Rhine Valley and Heppenheim

Most of the day today was spent driving from Brussels to Germany, going through Holland and making a couple of stops along the way. To entertain us, we had a selection of movies to watch. First up was Madagascar II. I don’t think it was the first pick, but it was the first movie they could get to play in English. Our first stop was in Koln where we saw the biggest Gothic style cathedral in the world and grabbed some lunch. Might I add that McDonalds is amazing in any country! The stop was a little long, but we wondered around the town. They had neat shops, but it was a bank holiday, so everything was pretty much closed. After wrangling everyone together, it was of again on the bus to our next stop, to meet the boat for our Rhine River cruise. The hour and a half ride down the river was so peaceful and the weather was amazing. The river had many quaint towns and castles along its edge and it was cool to see the grapes planted on the side of the hills. We meet up with Pepe at the end of the cruise for our final two hours to get into the town where we would have our bratwurst dinner and stay the night. As some of the pictures show, we had more fun playing with our food than eating it. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the whole group. There isn’t much night life in the town, but the vending machines at the hotel offered beer, wine, liquor and champaign, so that gave the guys something to entertain them with. Currently I am searching through the TV channels trying to find something I can understand. In most of the cities so far, there has been at least one channel in English, but that isn’t proving to be the case here. Earlier there was Germany’s Next Top Model hosted by Heidi Klum and now it’s Family Guy in German. Tomorrow it is off to Munich, which I am so excited for since I spent so much time there last summer. We are planning to go on Mike’s Bike Tour again and climb the towers on one of the churches in Marianplatz.
Something that has been interesting is that a lot of things are deemed “American.” For instances our breakfast buffet in Brussels this morning was “American,” yet there was nothing there I wanted to eat. The milk is usually warm here, which is gross and Tony the Tiger would be distraught if he tasted those corn flakes! In our stop at Klon there was the New Yorker store that sold clothes I am pretty sure no one in the US would wear, but it was supposed to represent our style. Chelsey and I have discussed that the fashion over here is a little lacking. Especially France that is supposed to be the fashion capital of the world, they are sporting the styles of the ‘80s and ‘90s that were better left in the past. And let’s not forget the array of mullets and Mohawks that are unfortunately very common too.