Amsterdam Good Time

Holy cow! The last 48 hours have been a whirlwind for Violet and me, going from a wedding, to a day in Frankfurt, to the canals of Amsterdam. There's been so much activity all at once that I almost feel as if I could use a vacation from the vacation. Here's a recap on what has transpired in recent days:

We made it into Saarlouis, Germany on Saturday afternoon without any problems and headed over to the town church for the wedding ceremony. I wore a neon green shirt to match Violet's dress, and we stuck out like weeds in a garden of German black. I don't understand why Europeans don't like to wear color. Maybe they're all color blind. Anyway, the ceremony was nice, but it was quite unique... if you can imagine taking a traditional wedding service all spoken in German and throwing in the type of music you'd find at revival tents in America, then that is what we witnessed. It was a weird hybrid that throws you off guard. Shane and Andrea had to sit in giant chair-like thrones at the front of the church, with their backs facing the audience. With all their talking between each other during the ceremony, I felt like they were plotting a strategy on how to take over all of Europe.

Directly after the ceremony, we spent about 2 hours in the back room of the church drinking champagne, eating cheese sticks and drinking more champagne. I really liked this part of German wedding culture... it gave us something to do until 7 pm rolled around for the dinner. Violet and I needed a ride over to the reception, so we asked one of Shane's friends Mo and her partner/girlfriend to give us a lift. Little did I know Mo had a BMW and drove like a maniac on speed (the 5 champagnes in her system probably didn't help). This was my first time in a BMW. Being inside one of these cars flying down the Autobahn at nearly 250 kph is a religious experience. You finally get to see what a car like a BMW was meant to do. My God... talk about smooth handling. Talk about power. And talk about friggin' dangerous. As Mo weaved in and out of traffic at speeds that would break Mach 3, I was dripping sweat and gripping onto Violet's leg for fear of dying. Even in the small town of Volkingen where the dinner was, Mo kept flying...and getting lost, even after her on-board navigation system kept telling her where to turn (it was like having Kitt from Knight Rider talk to us, except in a female voice). Mo was driving so fast that we lost Grandma and Grandpa from Pennsylvania in the dust who were slowly trailing us in a VW wagon to get to the wedding dinner (they had to stop by a hole-in-the-wall German bar and pay someone 10 Euro to get them to the dinner. Poor Grandma and Grandpa).

After about 20 wrong turns, we finally made it to the dinner (behind Grandma and Grandpa). It took about 10 minutes for me to get my nerves back (but I tell you what, if I ever have disposable income, I'm buying a BMW and moving to Germany). The dinner was fancy-schmancy with breads, wines, soups, steaks and other fine foods brought out to us. The highlights of the evening were having an Elvis impersonator, speaking in German, come out and serenade the guests. There was also an excellent rockabilly band performing afterwards. Violet beat all the other single women at catching the bouquet, and I caught the garter belt. We were there until about 1 am dancing and drinking and mingling with Germans. It was quite an evening.

(To be continued)