On Thursday, Eric and I went over to Mannheim, Germany to help out one of the new guys in his shop. He (new guy) managed to find a mini-van to buy since his option in Belgium were pretty slim. Given, he really wanted to get a Honda Odessy, but for some reason, Honda won't sell them in this country due to warrenty issues or some garble like that. Once we got to Mannheim, he called up Mr. Army Guy since that's the guy who was selling the van.. long story short, this guy was kinda...umm..special. LOL. Once the van was sold, the paperwork was done and such, he asked Max (the guy we drove to Germany) if he could swing him by the thrift store since he had stuff he needed to drop off..fine and dandy. Then he needed a ride home since he didn't figure out ahead of time in terms of what he was gonna do after he sold the vehicle...the dudes house was 20 minutes in a way opposite direction we were going. I'm sure you're thinking "Well, why were you sticking with Max still? He bought the van and could go home without you."...you're right. But, he didn't have a GPS and he was wanting to go to Ramstein and shop around for a TomTom, and also wanted to hang out with us a lil more since we were giving him tips & tricks about the area. He's a nice guy! Well..once we dropped off Army Guy, we went to a store called XXXL Mobilia ...no, it's not a porn place. It's like a MASSIVE Pier One! They had some AWESOME stuff! Some stuff.. in all honesty... I couldnt figure out what it was, but most of the other things were pretty cool looking. I scored a cute yard decoration heart that says "liebe" (love) on it as well as some "rocks" for my candle hurricanes. AND, a cute lil "milk bottle" rack..there's a local florist here who sells 'em but I wasn't really willing to pay what they were asking.. I got mine for 3 euro! woot!
When we left the euro style Pier One, Max happened to toss his coat in the back of the van to realize that Mr Army Guy left his oh so important brief case behind. We would've gladly driven back to his house to return it to him, but like most places in Europe, his house was on some beaten road and I couldnt remember for the life of me where it was. Max tried callin the guy, but there wasnt an answer...so...what to do? Off to Ramstein we went! It was an hour away from where we currently were..sooo...whatever.
We get to Ramstein and Max tries calling him again, this time, Mr Army Guy answers. Turns out, he wants Max to call a friend of his who is over in Landstuhl, which is 20 minutes from Ramstein..and drop off the brief case with her. Now...call me silly, but if it's your brief case and you were the num-nutts that left it in the car, shouldn't you be the one to call around and see if you can arrainge for someone to get it for you? Especially if you're not willing to come get it yourself. Oh..I'm silly. Tee-hee! After him and Max playing phone tag (on Eric's cell phone) through out lunch at Macaroni Grill, Max called up this friend that Mr. Army Guy was referring to. Turns out, this gal is just a vague acquaintance, lol. I can't blame the gal for saying that she wasn't gonna pick this guys stuff up for him.. I mean.. come on. Max ended up dropping it off at the USO place with the guys info and the dude is gonna go over there later on Monday or something to pick it up. Funny thing is, the guy is literally counting down the days till they PCS and his PCS paperwork is alllllll in the bag (his works, we didn't open the bag up to see for ourselves). Brilliant! Yes!
After stuffing ourselves silly with amazing Macaroni Grill, we waddled off to the new and improved BX/PX. Keep in mind, the last time I saw their BX was before they opened the behemoth that it currently is. This thing is massive...I mean, MASSIVE. When you're standing at one end of it, you can't see the other end..it trails for days! We frolic'd in the bathroom section and got some much needed bath towels, some electronics that our lovely base in the Netherlands never have in stock, booze (desperately needed), painting supplies, and some goodies for our dogs. All in all, with did some pretty good damage in the place, but it was for alot of things that we were really needing to pick up.
There's a shop outside of the BX that sells German stuff... truth be told, some of their stuff is really marked up. There was a specific keychain I REALLY liked, but it didn't have a price tag on it..that should've been a clue, right? I'm not gonna say what it cost..but this isn't going to ever be used with keys..lol. It'll go nicely with my collection of "travel goodies".
3 comments:
I've had very similar adventures. I like reading about this one.
I'm glad you didn't say how much that key chain cost, because I already want to knock you over the head for buying it! ;)
Weren't you overwhelmed by how busy and big Ramstein is after our quiet little Belgie? Love the keychain! (Probably more since we don't know what damage it did to your pocket book.) Sounds like you had quite the adventure! Don't you love meeting new people? LOL!
LOL....well, the horn is an actual deer horn (not fake) and I know that has something to do with how they used 'em as weapons (carved them into knives and such for hunting). I called my Grandma up and asked her about it cause the story the gals at the shop gave me sounded pretty..uhh..lame. Given, I still bought the thing, but..who HASNT bought something random in their life? Everything else on the keychain I can figure out; the stein, the old frank coin, and a pearl tooth. Mainly it all revolves around hunting..does Jagermeister sound familiar? :)
Post a Comment