everyone needs a best friend

it might be just something that i feel, but there seems to be a connection between the bearded types. i especially keep my eye out for older fellas who seem to have been rocking the beard for some time and slightly envy the look that comes from the aged beard. here was this guy on the regional train from würtzburg to bamberg who had a slight forward tilt to his head and a full, though a bit short, white beard. looked like the type who might have already had a few with his buddies (if he had any) at this early point in the afternoon. actually he looked like he needed a buddy to have a beer with. i had the quick thought to invite him out with us to our trip to schlenkerla but the courage never mustered and he ended up getting off the train some time before we made it to bamberg. i imagine him now in his rocking chair on the farm, far off look in his eyes, wondering why that young fella on the train never invited him for a beer.

Beer Post: Schlenkerla

Absolutely splendid!
The best in town. We tried their standard rauchbier, the weizen, and the helles. All fantastic.
We had the pleasure of drinking and dining with the owner and brewmasters at the brewery. They're extraordinarily friendly. And the food was excellent as well.
I would have taken more notes on the beer itself, but I was busy keeping up with all the German and taking notes about their brewing process and beer recommendations.
I asked them about one thing you mentioned, Ben - if the only ales in Germany are Weizens and Kölsch. Turns out there is another. It's called Altbier. It's similar to Kölsch, except they use a caramel malt. I forget where it's brewed, but I think they said Düsseldorf.
They also recommended Steve Thomas' Good Beer Guide to Germany.
Prost, Schlenkerla!

And Back to Germany

After one final disappointment in Switzerland - we tried to get Switzerland stamps in our passports, but the Swiss police at customs didn't show up to work - Kev and I rejoiced aboard the train as we crossed back into Germany.
To Bamberg.
We settled in quickly in beautiful, beer-centric Bamberg, and had an absolutely superb evening with the owner and head brewers at Schlenkerla Brewery (a little more on that separately).
Per our usual m.o., we tried to sample as many of the local beers as possible, and see as much of the city as possible. What didn't help was that the bike rental shop had, at some point in the last two years, become a flower store. We managed though.

Die Schweiz

Overall Switzerland was more disappointing than impressive. A shame, because I was really looking forward to it.

Switzerland does have a few things going for it. The Alps, the hills, and the rivers - all gorgeous. And there are plenty of lookout points in each city to take it all in. There are fountains with potable water all over. And the chocolate and cheese are tasty.

But the bottom line, Kevin put it best, is that nothing in Switzerland was worth the money we paid for it. Literally the only thing worth the price was the truffles we got from Sprügli.

Food, beer, experience - everything paled in comparison to Germany. We got pretty anxious to get back.

Upcoming...

Momentarily constrained by 1) no working USB port on this computer 2) our laundry in the dryer and almost done, we only have time for a brief update.
Here's everything we plan on posting about soon:

Bern is a fairly nice city
Zürich gets old real fast
Bamberg is a really nice city
Schlenkerla is our favorite brewery ever (hung out with the owners all evening)
The tasty beers of Bamberg
Kevin's new best friend / future alter ego - some old guy on the train that we didn't actually even meet
Where are the Swiss police when you need them? (...for a passport stamp)
The awesomely spacious quarters we had in Bamberg, that we had to walk through a music store to get to
oh, and the one i'm really excited about: The Felsenau Adventure in Bern

We hope everyone's enjoying the travel stories so far, thanks for all the comments!

Itinerary

All right, all right. We'll tell everyone where we are...
[all names, dates, and locations subject to change]

11.6-12.6 - frankfurt
12.6-14.6 - köln
14.6-14.6 - heidelberg
14.6-17.6 - freiburg
17.6-19.6 - basel
19.6-21.6 - bern
21.6-23.6 - zürich
23.6-25.6 - bamberg
25.6-26.6 - ulm
26.6-29.6 - münchen / freising
29.6-30.6 - frankfurt

[names, dates, and locations no longer subject to change, as i've edited this to reflect where we really ended up]

Lodging

Andy, you're right. A quick post about the lodging is in order. This is especially for you since you stayed at a couple of these places already.

Frankfurt: Motel One
We splurged on a legit hotel. Perfect spot to get our 12 1/2 hours of sleep and start our trip off proper.
They upgraded the lobby since the last time. It's all ultra-modern, chic, and mood-lit.

Köln: Station Hostel
Comfortable and clean, we were in a 5-bed dorm. The other three were Americans too. Two were really nice but didn't know how to be quiet in the morning. The third was coolö he was on a month-long bike trip up the Rhine to Denmark. Kev reverently hooked him up with a bearded-man bike patch.

Freiburg: Black Forest Hostel
An ideal hostel - clean, friendly, and spacious. In a 6-bed dorm, but the first night our four roommates didn't sleep there. Then they left and we never got more roommates.

Basel: HC
Our first time on the trip staying with someone from Hospitality Club. Michael, our host, was great. He had a clean place and gave us our own space in the living room. He spoke German with us and told us some great info on the city. Kev and I cooked up dinner on the last night for us three and his girlfriend (dinner included a dynamite garlic bread that we can't wait to make again.) Only downside - my towel is still hanging out on his balcony where we put it to dry...

Bern: HC
This time not so lucky. Our host was indifferent towards us at best. Kevin and I slept crammed underneath a foosball table inhaling all the cigarette smoke drifting in from the kitchen.
The second night there he didn't come back home, so at least we didn't have to worry about waking him up in the morning. In fact, oddly, it seemed as though none of his other three roommates came home that night either...
However, we did have to coordinate using the bathroom with three other HC guests that were staying there. These three makeup-laden ladies combined for a bladder-pinching hour and a half choke hold on the bathroom.
We did not look back after leaving that place.
(Additional note, it shared an interesting quirk with John's Cozy Backpacker Hostel of yesteryear - there was a mandate that we take our shoes off outside the door, while the inside was as dirty as can be anyway.)

Zürich: City Backpacker Hotel Biber
Very lame hostel. Right above the loudest street in the city. The kitchen didn't have any sharp knives, so we got creative with forks. The rooms were terribly hot. Place wasn't all that clean.

Bamberg: Gasthaus Neumann
We made it to 32 Luitpold Str., the address of this guesthouse. The sign for the place was plastered on the side of the building wall. But the inside held a musical instrument shop. Walking up and down the street 8 times didn't shed any light on this mystery, so we headed around the corner and to our surprise found the real entrance. A nice old gentleman greeted us, then took us inside to check us in. He walked us through and to the counter of the music store for the keys/paperwork (Kevin giving me a huge, furtive grin as we went).
Up to our private, 2-bed room, we opened the door to an enormous suite. Oh, what a nice change of pace. We got some good sleep there.

Ulm: Brickstone Hostel
In a 4-bed dorm with two guys who looked like they dropped anchor and planned on living there for a while. The owner was exceedingly nice, and she was also very polite about our German mistakes. Place was cozy and comfortable.
After checking in Kev and I went to dinner, and then to a beer garden in the park to watch the Germany game. While Kev waited in line for our second round of beers, he saw the hostel owner there. We walked back to the hostel with her afterwards, and while we tired out and went to bed, she hung out in the kitchen with two friends and a much older couple. We had no idea we were staying at such a happening place...

München, night 1: Easy Palace Hotel
In actuality a hostel, this place was trying its damnedest to look like a hotel. The resemblance stopped at the carpet on the huge staircase though - this place didn't have any shower facilities, was dirty, lacked any security, and overall was just lousy. We checked out promptly the next morning, even though we were staying longer in München. And good thing we did (credit Kev's forward thinking)

Freising: some hotel room carpet
Kev and I were planning on spending the night on the lush grass of Weihenstephan, but instead we ended up on the hotel room floors of some friends we met that night (see beer fest post)

München, night 2: HC
Our host was quite the character. We could go on and on about him, but I'll put it briefly. On one hand, he was extremely immature, inappropriate, and shady; on the other hand, he was very welcoming, accomodating, and (giving him the benefit of the doubt here) well-intentioned. As a bonus, through him we met some travelers from North Carolina and a very cool couple from Freising. Worked out nicely.

Frankfurt: Frankfurt Hostel
Chosen, like last trip, because it's really close to the train station. I think we spoke more German than some of the employees. Just gonna sum this place up as "functional".

Beer Post: Ganter

The most widely available beer in Freiburg, we ran into Ganter in some fashion everywhere we went. All the bars and restaurants served some variety, we happened upon the Ausschank (restaurant owned by the brewery) by the Münster (great Spätzle), and we saw the top of the brewery rising up while walking on the forest hills.
So, during our time in Freiburg, we tried everything Ganter had to offer: the helles, dunkles, and kristall hefeweizens, the pils, and the urtrunk.
Ganter boils down to this: they absolutely mastered their helles hefeweizen. Everything else tastes like a distracted, muted, and inferior version of the helles.
So let's talk about the helles. Potent, fresh, and full of taste. The fruit flavors it exhibits are a perfect complement to the flavors of the wheat and yeast base. The flavors thus amplify each other on the palate, giving the beer its potency. The taste lingers a while alongside a heavy mouthfeel. Overall a very enjoyable beer.
Well done, Ganter. Prost.

Basel: Not the Switzerland I was hoping for

This post could otherwise be titled:
Everything here sucks
Waste of time
Everything looks the same
I miss German beer
Everything costs way too much
I didn't even need my camera
Switzerland's Dortmund
Pure suckage
Basel's great - if you're looking for discount shoes or overpriced Döners
Hey, how'd they get everything to suck so much?

Every trip has at least one: something that sucks so bad that it makes everything else on your trip seem ten times better.
Last time around it was a tie between Dortmund and the Coffee Museum in Leipzig. This time around it's everything about Basel.
At least we had a great host at the place we stayed. He has one of the same cookbooks as I and went to lengths to talk with us in high German.

Nie Wiedersehen Basel!

(yields a few decent pics at least: )

virtual fun space

this post will find us in zurich at a pretty crappy internet place and arcade called virtual fun space which is virtually no fun at all (yes hello and welcome to our special friends, our really special friends)... but zurich is good so far. quickly from me and then matt has a book he wrote that i guess he'd like to share.

freiburg is topping out the list of beatiful cities with a lot to offer and to keep one interested. to start, the city is surrounded on most sides by the southern part of the black forest and the resulting types who frequent the city are evident. mostly outdoors types and plenty of cyclists. the old city mixes well with anything more modern and there's a bit of a quiet outer borough feel to it but it's just a bit more compact. the main element of the place though is water, and you can hear water running or gurgling anywhere you are, as there is literally water running under your feet in these old itty-bitty creek type things that matt knows the name of. i couldn't ever figure out where they came from, but there they were. and those combined with two beautiful rivers flowing through the city, one of which i gathered was used to generate electricity but i could have misread the sign. anyway, i've come to the conclusion that it'd be a great city to be a bike mechanic... and drink great local beer.

then basel. what a crap shoot. the most redeeming quality was our hospitality club host and his girlfriend. it was good to hang out with them after our long walking tour of the city. other vague pluses: preference to the cyclist and pedestrian... and that's about it. all the beer was corporate owned, carlsberg or otherwise. even local beers didn't have much to offer. their novelty lay in the fact that they weren't carlsberg. Unser Bier and Ueli Bier were the two local offerings and only really had good logos. and then there's the expensive factor. no idea how to describe the ridiculousness of the cost here... one thing to chalk up on the list of successes though, a cafe owner actually mistook us for germans based on our speaking. and with our hospitality club hosts we only spoke german... bern on the other hand

Speedy Gonzalez

Wow.
Last night was way too good to pass up posting about. What started as simply finding a place to watch the Germany game ended up as an equally confusing as it was entertaining evening.
We started out by biking down the street to a pub with a great beer selection. After passing up that place because it was way too smoky and another place across the street, we walked down the block to an outdoor-seating bar. There was one open table left in the back, but the woman at the table in front relentlessly insisted that there was plenty of room at her table. Kevin jumped in and acquiesced because 1) it was easier to accept in German than to politely decline, and 2) I ended up sitting by her, not him.
This lady's accent was so thick that I had between 0 and 1% idea what she was talking about most of the time. She was kind of an older lady; her drink of choice was the Speedy Gonzalez (non-alcoholic) and the only thing I understood from her was that at one point she started talking about her bowel movements and how she really needed to use the bathroom (though she never actuallz got up and used the bathroom...)
So a meager 1-0 win by Germany, and we biked through all the honking horns and German flag waving in the streets to another bar/restaurant area near the university quarter.
We sat down for some potatoes and garlic dipping sauce and some hefeweizens. Some football songs were blaring throughout the bar, and we thought we found the perfect post-game celebration bar.
Then, slowly, as the last fry was eaten and we ordered our second round of beers, we noticed that the music had slowly turned to Eurotrash pop, and the crowd had grown more and more male. And we realized that we were sitting at a corner table in literally the gayest bar in Freiburg. For every cute girl that we had once hoped looked our way, there soon stood two middle-aged and just a bit too overweight dudes that were in fact looking our way.
So, we picked up the pace on our beers; but not too fast, since everyone was up on the tables and enjoying the Deutschland win in grand style. The atmosphere was truly great, and we couldn't stop laughing when the *entire bar* was singing along to some American country song about coming home to West Virginia (no, seriously, even Kevin was singing along. It was truly a Twilight Zone moment...)
So once the last cute girl left the place (seriously, we did hold out), we took off and biked for the hostel. (and this includes an Evel Knevil maneuvre by Kevin, that left me dodging between cars, a stampede of bikers, and a group of cops to try and keep up.)
Fitting last night in Deutschland for a week. Ah, schön.
Nach Schweiz!

Plants

Hey, anyone who sits next to me at work - can someone please water my plants?

Thanks

Mr. Kipplings Makes Exceedingly Good Cakes

Walk around Sachsehnausen, Frankfurt for a little bit while trying to find some big bertha statue of an apparently butch looking lady (it's a fountain really) who spits out water at unsuspecting passers-by and you might stumble upon this gem of a scrawl on the back of a small building down a tiny alley. Taking it literally i'd suppose it'd be a good idea to find this Mr. Kipplings and ask him for some cakes. But we were in search of what ended up being a very disappointing fountain that didn't spit anything. As for the other disappointments, we've so far tried to find two restaurants from the lonley planet guide that don't exist anymore and found our best construction sight ever... the reportedly beautiful bridge that one is suppose to start a little tour of the Altstadt of Heidelberg from but we couldn't tell, it was under construction and covered in scaffolding. I suppose it's a side-effect of having such old structures around that the Kölner Dom, the Schloß in Heidelberg and this bridge among plenty of other famous touristy sights have all been under construction. I would like to add one thing to Matt's take on Heidelberg, the cyclist has the right of way no doubt about it. The bike lanes are as wide if not wider than the sidewalk and the plethora of bike parking leaves little be desired, as the picture of the main train station shows, and that's only a little part of it.

Beer Post - Feierling

Our first night in Freiburg, we happened upon Feierling brewery and pub. Feierling Brewery brews a beer named Inselhopf. You'll have never heard of this because it's unavailable anywhere except for the brewery itself. To balance this inconvenience, they do offer kegs and these really cool 2L bottles that look like giant chemistry beakers.
We took seats at the bar and spent a while tasting the light and the dark versions (that's all they have). The beer is fully organic, which is always impressive, and tastes like they want to capitalize on that fact. It has very earthy flavors, Kevin insists a wheatgrass taste. Both the light and dark are very clean, light, and smooth. The light has some freshness of the hops peeking through.
Both are made with untergärig yeast, meaning at the bottom of the mash. Ben, help me out here, that's a lager, right?
Prost!

Heidelberg

Between Köln and Freiburg, we stopped for the afternoon in Heidelberg.



Heidelberg is nice, but I wouldn't bother going back. Sudpfanne (restaurant) is superb, and we got a great taste of some local dishes - Spätzle and Maultaschen (incl. pic for you, Ben).

Beer Post: Kölsch

Our first German beer mission, and this was on obvious one - a sampling of the various Kölsch beers. Kölsch is Köln's local (city-specific) beer variety. There are around 7 easily accessible brands, and our aim was to taste them all. In that we left the whole task for one night, we didn't quite reach completion.
We don't know much about Kölsch categorically, other than it's Köln-specific and is generally a lighter (in flavor and color) beer. Kölsch is always served in a tall, thin 0.2L glass. Every pub and restaurant in Köln serves Kölsch. And they serve exactlz one brand. So everyone has signs out front declaring this allegience, usually bigger than the signage for the pub itself.
So here we have it:

• Gilden - one of our two favorites. A complex and very well-crafted beer. Full-bodied with a lot of flavor and a nice, thick mouthfeel. The flavors all burst sharply at first, and the beer finishes smooth.
• Sion - the other favorite. This too is full-bodied with a lot of flavor, yet is citrusy and rather crisp. We tried Sion at their brewhouse; a proper one where, in traditional style, they all wore blue shirts and were somewhat curt.
• Früh - in the next tier. A bit blander, but light, citrusy, fruity. Definitely the hoppiest of them all, lending to a bitter, sour taste.
• Dom - like Früh, rather good but relatively medium quality. Dom is a large beer; dense, malty, and nutty with a thick mouthfeel
• Gaffel - pathetic. The budweiser of Kölsch, this tasted watered-down and like a bunch of amateurs brewed it.
• Sünner - //TODO
• Reissdorf - //TODO

Prost Köln!

Köln

I'll say this every time - what a phenomenal city. The Dom is unreal, truly incredible; the city is full of architectural gems; the people are great; and there's some cool quirkiness abound.

Victories we chalked up:

• Our lengthiest conversation with a waitress at one restaurant
• Getting used to my new camera
• Finally recovering from the 5-day stomach illness I had (what? me with stomach problems? rare...)

And learnings thus far:

• While on the train, hold the toilet seat up

Pictures:

Frankfurt

Frankfurt proved again to be a great warm-up city. It fits perfectly the description of "pretty nice."
Kevin mentioned our exceedingly better start than last time. Above is us *not* stuck at the airport for hours. We also didn't immediatly get lost. Then we didn't get all upset at each other. I recommend this approach.
We *did* however, manage to wander into the construction zone on the far side of town; so we haven't lost our internal compass for that.

happy döner makes you schöner

andy, this one's for you...
we're in köln now for a day or two and this will be our first post from germany. everything so far has been excellent. the plane ride completely according to plan, the plane food not too unsettling and the arrival in frankfurt much smoother than the last time. as the pictures will soon show, there was no sleeping on the side of the pick up lane outside the arrivals area, no wondering when someone was going to come pick us up, no stuttering in german (well, that's not entirely true) asking where we might find this completely hidden hotel in the back of büro stadt where there don't seem to be any actual people working even though it was midday and we were surrounded by absolutey nothing but offices...
we got to the main train station, dropped our bags in the lockers and headed out into frankfurt on a much cooler day than the one we left in nyc. it felt good to be surrounded by the language we've both been practicing for whatever length of time but as the opposite was hoped i was just a bit frustrated to find that once again, i felt totally out of my league trying to understand anything. funny enough i knew most if not all of the words, just couldn't figure out how the damn hell they went together to form intelligent sentences. anyway, the frustration didn't last long and i think we're both at least pretty comfortable hearing the language, however much we might not understand. we've also had some good practice sessions with some very understanding locals which have helped to build the confidence, especially today in köln at this total hippie restaurant that had a great open-faced vegan sandwich called a 'duddel'. quite tasty vegetables in a bit of an oil and spiced-rosemary dressing with great service to boot. the best recommendation yet, matt and i were looking totally lost standing on some corner sort of near the university quarter arguing over the map when a nice lady around our age decided to ask us if we needed help. after a bit of stumbling and confusion over whether we wanted her to continue in english or german we ended up getting some directions, in german, to a vegetarian friendly 'hippie house' down the street, under the elevated train tracks, take a right at the first street where there's some (couldn't really understand here) stuff on the corner and somewhere down that street we should find something. perfect. vague directions, super food, friendly service, great atmosphere, and most definitely a 'hippie house'. called 'cafe duddel'. go there. lots of bikes around, too... when we get to a computer that we can plug the camera into you'll see. until then...

Auf Wiedersehen USA!

Our much anticipated travels begin! Kevin and I head off to Germany in a few hours. Our Return to Germany that we've been looking forward to since our last trip two years ago (see the last blog: http://deutscheblogophon.blogspot.com/).
Also, I suppose an introduction is in order, which is why we put our shining faces above. For those of you who don't know Matt, this is Matt. For those of you who don't know Kevin, this is Kevin. For those of you who don't know either of us, you're on your own figuring out who is who. A hint - Kevin looks like the homeless guy and Matt looks like he's been lost in the woods for a couple years.

Off we go! Matt and I are leaving this beloved city for a mammoth test of our recently osmosized German language skills. Here's to hoping that sleeping with German text books under the pillow really works. These and other absolutely astounding tales and experiences will be shared with much aplomb. Until next time...