smarts in Europe - A 90-day Adventure

by Richard & Heidi Hill, Smart Trailer USA owners

Heidi and I live in Alachua, FL, most of the time.  We have an active life there and spend a lot of time working with our local Kiwanis club when we are not on the road in our motorhome.  About a year ago, we planned to go to Portugal so that she could have a much-needed hip replacement operation.

Heidi was born German, but worked in Portugal where she owns a factory that makes gorgeous hand made rugs. (In addition to her US Green Card, she has dual German and Portuguese citizenship). Portugal has universal health care, so it was worth it to fly over there for the operation.  Are you listening Mr. President-Elect Obama?

Anyway, things went haywire when my left foot needed minor surgery.  I should mention that I've had a lifetime of problems resulting from serious exposure in Vietnam to the chemical herbicide called Agent Orange.  My minor surgery ended up with a total of 6 operations and my losing my left leg below the knee.

So, almost a year later, we were ready to make the trip at last.

We rented a car and drove from Alachua in north central Florida to Orlando International Airport (near Mickey's house), that being far less expensive than parking our own car at the airport for 90 days. We had a short hop to Charlotte, NC, and then boarded our flight for Frankfurt, Germany.

We had selected our seats a month prior from the online seat layout provided by US Airways. We chose seats behind a bulkhead for extra room for our tall selves, being 6'7" and 6'1" respectively. When we boarded the Airbus, however, we found our seats were nowhere near a bulkhead. So much for planning ahead and airline seating plans.

In these days of cramming carbon life forms (no longer considered human passengers that pay for your airline) into the least possible space, it was immediately apparent that I, the Richard of Heidi and Richard, could not sit in my assigned aisle seat even with just one leg!  Now I am not talking tight, I mean impossible, totally and completely impossible.  And stupid, really stupid.

Well, to give a small modicum of credit to the airline staff, they responded nicely to my yelling and mumbled curses by asking two kind gentlemen seated behind a bulkhead to change places with us. The poor guys agreed, not knowing what they were going to be jammed into. And US Air also trashed my hopes of being upgraded to first class, which tickets cost FOUR times as much as peon class, or is that pee-on class?

So we got the bulkhead seats, but the saga was not over - the seats were exactly the same width as are each of us! Once in, we could not move! When dinner came, I had to shove my left shoulder behind Heidi's right so that she could eat. It was so cramped that we could not eat from the plate on the tray, but rather had to lift it to our faces to shovel the fuel into our mouths. It won't make any difference, I know, but I still have to write the President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of US Airways to complain about such miserly and miserable seats. And my TV didn't work, and I would not pay $5 for earphones, nor $7 for a lousy beer!  Jeez, talk about ripoffs!

Well, some 12 hours later, we arrived in Frankfurt, where we caught a train to the Haupbahnhof (the main train station). This was hilarious because the train steps were well above the platform floor, so I, being in a wheelchair, had to be lifted up in a manually operated elevator (lift, whatever). The process was reversed 20 minutes later in Frankfurt. We had lunch with Peter, Heidi's brother who drove up from Mannheim. Then it was off to Hamburg.

Another lift... But the train was beautiful and we had an absolutely wonderful four hour ride through the north German countryside. Fantasticly beautiful, with the fall colors in a riotous splash everywhere we looked.

Once in Hamburg, we were met by friends and I was downloaded yet again. Our hotel was only about 600 yards from the Hamburg Hauptbahnhoff, but it was nice to have a ride, especially with 3 large bags and several smaller ones.

Hamburg has rather recently become a tourist attraction and lodging prices are absolutely ridiculous. So we had booked a room at a hostel. You may know these as youth hotels that cram a couple of dozen young folks into dormitory style rooms for very low prices. Well, that part still exists, but this one had added a number of family rooms. Ours, unfortunately, was not at all handicapped friendly, but they switched us to another room - which only had a single bed. Soon, however, a mattress appeared with the bed following the next day.

I slept like a baby on that mattress on the floor since the trip had really worn me out. And, after all, it was a hostel and the price was just under $100 a night. Yep, that was the cheapest in the city, short of the hourly rates in the Reeperbahn red light district. You former GI's may recall that area perhaps?

The next day we were driven out to visit Heidi's 92 year old father, Karl, who lives in an assisted living facility, Rossenhof (Rose-en-hof) that can only be called a 5-star hotel. No kidding, it has everything you could imagine - a pool, gym, bowling alley, massage and manicure, barbershop, beauty shop, plays, bands, trips and a wonderful semi-formal dining room with a marvelous wait s. The government pays for most of the cost, supplemented by part of Karl's pension.

That evening we participated in their Oktoberfest, which while lots of fun, was more like a Sleepfest. There was an Oompah band, sans oompah, which played at a sedate level, perhaps not to induce any heart attacks (their had been 3 deaths that week alone, natural causes, not exertion). I should point out that most of the men cluster together in self-defense since the group is 80% female, due to the male death rate in WWII. Karl has been nearly deaf since birth so he fortunately avoided active military service. Back to the Schlaffest: Can you believe there was not even one Chicken Dance? Jeez, if you have been to an Oktoberfest, you know that every third dance is a Chicken Dance. If you don't know about this, get thee to a fest next October.

Oh, I should point out that there was plenty of bier und schnapps, so the night was not a total loss, even if it did end with an Elvis tune...

We'll leave you in suspense until the next edition of smarts in Europe...