Travel Day
Today was a travel day. Gaston and I had the lengthy plans of going from Rotterdam, the Netherlands all the way down to Esslingen, Germany. We had two stops along the way in Cologne and in Mannheim and the total drive was really only supposed to be like 4 hours on google maps but of course it didn't work out that way.
Travel day's are interesting to me when you consider them because when you tell someone oh yeah I'm going to be there for 6 weeks they think you're going to have 6 weeks of awesome but they don't realize that depending on the number of places you're going you're actually having 5 weeks of awesome and 7 days of sitting in cars, trains, or planes, lugging around your luggage, and low key hating yourself and your decision to cross X-amount of kilometers in a single day.
Well anyway we left the beautiful and lovely Rotterdam city and headed southeastish. The Netherlands are beautiful and I'm glad I came back a second time because on my first trip only seeing Amsterdam and not so much of the local beauty and country side I really missed out on a lot. They have a lush and green countryside that is similar to that of Minnesota or more accurately Wisconsin to me, rolling gentle hills with not a mountain in site, long green grass, little farm houses (though theirs are a lot cuter), and cottonwood and large birch looking trees everywhere. It's beautiful and I imagine the nightmare of someone with allergies. I even have found myself sneezing more often out here than I do at home..
The other thing is that the Dutch architecture outside of Amsterdam is ridiculously cute and now I can definitely say that I am a fan of the Dutch Colonial style of housing. It is just so cute! A few last thoughts about the Netherlands (do you capitalize the 'the'?) is that they are definitely one of the languages that The Sims speak. I've seen and heard enough to be certain that Sims at least partially speak Dutch. Additionally if anyone on this earth was going to survive a zombie apocalypse it would probably be the Dutch. 1. Most of them are like 6' tall and can run quickly away from dragging zombies 2. They are used to the cold and dress accordingly so would probably weather their winters well while the zombies froze 3. They are a very caring and considerate country (except when they drive) and so they would work together unlike I imagine many Americans would end up doing 4. Their entire country is made up of bike routes and bikes so when they aren't running they can take bikes which I have long considered the best mode of transportation during a zombie apocalypse as it is faster than humans, easy to fix, doesn't require fuel, can handle many different terrains, and is silent. So basically in conclusion I'm warming up to The Netherlands quite a bit.
Moving on.. Gaston and I drove straight from Rotterdam to Mannheim where we picked up Anna and he made me drive around the city for like 10 minutes before we got her because we had to wait and he was so busy filming me and laughing that we ended up on the highway which I thought was terrible and he thought was hilarious. I didn't crash or kill anyone though and I only killed the engine once so go team. Driving in Rotterdam was considerably easier as well. After we picked up Anna we headed south to Esslingen which is a charming little German town and stayed at Felix's house until midnight. We had dinner with his parents who are wonderful guest entertainers who made us chicken, steak, potatoes, and many vegetables. It was a great home cooked meal and then we stayed for a few more hours until midnight.
The plan was to leave at midnight and arrive at Lake Garda at 7am so that we didn't miss a day. I don't know why any of us didn't fact check one another because it turned out that we couldn't actually check in until 3pm... I fell asleep somewhere just across the Austrian border and woke up along a cliffside looking down upon a beautiful valley in Italy that then opened up into Lake Garda itself. It was spectacular. Anyway we got there at 7am and found we had absolutely nothing to do so we slept in the car for 4 hours in a random parking lot, grabbed breakfast, were conveniently let into the place at 1:30, and then all passed out again until 5pm... So much for "getting there to enjoy the first day" but it was still very worth it. Travel days can be fun but more than anything they are simply a day where you're not really responsible for anything as long as someone else is driving. Also this is a picture of Felix's dog which is a 2 year old Langhaarschnauzer who's back was as high as my hip. It was huge and adorable and for some reason doesn't have an english translation.
One last thing is that Gaston's apartment as awesome as it is, has totally crazy stairs and they scared the crap out of me. They were less than the length of my feet and I wear size 6 womens. They were super steep and terrifying. You can't tell but in the second pictures that's actually two flights of stairs. I asked Gaston what he did if he got home drunk and he said "sleep on the stairs."
