28 August 2007

Day Five: August 23 Elsdorf, Germany

I'm just up the road from Schloss Nörvenich (Castle Nörvenich) in a very cheap, but very nice hotel. I drove all over Köln today. Shit, I drove all over Germany it felt like! I picked up a car because I got tired of dealing with the RV people. I'll deal with them when I get home. I'm pretty happy I did. After driving for at least 5 hours today in the country and the city and on the Autobahn. Yes, the Autobahn. I went as fast as 160 kpm. Not sure how fast that is in mph but it felt fast!
I feel pretty comfortable driving here. Sure, I made a few small mistakes, but nothing too dangerous. (don't worry, Mom!) After all of this practice, I think I could probably handle an RV, but I'll tell ya, it's been really fun zipping around in this little VW with stick shift! Couldn't do that in no RV! The only bummer is that I didn't get to take any pictures today. And I wanted to really badly! Köln is very beautiful. Very...commanding. I don't know what other way to put it. The cathedrals are huge! It seems like I'd have to be a couple of miles away to even frame them right! And a few of the coolest ones I saw were on the banks of the Rhine and I can't really take pictures while driving over a huge bridge. If I have some time tomorrow, I may drive back there but I doubt it. I got lost many, many, many times today. (even with a little help from a friend ;)) Plus, it's difficult to read the maps and follow the streets with all of these turnarounds in the middle of them. I'm on vacation, so I don't really care about getting lost much. But I really could use a compass so I don't waste too much time. Although, I think I'll be fine tomorrow. I'm starting to understand how to plan my route a little better. Today was like practice.

I will post some photos tomorrow (most likely)