The door to our Rothenburg hotel room. I think it was meant for hobbits! |
I write this from a little ice cream shop on Karl Marx Allee in Berlin that has wi-fi. The apartment we rented claimed to have wi-fi, but the owner cannot seem to find the password. That's okay because the apartment is great in every other respect. We are in a quiet area of East Berlin, so we had to walk a loooong way to find someplace with wi-fi capabilities.
We got to the hotel (located in a 600 year old building), freshened up, and headed downstairs for dinner...which was great...our hotel includes a restaurant, both of which are recommended in Rick Steves' guidebook. I was very happy with the choice.
After dinner, we browsed the shops deciding what we would buy the next morning. Most of the shops were preparing to close, so we didn't have much time. Mike and Matt then went on the Night Watchman Tour. I had gone with the girls in 2004 and decided to skip it. They both thoroughly enjoyed it. He is pretty funny.
The following morning, we had breakfast and made our way to an ATM to withdraw money for our shopping spree...only to find out that our cards were not valid! If you recall in London, we had an issue with our Capital One MM ATM cards...they were putting a hold on our deposits, but we were okay because we had two other accounts to utilize. Well, those accounts were running low, so we checked with Cap1 the day before and found out that the hold had been released...so, the money should be available, right...wrong. I called Cap1 (at over $1 per minute) just to find out that I needed to call at 8 am Eastern time (2 pm in Germany).
What happened right after that? Mike gets stung by a bee on the back of his neck. He couldn't recall ever being stung, so I had to keep an eye on him. He has quite a lump on his neck, but no other reaction.
At precisely 2 pm, I called Cap1...they said our account had been frozen because of the suspicious transactions taking place in Europe...even though I had notified them that we would be in Europe! Anyway, they lifted the freeze and we were able to withdraw money...from Mike's card, for some reason mine is still frozen...but, I'm not going to complain...I'm just happy Mike's is working.
We caught our train and other than it arriving half an hour late in Berlin, we had a peaceful trip.
Fisrt of all....Stephen's getting better.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all....Matt is the funniest dork I know! Hahaha....I'm still laughing thinking about a guy going door to door in America looking for lil' old Matt!
And lastly....I miss Rothenburg!!! Maybe that's where our next vacation will be!
Woops....first!
ReplyDeleteCindy, I'm enjoying your blogs so much. Sounds as if you and your family if having a fantastic trip.
ReplyDeleteIt's ALL those things that make a vacation memorable. It's not just the touristy sights, but the interactions, mishaps and misunderstandings that give the trip color. Yours is like a rainbow Lol. P.S. We loved quaint Rothenburg and it's charm. Boy you made quite a jaunt going from Dachau to Berlin in a lil over a day though. love, Cindy M
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