Hair of the dog

OK faithful readers, it's been a while since I've written because I'm giving our esteemed guest blogger, Mr. Andrew Glitzer, a chance to participate in history by writing down his thoughts of his first trip not only to Germany, but also outside of the Continental U.S. Out of laziness, shamelessness, and that wicked sense of power I get from tasking people to do things, I've asked him to fill us all in on his thoughts.

Until he posts, I'm going to continue updating this thing with the goings on of us worldly Wards. Here's what I wrote about Columbus Day weekend:
It’s Columbus Day weekend, the one weekend of the year when we proud Americans should honor the noteworthy accomplishments of the Italian wayfarer who named our continent by setting out on a journey of our own. The federal government has given us this time to bring out our inner explorers and traverse the unknown – to refresh your love for travel.

But alas, although our love for travel is strong and my personal desire to circumnavigate the globe borders on infatuation, we opted to stay home this weekend. Well, at least to stay in Germany.

We microwaved some frozen dinners (organic Indian food), dug ourselves into our increasingly deep but comfortable butt ruts in the couch, and laughed ourselves from here to eternity watching the first season of the hit comedy 30 Rock. I guess you could call that exploring.

We were also comforted by the extra warmth of two hairy pooches from Jay and Linda – small fry and tater tot, as Kate likes to call them (the dogs, not Jay and Linda).
And we drove to the kee-YOO-test town in Germany called Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well-preserved medieval town in northern Bavaria – about two hours away.
Although the town has appeared in many movies and has inspired countless men to groan in agony as they carry the trinket-laden shopping bags of their wives who are pointing out how beautiful the half-timbered houses are to their tourist friends, I personally like they city for its “snowballs” – pie crusts sprinkled with confectionary sugar. Yum!
My favorite story about this walled city is from 1631, during the 30 Years War, when 1/3 of all German towns were destroyed by Catholic and Protestant freedom fighters. Anyway, Rothenburg was under siege and about to be destroyed when the leader of the attacking forces said he would spare the city if anyone could drink about one gallon of wine in one take. The proud mayor said he could do it, and so he did it, saved the city, slept for three days straight, and lived to be in his 90s. Germany – Vat a Kantri!

The purpose of coming here – not just to honor Mr. Columbus or that righteous mayor, you see – was to meet up with one of Kate’s former coworkers from Chicago, Danny Rodriguez (sitting center square, looking very chic in his Northface gear).
He and friends Gabi and Santiago were in country for Oktoberfest and were admittedly tired and a bit hungover from the excessive beer drinking the previous two nights. Danny and Santiago allegedly had about six or seven liters of beer their first night, making them, technically, too drunk to drive for about three weeks. (Thankfully, they took a bus to see us).

Welcome to Germany, Danny.