Just got back from a fantastic trip to Germany where we visited my wife's
family who is incredibly generous and crazy fun. Our travels began in Bavaria at Alice's cousin Sabina's retreat in Penzberg where Mathilda got to meet Martin and Heike her German cousins and I introduced Girlrider to Sport Conrad an awesome family owned sport shop in Bavaria. The shop is immaculate, super high end with indor pools and waterfall. They will hopefully be the first Girlrider retailer in the EU, very exciting. We visited an alpine lake and rode the train to the top of the Zugspitze the tallest mtn in Germany. We nav'd freshly paved roads winding in and out lush farm lands and splendid micro towns sporting painted fresco's like a fairy tale. Each town more quaint and inviting than the next. The warm germanic people drinking (good) beer, smoking and eating brotchen in the sun swept hillsides. Its hard to imagine so many people so spread out among these little villages, with that hearty yet painterly Bavarian architecture. Not a spot of trash, not a single homeless person.
Then to Munich with Kathy and Joe, our State dept friends where we saw
freakin locals surfing in the middle of the city on some water canal. Check out
the photos! 
Had to poke my head into the Nazi death camp at Dachau. Germany has done an incredible job of making this an unforgetable monument when our instincts are to wipe it from the face of the earth. Munich is a Very hip city, we were only there for a day though.
After we headed north to Bremen and saw this
8th century city, one of the most gorgeous western European cities I have ever
seen.
Standing in awe craning our necks as we gazed upon cathedrals and the
Rathaus where low and behold, there is a brewery and seller below where we had a
private wine tasting (beer better than wine). I guess all the city hall
buildings in Europe have breweries/wineries down below, hmmm maybe we should
have this in all gov buildings. The time warp occurs when watching ultra modern
wifi'd power suits strut these 
weathered cobbled streets where you can almost
hear Charlemagne's troops gathering for a fox hunt or whatever they did waaaaaay
back then.
Later we drove down to the Netherlands (no borders in the EU) to visit a
super cool artist friend of mine Jason Eden, check out the
photos of his incredible artwork made entirely from Playboy centerfold cutouts.
He is featured in a gallery in Amsterdam which we did not get to visit. I have
known Jason since nursery school. He moved out of the states to pursue his
passion and now lives in a remote farm village in Holland where he focuses on
his fine art. The studio is in a 300 year old barn, lots of mosquitoes...
At some time in there, we jutted out to Wuppertal to visit cousin Tiger and family. Its an industrial city in western Germany famous for this super strange and unique hanging train called a Schwebebahn . Its a hanging train (another feat of German engineering) that was build like 100 years ago or something. Somewhat rickety but cool factor is high.
Lastly we spent time in Botrop staying with Dixie and Menlein my wife's
aunt and uncle. Mathilda got to play with more (six total) of her cousins, Drago, Ulia, Felix and Florian. I gave them all
Girlrider custom trucker hats. They were happy. We ate tons of brotchen, kesa
and of course Pills. Camping at Ottenstein with Pint and Tina's caravan is an entire blog in itself. Suffice
it to say we ventured out with the scouts to a singing competition which has been going on for like 20 years. By
scouts I mean beer drinking, chain smoking interlocked Germans, swaying back and
forth, and boy can they drink. The display of baritone camaraderie endeared me to Dauchland.
Have to mention Girlrider in Germany. We showed our line to cousins and friends who wore Girlrider clothes and hats, loved the materials and new designs. Heike did some modeling and we found this way cool horse rider in a remote ranch near Bremen who loved my Girlrider painted trucker hat. I ended up trading it for like an hour of horse riding for Mathilda. I wonder if Mathilda loves horses as much as I love German beer...
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