Germany- Day 4

Holly- This post is for you!!! It's really long and I will call and quiz you later to see if you read it all!

So, I'll begin by saying that halfway into Day 4 of our trip, I was convinced that God DID NOT want the Doyals going to Munich. It seemed that everything that could have gone wrong DID go wrong- and I took that as a sign! But we went anyway- and loved it- and lived to tell the tale! Here it goes...

After David completed his work at the factory, our plan was to rent a car and drive to Munich for the next two days. That plan turned out to be not so easy! We woke up that morning and went downstairs to get our car (we requested a BMW with an American-speaking GPS). When we got downstairs we were met with a tiny hatchback Ford with a GPS that even the car guy couldn't figure out! It was hooked up to the radio and you had to turn the radio knobs to scroll through the alphabet and find each letter to spell out the name of your destination (which- I might add- was the German spelling of the cities and not what we would have entered). So we got a little scared and decided that a 4-hour trip to Munich in this car was not in the cards for us. If we would have rented this car, I think we would still be lost somewhere in the Alps!!!

So...we decided to take the train, but then called that plan off when we found out it would be about $500!

Back to the drawing board...I decided to look up directions on Mapquest- surely Mapquest could get us there! But the directions on the Autobahn seemed very confusing. Lost in the Alps again!

What to do? One of David's friends came downstairs and suggested that we buy a GPS and use that. Finally- a good idea!!! We called the rental company back and the same guy (we were so embarassed!) delivered out new car- an Opal! David went and bought a Garmin and we were ready to go!


Opal + Garmin = LOVE

But no! Still more trouble! When we got in the car- we realized that the cigarette lighter's fuse was blown so we couldn't plug in the GPS to charge it! At this point I was sure God did not want us going to Munich! So my mechanic husband gets out the car's manual and (with the help from a really sweet lady from the desk who could read German) replaced the fuse. He traded it with the fuse from my passenger window- so all my pictures from inside the car were looking through a window I couldn't roll down.

FINALLY- with our precious GPS up and running- we were Autobahn bound!

Interesting facts about the Autobahn:

• It's a very clean and well-maintained road. Not like those great Louisiana roads!
• People drive REALLY fast. There are portions with speed limits and places where there is no limit. When there was no limit, those cars were passing our Opal like nobody's business. We drove as fast as the Opal would go (which turned out to be about 120mph- I know David would have liked to go MUCH faster!)



• There's no shoulder on the road so when there's accidents, all traffic stops! We experienced this a few times and our 4-hour trip turned into about 6 or 7 hours. (Hello Doyals! It's me- God! I told you to turn around but you wouldn't listen to me!)

We stopped for lunch in a little town called Wurzburg. It had some beautiful architecture.

This church really creeped me out- it was beautiful from a distance...

but a closer view revealed some scary skeletons hanging out with cherubs.

We finally made it to Munich! YEA!!! And we were so excited to check into our hotel and do some sightseeing (in the dark since we made it there so late!). As luck would have it, the man at the desk informed us that our reservation was made for the night before and because we didn't show up, we were charged as a no-show. At this point I was almost in tears and I dragged my pitiful self to the counter and gave this guy our sob story! Something must have worked because he was nice enough to not charge us and give us a room for that night.

WOW- what a day! And just to let you know- our bad luck ran out so you won't have to listen to my sob story anymore!

That evening we went to dinner at the Hofbrauhaus- the most famous and largest beer pub in the world. It's over 400 years old! Very authentic- the waitors and waitresses were all dressed in their old German clothes and they had a German band. Of course- David really enjoyed the beer!

We spent the rest of the evening walking around the old town area. It really reminded me of New York City- with lots of people and very commercialized. What I found extremely interesting was that these old (1400s) buildings were still in tact but had strip mall shopping in the bottom floors.

We visited the famous Town Hall that houses the glockenspiel clock. We didn't get to see the clock in motion- which I've heard is really cool- but the building was amazing. Incredibly ornate!