The first real day with the car we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It's a cute little medieval city with an old defense wall surrounding it. It's also the biggest tourist trap in the world. They're on the Romance Road, so there's a built in Tourism angle there, plus they like to bill themselves as something close to "Christmas Town" and to be honest they do have probably the single highest concentration of year round Christmas stores around. They were also having their Christmas market, so we figured, that it couldn't hurt to go to another Christmas market. Even if you don't buy anything, they're fun.
It's about 2-3 hours from Tübingen by car, so we got to test out my navigational skills. With instructions from the internet, and a Germany map from 2002 we set off. We actually made out pretty well driving, and even found the parking lot that I was looking for. It was indeed a cute little town, and they had some really cute shops. In the end we bought some ornaments from the Käthe Wohlfahrt store, a framed picture of the city (something we like to do for every city we go to), Bratwurst, and Glühwein.
We headed back that evening and had dinner at an Irish pub, Saints and Scholars, up next to the building where I spend most of my academic time. I've been there before, but only for drinks, and not for food. From their Web site you can see what they have to offer - pretty standard pub food, but not bad. I had a burger and Andy had the fish and chips. My burger was a little strange, but tasty - I think they put a sort of eggplant tapanade on it, but I can't be sure. Andy was quite pleased with his fish and chips. Usually when we go to ethnic restaurants in Germany things are a little off. Asian food is slightly strange. Mexican food is usually with some weak tomato sauce, or sometimes even bbq, but Andy was pleasantly surprised with the quality of his Irish food. But as my father would say - how can you really screw up boiled beef and cabbage. :)
The next day we drove about 4 hours down to Neuschwanstein, a 19th century castle in Bavaria, upon which the Disney castle is supposedly based. The drive down wasn't bad, though it was cold and a little rainy most of the way. From the Neuschwanstein Web cam one can see that there was snow on the castle, so I expected it to be a bit colder down there than in Tübingen. We got a little lost, but I think that I actually meant to go the way that I did. Upon arrival, we got our tickets and then made the 30 minute trek up the hill to the castle. This was my third time at the castle, but somehow I had forgotten about the half hour super steep hill. I'm not sure how.
Once up there we took some beautiful photos and got our guided tour of the castle. Three things became clear to Andy during the tour. #1 - our tour guide was really strange. I can't really describe him, ask either me or Andy to do an impression of him the next time you see us. It was hilarious. #2 - Japanese tourists do not believe that the signs telling them not to take pictures are real. They will take pictures no matter what.
And finally, #3 most American tourists are an embarrassment. They're like everybody's weird uncle. The guys who always says: "Man they sure built things to last," or "Hey I wonder what the heating bill is on this place." Can it jerk! And while you're at it maybe you could keep your kid from screaming and your other kid from stepping on the backs of my shoes while we're going up this narrow staircase. After that experience I think Andy understood a little better why, when encountered with groups of American tourists, I usually pretend to be German. Unless someone seems really lost and like they need help, I don't need to engage.
We drove back, got lost again, and ended up eating dinner at a place called Unkel up in the University quarter. It's affiliated with Stern which is right around the corner from my place and they have pretty tasty and relatively reasonable Italian food. Pasta, pizza, etc...
The next day we headed down to visit my family for Christmas.
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