finding Lewis and Clark's campsite in Montana. #20 from Potsdam-Berlin Gleinicker Bridge from spy-exchange at 4:30. Babelsburg castle on right in panorama from bridge. Long ride back, tired, talk to Fred about going to dinner at CaDaWe, and to hotel 5:20 to pee and take shoes off and finish this at 5:35, getting no indication of low battery. Leave at 5:45, paying 2.1€ for long subway to tower, saying I'm aged gets us in for 2.5€ rather than 3.5€, and we're almost alone at the top, hampered by bars above our heads, but I find the stairs to the 25th floor and resent the similarly tall building next door, but the views are clear and bright and I take photos and videos. Then down to get back onto the subway for a few stops, Fred leading the way, to CaDaWe, where we escalate up to 6 and look at lots of shops and take samples of cheese and then get a bonus at the chocolate table, where she gives us two whole bars of dark chocolate! Then up to 7, where we decide to use the buffet, I getting a darkling, or whatever the vegetarian patty is, and fennel and bread-topping, with a glass of rosé, and the whole thing comes out to about 7€, which I credit-card. Eat at a table at the window, where he MIGHT have taken me with #25 in the window. Leave toward 8 and on the ground floor I see a picture of an umbrella, and after looking at samples from 105€ to 50€ to 35€, finally find one for 9.95€, which he gets, and we're into the street to walk toward Friedrich's church, which is open, and I video a bit, and then we get sucked into the glories of the Brazilian victory, with some gorgeous guys to boot, and walk back a couple of stations amid the chaos to a station, exhausted, that takes us back to Statmitte and three glasses of ice and get back to room at 9:21 to find that the 8 AA batteries I bought for 1€ DO fit my AlphaSmart, but it doesn't seem to need it, as my camera sometimes no longer flashes the "low-battery" signal. Suggest to Fred that I actually take a BATH, but he doesn't volunteer when I should do it, proud of the fact that he finally thought of the word "cynical" that someone described him as being. I finish typing this at 9:37. Tomorrow starts early with a 6:15 wake-up call, 6:45 baggage out, and 7:45 departure for Leipzig. Bathe until 10PM to Scheherazade on the radio from Berlin, dry and get ready for bed at 10:15PM, less than 8 hours' sleep already! Bed 10:22, sleep much later.

MONDAY, 6/19/06: 1:44AM pee, much of it on the floor, which I mop with about 5 bits of toilet paper. 3:40AM wake with dream, but too lazy to record it, but try now. Then up again at 5:20AM to pee, lie awake trying to start Actualism, but never getting anywhere, so it's possible that I fall asleep each time I get to the first or second gathering. Then house phone rings at 6AM and I have to motion to Fred that it's on his other side when he blindly turns toward my bed to find the phone, and then it rings again at 6:05, which he answers again, and he goes in to shower while I fumble under my bed and find my water bottle, which I'd lost beneath it and didn't take at all yesterday, drinking at least 6 glasses of iced water with great relief after returning last night. Finish this to 6:14AM and am now left with only half an hour to pack and put bag into hall, keeping this in spare bag to store in the rack above my seat, I guess today like fourth behind Nino, on my way to the rear for the next few days, to everyone else's relief, I have no doubt. Bag out at 6:30, easy to close because of how much I put in my carry-on bag, and then down to breakfast to a wonderfully quiet breakfast room at 6:40, but there's still an omelet-man, who makes a very hard omelet (square before folding three times) though I tell him I want a soft one. Two glasses of their wonderful orange juice, only one cup of hot chocolate, a ham-cheese-mushroom omelet, more mushrooms, cheeses, cold cuts, fruit, various soft cheeses, and a bitch from Fred that he does not like the term "lox," because it's so Jewish, but then he hums "Sunrise, Sunset" and even when I remark about it of course everything he does is just fine. Sit next to whom I took to be a butch body who starts chatting sweetly to Fred about Mexico, and he heard of tickets going for 1000€, but he only paid 60€ for his stadium seat. I grudgingly say good morning to the late grandma, who seems surprised I even recognize her. Go down at 7:24 to check out, no charges, and give in key cards, and sit and catch up as everyone actually comes in EARLY by 7:40, Nino doing a last count, but then here comes Jack with two cups of coffee as the engine starts, and Nino's still outside to supervise the oxymoronic "bottom-side checked carry-on" luggage. But then the single thin one (Malcolm) comes in last. Leave 7:43. Lignite fuel in East increased acid (high-sulfur) rain, killing pines that drop needles each THREE years, that die from the bottom up as in #26 at 8:22. Nino collected for tours without having said "bring your list" before. Mine are 220€, about $300! Leipzig has about 530,000 people, in at 9:55. Leave on bus at 11:30. #27 Bach in Leipzig and St. Thomas's church at 10:12. Church CLOSED till 5PM for CHOIR practice! I'm disgusted, but decide to circumnavigate the church to see if there happens to be another door open, and when I get to the front, another tourist with a camera says, "The front door on the right is open," and it IS! In to video interior from rear with the sound of the rehearsal, and then up the side to hop over the one rope and take #28, a flash of Bach's grave-label, and no one says anything. Video more and leave to tell Fred to enter, and then follow Nino as he wanders up main street, #30 St. Thomas's church-back at 10:36. #31 Leipzig old Town Hall 10:37. #32 Goethe and old Stock Market 10:40. #33 Theater and fountain 10:48, #34 mall sculpture 10:50. #36 Leipzig side street 10:53. Roll 5: #1 St. Nicholas Evangelical Lutheran 10:59. #2 rebuilt Leipzig and Westin at 11:03. #3 Buffalo Bill's john and cards. #4 Faust and Mephisto, #5 dagger-cock. Entire town by 11:23 to bus. ALL on at 11:30. #6 Methodist Church leaving Leipzig 11:37. #7 NEXT biggest railroad terminal after Berlin. Rapeseed, in Canada, would never sell to USA with that name, so they name it for Canadian oil: Canola! Long straight Nazi highways used as airstrips and for troop movements. #8 rows of windmills at 12:15. Doze off now and then. Lunch on highway terrible 12:50-1:45: breaded fish and strawberry-Jell-O dessert, filling water bottle twice and peeing twice free in john that wants paying and I'm just not going to pay. Out to watch storm clouds gather. THEY are five minutes late AGAIN. Drive through nothing outskirts to nothing-much Dresden until we get out at Palace Square, back to bus at 6PM. #9 Dresden Opera 2:15. #10 Catholic Cathedral 2:24. Check schedule and only Magic Flute is playing at 7:30 Tuesday. #11 Zwinger 2:30. #13 chronology of Electors 3:08, from 12th Century to 1876. Prime Minister to right and Finance Offices to left of #15 at 3:20 on parapet as we walk all around palace, #17 Frauenkirk 3:34. Rebuilt 1994-2005. #18 bell-shaped dome of Frauenkirk 3:42. #19 last reconstructed gap of palace being closed now 3:49. Green Vault intro 3:53, and in at 4:05, to incredible stuff that I absorb every bit of to 5:30, buying two books for about 49€, then dash to ticket office as described below. 6:43PM: Flying high! Stuff lumped in piles on the bed, but it doesn't matter, because there's nothing to do after dinner except settle in, both into room and into stomach. And my incredible luck held with an opera ticket. Andrea said they're probably sold out, but because it was midweek, maybe I'd have luck, or a cancellation. When I finally get to the ticket office at 5:45, Fred waves me over and says he already checked: it's sold out, but I can check for a cancellation tomorrow, and someone has a ticket for the fifth ring worth 31.75€ ("or something") who was willing to sell it for 90€, and I said no. Went up to the desk while someone plunked down roughly 150€ for a packet of tickets, finished, cursing me out for picking up a plastic-wrapped sheet that I thought was the price-list at the desk but ended up being HIS, and I asked if there had been a cancellation in the last ten minutes, she smiled and said no. So I left, then looked around for Fred, remembering he said he didn't like to be left behind, and couldn't find him anywhere. So I went back into the ticket office---to have the clerk wave at me! There had been a cancellation! Third ring, dead center (though [I thought incorrectly] in the second row) for 49€! FANTASTISCHE! She seemed happy, too, accepting my credit card, and I went out to find Fred waiting at 5:55 with the group for the bus, and opened by saying, "I'll do anything you want me to do," and told him the story until he was properly happy with me. Then repeated the story to [and then at 6:50 my batteries FINALLY failed DEFINITIVELY and I changed them at 6:55], when I had to stop to dress. Fred futzes around with his gin and tonic to 7:02, and I take wrong way to elevator, but we're still down first and I choose seats (with Fred perversely one away) and buffet furnishes a gravy-like goulash, a piece of pork with carrots, and potatoes with lots of butter, and boring conversations that I participate in about travel in Mexico and Kenya and Egypt, and then I'm up at 8:05 to finish this to 8:31, ready to throw stuff off bed and get into it! Sort through and make two or even three bags of future, one with just bags, and two bags of past, one within the other. Finally get down to the sheet and find one of my pens has leaked onto it, which is a pity, but that's the way it goes. Fred tells me about four more trips he's taking this year: two weeks to Atlantic City, one somewhere else, and six weeks in Tahiti, and I make some crack about "And you can't even go to the opera." And he insists he said he WANTED to go to the opera, which I'm absolutely sure he said he didn't, and I shout it up to him, but he steadfastly denies he said he didn't want to go, and I just decide to drop it because nothing will be gained by talking about it, and I decide certainly NOT to mention that there may have been two tickets available for tomorrow night, for fear that it might get REALLY ugly. Reminds me of this afternoon at the bus when he started talking about some of the singing in St. Thomas's Church in front of two other women from the trip, and I frown and shake my head slightly at him and he artfully shifts the context to Santiago, and I'm grateful that he didn't give anything away. So I shit and shower and brush my teeth and take my pills and get out to type more, and find Fred's suitcase on one chair and Fred in the other chair, so I take his suitcase off the chair and take it to the AlphaSmart on the desk and he says calmly, "I thought you were going to bed," and I say, "I am," and let it go at that, starting to type about 9:15, surprised that it's already over an hour since I came upstairs, and now that I'm caught up it's 9:26, so I'll be over an hour and a half, and hope to REALLY catch up on sleep in a night when it seems cooler than usual, and even the TV says that rain will be stopping in Germany. Let's hope! Stop now at 9:27, TV blaring and Fred writing in his notebook. Maybe at least I'll have the energy to transcribe my next dreams, which have been slight so far this trip. Bed at 9:30PM.

TUESDAY, 6/20/06: 12:08AM: Doozie of a dream recorded while I pee. My ass itches, and when I wipe I produce an endless stream of brown-stained toilet paper. Did I wet-fart in bed? Did I leak somehow? Sort of a continuation of the dream-question of responsibility and guilt as I finish now at 12:24AM. Pee at 4:19AM, ridiculously light out. Type dream to 4:23AM. Already slept almost 7 hours, twice beginning Actualism before falling asleep. Fall asleep without any trouble and wake again at 7:54AM, now almost at 10 hours, yet not feeling "over-slept," and shit and replace a toilet-paper roll that Fred seems not to be able to put through the proper slot below the sink for service, and get back into a hot bed at 8:04AM because Fred has closed the drape against the cooling air from the window, but lie until 8:14AM, when he gets up and goes into the bathroom for what I assume is his getting-up ablutions, so I open the drapes and window and enjoy the coolth and type this until 8:21AM, sadly having to record that I've begun to slump into anxiety again: what will I do until the opera this evening? Where will I have lunch and dinner? How much of the time will be spent with Fred and how much alone? Big nights on Tuesday (opera), Thursday (Tantris), and Sunday (final dinner) before returning to NYC on Monday, and then my dentist on July 1 and then the Kenya trip coming up on July 14 with Ken. And Cathy's news about some new malaria preventive that you take daily, only start a day or two before the trip, and take for maybe a week after, but it is DAILY, not weekly like Lariam, which they say causes psychotic symptoms in some, which I've never noticed, or, of course, as I say, "No more psychotic than usual." Increasing weight with books bought, money spent, will the hotel easily give the exact change for 1.7€ for the tram each way, or will they accept, say, 1.75€ if you don't have JUST the right coins. And then there's the matter of postcards: who do I send to, how much are stamps, where do I get them? And Fred's still in the john at 8:26AM, so we're definitely bound for breakfast when he comes out. Fred says he still feels groggy, keeps whistle-humming tunelessly under his breath, which tempts me to retaliate with a tuneless dum-de-dum-de-dum just to give him the hint, as I had before, that I don't look forward to his vocal concerts, but don't start that yet. He's also complaining about his ear being blocked, the light from the window that made him close the drapes at 5AM, and his attempt to cool the room by putting the switch to coldest and feeling very hot air pour out. Also, he's wearing the most unsightly black shorts I've ever seen, but do I dare quote to him what he's quoted so often, "Don't they look at themselves to see what they look like before they come out looking like that?" But he stands before the mirror adjusting himself in sufficient approval that he doesn't change. Breakfast at 8:45AM. Almost everyone ate already, Malcolm going down to go into town, and we eat with Nancy and Mike, who tell us that many OTHERS of the group managed to find the open door to St. Thomas's church in Leipzig, and about Rebecca's family troubles with her grandmother's sister being on the point of death, and Rebecca, at 15, always wanting to drink alcoholic beverages at the cost of people near her, and he goes on and on about some crop growing in Mexico, so I leave to brush my teeth and add pills and a comb to my day's supplies and do this typing, Fred still not up, to 9:45AM, ready for my day in town. Leave for tram 9:57, on at 10:02, with ticket fuss: get on in middle, where there is only a validator for a current ticket, have to transfer to the first car for a ticket-purchase. #21 costumes 10:39. Mantegna 10:45 in the painting division, Dutch school at 11, Breughel, Teniers, GRIFFIER, 2 Vermeers, one the biggest ever, Rembrandt (and school). Rubens by the dozen. Out the window the scene was even better than some of the paintings: fountains, gardens in green patterns, perfectly clear air, tiny people artfully distributed, fantastically distributed cumulus clouds, the gold crown of the main entrance to the Zwinger and all the elaborate terraces and sculptures of the buildings: entrancing! INCREDIBLE Cranachs: DOZENS! Upstairs rooms 201-208, minor French and Italian. Canaletto of Verona great! Crespis all look cut down to middles. Sons shoot father's corpse, refuser gets kingdom. To cafe 1PM and meet FRED right at the door, who had just gotten there. Outside to balcony and lovely waitress who says the wedding party below has busied the kitchen so there's a 15-minute wait for my ham and egg (which turns out to be egg salad!) and asparagus sandwich, and Fred gets an Italian cherries-and-cream dessert that I get also, with my half-liter of weissbeer. Nice talk about collection, various cocks and bodies, surprising paintings, good lunch to 2, Fred insisting on paying separately, since I have so much more (11€) than his 5€, though he was willing to split when his bill was larger that first day. Armory to 2:20, sword-pistols impressive, children's armor amusing, the Labors of Hercules on one horse-armor impressive, but lots of rifles and suits of armor and intricately twisted lances and jeweled swords. Sculpture reached across the hot sward to 2:35, only one, long, winding room (I didn't pay the 5€ for a camera permit, which is just as well, since I didn't then have to make choices of what pictures to take, and just bought a book afterward and checked (without charge each time, though Garderobe sign says the charge is .5€, though maybe only for actual COATS?) bag making only the heat and humidity the poor part, feet holding up well, since I managed to sit down every 15-20 minutes for a minute or so, bumping into people from the group from time to time. Truly incredible collections, particularly the porcelain to 3:24, staggering in its variety (some quite ugly) but mesmerizing in its perfect symmetry of exact pieces in artful arrangements up the wall over its descriptions, exquisite examples all. With detours to tours de force in the center of the floor, a room of ugly extra-large pieces, a central room with enormous conglomerates of Crucifixions and Ascensions and dinners and burials with dozens of figures all seemingly cast with the ground on which they stood. Down to the basement to shit, and 3:40 go upstairs to early (uninteresting) experiments in porcelain to 3:50. Down to find that Fossils are not included in my all-day 10€ pass, to Science to 4:25, a bewildering array of rulers, quadrants, globes, telescopes (including one of Herschel's, with which he found Neptune), orreries, vacuum pumps, reflector mirrors, surgical instruments, microscopes, and myriad other objects, when I was told to go upstairs to the watches and clocks, interspersed with a German tour, with dozens of fantasies for time- and planet-keeping, then onto the hot roof to find I can't get anywhere else, and back to painting at 4:40, figuring to revisit what I liked to pass the time until dinner before the opera. Meet Fred in one of the halls, but he's leaving. To re-see Cranach at 5:20. Out, tired, at 5:35, buying a book for 10.2€, and they bang a GONG at 5:45 to announce closing at 6. Out to go toward the river to see what the Bellotto Restaurant is like, but it's hot, so I'm back across plain to Hotel Taschenberg, or whatever, to find the inner court an oven, passing Jack (who makes some kind of remark like "Good morning and afternoon," to emphasize my ignoring him) and Wendy, and go next door to Paulaner for dark brown beer and REAL veal wiener schnitzel with good potatoes and an adequate salad for about 18€, marred by a loud trio at another table, but at least the shady interior is cooler than anywhere outside. Present my Visa card, but they say their machine isn't working. Oops! Will they take dollars? No. I have ONLY 10€ note. A check? No. I volunteer to go to hotel to get change for dollars, and finally they volunteer to run my card through the hotel's machine, which works, though I keep apologizing as if it were MY fault they couldn't service me. Tip 2€, for which she thanks me enthusiastically. #22-23 Dresden Opera House at 7:14 when I finally get in: most men carrying their suit jackets, guys still trying to scalp their tickets for three times the printed price. Try to find a stairway marked "Mitte" but every entrance is either Links or Rechts, so I ask a security-checker and he says to go up two flights of the stairs marked one or the other, which I do, but it goes up about six flights (but of course each floor has about three flights to go up) and I STILL don't find anything, so I ask a juice-seller, who doesn't know, and a door-watcher who says I just go up two MORE flights, another six scales of stairs, with everyone else, and finally find Tour D, and she takes my tickets and sells me a 3.8€ program with only two pages of English. In to think it's going to be a lousy production, and it is. Describe the set artwork not as high school level, but higher grade school level, the weird three ladies bared among them two buttocks, one breast, and one leg, all clothed in matte white. The Queen of the Night hit about 3/4 of her notes, the top ones being slightly shrill and flat; Sorastro was young and American in high boots, but he muffed a low note or two; Monastatos was the most stereotyped minstrel-show Black possible; and the set changes all involved water in the form of silver dust. Two tall (twelve feet?) women came out at one point for no real reason, the three children were annoying at times, and no one applauded, really, except for the orchestra. Papageno, repeating the phallicity of Casanova, produced a red bird as a penis, made more mysterious by Papagena's revealed cunt-EYE. As so usual in Flute, the Tamino and Pamina (an unusually ugly Chinese woman in her green eye shadow and Betty Boop mouth) were poor. Act I over at 8:38, having started about 7:32, and the bar was jammed so I got nothing, just went to the one-person men's room on the floor, and back to take more pictures and video from the extreme side, showing my centerest seat right above the royal crown of the Royal Box. Took #25 of 10:32 curtain call with everyone else, including the three flashes that went off DURING the performance. Out determined to take the short way to the tram WITHOUT climbing the riverside stairs, but come to a fence saying "Do not pass." I look at the base and see a metal gate-post inserted into a concrete block that comes up easily enough to open, so I walk through, followed by about a dozen others, but have trouble finding my way out the OTHER end, finally finding two joints that can be wedged apart to let me through the vee formed, but I didn't look back to see how those who followed me fared. To same tram stop to see many waiting, fidgeting, looking at the schedule, but a number seven comes in about 10 minutes and the board shows the next four stops, so I have no trouble getting off at Stauffenberg(allee) and getting to room at 11:16, leaving my umbrella out to dry from the few drops of rain I encountered exiting the opera. So tacky from the day that I have to shower, so do and get to bed at 11:40, window wide open, watching to see if the blue-shorted young man in the opposite window decides to bounce UP out of the bed he bounced down into, but he doesn't. Asleep quickly.

WEDNESDAY, 6/21/06: 6:26AM: Woke sometime around 3:30AM, but went right back to sleep. Up at 5:35AM to shit, light streaming in the window, Fred even turned facing it. Back to bed and he answers the wake-up call at 6AM, and I tell him the opera was disappointing, but he says they make their money from tours: at 6€, there were at least 6 tours of about 30 people each the time he was there, each group stopping to applaud each 5 minutes. And at 6:28 he announces he's going down to breakfast! So I go down at 6:30 and he's taken the AISLE two of a table for four, and I make a comment "You've found how to get a private table for 2 from a table for 4," but the "sisters" (the Irish brother and sister) manage to squeeze past us anyway. Eggs and one "meatball" (sausage) and one sausage and a muffin, while Fred eviscerates a roll for his "falater." Then cheese and salami with awful dried-out toast, with three lovely seedless wedges of watermelon. Two cups of hot chocolate followed by a cup of coffee with half-sugar half-milk to make up for the coffee taste, and it actually wasn't bad. Report on the opera to nearly everyone. Back up through the hot hallway to the humid room at 7:15AM and finish this to 7:20, ready for final packing and whatever catching up on yesterday I can do before boarding the bus at 7:40. Bus off at 7:45. #26 rolling countryside 8:52. Netzschkow has six consonants together. Pee break in a Vogtland gas station at 9:25-9:45 and pay .5€ for pee, and get 100€ cash at ATM with HSBC card. Germany has 83 million people, Bavaria is 1/5 the area, with 11 million people, of which 73% are Catholic. To Bayreuth (which he pronounces to rhyme with truth) 10:40, and out at Festspielhaus 10:48-11:10, #27 of unchanged house at 10:52, shit a small bit at 11. #28 new set moving in (with video) at 11:04. #29 bicycle for two 11:20. Nurnberg has 450,000 people. #30 Nazi-rally area at 12:20. #32 SIDE area 12:25, video Nurnberg walls 12:45. #33 Nurnberg TRIALS court. Off bus at 1:13 and told to meet at 2:30. #34 Frauenkirk facade at 1:20. Dash across to St. Sebold's, videoing inside, and to Toy Museum 1:30-2, dolls and trains videoed, lots of games, doll houses, cutout war-figures, fantastically provided kitchens, 3-D dioramas and slides, LOTS of stuff, and out to go the WRONG way across two bridges over the river, then back to Albrecht Durer's house to video engraving woman, some areas, and reproductions of famous paintings, and dash down and out, having bought a 3€ ham sandwich for lunch, and Roll 6: #3 of St. Sebold's towers at 2:27 just before getting to people standing outside bus, so I can start my lunch, drinking most of my water. #4 rose-filled cemetery on way out at 2:40. RUSHED time going through, but air conditioning is on high because Joseph has a family problem and this will be his last day, so he's hoping for tips? Pass turn for Titting. #5 hops from bus 3:53, not getting "hops leading to rape" that I joked about taking. Wonderful panoramas much of the time, through which everyone sleeps. #6 Inn Hotel 4:20 in Munich. #7 4 pistons of engine forming BMW headquarters at 4:23. 8:30 tomorrow for tour. Munich has 1.5 million, third biggest city, and sadly our hotel is changed [well, it always WAS, I'd just misread list] to SOUTH, getting there at 4:48, announcing dinner tour, which Fred insists he doesn't want, and I tip Joseph $20 in cash that he thanks me for. In to find we're on GROUND floor, WAY to back with "balcony" a concrete slab on the ground, but at least the A/C is good enough, so we don't need to open any windows. Get two maps at the desk, but we're not on them, and Fred bitches about ONLY going by public transportation to Tantris, so I show him the two locations in Michelin, then at his insistence go to desk to ask how to get there with public tranportation, and they give me a tram-map that is good for us in about half an hour, AND they say they need a credit card to open our phone account so we can call to verify our reservation tomorrow, for which Fred says he REFUSES to come in LATER than the tour does, tomorrow about 2:30, so there'll be no extra museums for me unless I do them on my own. He's using his "I just can't afford it" excuse again. BUT he suggests I put my stuff in the MIDDLE of the room, rather than by the wall, since the room has NO storage space and THANK GOODNESS we're only here two nights, and I start typing about 5:45, finding out that dinner doesn't start until 6:30 and there's NOwhere else in the neighborhood to eat, and I move to file 3 while he showers and I actually catch up-to-date now at 6:54, when he's finishing up, dressing, and we're about to go to dinner, I presume. Over at 7, ignoring the 45€ special dinner for 2, which is fine with me, because I spend 20€ for HT Radler, beer with lemonade, delicious, and a filet of sole which gets better as I add butter to the boiled potatoes. Fred has a glass of champagne and 1/2-liter red wine and a wiener schnitzel that comes to 35.4€, and I spend a long time thinking how to even this out on MY bills to pay for HIS difference, which will be on OUR bill from the hotel. Put in my credit card number at 9:15 for the phone call to Tantris to change our reservation to 7PM and find we need a jacket but not a tie. Type a bit and talk a bit and brush teeth and get pills for tomorrow and finish this at 9:33, deciding to leave some typing for tomorrow when Fred left a wake-up call for 6:45, when we don't have to be at the bus until 8:30, and I look at the Green Guide and find that the Treasury at the Residenz is left for me to see after having seen the Alte Pinacotek, Fred having said that many of the objects are in storage waiting for 2009. I don't know why I remember an ENSEMBLE of museums in one place that INCLUDED the Alte Pinacotek, but also had Egyptian, Greek, new paintings, and even a temple or two. Now 9:40 and I can't think of anything else but going to bed. Bed 9:54PM, feeling chilly, but got to sleep before Actualism gathering. Wake 11:28PM and write dream, having turned heat back up to zero, its being totally ridiculous to see Fred wrapped in a winter duvet in the middle of the summer. Finish typing 11:37PM.

THURSDAY, 6/22/06: Pee at 3:52AM, noting it on my notepad because I have no dream to transcribe at the same time. At 5:53AM I wake with two dream fragments, which I transcribe in file 8, then come here to bring myself up-to-date at 6AM, having warmed the room enough to sleep partly under the sheet, partly under the duvet, having slept just about 8 hours, and have another 45 minutes to doze before Fred's wake-up call at 6:45AM. First call about 6:49, second at 7:04; I sort out EVERYTHING by 7:28AM, ready to shit. Shit a good shit, underarm wipe, wash face, blow nose, save towels, dress for breakfast at 7:37AM. Fred goes ballistic about my saying, in front of Alex and his grandmother, that I want MY half of the top of the sink while he has HIS half of the top of the sink, and he goes even MORE ballistic when I show him what I mean (that he "nicely" put the card explaining the towel-saving feature on MY side of the shelf---and later it gets put BELOW the shelf, behind the faucets), and then, of course, I have to apologize twice. Put on shoes and get ready, having gotten back to the room at 8:10, and brush my teeth before he gets back, and put stuff in pockets and my stuff is organized at the side of my bed and in one tiny shelf in the room that has so little space that I have to put my face towel on top of my bath towel, which I haven't used yet, on the hook on the back of the door, and finish this as Fred stalks out at 8:21, saying there are no assigned seats on the bus today, then saying that's only for optional tours. I put on my other shoe and leave at 8:23AM. On NEW bus (you can SMELL it!) 8:28. Clock now 45 seconds fast, not two minutes slow, and gives the temperature outside. Jack goes to ROOM for map at 8:32! U3 Machtlfingerstrasse is our tram stop. Morning rush at 8:35, slow going. #9 Nymphenburg center at 9:09. #10 Nymphenburg garden 9:13. #12 INSIDE shot at 9:16. NOT very fancy, but I see now I missed Amelienburg, which was just inside the garden. Back to bus 9:25. Ludwig II born in Nymphenburg in 1845, 6 feet tall, blue eyes, golden wedding carriage for his aborted forced marriage now in museum. #13 Munich and 4 lions on arch, and #14, on Leopoldstrasse. #14 TRY at Walking Man at 9:59. #16 Glyptotek 10:08. #17 Propylea---Acropolis entry copy found again at 10:09. 33,000 Bavarians to Moscow in 1812, 3,000 got back. #18 Angel of Peace at 10:19, moving. #19 Maxmillianeum, Parliament, 10:22. Off bus 10:30. #20 Old Fort tower and church on right and Marian Fountain below 10:45. U3 to Furstenreid (orange line). Bus at fountain at 2:30. #21 gold Maria and new City Hall tower. Video glockenspiel and MISS jousting knight KNOCKED over 11:05. Ends with mechanical cock-crow at 11:10. 8€ for entry to Residenz and pee 11:22. #22 1014AD true cross reliquary. #23 chain, emeralds auctioned in 1931. #24 St. George and dragon. Gold ring from Monte Alban tomb! Schatzkammer EXHAUSTING to 1PM. #26 Antiquarium 1:06. #27 Ancestral gallery. #28 Pietra Dura table 1:20 (camera out?) #29 Opera House 2:08. White bratwurst for 3€, eat in square 2:15-2:25, go on bus AT OPERA (the shit!: he could have said the bus would be there, saving me the walk both ways!) at 2:42, walking BACK for 8 minutes. 30°C = 86°F. #30 ACROSS from "foreign" museum 2:47. #31 Isator (replaced) 1337 at 2:49. GmbH=Gessellschaft mit Bes??? H???=Company with limited liability. Hotel at 3:15, NO postcards, 5€ for 5 stamps. Lie down 3:20-4:05. Type to 4:23, when Fred "naps for an hour." Shower to 4:46, puzzle to 5:27, type to 5:35, when he's out of shower (having complained about my leaving three hairs in bottom of tub, saying I did it before, having ME wash them down), and we get ready to go to Tantris as I dress to 5:35 and leave by 5:55. Onto U3 at 6:01, find the transfer to U6 easy after I mistakenly take us up the escalator and then think twice and go back down the SAME escalator (I know, I know) to get the U6, one stop, finding Danziger Street only a path now, but find Johann-Fichte Strasse easily and the industrial outside of Tantris has statuary in front of which Fred wants two photos, with people looking out at us. We go toward a window and are ushered to a door at 6:40. Shown, as first people there, to 1st Ring table, asked for drink, and we asked about wine with meal, they describe the 140€ meal and we take it. Ice water served only at end, and three kinds of bread to start: white, nut, and brown, followed by a nice pale pumpernickel. Amuse bouche of fried-sardine-on-a-stick with creamed potatoes and radish slices. Starting with a combination Chardonnay-Pinot Noir that's fabulous, particularly when they pour a second, then a third, then a fourth glass. That lasted through the first course: THEY called it veal with tuna, we called it glorious vitello tonato, three enormous multipart, part-cooked, part-raw veal slices with a not-too-tuna-y cream of tuna on top, with a bit of red lettuce and a sprig of parsley; topped with deep-fried capers, wonderful in the combination of dough and tart; second course of red mullet tender on top, crispy on bottom, with a wonderful butter-and-cream sauce with pieces of artichoke; then a Burgundy that I didn't care that much for, so they gave us a truly amazing unnamed red to go with the Tete de Moin stuffed with goat cheese in a pastry cone; this after my thick, not-too-rare venison rondels with a sauce to die for, with a small salad on the side that I didn't think fit, and Fred questioned the hardness and doneness of his beef cheeks with green mashed potatoes, while I had supernal mashed sweet potatoes that outdid anything vaguely like sweet potatoes I'd ever tasted before. We shared desserts: my elderflower sorbet against Fred's buttermilk ice cream, my pastry knot against his nut-stick and my ultrathin waffle, AND my TBA: a trockbeerenauslese that set me back 21€ without tip. Out at 10:15, reasonably tipsy, and back to U6 to find the next train in 4 minutes, and to the U3 to find the next train in 5 minutes. A drunk is sleeping with his shoes off at the next bench in the station, police removing him as train leaves with us on, and then a drunk across the car starts singing boozily and we move to the crowded first car at the next stop, finding that sitting in the middle of the very last seat affords a nice breeze from the slightly open windows on each side. Festive late-night group all the way to our station, and take the elevator up and Fred zips to the downstairs john as we get back to hotel at 11:06. Compare and make menu lists on our respective storage media, me here, Fred in tablet, and he's still watching TV when I get to bed at 11:40PM, knowing he's left a call for 6:45, so I'll be lucky if I even get SEVEN hours' sleep. But sleep quickly, even under the cardboard-hard sheet and the necessary duvet because he insists on the room A/C being kept on so ridiculously high.

FRIDAY, 6/23/06: 6AM: Wake and pee and transcribe dream-bits, typing until 6:06AM, only 40 minutes to wake-up call, debating if I'd put my aspirin in my dop kit for a slight hangover from the wine at Tantris. Get through the gathering for Actualism, but probably doze and then phone rings at 6:45 and I lie there thinking how tired I am and how much more time---4 days, 6 go-to-bed and wake-up times---is left, and drag myself up at 7:01AM waiting for the second wake-up call, testing the outdoor temperature---cool, but not chilly; cloudy, but not rainy---and type this just to get my motor started, shirt on against the coolth of the room. Wash my face, pack and pack and pack and manage to get my bag out by 7:25AM, Fred long ago gone to breakfast. I put socks on for coolth and my slippers and take off on the third-last endless slog from our room at the end of an endless hall at 7:27AM. People from group are very scattered, I wait for new eggs for one fried egg, have a VERY soft bit of bleu cheese, and Fred gets me a glass of juice, but of course doesn't tell me about it, so it sits on the table as I leave. I fall in love with an Apollonianly muscled back under a white T-shirt and over delicately gymbaled hips in slim blue jeans. Eat my fill and get back to room for my bag and go to LONG checkout line when Fred says he got HIS bill, but I still have to get MY bill. Stand behind "the back" at 8:12, but the desk clerk stands and jokes and takes endless time with two others ahead of me, so I go the general line (which moves faster) and pay my 20.26€ (and she refuses to take 20.25€), and on bus by 8:26, in back, since Fred is in our seat four behind driver, which means two behind tomorrow and right front the last day. I count 25 windows for us 21 tourists. I see empty seats in front and Greg's wife casually mentions they're for the two Gregs and her, and I move back, knowing that both Gregs ALWAYS sit in the back, and a bit later she moves her stuff from the second seat and says I can come sit there, and then she proceeds to gab with Wendy across from her as I put in earplugs. Leave 8:31 with TV route on a green screen! Set my watch to the TV time, I assume from satellite, to the SECOND. Hills get higher under clouds, and Nino says that the tree line here is 6000 feet, as opposed to 10,000 feet in the US. To Linderhof at 9:45, where he says we have an entry at 11AM! We're the TENTH bus in the lot. Then he moves our entry up to 10:25 and says we'll leave at 1PM, and now that I see the map of the grounds, which I don't think John and I did before, I'm happy we're staying. Buy five postcards for 1.5€, get told we have to return in 12 minutes, so I sit and address and write most of them from 9:53-10:11. #32 fountain-viewing pavilion at Linderhof. #33 caryatids 10:21. We get 10:25 English tour that leaves on the dot---with so many people, they have to. Bedroom is 100 meters square, 7 meters high. No pictures inside, VERY ornate, VERY mirrored, VERY gold, GERY VAY (as I started to type VERY GAY). They keep insisting he was lonely, but Fred wonders about the qualifying tests for the servants, and I question his good-looking garden planner who "fulfilled all his needs." #35 cascade at 10:53. #37 fountain from above at 10:57. Roll 7: To grotto 11:01, next tour 11:10. #1-3 inside grotto with flash and lots of video for music and light changes, video "by chance" on the "night light" switch that I always forget, to 11:16. #6 vista at 11:39 as we walk along back trails, sun coming out just when we want it to. #7 Moorish Kiosk 11:42. Fred left me here. #9 lizard and tadpole in gutter-pond 11:59. #10 Forbidden Gate, open on left, where I went through at 12:02. #11 Hunding's hut 12:03. TRY to shit in rustic wooden hut at 12:08 but can't. #12 Hermitage of Guernemanz 12:14. Video a bug 12:19 to rest from exhausting rushed walk uphill most of the way; Fred would have hated it. #13 from side of fountains 12:18. #14 from front 12:29. #15 fountain 12:32 and more. #18 Moroccan House 12:40, exhaustively seeing everything on map, hot and tired. #19 inside 12:41. #20 Ludwig bust 12:46. Buy salami sandwich 2.5€. Eat on bus, which goes at 12:57, early! Weis Church 1:35-1:45, lecture inside, impossibly Baroque, and I buy good book for 2.5€. #21 Weis exterior 1:48. Leave 1:53. #22 maypole from bus 2:07. Neuschwanstein from below 2:24, told to be back at 3:15 and I crazily think that the higher I get on the shit-strewn road uphill the better views I'll get of both, and puff and pant, and five more minutes, and it must be near, and pant harder, breath dying, legs paining, must be near, and take #25 and 26 of FRONT of castle: I'd walked ALL AROUND IT! Now to rush back down, taking the stairs that thankfully go more directly than the road, and sit exhausted on bench outside empty bus while others gather, since I'm down at 3:05 POOPED. Hohenschwangau under reconstruction-covers. #26 of Neuschwanstein onto bus 3:17. #27 Hohenschwangau and trees from moving bus, I'm just crazy, 3:20. #28 Neuschwanstein from moving bus, through window, high magnification, bus motion disaster at 3:21. #29 River Valley from window without even focusing on it, another disaster: my mind has just stopped working from fatigue, at 3:49. Oberammergau stop 4:07-4:40, where I look at redone uninteresting playhouse exterior, shop and find my battery for an outrageous 6€, but I NEED to have a spare, in case. #30 ARCH of stage, which is outdoors, while audience is inside, at 4:42. Bus goes OUT one end of town and IN the other at 4:45. #31 mountain with flash from window, #32 mountain without flash. #33 Little Red Riding Hood on chalet from moving bus at 4:52. Pass Hotel Fux. Dinner at 7, choosing noodle soup, pork with beer (recommended by Nino) and fruit and ice cream. We're in room 6 at the top of the stairs, thanks to Fred's bugging Nino about a room with no walking, because of his foot trouble. Got to hotel at 4:54, settled in with luggage and nowhere to put it at 5:13, when I started typing. But only after looking at the CONNECTED twin beds and pulling out the hinge to separate them, Fred puts his bag on the side of a tipped-over chair and THEN finds the luggage stand, which I plead for (since I plan NOT to unpack), and he gives it to me, puts on the fan, and goes out to walk the streets. I finish this at 6:06, with an incredible yen for a gin and tonic. Unpack dop kit and pills and wash face and FINALLY take a good shit for the day, with a lot of strain. Look for my stamps as Fred returns about 6:20, saying everyone's having cocktails outside, so there goes my gin and tonic fantasy---maybe it's the SMELL of Fred's hand-carried G&T that does it. Go into three bags and find my stamps in "future" and finish last card to mail at 6:30. Take them down and she takes them, and I trust her, and start to go down the main street, but a woman with three or four squalling children are going that way, so I go down a side street and see what looks like countryside only two small blocks away. Get to a boundary street and look for a place to sit, and at 6:34 find a seat on a wooden bridge railing with a comfortable footrest, and gaze around at the cloud-topped hills, some of which might even be called mountains, since their tops are bare of trees; green fields with one or two picturesque farmhouses brown amid the green; birds, brook babble, hills in cloud, flowers on trees, bushes, and balconies. More bikes than cars. Firewood piled everywhere. Swifts dive-bomb for bugs---and me! Idyllic farms up on hillside. Well, no, more CARS than bikes. And a nearby buzz saw! Two couples pass, both holding hands---but then, since they're not driving, they're tourists. Japanese young man takes photos, then turns back. Painted lady comes up, I turn away, I turn back and she's vanished. Grayhead followed by twin teenage sons bikes past. Hiking trail measured as 3 Std, which Nino says stands for Stunden, which is an average hour. I start back at 6:54, "by coincidence" at the very SECOND Fred passes through the door of the dining room preceded by Rebecca and her grandmother (who turn out to be Lutheran), and we have no recourse but to eat with them, though Grandma and Fred both insist they've been looking forward to dining with each other. Rebecca is a pain: self-conscious, giggly, insisting she's making terrible mistakes---and she is. I take dynamite pictures of the three of them with their two cameras. The noodle soup is better than the odd-tasting potato soup, but the roast pork in beer with an enormous ball of noodle and a huge side-plate of purple cabbage isn't that great, but my 2.6€ Radler, which he takes 2.8€ for, is wonderful, though I don't have a second one. Fruit that tastes like it came from a can has creamy vanilla ice cream on top of it. They talk on about the next day's trip, their families, manners, that a 15-year-old always giggles, even the guys, and I finally feel I can beg fatigue from my walk all around Linderhof and up to Neuschwanstein, and when I walk up the stairs at 8:25 my leg muscles are QUITE sore, and it's gonna be a bitch tomorrow, I hope not. Cool breeze blows in the window as I finish this at 8:38. With the 6:45 luggage out and 7:45 departure, Fred will undoubtedly want to be up at 6, or even 5:45, so even if I go to bed RIGHT now I'll get no more than 9 hours' sleep, which won't make up for the 6 hours last night. But I'm sore and tired and surely don't want to walk the streets with Fred and Rebecca, as seems to be on tap. Stop now at 8:41PM. Undress and brush (only) my teeth and put things in order and, though my stomach feels full, can't think of anything more that I want to do right now than to go to bed at 8:51. Bizarrely, pee AGAIN (admittedly not much), which puts my bedtime back to 8:56PM. Can't get to sleep, and peek out at 9:50 to find that Fred's reading in bed. Then at 10:15PM it seems intolerably hot under the duvet, so I unsheet it behind the headboard and finally feel comfortable.

SATURDAY, 6/24/06: 1:26AM: Wake with dream, so pee and transcribe. Can't remember second dream; finish at 1:33AM. At 5:48AM I wake: at least wake-up wasn't at 5:45AM. Shit a medium-small, hard turd and wash my face and comb my hair and put my facemask into the dop kit preparing to pack, but at 6:04 the phone hasn't rung since, and I HAVE slept more than 8 hours and my legs aren't TERMINALLY sore, so I take the AlphaSmart into the john and type this to 6:08AM, starting to count MEALS (7, with the group) since the number of days (3) and wake-up go-to-sleep cycles (4) are so small. Lie down and listen to the fan whine each time it reaches the rightmost of its cycle. Finally at 6:21 Fred's taken off his facemask and is awake, so I ask what the schedule is. "The regular one," he says frustratingly. "Which is?" "Luggage out 6:45, leave 7:45." "Well, it's 6:21 now." Pause. "It's 6:25, what happened to the wake-up calls?" So he gets up, I fill my water bottle, and type this at 6:33AM, prepared for rush. With great luck (again!) I checked my films, and one of the spares I found in the "futures" bag WAS a second unused roll for my take-on bag today! Struggle for at least five minutes to close my zipper, ruining one fingernail in the process, but manage to get the bag out on the dot of 6:45, saying "Good morning" to the younger Bulgarian, who responds with at least 17 words, not one of which I understand. Fred still hasn't got his bag out as I type this at 6:48AM. Going to file 4 on a 14-day trip is rather a surprise to me, but I've had more time to type random thoughts. Eggless breakfast to 7:13, no one got wake-up calls, departure at 7:45. I come up to get my camera for Oberammergau pictures in bright, sunny morning at 7:15. #34-35 Oberammergau at 7:20AM, bright sun on mountain and houses. #36 street-sign. #37 Hotel Alte Post (Old Post Hotel) at 7:23. Change to Roll 8 and take #1 of walking sign and tower at 7:24. Nothing more to do, Fred's already up in john, and I finish this at 7:28 and try, a la Fred, for one-turd more shit. Actually, a much larger, much softer, shit finishes at 7:32 and I finish this (again) and pack up to get down to bus. Fred's sitting alone at a table, so I put down my bag and go back (down theaterless Theatrestrasse) to the bridge to take #2-3 two more pictures of the vista from last night. Coming back, I see Fred's returned and take #4 at 7:41 of the SIDE-painting of our hotel. Then the bus-boarding starts, noisily, at 7:42. Bus leaves 7:45, I in seat 2. Pass China-Restaurant Hong Phuc. #5 Romaticstrasse in fog, driver in mirror in sunglasses 8:12AM. Hohenfurch=High furch? Strawberry-shaped strawberry sales-hutches. JAMMED bus-passengers look at us in envy. SO MANY highway noise/view blockers along all roads! Rest stop 9:19. #6 Sanifair 9:22. #7 condoms 9:25. Bus goes 9:53! KICK of "fashion book." BYPASS Donauworth COMPLETELY, totally destroyed Romantic Road (due to Japanese?). Train totally empty, passing. Pass through Ries Crater from 15 million years ago, epicenter at Nordlingen. #8 plague column in Wallerstein from passing bus 10:56. Snakepit in Fremdingen. BYPASS Nordlinger and Dinkelsbuhl 11:36. Leave bus 11:57. 12:11: meet at 1:40 at Goldshmiede in Rotenburg. #9 Riemanschneider altar 12:25. #10 St. Sebastian 12:30. #12 Altar of Holy Blood 12:35. Video to 12:50. #13 Jesus in Grand Jeté 12:55. Cake for 2.5€, expensive, OK, give back plate and get 2.5€. Well, maybe I DID pay 3.5€ for it to start, but I really don't think so. Anyway, it was dry and relatively flavorless. As was the Snowball I bought for 1.7€ and ate part of before licking sugar off fingers to take photos. #21 horses on exit at 1:42. #23 Siebers tower, to #25. To bus 1:55. Hot. Radler 2.5€, but add 2€ for stein. Leave 2:02. Huge traffic jam as we get off main highway toward Heidelberg at 3:39, only to stop for ANOTHER jam on the sub-highway that breaks up quickly. Heidelberg is HIGH at 4:03. #26 first ruins 4:09. #27 inner at 4:17. #28 walls 4:18. #29 group photo 4:22, 8€ each. #30 biggest barrel, 221,700 liters 4:27. #31-32 from terrace 4:29. #34 barrel try at 4:38. Pee 4:45 for .3€. #36-37 fallen tower 4:49. Roll 9: #1-2 castle end 4:52, with #3-4. To bus 4:57. Bus-door trouble again. Bus leaves 5PM. [Lufthansa flight 400, 10AM departure, leave Monday by coach at 6:45AM. 8AM departure Sunday AM for Rhine cruise.] AWAY from Mainz center 6:18, about 40,000 watching outside TV screen for Germany-Sweden match; if Germany loses, it's out, but it seems to be ahead 2-0 at 90 minutes in (as I proofread on Sunday, July 2, Germany is in one of the two semifinal matches with Italy, France, and Portugal). To room 117 to find a double bed, which is all they have, but they bring up a cot, which Fred and I quibble over, he ending up saying I take it first night, longest sleep, and then later changes to HIS taking it first night. Really can't follow him. Take Valium at 6:52, and then Buspar, which I should have started earlier because I started feeling anxious watching traffic from second seat and became obsessed about mortality. Sort things out, all papers ready for final packing for flight tomorrow night (passport, ticket, keys, American cash, envelope for Nino's tip). Start typing then and finish at 7:40, Fred watching TV, not saying when he wants dinner, saying "restaurant in lobby was closed." Want to wash face. We shuffle and watch TV and fiddle and he finds there IS a restaurant downstairs, so we're down and see "the sisters" eating and go to the middle of the highest central area, from which I have to find a waiter to bring us a menu, and I have two wonderful (second more wonderful than first) semidry glasses of white wine, cutlets of beef and pork with a glorious pepper-jus sauce with some of the best spetzle ever, ignoring vegetable assortment, and Fred likes his lasagna, and I have marvelous strawberries with burnt-on sabayon sauce for something like 35€, but it's definitely worth it. Fred stops off to talk with friends and I come up to finish this off at 9:47PM, dead tired, ready to brush teeth, put in earplugs and don facemask, and drop into bed. We leave at 8AM tomorrow, which means Fred will get up at 6:15, so I have to get to bed before 10:15 to get my 8 hours. Bed, late, at 10:05PM, TV still on low.

SUNDAY, 6/25/06: 3:38AM: Bizarrely the phone rings about 12:01AM, and we both wake wondering why it's so dark, and Fred looks at this watch and says, "It's only midnight!" and we both get back to sleep instantly, as I could hear from his snore just before I fell asleep. Then woke at 3:37 and went to pee and type a dream. Take Buspar 3:45AM. 5:55AM Wake and pee and type more dream and shit a bit at 6AM, when I hear the phone ring. I question 6AM wake-up, but he just grunts and goes into bathroom at 6:05. I'm up at 6:14 and hear thumps from the room above as I put on shorts and go to window. Cool out; the A/C actually SHUTS OFF when the window is opened! THAT'S modern progress! Fred dawdles in bathroom at 6:20 and I have nothing to do but type before showering, having gotten out my khakis to wear all day today: the FIRST full day without my blue jeans, which I intend to wear on the plane tomorrow. TOMORROW---HOME, tomorrow: 5 more meals, one sunset and one sunrise, NO more full days away! Shower 6:25-6:45, and of course Fred's away to breakfast already, loading up his jacket pockets with falaters. I find soap-scum almost impossible to wash off, and sit naked to dry in the A/C, leafing through luxury magazines to pass the time. Read to 6:58, dry off and put on clean shorts, and decide to wear new slippers. Down to breakfast 7:05. Fred sitting at a table for two with Malcolm, so I order an omelet (and wait about ten minutes for it), and have cereal to pass the time, and orange and grapefruit, and my hot chocolate is so dense I have to cut it with about half milk, and then the omelet comes, made from at least 4 eggs, of which I eat about 2.5 and leave 1.5 on the plate, no use HARMING myself by finishing the plate, but it feels pretty awful to do so. Back up with almost everyone finished at 7:35 and finish this at 7:41, Fred grunting in the bathroom. Meticulously put all my stuff in ONE place and leave at 7:52 to get to front seat before Fred. Leave 7:58. Off at St. GaorHAUSEN. On boat on Rhine at 9:15, scheduled to get off at 11:05. Bus holds 540 liters of diesel fuel (some bigger ones hold up to 800 liters), gets 100 km/27 liters, so we have a 2000 km tank! #5 CROSSing Rhine 8:11AM. Off bus 8:25; tickets at 8:35. #6 Rhine ferry at 8:38. FURTHS are tiny islands that come and go in Rhine. Board boat 8:56. #8 vines and ski lift 9:01. #9 camping on furth below church. #10 Bingen, boat, and furth 9:14. Much stopping, much back and forth, can't really SIT AND ENJOY because I'm jumping back and forth for photos from side to side, my choice of sitting on the right under the edge of the awning was not a good one. Off at 9:17, our trip cost 14.9€ as a single. #11 wine museum 9:19. #12 Bingen 9:22. #13 vineyards and ship 9:25. STREAM of bikers on right. Seven stops between! #14 Reichstag Castle 9:42. #18 chapel from previous 9:47. #19 Hochenboich (?) Castle and hotel and camping 9:51. #20 boat, kayak, bikes, car and wine 9:55. #21 Solnek Castle 9:56. #22 Weinstadt Lorch 10:04. #23 Furstenburg Castle ruins 10:06. #24 chapel atop church on kilometer marker 10:09. #25 Bacharach Castle and white birds 10:11. #26 Bacharach boarding 10:13. #27 Toll station and hotel on hill 10:24, in Kaub, with #29 at 10:26. #29 Castle and Liberty Ann 10:31. #30 Oberwesel, with Schonburg Castle Hotel 10:37. #31 "Diana" in front of Oberwesel 10:42. #32 kayaks and bicyclers 10:48. #34 Lorelei rock 10:50. #35 Lorelei going-people under flag. #36 Lorelei statue 10:54. #37 Aldstadt and Burg Katz 10:55. Roll 10: #1 Burg Katz and valley 10:57. #2 St. Goar 10:59. #3 Bicyclists' stop (SWR is radio station) 11:04. #4 One last Rhine Castle 11:09. #5 castle and tower 11:06. Back on bus 11:07. #6 Marksburg 12:02. To Marksburg 12:05. #7 up at tower 12:19. Jack goes NOW to pee! Start tour 12:22. ONLY original castle left: oldest part 1000 years old. Coats of arms of owners starting from 1200 and ending in 1900 with German cooperative. #8 from cannon battery over Rhine 12:29. #10 riverside 12:32. #11 with birds. #12 kitchen 12:42. #13 fabulous hinge in knights' room 12:51. #14 armor 12:59. #15 torture instruments 1:09. (left: pig mask---disgrace; right: devil mask worn for a week in public). #17 forge 1:16. Out 1:20. No English book. Castles in German bought for 1.5€. Delay till bus, but in at 1:29. Late ones in at 1:34. Into Koblenz 2:15, busy fair at German Point of jointure of Moselle into Rhine, stop 2:20-3:10. #18 Kaiser Wilhelm I unified Germany, at 2:29. #19 from terrace 2:32. #20 Moselle (L) and Rhine (R) 2:36. #21 fortress ON Rhine and Bitumina II. 2:41. Shit in Toi Toi to 2:49, clean and free. #22 statue from side 2:51. #23 down Moselle 2:52. Have 2.5€ beer and 1€ GOOD FRESH SOFT pretzel and back last at 3:08, 29°C. Kolsch beer .5 liter. Dinner at 7PM. At 3:31 I have coins: 1€, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2; bills: 20, 10, 5, lacking 2€ coin to have ONE OF EACH. Into Mainz tired at 4:20 and to room at 4:32 to take Valium and Ambien at 4:50. Lie and chat with Fred. #24 Monument at 5:50, when he says we should go for a walk, particularly to see the Dom. #25 balloons and Dom 6:01. #26 side altar/Dom 6:10. Through #36 to 6:40 in Dom, without video. Back to room 6:47, exhausted and VERY hot. Wash face and put on Hilton Hotel slippers and down to dinner at 6:58. Last table and dine with Jack and Wendy and Mom, good Caesar salad, OK chicken with black-fried potato cake and lousy veggies, and odd currant-cherry jam with cream on top for dessert, and two half-liter Radlers, all served by cute waiter from last night who remembered us. Agonizing conversation looking at their photos, posing for their photos, and ignoring their talk about photos. I excuse myself to sleep 8 hours and get up at 9PM to take Valium and Buspar at 9 and Ambien at 9:14. Bed at 9:15, Fred not in yet.

MONDAY, 6/26/06: 4:30AM: Wake groggily and bathroom light seems very bright, and I've slept at least 7 1/4 hours already, and type dream. Take Buspar and Valium (admittedly early) at 4:45AM. Wake up at 5:15, again at 5:30, and stuff lots into bag, leaving too much for shoulder bag, but put large bag out at 6:03 JUST as clerk is collecting the luggage in the hall. Leave room 6:10, taking shoulder bag with me. Pay 32€+ room bill by Visa at 6:15 and breakfast 6:17-6:30, part of omelet and lots of fruit and juice and hot chocolate, with Fred this time. To downstairs john 6:32-6:38 for a BIG soft shit, gratefully for my last German day. On bus at 6:41, first seat, but mentally I'm in a FOG. Give Nino $50 in cash, for which he thanks me without counting it. Bus goes at 6:45, right on schedule, but there's lots of traffic to airport at 7:20. First batch off at 7:26, and we're off at 7:35, tipping driver $10. On long line for entering at 7:45, then guy calls us off for speaking English, they spend MINUTES looking for Fred's South Portland Street address in Brooklyn, NY, but then it turns out this line is only for BRITISH English-speakers! Onto shorter line and check in at 8:25. Through security at 8:36. Onto US security line 8:42. HOT! Through US security by 8:55, WAIT for toilet in men's room to 8:56 and shit to 9:05, not very much, but feeling comfortable. To gate B22, no Fred, at 9:12. Start typing without listening to announcements because I have earplugs in. Go to board at 9:30 and start typing at 9:39, catching up gradually, while Fred interrupts for this or that, and I begin to think we'll be blessed with an empty middle seat but a small girl sits between us at 10:03, and Fred immediately strikes up a conversation with her, and Captain comes on in German and seems to announce in English a flight time of 7 hours and 40 minutes, which would be nice, but from the perfectly clear sky as we left the hotel this morning, the sky is now heavily overcast and my seat, RIGHT behind the wing, level with the end of the second engine-tail, isn't the best for viewing out on the left, since it'll be toward the sun in the south. Finally caught up with the typing, expecting to go to file 5 soon, and the recorded music comes on while Fred rustles newspaper that I didn't get one of. Stop now at 10:07AM. Got to note-page 12 so far, not bad for a 13-14-day trip, depending if you count the first-flight day. We back out at 10:14, HOT on plane, and young girls behind talk CONSTANTLY. #37 of Lufthansa plane in Frankfurt to clear roll before takeoff at 10:22. Off at 10:28, into clouds at 10:29, but slightly clear at 10:33, but then solid below at 10:34, ugh. Small clearings at 10:36. At 11:14 get a Henkell Trocken sparkling wine. Lower Ireland is clear at 11:53. Leave Ireland behind 12:04, and have second Henkell with beef-and-rice lunch at 1:06, 1/3 there. Try to nap at 1:29 but don't think I do. Pee at 2:20, halfway! At 2:39 I CANNOT find my packet of puzzles! At 3:08 TWO planes flying alongside, take out my video camera too late to capture the sight. Beef sandwich at 4:53, 67 minutes to go! Land at 6PM and stop at 6:10 at gate. Found puzzles under the middle seat to my right! Off plane at 6:16, through passport check 6:26, but long wait for bag, toward last at 7:03. Into cab at 7:10, told to take fare from meter. Fred gives me $40 and I'm back in apartment at 8PM. Weigh blue bag from 19 to 29 pounds, shoulder bag from 12 to 16 pounds, 7 pounds of NY Times from Beverly, and 9 pounds of mail, for a total of 61# back when I left with 31#. Get 9 phone messages: 1) Intermountain saying I have to pay, 2) Intermountain saying THEY'LL pay!, 3) EarthLink account?, 4) Ken 23-hour layover for Kenya; lunch in London, 5) Juno junk, 6) Ken 13-hour layover for Kenya, leave NYC 7 or 9PM, 7) Ken for 7/10 or 8/9 Beard, 8) Spartacus hates Mildred, 9) Jeffrey from Springer with index. Leave word with Spartacus at 8:25PM (2:25PM local time). Start reading mail, but Spartacus calls and talks for about half an hour, then right away Paul Cazenave calls and says he'll call back later, since I'm tired. Have half-can-of-tuna dinner at 11:15, take pills and Proscar and get to bed at 11:40PM, still light outside at 5:40PM NYC time. BUT, decide to try J/O at 11:45 and cum at 12:45"AM" and stand dazed at toilet for 28 minutes to pee to clear tubes and get to bed at 1:15AM, or 7:15PM local time, still light out.

TUESDAY, 6/27/06: 7:35AM (after 6:20 sleep): Type dream, feeling tired. Piss and shit, try to sleep but at 8:05 get up and J/O again to 8:45, and watch part of Lion in the House and back to bed at 9:34. Up at 11:13 (5:13AM local time, a total of 8 hours' sleep) with dream and finish typing at 11:27AM, deciding it's time to get up. Have breakfast, read mail, read Times, and have lunch at 11:11AM, changing to local time. Get groceries, send film, cash check by 1:20. Play Spider to 3:10, enter GERMFRED, talk to Arnold to 5:55 and have dinner. Bed at 10:15PM, preparing for late night at Beard tomorrow, feeling really tired.

WEDNESDAY, 6/28/06: Wake at 2:45, pee at 3:55, and up at 5:46 for a good J/O. Bed at 6:50 and up at 8:15. Decide to continue scanning TITLE pages and do 10 in a couple hours, feeling good about it. Watch Light in the Piazza, not very good, and other TV that I recorded. Then to Beard for a beautiful Ari (and his wife Claudia) sitting next to me at table 1 for a meal Ken thought was one of the best and Fred thought was pretty bad. I brought back a huge aluminum pack of Beef Wellington and TWO bottles of wine they told us to take from the table. Look through the new mail and get to bed at 11:36PM, almost acclimated to time.

THURSDAY, 6/29/06: Pee at 5:07, then up at 6:53 to try to cum but can't, giving up at last. Decide I MUST "return" from trip, so when I finish other stuff I phone Sherryl 11:45-12:35, Mildred 12:35-1:15, Carolyn 1:15-1:30, leave word with Shelley 1:30, and John 1:30-1:45; then take laundry out, pick up my Lariam prescription, buy zinc, pick up my Proscar and Zetia, have a quick lunch before going to the gym for the first time back, then look at the books I bought in Germany, do 11 title pages from 6:15-8:45, play Spider, then finally cum at 11PM in AGONY, just to clear tubes, and get to bed at 11:30, SWEATING!

FRIDAY, 6/30/06: Finally clear the table by unpacking (leaving mail for later), watch the San Francisco Othello, of which I transcribe the best parts to DVD, check e-mail 3:45-4:35, seeing nothing more on Tristan's pages though I get a bill from him for $300+, do FreeCell to 5:20, do ten more title pages through 7:30 or so and lots of Spider to a new high at 10:50PM of 48.49677, then watch The Eyes of Tammy Faye before collapsing into bed about 12:15.

SATURDAY, 7/1/06: Lie in bed to 7:13 and tease myself to a near-cum at 7:43, determined to keep it going as long as possible at the highest excitement, and am thrilled when it lasts 16 minutes to 7:59. Breakfast and TV and leave for dentist (having taken a Valium to be sure) 10:40, getting Lariam, but she's a bit late, seeing me from 11:10-12:10, not Novocained, not painful, and back to start more TITLE pages but just EXHAUSTED, so nap 1-2:30 and finish LAST pages at 5:30! Get Spider to new high of 48.49737 at 6:15PM. Late lunch and finish The Dark Corner and Bright Young Things (directed by Stephen Fry) on one of three tapes Ken lent me, and then exhausted to bed, as I find out later WITHOUT dinner, since I didn't take dinner pills, at about 9:30!

SUNDAY, 7/2/06: Wake about 5:45, doze to 6:45, shit, and hear Times plop in front of door. Read it 7-8AM, then proofread GERMFRED (MAYBE for second time!) 8-9:30, have breakfast watching Criminal to 11:20. Finish all notes to date by 12:13PM, when I remember to note that I'd taken 34.70€ and returned with 46.87€, 12.17€ MORE than I left with. Took $337.70 cash and returned with $202.70, so I spent $135 cash. Have to wait for HSBC and Visa charges to finish finances for trip, and still have to sort out photos, which I'll start now at 12:20 and finish at 1:15PM. Air conditioning on because it's as hot and muggy HERE as it was in the worst conditions in Germany. And now for summary to 2:50.

SUMMARY PAGE
TUE,6/13: Fly JFK-Frankfurt 5:15PM-12:01AM, 6:01AM German time.
WED,6/14: Fly Frankfurt-Hamburg 8:11AM-8:52AM. Bus to Meridian-Stillhorn out of town. Leberkase and appelsaft lunch. Tour Schlemmer Markt, Rathaus, Lakeside, Port by bus. Hotel buffet dinner; swim in pool and talk in sauna. Bed 9:30PM
THU,6/15: Wake 6:45. Bus tour of Inner Alster, Elbchaussee, Ratweinkeller lunch, quick old museum, dinner at Restaurant im Hof, Reeperbahn, water-show.
FRI,6/16: Bus Hamburg-Lubeck 7:46-8:48. Gate's covered, lovely inner courts, Holy Ghost Hospital, Mary's church and marzipan factory. Bus 11:11-5PM. Autospa lunch for noodles and wine. Berlin Hilton, Ziko's for drink-filled dinner.
SAT,6/17: Lecture on Berlin, bus to Dom Cathedral, town tour, Brandenburg Gate, Wall museum, Checkpoint Charlie, Pergamon Museum. Lunch in Moredos. Walk to St. Hedwig's Catholic Cathedral, Altes Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie. Bus to Nolle Restaurant near Palastplatz for ridiculous Casanova show in 61€ seats.
SUN,6/18: Bus to Potsdam 11:54-12:42. Lunch at My Kang Cambodian Specialties. Concilianhof tour, then Sanssouci, walk across Gleinicker Bridge, subway to tower-top viewpoint, dine at CaDaWe, see Friedrich's church, watch Brazilian victory celebrants on Ku'dam, and back to take a BATH to try to relax.
MON,6/19: Bus Berlin-Leipzig 7:43-9:55: St. Thomas's Church and Bach's tomb, town walk, Buffalo Bill's john. Highway awful lunch. Dresden walking tour: Palace Square, Catholic Cathedral, Frauenkirk, incredible Green Vault, Magic Flute ticket cancellation, bus back to remote hotel's mediocre buffet dinner.
TUE,6/20: Tram to Zwinger paintings, lunch in Alte Meister Cafe, then Zwinger's Armory, Sculpture, Porcelain, and Scientific Instruments, and back to Paintings. Dinner in Paulaner's Im Taschenbergpalais, REAL veal in wiener schnitzel: only time without pork. Magic Flute in Dresden Opera House a flop.
WED,6/21: Bus 7:45-10:40 to Bayreuth, outside only. Bus 11:10-12:20 to Nurnberg for Rally area, walls, trials court, St. Sebold's, Toy Museum, ham sandwich lunch, Albrecht Durer's House. Bus 2:40-4:20 to Munich and Holiday Inn München-Süd, WAY south, but dinner in hotel is passably good with Radler:beer+lemonade.
THU,6/22: NEW bus 8:32-9:09 to Nymphenburg Castle, then bus-tour of Munich with arch, Glyptotek, Propylea, Angel of Peace, Maxmillianeum, Old Fort tower, City Hall glockenspiel rings. Residenz Schatzkammer and Royal Rooms. White bratwurst sandwich lunch. Bus to hotel. Subway two lines to Tantris for fabulous dinner.
FRI,6/23: Bus 8:31-9:45 to Linderhof, toured 10:25-10:53. Walked grotto and pavilions and kiosks until 12:57, eating salami sandwich. Weis Church 1:35-1:53. Newschwanstein 2:24-3:17, not up, not in. Oberammergau 4:07-4:54 before settling into Hotel Alte Post with no storage space. Sit on bridge for only RELAXED view of entire trip. To hotel for preselected meal and pay-for drink.
SAT,6/24: Bus 7:45-9:19 to Sanifair, a kick! Romantic Road now destroyed with four-lane bypasses for Japanese tourists. Hear of Ries Crater (15 million years ago). Arrive Rotenburg 11:57, walk through, to churches, cake and Radler and snowball for lunch, Bus 2:02-4:03 to Heidelberg Castle, walk ruins, step out of group photo, see biggest barrel. Bus 5PM-6:18 to way-out Mainz hotel for only a double bed, to which they add a cot that Fred takes with disgust, and dinner.
SUN,6/25: Breakfast alone, bus 7:58-8:50 for Rhine cruise from 9:30-11:05, making 7 stops, seeing as many castles. Bus to Marksburg Castle up back roads to 12:05, tour 12:22-1:20, no English books. Bus to Koblenz 2:15-3:08 for German Point of Moselle meeting Rhine. Kolsch beer and hot soft fresh pretzel for lunch. Fred suggests Mainz walk to Dom 5:50-6:47, exhausted. Dinner in hotel with the horrible late trio, a liter of Radler, and bed at 9:15PM.
MON,6/26: Up 5:30AM, leave room 6:10, pay room bill, last breakfast of omelet and fruit and juice with Fred. Bus to Frankfurt airport 6:45-7:35. Fly Frankfurt-JFK 10:28AM-6PM, seeing only TINY bits of Germany, southern Ireland, and Long Island. Cab 7:10-8PM, get mail and Times, all weighing 61 pounds on return. Record phone calls, talk to Spartacus and Paul Cazenave, J/O, bed 7:15PM.
TUE,6/27: J/O, up 5:13AM. Read mail and Times, send film, dinner, bed 10:15PM.
WED,6/28: J/O, up 8:15AM. 10 TITLE pages and Beard.
THU,6/29: Errands and gym.
FRI,6/30: Unpack and TV.
Return to Journal June 13, 2006

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Germany

Germany with Fred, June 13-26, 2006.