*111 mph, friday the 13th, and polish pottery*

Four stalwart friends set off on a quest for pottery- Janelle, Hillery, Alyssa and Erin. We got a decent start at 8 am-- not too late, not too early. We only had a 7 hour drive so were feeling good. We picked up Janelle at the designated meeting point, and arrived at Erin's house about an hour and 15 min after departing. Doing great. Until this conversation:

Erin: I feel like I have forgotton something.

Alyssa: (trying to be witty like usual ) It's probably your two rugrats! Ha ha!

Erin: Well I have my passport, so that's all that matters.

Alyssa: PASSPORT! I forgot mine. Do you think we need it?

Erin: Ha ha.

Alyssa: No I am serious.

Hillery: I forgot mine too.

Janelle: Aren't we crossing 3 borders?

So, long story short and short story long, tack on 2 1/2 hours to go get Alyssa and Hill's passports. After that whole "situation" we'll call it (I admit that I was the idiot and take full blame) we were back on our way. We left on a Friday and the traffic was pretty bad around construction sites and whatnot. Once we got to Germany I got to experiment with the Autobahn and that was fun! I never realized how calculative and strategical driving can be when everyone is going fast. There were usually 3 lanes-- the "slow" lane with trucks, etc. The "medium lane" with people who wanted to cruise at 100 mph and the "fast" lane exclusively for BMWs, Mercedes, high end VW's and anyone crazy enough to try to keep up (110 mph +). I personally topped out at 111 mph and felt pretty proud of that. Between all of the traffic though I'd say our average speed was 60 mph. We arrived at our destination that night, Bautzen Germany, around 9:30 pm. Needless to say, I was pretty wasted after driving 13 1/2 hours.



Our hotel, the Golden Hohe, was a cozy little place in the country- really nice decor and friendly staff. This is a picture in some wheat fields nearby. Hillery and I got the Honeymoon Suite with the four poster bed, pastel pallete, gauzy curtains, and pictures of beautiful women on gleaming white steeds. Sweet!

So we headed off to dinner in Bautzen- which is a really cool old town in east Germany. It had cobblestone streets with a small castle, narrow alleys, a huge cathedral and lots of charm. We found a little mexican restaurant that cooked me the most perfect steak I have had in a long time. Although I am not sure I would classify the food mexican, all of us enjoyed our meal there. They even gave each of us a little sombrero at the end of the meal. All of the Swiss transplants were shocked at how friendly the waiter and the staff were to us. The Swiss are usually so closed off-- it was a nice change to have someone actually act like they might actually need our business and thus be friendly and helpful.

I was SO ready to sleep when we headed back to the hotel- dreaming of our nice, quiet country cottage with my honeymoon suite and cozy down comforter waiting for me... unfortunately that was not to be. ENTER drunk Teenagers. Apparently, the Golden Hohe can be quite the party spot sometimes- especially on Friday nights at MIDNIGHT. The DJ was blasting techno music, the bar was full, and everyone was drunk or getting there. And- lucky for me and Hill, the Honeymoon Suite is right above the party scene. The constant boom-boom-boom of the base could be heard as well as the loud yells of all the drunk teenagers. My friend's Erin and Janelle lucked out and were on the other end of the building. Finally, with Erin as moral support and designated communicater (she speaks the best broken German), I went downstairs in my pajamas with my hood pulled up over my nappy hair, walked into the bar and said in slurred English to the lady at the bar "I AM TIRED, when will the party be over?" She was really nice- and even though I don't think she understood my words, she understood my meaning and the techo music was turned to a reasonable volume. Around 1:30 the party broke up for good and we drifted off to sleep. But wait, the story isn't over. Hillery made a very valid point while we were there-- honeymoon suites are not meant for sleeping and that was surely the case for us because the sun came up at 4:30 am and the gauzy curtains that were so pretty the night before became the bane of my exisistance the next morning. I kept having dreams about closing the secret shutters that we didn't notice were there. At 5:30 I was sure that it was noon and we had slept in. At 6:00 I was ready to shoot the sun out of the sky with a huge watergun. And at 6:30 I was ready to say goodbye to the honeymoon suite forever. At 7:00 I finally gave up and started getting ready for the day.

After breakfast we were ready to get back on the road. So we loaded into the car and... Dead. The battery was dead!

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Now at this point I want to stop and say to the readers that the trip thus far had been eventful- but at no point did any of us regret going. There was lots of laughing, talking, joking and overall silliness in general going on that I don't feel needs to be expounded upon, but should be noted as I finish our story.

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ENTER COOLER. Well, let me tell you a little bit about my cooler. I have the COOLEST cooler around. See you plug it into the cigarrette lighter like this, and then it keeps your food cold. It works GREAT! Those who are smarter than I am have already figured out what happened and why the car was dead. OOPS. Left the cooler plugged in all night long. Needless to say, the drinks were still cold. ENTER Michael, the angel German man who owns the Golden Hohe and tracked down jumper cables from a neighbor and jumpstarted our car. Boy I sure am glad I didn't complain about the hotel room! Thank you, you big sweet, red cheeked hotel owner!

On the road again- next challenge.

Alyssa: Umm, we're pretty close to empty on our gas tank...

DILEMMA: we have to leave the car running to charge the battery... we are almost out of gas.

(Janelle and Erin immediately call husbands on their cell phones... "is it OK to put gas in your tank with your car running?" and of course they were no help at all.)

Well, we did it and the car didn't explode. Anyone witnessing the scene would have laughed really hard at us. I won't elaborate.

Whew. Would we ever arrive in Poland??!! We had about and hour drive from Bautzen to Boleslaweic, Poland, land of Polish pottery... Enter POLISH BORDER GUARD. We hit the border and there was about 2 miles worth of traffic trying to get over the border and they were checking every car! At this point we started laughing- only slightly hysterically. There were some lovely windmills along the side of the road that we got to look at for a nice long time.



Then I decided to lie down my seat and take a little snooze in between inching along. It was kind of stuffy so we opened the windows for the nice breeze when... ENTER unwelcome friends.

Hillery: "AHHH there's little black bugs all over me!"

Alyssa: "What? Eww! They are on me too!"

(hysteria spreading to backseat)

Janelle: They're on my face! they're on my face!

Erin: They are on me too! Roll up the windows!!!

We took care of the bug situation and continued to wait another 1 1/2 hours on the border. Suddenly...

Erin yells WHAT DO WE WANT?

All: POTTERY!

Erin: Are we going to get it?

All: YES!

Enter PISSED off Polish Folk. It feels really good to piss of a bunch of people every once in a while... and that's just what I did on the Polish Border. I zipped over into the trucks only lane and drove past about a hundred waiting cars and back over into the car lane when I saw a space. I think that little manuever saved us about 2 hours. We made it across the border (we even got our passports stamped) and had smooth sailing for a little while. Enter GPS.

GPS's can be great...except when they lead you onto random Polish backroads claiming that they lead to the mysterious A40 freeway. Have you ever noticed how the woman robot voice sounds slightly annoyed when she says "recalculating"? This is a picture of the road that the GPS wanted me to take to the freeway.



So we finally made it to the freeway and to our final destination-- Boleslaweic, Poland. Land of Polish pottery galore. So what's so cool about Polish Pottery you ask? Well, it's just awesome that's all. You have to see it to believe it. And now I own a whole set of it and was it worth the trip? YES.



P.S. We stopped at a Pizza Hut on the way home and I almost cried when the lady brought me a refill without me even asking for it. And guess what else... it was FREE. And had ICE. Oh lovely miracle of all miracles. That one moment might have been worth the trip.