Europe 2 - Bahn Bahn Bahn ... it's the Autobahn!

Laura had been craving Eggs Benedict, so we were lucky to find an "Australian" café down the street from our hostel that had Eggs Benedict on the menu. I think the Australian theme was solely represented by the types of animal found on the menu: kangaroo, crocodile, emu, and maybe something else, too. Anyway, we went ahead and ordered the Eggs Benedict, which consisted of the following:

• two soft boiled eggs in a bowl
• two pieces of tough, grilled, insanely over-seasoned kangaroo meat
• two pancakes

I'm not an Eggs Benedict aficionado, but I'm pretty sure that ain't it. Laura maintains that the pancakes were delicious, but I felt kinda bad about the kangaroo the whole time. In the search for Eggs Benedict, it was Laura and Dave 0, Eggs Benedict ... 0 ... I guess. Anyway ...

We had figured out that it would be less expensive to rent a car in Frankfurt and drive to Berlin rather than take the train. We picked up our car at the Frankfurt airport (FRA, for you airport-code enthusiasts) and figured the mid-level insurance would be fine. Oh ho ho was that a mistake! We didn't check the car for undocumented damage before we left the airport, which would prove to be a mistake upon arrival in Berlin. But I'll get to that in a bit. First, pictures!

Fig. 1: Motorin'

Laura did the driving because she's a superhero and she knows how to drive stick. Me, I'm a superhero, too, but my superheroism ends once I get into a car. We ... er, she ... eventually got up to 181 km/hr, which is around 112 mph (I checked). Considering we passed through countless construction zones, I think it's admirable and not at all scary that we managed to attain such speeds.

Germany's Frankfurt-to-Berlin countryside is filled is interesting stuff (I can't speak for the rest of the countryside, but the Frankfurt-to-Berlin stuff was pretty grand). For instance, there's this:

Fig. 2: The world's largest source of powdered non-dairy creamer. Yeah, your guess is as good as mine.

and castles, lots of castles:

Figs. 3-5: These were literally across the highway from each other.

I'm kinda glad we didn't bomb those during WW2.

On the other hand, I'm kinda sad we didn't bomb this place during WW2:

Fig. 6: Why should this place have been bombed, Dave? It looks perfectly amiable ...

Fig. 7: what with the creepy helpful info-hiker ...

Fig. 8: and the great font and antenna structure on top with the Spiel- & FitnessCenter

We tried ordering food. It wasn't easy.

Fig. 9: Is there anything without much kartoffelsalat?

Laura ordered the green salad and I had the currywurst.

Fig. 10: "Currywurst" ends up being regular wurst with a sprinkle of curry powder.

In Figure 10 above, take a look at Laura's salad. (That's the salad in the background.) The base of the plate is brown because the salad was absolutely drenched in balsamic vinaigrette. Laura would remove each leaf of letuce and dab it dry with a napkin before trying to eat it. Personally, I'm never less than delighted by a soaked salad, so halfway through our meals we swapped plates and finished everything. Back when we worked at the Sheaf together, we'd often order food in the downstairs pub and end up swapping our meals halfway through and then finish all our food. I don't know if she ever noticed that. I thought it was pretty cool. It was a good system.

After lunch we noticed this:

Fig. 11: [Insert joke here]

And this awesome slide:

Fig. 12

There was sign indicating that the slide was restricted to those 11 and under. That was a surprisingly arbitrary number, and the slide looked way too cool, so we went up.

Take a look at the following photos. There will be a quiz.

Fig. 13


Fig. 14


Fig. 15


Fig. 16


Fig. 17

In which photo does the subject realize that maybe there was a reason for the restriction to those 11 and under? Personally, I think it was Figure 16. The subject's face is carrying the same "Look at us having fun" expression as in the other photos, but there's just a hint of stark terror starting to appear; look at how here eyes are open just a bit more. I think it was at that point on the slide that the drop started. Folks 12 and over have a body mass that would make a drop like that into something you might describe as "precipitous." (Well, you might describe it like that; I, on the other hand, would definitely describe it like that.)

Now go back to Figure 12. That point where the slide seems closest to the steps' handrail? That was really close. You don't really think it's that close until you're on the slide, going uncomfortably fast, and you see the slide approach the handrail and take a sharp turn away, and then you think, "If I keep going this fast, I'm going to fly right off the slide and hit the heavy wooden handrail, or maybe those steps, and something bony inside me will break, and the rest of this trip will suuuuck."

What you don't think at that moment is, "Maybe the woman at the car rental counter in Frankfurt was right. Maybe we should have checked the car for undocumented scratches before leaving the parking lot." That thought you never have until you arrive at the car rental return in Berlin, when the guy tells you there's an undocumented scratch.

"You can go sort it out at the desk," says the helpful young man, though I don't think he used the word "sort." Come to think of it, I think what he said was more along the lines of "You can go talk there." If you're a naive NY boy like myself, you wish he said, "Hey cool American, go discuss this issue with the desk manager and then hit the discotheque for swingin' tunes, soul brother," but I don't think anyone really talks like that anywhere.

Have you seen The Lives of Others? If you haven't, go see it.

Are you back from seeing it? No? Come on, dude, we're waiting ... go see it. It might also be playing under the name Das Leben der Anderen.

So you're back from seeing it, right? Excellent. Remember that scene in the beginning with the interrogator? Yeah, that was exactly the guy we talked to about the surprise scratch on our rental car. He looked like the guy, he had the same expressions, he used the same interrogatory trickery to make us implicate ourselves, he made us sit on separate seats so he could capture our scents for future dog chases, and then he drove a wedge between us which caused one of us to run into the street and get killed by a car while the other one wrote a bestselling memoir. Our conversation went something like this:

"We weren't in an accident. We think the scratch was on the car when we picked it up in Frankfurt."

"Oh, OK. Let me fill out this form. For the sake of the form, what part of the car did you damage?"

"We didn't damage the car. The car was already damaged when we got it in Frankfurt."

"I understand, but for the form, you know ... I need to write where the damage is."

"It's on the front bumper."

"And what time did the accident occur?"

"There was no accident. The scratch was already on the car when we picked it up."

"What time did you pick it up?"

"Around 12."

"And it's 7 now, so we'll just say the accident happened at 5."

"But ... "

"Just for the form ... you understand."

etc etc argh bang dead

There aren't many things I regret in life. In fact, I can count my regrets, and there are four. After that day, I've got #5: Not getting the super "Get out of jail free" rental insurance. It was only 15 euros more, and would have saved us 235 euros. I was at my auntie's 90th birthday party last weekend, where one woman told me that whenever she rents a car in Germany she always triple-checks for scratches before she leaves the lot because not documenting all the scratches on the sign-out is a huge scam in that country.

Allegedly.

Getting tagged for 250 euros put us in a not-happy mood our first night in Berlin. But then we watched the dvd of Patton Oswalt's latest stand-up album, "Werewolves and Lollipops", and goddamn if that didn't make everything better. Goddamn!

In the days to follow, we would harbor fantasies of renting again from Alamo, except this time we would pay extra for the "Dead drifter in the trunk? Let us take care of that for you" insurance and then beat the hell out of the car. Eventually we were able to let go of our anger and bitterness, though, so Alamo is safe from us.

And having written that paragraph, I am conveniently absolved of suspicion in any future acts of vandalism against Alamo Car Rental. Thanks for the tip, Basic Instinct!

Next time on "Laura and Dave Pillage Western Europe": Communists have great real estate, Germans have sick taste, and apples are legal tender.