Regensburg...

Paco and I finally got on the road at 7 pm to head to Regensburg where Doris lives with a short stop in Wertheim to pick up Lili and complete our triad. Based on initial estimates from google maps and the navi it should have taken 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Wertheim with another 2 hours to Regensburg. That would have put us there around 11:30 or midnight with stops for fuel, both benzine and red bull that is...
Remember the comment about my first traffic jam or stau auf Deutsch. We didn't actually pick up Lili until around 11. Apparently the horrors of the autobahn traffic I've heard from ze Germans is true. I hadn't encountered traffic like this in any of my travels thus far. The only exception was the trip to Berlin, but people died in that one. This was just clogged traffic, to which I've coined the phrase the domino stupidity effect. Traffic would grind to a halt for nothing worse than a slight curve in the road. Absolutely ridiculous. But after a brief break at Lili's to cancel the hostel in Prague since I accidentally wrote down the fax number, not the voice line, we got back on the road to arrive at 3:30am in Regensburg (still 2-3 hours shy of Prague, although we did see the sign for Praha). Actually step back a second. I call the hostel to have the girl tell me I have to go to hostelworld to cancel the reservation. I get to hostelworld and see that it says I have to contact the hostel directly. I tell this to the girl on the phone and explain the circumstances. She finally agrees to cancel the stay but charges me the first night for my efforts anyway.
It was great to catch up with Doris again since I haven't seen her in about 2 years when she was doing a 6 month project gallivanting around the US. But it was very nice for her and Carlos to invite us into their home and take care of us for the weekend. The funniest part was that our quintet consisted of a Brazilian, German, two Mexicans from the same home town yet had never previously met, and an American that provided the magnet to attract this crowd together. Conversations went on in Deutsch, Espanol, and English. The bad part was I was the only one who couldn't fluently speak at least 3 languages. But I got by nonetheless as I can kind of understand Spanish and German.
Friday after a top notch breakfast we all went to downtown Regensburg for some sight seeing. Very nice, small, Bavarian town (I can actually pick up on the Bavarian accent too... wow). Of course there were churches, but as you can see Regensburg has the notorious flying Brazilian... Of all the ridiculous pictures I have this was the only one that wasn't staged. Carlos really just ran and jumped in front at the most optimum time possible. We had a very nice dinner then were forced inside by the cold. On the radio we heard that there was snow somewhere in the region (turns out it was in the Eiffle where I wanted to go climbing a few weeks back). At one point Saturday I saw the thermostat showed 0.5C... read disgustingly cold...

Saturday we went to München, but that deserves it's own entry, so we'll fast forward to finish off the weekend. After the Oktoberfest, we got back to Regensburg to meet up with Doris and the crowd from Friday. During our conversation one of Doris' friends asked me again whether or not I studied German in school. Of course I hadn't and her husband didn't believe me since as he put it, 'your pronunciation is perfect, I'm amazed.' (patting myself on the back)... hehe... We ended up going to a very nice discotech that managed to play all of my favorite European songs and we danced the night away. I got to drive back... it was a stick and man was it terrible. I still suck and didn't really catch on. After dropping off everyone we got back to Doris' at around 6am for a few hours sleep.
Sunday was pizza and a movie while Paco took a side venture to meet up with an old friend from his previous time here in Germany. If anyone has an opportunity to rent 'The Man,' with Sam Jackson and the American Pie dad I suggest doing so. I'd put my favorite quote here, but being a family friendly site (sort of) you'll have to rent it and it'll be quite evident which line was best. Afterwards we went to the Walhalla (pronounced like the Nordic heaven). Finished around 1842 it's a very nice pseudo copy of the Parthenon with busts of famous Germans inside. It sits on the bank of the Danube, yes that Danube which shocked me as well, photographed below...
HAH - That really is the river Danube...

Around 7pm we began the trek home thinking that when coming down there were no backups, therefor it might be ok. We were very, very wrong. There was about an hour where we averaged between 5 and 10 km/hr. It was terrible. We eventually changed my navi to not include autobahns and got to drop Lili off with stops only for street lights around 11. By the time Paco and I got the car turned back in and I got home in the torrential downpour that caused our car to hydroplane on many occasions on the way back, it was 4am. A 3 hour nap and 2 red bulls got me to work and brings us to today. Ich bin sehr müde....