By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled
Mathematician 
Well, we just got back from a great trip visiting friends
who live in Germany. We spent a week with
them visiting Christmas Markets and then
took them to Spain (in the region called Andalusia) for two weeks. There were many wonderful things to see,
places to visit, and bratwurst for Bobbie to eat. She has been known on previous trips to
Germany to skip important meetings just so she can go eat another
bratwurst. I need to describe this
object. Imagine a pretty much bent hot
dog at least a foot long. Then put it in
a dinner roll that’s about 3 inches across, leaving 4-5 inches of this unusual very
light colored hot dog sticking out of both sides of the roll. That’s it, unless you have added
mustard. I guess you’re supposed to eat
the naked dog portion first (that’s what we did), and then finish off the part
with the roll. On a separate note I
observe for the record that I ate six pieces of pickled herring, prepared by
the speedy driver. This was a real
challenge for me. It tastes exactly like
it sounds. Bobbie loves it but not
me. However, I fulfilled my social
obligation, with dignity.
Travelling in Germany is interesting as well. Our hosts, at least the fearless female,
follow the German rule for the freeways, called autobahns. The rule is that there are no rules. She drove 110 miles per hour as though it was
normal. While I expressed concern with
excessive speed it made no difference and so I must remind myself not to give
KS and RAJ any more heat about driving too fast. Besides, that experience paled to my driving
a rental car in Ronda, Spain. Following
the installed GPS I found myself driving up a long set of steps. Not bumps, but serious, narrow steps. It was like the opening scene of a James Bond
movie. Somehow we survived and so did
the car.
Andalusia is beautiful, with millions of olive and citrus
trees. The oranges were in season, very
inexpensive, so we drank lots of fresh squeezed OJ. The Spanish are better cooks that we Americans
(Elvira excluded), so the food was great.
The architecture is in some cases more than a thousand years old so that
was spectacular in its own right. There
was a gate in Trier, Germany, built by Julius Caesar. We visited the largest (in volume) church on
the earth in Seville, Spain. 130 yards
long on the inside from end to end. And
wouldn’t you know it in a prominent place is the tomb of that famous Italian
(born in Genoa, Italy) of Christopher Columbus.
Yeah, I thought he was Spanish too.
Wrong. While Spanish royalty
Ferdinand and Isabella sent him, he was still Italian. And the notion that people thought the earth
was flat is just false. They knew it was
round but didn’t think they could carry enough supplies to survive the round
trip journey, hence it was really a big deal.
Bobbie got to visit the Christmas markets in Germany, France and Spain, a long
time wish, bought lots of trinkets and we continue in our belief that you
should travel while you still can. The
only casualty during the trip was Bobbie’s Blackberry cell phone, which died
during the trip. So when we got back we
replaced it with an IPhone 6, which came with a rag to wipe the green envy color
off the Muddled Male’s face when she flaunts it in front of him. In response, he has taken to carrying his
homemade wood 6+ carrier (instead of an actual phone) about which we dueled in
this paper a couple of months ago. It is
the closest thing he currently has to Bobbie’s phone.
Of course at the end of a long trip the thought of home grows
larger and more desirable. But not the
thought of the long, long, long journey in a plane from Frankfurt, Germany to
SLC. But then we got a break unlike any
we had ever seen. At the last minute,
without our doing anything, we were upgraded on the overseas Delta flight to a
class called “Business Elite”. What a
deal. Sit down, press a button, and the
seat becomes a complete horizontal bed with a down blanket. Press another button and the bed gives you a
massage. The food was even good. We cannot afford to buy such luxury but happily
accepted the seat change. It made the
trip much more bearable. We are happily
home but seeking extra clean rags to add
to the Muddled Male’s supply as he is going through them like hotcakes removing
the green stuff oozing from his smile.
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