did actually get the chance to write another blog sooner than expected, as our hotel in nurnberg as free (yes FREE!) internet access. very exciting. so thought i'd drop another note to give a bit more details of our bus tour thus far. boy has it been interesting.first of all, the bus tour is everything i thought it would be, and then some. it's a full coach - 43 of us, with 1 empty seat. and it's full of 40+ year olds. actually more like 60+, with the exception of mom. i think she is the youngest after me, and one teenager traveling with the grandparents. and of course, there are quite a few lovely passengers. we've especially enjoyed our time spent with 2 ladies from near inverness scotland, a couple from near the england-scottish boarder, a couple from australia and a few others.
however, there are also those which make the trip oh-so-memorable. at our first welcome dinner, which made me want to crawl under the table with regret as to what i was getting
myself into, i picked out 3 annoying people/groups that i thought were going to drive me nuts. i was correct about 2. not a bad ratio, i say. but what makes it even MORE interesting is that person 1 and group 2 have developed into archrivals. uh huh. funnnnn.we sat with person 1 at our welcome dinner, which is when she immediately made my "to watch out for" list. not only did she not stop talking, but she complained about everything you can think of. and i thought she would have a heart attack when she heard that a typical european breakfast consisted of a roll, jam and coffee or tea. and anything else that was also served would be considered a special extra treat. please keep in mind, she told us about her extensive travels. though she also managed that night to tell us about how she gets lost all the time and gets frustrated that people don't speak enough english. wellll, we are in germany.. more from her later.
group 2 was at the table across the aisle from us at the welcome dinner. there really are no words to describe them, so i will try to summarize all the events that have occured with them on this trip. (1) one lady is claustrophobic, so the entire bus must reorganize everyday to accommodate her. of course this causes problems b/c cosmos has a rotate-2-seats every day policy, and people immediate suspect she just wants a good seat at the front of the coach. also, person 1 has bad knee and wants special seating too, but was reduced to tears when no special treatment was received - instant enemy! (2) other lady is ditzy, to put it kindly, and also an incessant talker. i don't think she came up for air the first few days. (3) both said ladies decided to take another stairwell down from their hotel room - no elevators for them - and ended up in the kitchen. did they stop? NO! they walked thru the kitchen thinking it would lead outside. well it did. but then they saw a big white patch on the ground and thought,
"well that looks nice, we should walk on it." of course, it was newly laid wet cement. and they got stuck. all 4 feet. so the tour director had to come and get them out, and now their shoes have a nice layer of cement on them. (4) at berlin play, claustrophobic lady couldn't sit in any seat, and needed the aisle, so entire row of tourists had to be rearranged. (5) tour director told said ladies of phone charge from room, but they insisted they did not make a call and would not pay the 38 euro cents they owed the reception. tour director had to compromise with reception. i suspect she paid the fee herself. worst of all, ditzy lady later admitted to trying to use the phone. it just slipped her mind at the time. (6) today in dresden, we had free time after a guided tour. said ladies left tour early and didn't make the 2pm meeting time. so tour director had to run around the city to find them, thus making the entire coach 30mins late. nevertheless, said ladies were boo'd upon returning. person 1 was just loving that moment, you can imagine.
and that is only part of it.so you can imagine the fun we've had on the trip. always an adventure i say. we've seen a ton but i'm definitely going to have to come back as we just have no time to really appreciate things. but berlin was awesome, a very cool city. also wittenberg (martin luther home) was quite interesting as i wrote a thesis in highschool on him and the reformation. dresden was also pretty, and i'm excited for nurnberg tomorrow, also munich. so we'll see what other fun things arise as we continue our travels on the bus.
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