It's A Boy !

It was roughly this time last year when my hubby asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  I was getting ready to turn 60 (it's still not too late to send me a b-day present) in about a month to a month and a half.

Jens - What do you want for your birthday?

me - A flight to anywhere would be really nice. 

Jens - I would like to buy you a car. 

me - A car?! You must be crazy, don't you feel well? 

His idea was soooooo sweet.  He explained that our car is getting old and soon it will need repairs and since we can't fly so much, we could do more driving vacations and it would be more comfortable to drive a new car bla bla bla ad nauseum.

I am such a tight ass that I just couldn't imagine spending all that money on a new car.  Several guys at work bought new cars and I just could not believe what they cost.  Some of the guys bought Nissan Qashqais (above photo) which are great and probably the number one seller here in DK but I think they have a weird shape.  There are also a lot of Renault Capturs (below photo) on the road but they are tiny. (but bigger than our Suzuki Splash which my sister said looked like a baked potato on wheels)  The guys at work called our Suzuki Splash a Suzuki Splat.

"We don't we need a new car Jens.  Ours is fine.  We wont get anything for it. New cars are expensive.  We should invest our money is something that will make money.  A new car will be worth 30.000 crowns less the moment we drive it out of the shop", I explained to Jens.

This photo is from 10 years ago. The story to go with the photo is here:

However, everybody is actually buying cars left and right because the prices have come way down, loans are dirt cheap and the public transport system is getting more expensive but less effective.  Although in some aspects - a new metro line opens this weekend so really it depend on where you are going and how you are getting there. If you need the bus at rush hour, forget it.  And the tv is loaded with commercials from every car company trying to sell their aluminium junk on wheels.  The prices have gotten so cheap that a new car with all the whistles and bells, comparable to our Splash without the electronic gadgets, is now actually cheaper than when we bought our car.  And it is now 10 years later.  That's quite a deal.

I know that if my husband wasn't ill, he would have gone out and surprised me with a new car for my 60th birthday.  But he can't.  Just popping a slice of bread into the toaster is a job for Jens.  Ugh!   So finally he convinced me to go out and look for a car.  I can't think of anything more boring other than going out and looking for a pair of pants.  To make my situation a bit easier, I did some internet homework and I talked to the guys at work before we took an afternoon to go out and look at a few wheels.

My brother-in-law in CT suggested a KIA.   Very nice with a price tag to match.  A guy at work bought one and it really is a dream machine but wayyyyyyy to much $$$$.  We test drove a Honda HR-V.  Very nice. OK. But I am still reluctant so I make some cheap excuses why we shouldn't buy this car.  Mostly the real reason is, I just didn't want to spend over 250000dkk ($40,000) for a car. We fell in love with the look of the CR-V but that price was nearly double of what I was willing to depart with.  We saw many cars that we liked outside of my price group. 

You just can't get a crossover/SUV type of car for less than 300000dkk ($45,000) unless you buy the basic model.  But this is going to be our last car so it better be a good one with everything.

Across the street from Honda was Nissan.  All the guys at work who bought one,  were sorry that they didn't get the bigger engine.  Which of course is even more money.  I'm not about to spend a fortune for a dog of a car.  This was in 2018 and my homework told me that a new motor was on the way for the 2019 Nissan model.  I asked the salesman if we could take the 2018 for a test drive.  I just couldn't believe it when the man said, " No, if you want a bigger motor then there is no reason to test drive this car."  Ok - bye.  We never returned.

We could only look in a few shops because Jens just can't spend more than 2 hours of shopping or much of anything else for that matter.  I ended up putting the entire car shopping on hold.  But Jens kept asking me when I was going to go continue to look for one.  He didn't care which car I chose.  It was to be my b-day present.  "Just go out and buy one already!" he impatiently and frustratingly said to me.  But I kept making excuses.

My birthday present. Wow -  I just can't get over how sweet Jens is.  "Since I can't surprise you with a car due to my health condition, I want you to go to the bank and get your money and buy a car from me to you" - was basically what Jens was telling me.   So... for all those of you in the states or far away places reading this, because of my condition; being so far away - I want you to go to the bank, get your money and buy yourself a new car from me to you.  And don't forget to sign the birthday card with my name on it.

Have you read my Irish wedding blog yet?  Well..... just the day before I went to Ireland, Jens said with his hand on his heart and very sincere look on his face, "Eddie, it will mean a lot to me if you finally buy that car when you return from Ireland."   OK, now I was feeling guilty because the man has practically no pleasures in life and I was holding back on the one and only thing that he has expressed so deeply that he would like to have.

Alright - I can keep this story going on and on because there is actually a lot more too it but now I will wrap it up.  There were only 2 cars on the market that had all the extras that I want in a car and right at about 300000dkk.  I decide on the Suzuki instead of the Opel (below photo) - which I really liked.  I sent a letter to 13 Suzuki dealers.  10 wrote back. 7 made offers.  I took the 2nd cheapest offer because I was actually already in a conversation with the salesman.    He was only the 2nd cheapest because of the e-mails from the other dealers that I had in my hand. I told Jens, "If I can get the car for 280, I'll buy it."  The added extras that I wanted was the fancier paint, mud flaps, floor mats and winter wheels.  That would bring the car to about 316000dkk (roughly $46,000) The salesman said he will give me the car for 310000dkk.  Then I showed the salesman the mails from the other dealers.  Then he started to tell me why my car was not worth so much and bla bla bla.   I cut him off in the middle of his standard speech and said "STOP!"  I don't care what the car is worth.  I just want to know with all the extras and my trade in, what is the bottom line?" He looked at the mails again, punched in some numbers into his calculator and worte on a piece of paper:  280000. (roughly $41,000) That was the final price with my trade-in and the very few extras that I wanted.   280 was the magic number.   The salesman just happened to offer exactly what I was willing to pay.  And just like that I said, "Sold - I'll take it!"   

I knew I had to act fast.  I'm a procrastinator and if I went to go find out about another deal to try and save $700 more, it may have taken me another 6 months to get my act together.  What's funny is that I never even took the car for a test drive.  I just knew that it had to be that car (or the Opel) (above photo) or nothing because as I said, I didn't want to spend all that money that the other auto companies wanted.  Of course the other cars are much more fancy but the car we settled on had the right price and all the extras and since I live only 11km / 6 mi away from work, this car would be more than fine.

The reason why it had to be the Opel or the Suzuki is because they were the only cars that were top models with space for a wheelchair with the back seats up (which was important for Jens) and the car had to be high up (for him to get in and out of)  and basically for just under 300000 dkk, these were the only 2 cars available.  Also the Suzuki (below photo) had the bigger of the 2 motors.  After listing to the stories from the guys at work, I knew I would appreciate the bigger motor.

 

Ok, are you board yet?  Have I lost you already several paragraphs ago?  Sorry.  But hang on.

Now comes the best part of the story.

We were able to pick up the car just a few days before my vacation.  Since Jens wants to use MY birthday present for HIS traveling pleasures, we decided to break-in the motor with a drive to Bad Berleburg, Germany.  This is where Princes Benedikte lives.  She is the sister to the queen of Denmark.  And I'm like, ummmm - yeah - sure - why not - happy birthday to me?

The plan was to drive on the motorway the entire way, have tea and crumpets with the princess at the castle and then slowly make our way back to CPH on country roads.  On the way home, we would also stop for a very quick visit with Jens' sister, Gitte and her husband, Carlo. On the map below, the red star near the letter D in Denmark is where Gitte and Carlo lives.

Take a look at the map and you can see that Google says it takes roughly 9 hours from A to B.    That's just 1 hour more between LA and San Francisco on Hwy 5 or 1 hour less via Hwy 1.  Google  says on a bike it takes less than 2 days.  Well...……. in our new baby boy, it took over 2 days to get from A to B.  We only stopped to eat and sleep.  And let me tell you, in Germany you are free to drive as fast as you want.  I have never driven so fast in my life and it was freaking scary because no matter how fast I was driving, fancy cars were zooming faster than the speed of light right past me.  There are basically 3 lanes in Germany:  truck, driving and passing.  I was in the driving lane most of the time.  Then I would crap in my pants because suddenly an idiot would just zip out of the truck lane at 85 - 90 km/h (50 - 55mph)  and I'm doing 140 to 150  (87 - 93mph).   So then I would move into the passing lane to avoid near-fatal accidents.  But then I was the idiot because suddenly cars going 170 km/h or faster  (105 mph or faster) would have to flash their lights for me to move my sorry azz out of the way or be ready to wear a huge thick white pillow collar around my neck for the next 10 months.  There were 3 times when I was actually driving 160km/h (99mph).  Totally nuts!

Even with all that speed, it still took us over 2 days to get to where we were going.  It wasn't fun at all.  It was too scary at those high speeds and too scary going slower with others riding on my bumper, flashing their headlights.  If I have to be honest, I don't ever want to do that again. I am however very delighted that our little Japanesse boy did very very well.  It can accelerate very quickly and not shake and rattle at high speeds.

Our first night we stopped at Radisson Hotel at the Hamburg airport.  That was a total mistake both figuratively and literally.  The airport was not on the way.  It was out of the way.  We were supposed to be in the city center but never using a GPS before, I had my neighbor give me a quick lesson and I just happened to type the Hotel address in the GPS and that's where it led us to.  Like it is supposed to do.  There are 2 Radisson Hotels in Hamburg.  I thought I had put in the down town address.  We didn't even have reservations at that dump.  I was thinking of it as a backup plan and that's why I had the address on hand.  I was only thinking of staying there because as a SAS employee, I am supposed to get a 40 - 50% discount.  IF they have space.  They always have space but they always use IF and this day they didn't have space for SAS employees.  They did, however, just happened to have space for SAS losers IF I booked as a regular person.  But with my insistence, they did give me a €20 discount.  But it wasn't even enough to pay for hotel parking which was €27. 

It looks great on the net - but it wasn't.  Not for €200 a night plus parking.  Jens was out of his mind because he thought the hotel was one of the niceset rooms we ever had.  I told Jens this is barely a motel 6 upgrade.  To make life easy, we did a pasta and pizza dinner in the hotel restaurant. With a little tip, the bill came out to €76.  Total rip-off.   It was late and we were tired after driving such a long long time so we just stayed put in a too expensive dump with too expensive fast food.

1 pizza, 1 pasta, 1 mineral water, 1 small beer and tip  =  €76.  

My smile disappeared when the bill came to the table.

An SAS rebate is supposed to include breakfast.   Remember that little word: IF?   They used it against us again.  So we had to max out our credit card for a cuppa-java and burnt toast.   Then like Willy Neilson sings; On the Road Again.  We passed by the hotel 3 times before we figured out how to get out of the airport parking lot and to the speedway/autobahn/hwy to hell. The GPS can only do so much. The road that we were on went through the city and there was road construction so a detour led us through a huge park.  It was now Saturday and families with small children were everywhere so we had to drive slowly and carefully - not only because it's the law, I also didn't want any children dents in the new car.  I've never really seen Hamburg other than in a few photos.  I had fantasies that we would arrive early and that I would have at least an hour and a half to check out the city.  But my GPS mistake took care of that.

Oh and now I am reminded by this photo that just before we got to the hotel, the "gasoline" lamp went on.  Our first virgin drive and I totally ran out of gas. I had 5 liters / 1½ gallons left in the tank.   Luckily there was a station near the airport hotel.

 No smoking allowed in MY car.  This is our adopted baby boy from Japan.  His name is Carlton.

It's now Sunday late morning (got a later start than planned). The tank is full of gas and we drive the entire day south and we are still a long way from our destination.  I open my booking dot com app. and find a few sleeping options.  They are all cute and affordable but none of them can be accessed by wheelchair.   The only place that is accessible for wheelchairs is the most expensive.  It was a BnB.  Really super cheap if you rent for a week but with the cleaning fee, it became the most expensive room for just one night.  It was basically an old farm house converted into a guest house. And even though it was wheelchair accessible, it still had 3 steps that we had to fight with.   It was, after all, an old farm house, 100 years old, out in the county and it was very big and very nice.  It had a bedroom, living room, kitchen and bath and all of it was on the larger side.  Decorated with warm colors and heavy fabric.  We arrived just after dark.  Though there was a kitchen in the BnB, there was no store to buy food and who was going to cook this late in the evening anyway?  So back into the car and we head out to drive to the nearest village, about 15 minutes away, and look for a restaurant there.

The restaurant we found was a treasure.  It was beautiful both inside and out.  Food was fantastic and the service was professional.  I didn't get any photos from the outside because it was late and we were tired and we still had a 15 minute drive back to the farmhouse in the dark on winding roads.

The restaurant was a converted mill and made of heavy, thick wood for the structure filled in with brick.  With a wheelchair, it's always lucky if we can get in without having to do stairs.  Normally, we sit at the front door.  There was an upstairs but I didn't go up to see what it looked like.  On the ground floor, the grinding stone was still in the old millhouse.  As amazing as the food was, our bill was cheap.  The next day, I noticed there was also a mistake on the bill for €40.   It was €40 euro too little.  I noticed after I got back home in Copenhagen that there was a strange word on the bill with a minus €40 next to it.  I had to google translate: Gutscheinannahme.   It means Guest Coupon.  But we didn't have a guest coupon.

During the evening, we talked with the young woman taking our order and serving our food and then we ended up talking to another guy who gave us the history of the place and the food.  It was very special and well received after a long drive.  Here are photos from Google for restaurant Almer Schlossmüle.

This is where we stayed. The photo is from booking dot com.  There are no photos of the rooms on the website but ours was very nice. At the farmhouse, we were the only guest.  It's in the middle of nowhere and I think it is basically a place for families with kids to ride horses in the warmer months.  That was the feeling we got from the photos on booking dot com.  Look for the hotel named Ferienhof Homann.

The next day we got up and out and drove on to find a bakery where we could get some coffe and breakfast.   We found a cute little place.  I parked Jens at the table and went to order.  My goodness - so sorry that I didn't take photos of the gigantic pastries.  I order breakfast and the woman behind the counter started to pour the coffee and I pulled out my MasterCard.  We don't take plastic, she told me.  But that was all we had.  She directed us to the nearest ATM and it was in the village back towards the farmhouse and restaurant.  No way in the world was I going to drive back an hour.

On this next map it shows the town of Bad Wünnenberg.  It is the first village we came to after our long drive on the autobahn.  It is here were I wanted to find a room.  We drove to 4 different hotels within a 10 km circumference of this village, but we didn't have any luck because of stairs.  It's easy to use the booking dot com app. but hard to find places when you don't know where you are at, it's dark and you only have a little screen to figure it all out.   The arrows on the map below show where we finally did get a room at the horse BnB. It's on the street named Kräuterhagen.  Then to the village of Alme for dinner and then back to Kräuterhagen to sleep and then back through Alme again the following dag.  We stopped at Country Bakery where we ordered but couldn't pay and then on to the next town of Olsberg where we just happed to park next to St Nikolaus Church and 2 doors down from an ATM.  Across the street is where we finally got some grub at a very cute place called Jsken.   Landbackerei was cuter than Jsken but Olsen was waaaaaaaaaay cuter town than.... than.... well, there was no village it was just as the name says: country bakery.   That's what made it so sweet and of course the beautiful breakfast cakes behind the glass window.

The next maps shows our start from Sunday morning 

- to where we ate 

- to our final destination: Bad Berleburg.

The next map is to give you a better idea of where we are at in the world.

So, as mentioned, from Landbackerei we continued south until we came to the next town which was Olsberg.  Oh how this worked out so well.  It was the cutest village on the way and it had an ATM across the street from a bakery.  I parked the car next to Parish Church, St. Nikolaus and wheeled Jens about 50 steps to the bank.  I withdrew €50 from the ATM and then wheeled Jens across the street to the bakery.  They take MasterCard.  I had to laugh.  From the bakery we could see the church.

In the above photo you can see a white car parked on the corner.  Then a black car and then a silver car.  In front of that you can just barely see the back end of our little boy, Carlton.  So I had to hold on tight to Jens' wheelchair down to the corner and then just 10 steps further on was the bank.

While Jens had his smoke, I walked about 3 or 4 minutes down the road and snapped a few pix.  I was thinking specifically of a few people when I took the photo of the sunflower.  My best friend for 42 years, George, facebook friends Michael+Scott, and my good friend Anne who lives near by our apt; all have a thing for sunflowers.  It really looked out of place and I think it was just a weed that the city let grow.

 above photo: Jens at the café under the umbrella.

There were a number of strange artsy figures in the town.  This woman was healing her tired legs and it was in front of a pharmacy.

After breakfast we continued south on our drive.  It's country roads now all the way and that means country roads with farm tractors that had to be passed.  We approached a very slow moving tractor going up hill.  After driving at the speed of light the day before, I was too impatient to crawl behind a tractor.  We are driving uphill and I cross my fingers that Carlton can pass the tractor before another car shows up in the opposite direction.  I had a huge smile on my face when I put the pedal to the metal and the car just zipped past the tractor with ease.  The motor didn't sound like it was screaming or guzzling gas either.  What a nice boy we got.

Finally we arrived to our destination.  The day is half gone.  We had expected to be here the night before.  So glad I didn't book a room in this town as we wouldn't have made it and probably would have lost the hotel money.  It's Monday now.  There are tours of the castle twice a day, Tuesday thru Sunday.  Just our luck.  Well..... even if we had arrived on Sunday we would have missed the last guided tour time.

 

In the above photo on the lower right hand side is the castle café.  You can see an umbrella over the tables and chairs.  So we could at least get a coffee in the castle café - yes?  No! - they too are closed on Mondays.  All we could do was laugh and make the best of it.  

With my camera I peeped in the window to see the inside of the café.

Our time here is very short.  It could have been nice to spend 2 half days with an overnight in the village but that will have to wait until next time.  Until then, we did a little walking in the castle area and snapped a few photos.

Now we mentally try to prepare ourselves for the long drive back home to Copenhagen with a stop in Kolding to visit with Jens' sister and brother-in-law.  

We drive into the very late evening.  We have no idea where we are.  We are just counting on the GPS to bring us back.   I am desperately trying to find a hotel before nightfall.  We haven't had dinner yet.  The autobahn is in cow country and I am trying to figure out where the next sign of life is at on our GPS.  We pull into a gas station with a hotel.  It's the only thing around for miles.  There are 9 or so steep steps to the hotel front door.  There is an electric wheelchair lift.  I couldn't figure it out.  I walked inside to ask the front desk for help.  The message from the front desk was:  The lift hasn't worked in years.  I smile and we drive on.

So now we have to look for a real village with a real hotel.   We stopped at a number of place and none of them are handicap friendly.   We keep driving though the countryside slowly making our way back towards the autobahn.  We hope to hit a village soon before actually coming to the autobahn.  There!  Look there, Jens!  We came to this really cute place.  I pulled in.  But then suddenly I had a wave of discouragement come over me and I said to Jens: let's skip this place because it seems like all the room are upstairs too.   I was looking for a single level building.  But then I said: ok, since we are here, let me just pop in quickly and ask.  Well what a surprise.  They had ground floor rooms and the price was cheaper than all the other places we looked at and this place was really really cute.  We booked, and found our room and then found the way to the hotel restaurant.  Good food too.  And before we knew it we were back in our room sound asleep.

Between the room and the restaurant was a little room that looked like it may be used for some sort of chillout area after a conference or something.  There they had these funny barstools with bicycles pedals for foot rests.  I snapped this for my bike enthusiast sister.

The next day we had breakfast - included in the room price - and we stuffed ourselves so that we could drive most of the way before getting hungry again.  We had no idea of where we were at until just now when the MC bill came and said Hotel Landhaus Eden GB.  I google it and can see that we were pretty much smack in-between Hamburg and Hanover.   After breakfast I went out to the front of the hotel and snapped a few pix.

Of course it's sunny - we are on our way home - soooooooo typical.

And when we do get hungry, we pulled into one of the very many rest stops with gas station and restaurant.  We have a quick sandwich and coffee and then back to Fun Fun Fun On The Autobahn.  OMG I can't believe I just wrote that.  It's a song that the neighborhood boy down the street from where we grew up, played for me back in 1974.  It was the 1 and only time I ever heard that song - until now.

We are driving through Hamburg now and I am looking out over the city from one of the higher bridges and in the daylight and I am just shocked.  I thought there was no other traffic in the world like in Los Angeles.  OMG the roads and traffic in Hamborg is the most insane ever. Bridges and tunnels, cargo ship and container cranes, monster cargo trucks lined up one after the other like a long train.  It was wild.  Glad I live in Copenhagen where street traffic is crazy because of bicycles.   

At one of the border shops I stop in and pick up 2 boxes of 1664 beer and 2 boxes of Danish beer for a guy at work.  Saved about 40% compared to DK prices.  Now it's a 2 minute drive from the border shop to the border.  I was sure that being this brown, I would have been stopped for a passport check.  But the police just waved me through.   2 hours later we are at Gitte and Carlo's house in cow country just outside of the town of Kolding (super cool town with amazing castle).  We had a nice visit, some good food and then we head out to another SAS partner hotel.  Same story as Radisson.  I got a whopping 3% discount on the rate.  Rich, I tell you, Rich!

The following day we pack it up and head out to Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen and squeeze our broken-in, baby boy Carlton, to sleep in his crib.