We were awake bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8am to hit the road. Just kidding. The alarm went off at 9:30 and waking up wasn’t fun. Mitch and I stayed up incredibly late to watch the first Game of Thrones episode, I didn’t drink any water and the lack of good sleep was catching up. Before heading out we found a cozy little German place called Wirsthaus Zum Straubinger to have lunch. Incredibly delicious.
When we got the car back from the mechanic he said the brakes were fine, but we noticed the front right one making a bit of noise and after driving around a bunch we noticed that there is significantly more brake dust on the wheel. We had been going back and forth on changing the front brakes, but today was now or never as far as finding the parts pretty easily. It’s a 13 year old Italian car so the odds of finding replacements in say Tajikistan are slim to none. We all were in agreement that the brakes were going to get us to the finish line most likely, if not for the Transfăgărășan highway in Romania. Here’s what it looks like:
It has the potential to be hell on the brakes to say the least. It took a while to find a store, but we managed to find something similar to Auto-Zone and paid way too much for the front pads. Oh well. Unfortunately we also lost an hour or so’s worth of time trying to find a camp store with a camping toilet. No such luck. Again, it’s so easy to shop for things in America. Since we couldn’t find one we had to spend about an hour at the German Home Depot equivalent on figuring out how best to comfortably build one. That’s right, build one. More info coming soon…
The drive into and out of Western Germany is beautiful. Apart from the green hills and valleys, there are thousands and thousands of acres of hop fields. What is a hop field? It’s a field where they grow all the hops for your tasty beer. A long time ago Germany passed a purity law for beers, so most beers are only allowed the 4 basic ingredients in order to make it: water, grains, yeast, and hops. As simple as the recipes can be, they sure do make some of the best beers in the world in regard to their style, lagers, dunkels, wheat, pilsners etc.
Crossing into the Czech Republic, we were instantly aware that we were no longer in easy Europe. At the border you have to stop and get a “vignette” which is a temporary registration for your car. They literally just give you a sticker though without asked you about your car, so it’s essentially a road tax. I walked into the gas station to buy it and was waiting in line behind a friendly German man who was also there to buy the sticker. When it was his turn he told the woman behind the counter what he needed. She said he had to pay cash. He asked if credit was ok. She said no. He asked where he could get money. She pointed at the ATM right out the front door. He informed her it was out of order – which she had to have been aware of. He pointed out the problem, and she looked right at him and said “Das ist nicht mein problem” which is German for “that’s not my problem (fuck off).” Only after continuing to press her for where he could get Czech currency, she eventually pointed to a small booth about 50 yards from the station. Currency exchange booth….what a b****. I knew I was going to have the same problem, so I followed the German guy to the booth as he muttered about hating the Czechs. When we got in the booth another incredibly friendly and helpful woman was there to be quite helpful and friendly. She told him to fuck off if he didn’t have Euros or USD, he would have to go to the next gas station – where I’m sure they neither sold vignette’s or exchange currency. Geeeez these people. I had some USD, exchanged about $100 and went and bought the stamp for about $30.
After getting into the Czech Republic a little further I discovered that the wireless internet was incredibly fast. I was updating the blog from the day before and was able to upload tons of photos pretty quickly. Thanks www.tepwireless.com for the mobile hotspot!!! I really can’t understate how convenient this little device is.
We go into Prague and found the Czech Out party, which was next to what looked like a big government building. Kind of an odd place to have the party, but we were able to use the full square type area to park our cars and camp out. There was a big dance party dome that had been set up, as well as a few food and drink vendors. We had a few important things to do before checking it all out though. For one, set up the tents. Then the fun stuff, change the brakes and get our power inverted wired into the car so we could start charging our larger electronics in the car. Mitch started working on the brakes while I handled the wiring. A few minutes into the process Mitch asked me to look at the brakes as he was quite confused how the calipers worked. I took a look and so was I. The caliper is always bolted onto the strut assembly with 2 bolts that are quite easy to find. These weren’t. After prying off a few rubber caps we found the bolts inside there (fucking weird) and found the bolts. A few minutes later Mitch informed me that the bolts weren’t socket bolts, they were allen wrench bolts. WTF kind of Italian automobile nonsense is that? Thankfully we had the tools and Mitch and Ryan changed all the brakes successfully. Huzzah! I got the inverter wired up and we set out to find somewhere to buy a few beers and wash our grimey hands.
We found a little hole in the wall place that had beer taps so we went inside. We asked who we thought was the bartender for a few beers, but she spoke no English and was a little confused then walked out of the bar. A minute later another woman came in and stepped behind the bar, didn’t speak english either but definitely understood holding up 3 fingers and pointing at a tap. We got our beers and the bill, and were a little taken aback after doing the conversion that our bill was around $6 for our big beers. Awesome!!
After that we were walking back to the party and hitting up a convenience store for some beer and snacks, when we stopped in front of a place that was a little strange. Boulder Bar. We could see down the alley and into it that it had a lot of rock climbing walls inside it, but it also had bar in the title. Have to check it out. Sure enough, it’s filled with Czech people working on their climbing skills and off to the left there was a small bar. Might as well get a drink here and take out the weird concept. After grabbing some stuff at the convenience store we headed back to the party and mingled around. I got tired and bored so I went to bed but the other 2 stayed out.
Ryan will update this later.
Saw this in Munich.
Mmmmmmm room temperature milk!
