Road Trip

"On the road again": we travel for Fasching week school break....we drive up north to be with the Witts for Opa's birthday and visit the large extended family, which always takes days. We drive on the autobahn daily. At times the autobahn lives up to its reputation with free moving traffic when you can drive as fast as you like. However, some places on the autobahn have speed limits and then you can sit forever in the dreaded "stau", or traffic jam. Auto navigation systems give you up-to-date fast ways around traffic jams and keep track of actual driving times. NPR had a story on the German navigation system. I felt like some little "candid camera" dwarf was filming us as our navi (photo) lead us around the city of Munich for 2 hours, supposedly avoiding traffic jams. I swear navi lead us in circles and pushed us toward road rage.

After the stau turned our 3 hour trip into 5, we finally arrived at our destination, Rothenburg ob der Tauber. You need to know the full names of the towns because many German towns have the same names. They were named over 1,000 years ago and even during the Roman times, i.e. there are two big cities named Frankfurt. Rothenburg is surrounded by a massive stone wall and moat that welcomed Kings and emperors over 1000 years ago. Rothenburg remained intact through the world wars, so it retains its original medieval feel and now romantic charm. It is primarily a pedestrian town so the kids have a blast running down the original cobblestone streets.

Then we sped up the autobahn to celebrate Peter's father's birthday. Peter is driving like a true German 110 mph in the right lane because you have to get out of the way for the big boys (usually BMW, Porsche, etc) cruising around 120-130 mph, much faster. Unlike the US, Germans come by the birthday person's house for cake, coffee and food. So the birthday person can end up entertaining and making food for visitors all day.