Christmas Eve Eve, 12.23.2017

It's cold and sunny in Seattle this year - but it's gonna snow on Xmas Eve!

To us Mexicanos, 31*F is reason enough to stay in bed until noon.  Since Myrtle went away 2 weeks ago, our goal has been to sleep until Hora Feliz, then get up and start drinking.  Lucy refuses to move anyway.

My Sis made that cozy

Altho our latest trip ended Oct. 11, the journey never really ends, does it - so it seems like a good point to take one more look at a momentous year.  Disculpe for boring reruns.

* In January, we were off to Gay Paree, for Pamela's 70th b-day with the Fake Children.  Many expensive dinners, frozen toes, forgotten museums, and lost Happy Hours.

Never gets old

*  We spent extra wonderful time there with our German amigas Lisa and Doris, then flew to Seville for 2 weeks in Andalusia - it's already been documented in the photos, but these trips get better with time.  You forget all the crap, start raving about how beautiful it was, and send your friends off to be tortured too.

Best Castle

Aschaffenberg Coal Shute

Cheery German Breakfast Message

*  After returning to Vallarta on Valentine's Day, our time got eaten up with endless home repairs - rot never sleeps in the tropics - and various activities one can never remember when someone asks, 'So what exactly do you spend your time doing down there?'  (Probably, the same shite you do up here.)  It was broken up by a dental vacation by our great friend Mr. Kelly.  And, after conferring with John Huston's muse - I joined our condo board.  Yee-haw.

Huston in the park

*  In June I got antsy (ok - Pamela did, and told me to get a plane ticket) - I flew back to Seattle for 2 weeks.  From whence I took a road trip to Idaho with an amigo, to bring Big Jim Moscrip's ashes back to Priest Lake, ID, where he was born.  Beautiful full moon around 2am, and I kinda felt honored to finally take him home after 9 years.  A great drive across WA, and loop back down the Columbia River Gorge, one of the most scenic U.S. roads ever.

Priest Lake

Frank's Diner - a good reason to go to Spokane

German Car

*  We returned north in early August in order to attend Donn's (Fake Son) #50 in Kansas City, and luckily were there for the full eclipse.  Naturally, it was overcast, so we only got the Munster's version.

Me and Owen, without LSD

Pretty K.C. Girl

However Donn's soiree was fabulous, and worth every one of the million pesos we spent on gifts and travel.  Ok, on travel.  Pamela says, "Kansas City has never looked better."  Oh-oh.

*  Of course, we left for Milan right after that in Sept., for our momentous Viking barge trip up the Danube, and tremendous car trip thru Bavaria, and stupendous flight on Emirates Airlines back to NYC, and my unforgettable #50 H.S. reunion.  In spite of the hyperbole, we had a blast on the boat thanks to the KIWI friends we made, and in Germany thanks to our hosts Lisa and Doris, and all their gracious friends.  The road trip thru Bavaria was seriously beautiful.

Boat trash in Nurenburg

Germans (Lisa and Pamela) behind the wheel

Casa Doris

That's as big as it gets

Hoops in Munich

*  I overlooked friends in NYC, Doug and John and David Hewitt, with whom we stayed and/or hung out with in the City.  Driving up to Torrington CT for the reunion was a rite of passage that is still sinking in - I reconnected with a couple old friends that made the whole trip worthwhile,  and we stayed with my Sister Maureen and her lovable Esposo.  We also drove over to Ithaca to see a dear friend from the K.C. years.  All I can say is, gettin' old, it's weird...

I TOLD him to ditch those shoes

NYC Directions

David's shot of St. Pat's

Suave New Yorkers

Edward Hopper @ the MOMA

Prom Photo +50

*  Poquito mas:

Unnamed Travel Blogger 

Mt. Rainier

Seattle

Postscript: If you were wondering about the absence of political rants and raves in this post - it's PTSD.  I just can't, right now.  We're still fkd.

Still true

Final Male/Female Blog, from back home

We spent a couple nights in a town south of Augsburg (NOT on the 'Romantic Road'—more like Yonkers in rush hour), from whence we visited Dachau.  Pamela then found a beautiful spa in Bad Kohlgrub for our final RR 3-night stay—you've seen the chairlift.  Then we drove to Munich, turned in the rental car, had a rainy day there touring museums (if the BMW Museum counts too), a night in Milano in a very hip airport hotel, and flew to JFK the next day.  During the latter stretch, we spent 7 straight nights in different hotels—no bueno.  Never again.

We had intended to head for Füssen and Mad King Ludwig's most famous castle, Neuschwanstein (you know - Disneyland in Germany), but to avoid the glut of tourists there, we swung to the west and our spa. So before departing it we day-tripped to another of his castles, Linderhof—as it turns out, the only one he completed, and the one he died in. (Sort of—he was found in a nearby lake.)  Limited photos, since cameras were not allowed inside during the 30-minute guided rush through the interior of a rich psycho's idea of a wedding cake. (But that's just my opinion.)  It's too bad he wasn't drowned as a baby. (Ditto.)  I have to say, the grounds were nice.

Please! Not another castle!!

Nice backyard—Bavaria really is beautiful.

Goddamned front door

External Linderhof inhabitant: more elegant than the castle by far

That same day, we stopped in Oberammergau, normally an overrun tourist magnet but blissfully vacant on a rainy, misty Sunday. Very, very pretty, especially in fall colors. Distinctive Bavarian architecture and a hotbed of cuckoo-clock making (yuck).

Oberammergau's former town hall (maybe)

A detail: the three-D paintwork is best seen up close. Take binoculars.

More trompe-l'oiel cutesiness

We spent our final day in Munich before hopping to Milano for the flight home. No Oktoberfest, gracias: that tourist-aversion thing...  Got a recommendation from friend Julia for a hotel in a youthful, hip area near the massive museums. Stores were closed for Reunification Day, but Pamela managed to see three of the art museums, while I caught the subway to the BMW complex across town.

Some Munich museum—not sure about the alien spacecraft out front

The BMW Museum

What's that punk doing on my next bike?

He should drive this

The superior Emirates wafted us over to JFK—and eventually we got home. Gratuitous photos:

Easy Jet to Milano

NYC photos courtesy of David Hewitt, who met us in NYC for the Rauschenberg show at MoMA:

Midtown

St. Patrick's in the afternoon light

Empire State Bldg. @ night

NYC tourists (we like the dark focus)

Amateur Tour Tips:

*  Budapest is wonderful.  Like Prague, but less expensive and fewer crowds. I'd give you the address of my yoga-instructor amiga—but no.

*  The Danube trip did not live up to our Rhine trip on Viking. The boat and staff were just as good, but the logistics (locks and canals and distances from dock to town) precluded a lot of independent flexibility that we had on the Rhine.

*  I had heard so much about Austria, but have no urge to see it again. Your mileage may vary. (We skipped the long and $$ day trip to Salzburg, but our Kiwi amigos got hosed.  Of course they were too nice to say so.) Pamela does not agree here...

*  Without exception, the German river stops were superior: Passau, Regensburg, and Nuremberg.  They just do everything right.

*  Ok, obviously we're biased about DE—we spent nearly 2 weeks there after leaving the barge, and it was hawesome.  If things went awry, and we lost our way down the 'Romantic Road', the worst that occurred was a pedestrian hotel that made any Holiday Express look like shite. We even forgive the rental car, now. 

*  Rothenburg was incredible.  We missed a bunch of other towns along the 'Road' due to our inability to use the GPS—but if they're all that good, go.

*  The final 3 nights in southern Bavaria were a treat.  Not a lot to do, but so what?  Murnau and Oberammergau was a bonus side-trip.  It's astoundingly beautiful.

*  We saw three autumns—in Bavaria, then New England, and then Seattle, as we moved along. Lucky peeps.
*  We no longer trust Rick Steves, or whoever writes his books for him now. High-handed dismissals or omissions of great places, an overweening use of "my" and "I" in the prose. His group tours are still good, though.  

Capitol Hill, Seattle:

 La Myrtle, waiting for us in the mail box:

Short, and very sad - Dachau:

Fairly innocuous entry gate

"Work will set you free" - the first lie upon entering

The prison was about 10 times this big - these are barracks foundations, that's the crematorium in the background

Scale model of the prison

Monument to the victims

The atrocity referenced in "The Reader"

The network of prisons just in Bavaria - they were built in impoverished rural areas that 'needed jobs'

All the European prisons

This is just a glimpse of what we saw.  The museum is huge, and information is overwhelming.  Credit to the Krauts for making it a primary part of the history curriculum in their schools.  

If you get to D.C. go to the Holocaust Museum, if you can bear it.