I recently completed a 5 day mission to Germany with my colonel. Members from our section have to go to Ramstein AFB once a month for addittional funding. The process takes about 5 days but there's about a half a day of work followed by our leave date.

During this time, I was able to escape the desert-ness of the not so beautiful Iraq and totally relax in Germany. It was cold and at the time, all of our winter gear and civilian clothes were lost on a connex somewhere in the Middle East. After a 5hr freeze-a-thon on a C17 medevac flight, we were cut loose in Ramstein. First things first, I had to go shopping...PX/BX's are not that cheap so I bought thermal shirts and track pants. Too cute, right...

I bought this awesome, repeat AWESOME..German chocolate outside of the PX/BX . I had it about a year before when I was in Germany. It's a total experience..the stuff is so delicate, it melts at room temperature and if you put in the fridge, it turns into stone. So, I kept it on the window sill.

One night, I took the rental and left off on the autobahn. I figured I'd hit up Frankenstein ( a town not that far from the base) and see the ol' Frankenstein ruins...apparently the place was used in the 1920's Frankenstein film.. So, I glance at a map and figure I can find it. The countryside was absolutely gorgeous. Old brick train tunnels burrowed through the mountains and the foliage looked like the definition of fall. It was hard to enjoy, however, because all the locals were on my ass...guess I wasn't driving fast enough for them up a freakin mountain.

I finally get to the town and pass through. Yawn and it's gone. I pulled over to turn back. I was kinda bummed b/c I saw no castle whatsoever. On the way back, I looked up at the mountain tops and there it was. I even found parking!

I stopped this guy who spoke zero english and asked him about the "burg" and he told me I had to walk up there. (hand signals come in handy, pun intended.) I headed through this alley and past an abbey and a church. There was a massive graveyard with broken sarcophagi and well tended flowers growing everywhere. All of a sudden this old lady popped up and scared the crap outta me. I talked to her but alas, no english! She told me I had to walk up the mountain, zig-zag like to see the ruins. The hike was a killer...and I'm afraid of heights so I basically clawed my way up there. It was awesome on top. I even got a crazy German couple to take my pic while I was up there. It was mainly awesome b/c I did it myself. I navigated by my lonesome all the way off the beaten path and found the place I wanted to go. Then I dominated a mountain to get to the top...(que Rocky music).

After I left the town I stopped off at this little biergarten. Between my broken German and the owners broken english,I ordered some potato soup (fresh from the garden, might I add), some kind of cherry pastry, and of course, A BEER! A Raddler to be exact..the best if you ask me.

It was quite the experience.

Then, the colonel had to one-up me by taking me to Paris!! (aka, the BEST TIME EVER!)