Continuing our Frite theme we grabbed lunch on the way to our next stop at a great little Boulangerie.  We also had a chance to watch the crazy way Parisians drive through intersections.  It was also great to see so many Smart Cars as there haven’t been many in the other cities.  We even saw a Smart For Four which is no longer in production.

Then a visit to the museum of Counterfeiting.   An amazing array of things that have been copied.  Most surprising, water pumps and pasta!  Most disturbing, condoms and pregnancy tests!  And we thought counterfitting was just for luxury goods and money!

Next stop was the Paris Science Museum.  It is housed in an amazing area and thought the Science Museum is well done with lots of interactive exhibits, our favorite part were all the parks and architecture behind the museum.  There are some incredible playgrounds here, which we hope Alex’s cousins Matthew and Ali enjoyed when they were in France two years ago.  There is a giant bicycle buried underground with just the top parts sticking out.

We also enjoyed touring the Argonaut which is a 40 person submarine that is now on permanent display.  While I like to read about submarines, this is the first one of any consequence that I have been inside.

We then headed to a cheese restaurant my brother John recommended called Les Montagnards.  Family run place with the proprietor greeting all the patrons warmly.  We felt welcome and while we were the first there at 7:45, the place quickly filled up.  They have the machinery from a gondola station in the cieling which makes for a unique restaurant.  They specialize in foods from Savoie.  We had some terrific cheeses including a great Comte and a delicious creamy Reblochon.  We had a small sample of Raclette and then a Savoie Cheese Fondue.  Very tasty and a different mix of cheeses, including Abondance which is now being distributed in the US by Trader Joe’s.   Since Chocolate Fondue was available, we didn’t see any reason to say no!  We enjoyed some terrific inexpensive wine that paired well with the Fondue and also sampled some liquer from Savoie!

Team Goldtroni really savored our day in Paris and we are looking forward to winding down on our Trip on Saturday with more cheese, chocolate and sights.  We’ll finish with a final drink tonight with the other Competitouristas at 11 tonight!

Alex and I started the morning touring the Cantillon Brewery with George and Mike as well as Jane the reporter from the UK.  Their beers are quite different and some very sour which Alex and I both enjoyed.

Speaking of alcohol, in my previous post, I meant to say the first time Alex had been buzzed WITH HIS DAD.

In keeping with our theme of French Fries, Beer and Chocolate, we headed to Brugge and the french fry museum for a thorough history of the potato and Frites!  Tasty fries custom made at the end!  Followed that with a visit to the Chocolate Story and learned more and saw some great demonstrations!

Then a walking tour of Brugges which is a beautiful and very walkable city!

Then a train back to Brussels to meet up with the other teams, a quick dinner and head to Paris.

For those curious about the standings, Steve told us last night that there should be a winner announced for the first three days sometime today!

Then off for some Holland history and culture about Windmills, Cheese and Clogs.  Checked out a cool artspace, howeer it was being redone!

Then the Troppen Museum with amazing exhibits from indonesia, Africa, South America and a really cool exhibit from Haiti on Voo Doo.

The highlight of the day was the Bols Distillery experience.  Really well done, great exhibits, friendly staff and a great sensory experience trying to identify 36 different scents.

You can watch a bad video of me in the Bartending Flair video room…….here .

Alex and I both had fun talking to the bartenders and having them mix up our favorite drinks.  We sampled a few other of their beverages and between the fact that we are both lightweights in the alcohol department and hadn’t eaten much today, we were both a little bit buzzed!  Alex says this was definitely a first for him!

We had an Indonesian dinner that was very tasty.

As seems to be our custom, Alex is crashed out now (I was last night) and I’m finishing up the housekeeping on our day!

Today was great fun and tomorrow we are off to Brussels!  Tomorrow evening we will be someplace else!  We just don’t know where yet!

Tomorrow’s theme could be french fries, beer and chocolate!

Today was amazing. We opted to take the long train down to St. Goar out of both strategy and intrigue.

When we got to the cozy town along the Rheine we were both amazed at the beauty of the region. There are castles built into the mountainsides across the way in St. Goarhausen mixed with stone-paved streets and small old-style German buildings. A spectacular area and a good change of pace from Dusseldorf and Cologne.

Our first task: Find the statue of Loreley, a mermaid that lured ships into the rocks alongside the river. We crossed in a ferry into St. Goarhausen, ran down, and got a great video of me singing Loreley’s song to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island”.

Next we backtracked and made our way up to Rheinsfels castle. An old castle overlooking St. Goar and the Rhein. It’s kept mostly in its original state and it’s seen some wear and tear, but it’s hard to feel more connected to the town than we did walking through the castle. We got a nice view from up top, before it was my task to crawl through the unlit, muddy, and 3 ft (at their highest) tall mine tunnels. I can’t imagine how scary it was to try and invade the castle through those tunnels. It was pitch black (except for my headlamp) and there were many many dead ends. We then examined the smaller than expected dungeon and headed into town.

While I loved the tunnels, the town challenges was perhaps the highlight of the day. First we examined the beer stein headquarters which had both the largest beer stein in the world and 3,000 custom ones to examine. Several were made with Berlin on the side and a piece of the Berlin wall on top. Unbelievable! We completed the task there, then checked out the world’s largest free-standing cuckoo clock. We learned key info about the song it plays when it chimes (‘Edelweiss’) but couldn’t get anyone to perform. Until….

Searching for the eiswein (ice wine) challenge, we found Stefan’s wine shop. It looked like a typical gift shop from the outside, but inside me met Stefan, a key element of the day. Stefan’s family has been making eiswein for more than 500 years. Needless to say, they know what they’re doing. He was very happy to see Americans in his shop as his eiswein is frequently shipped back to the States and he’d spent a few years living in New York. Stefan sung Edelweiss for us, gave us the history, and then had us sample 2 of his eisweins and some of his peach brandy. Delicious! The wine is very sweet and goes down smooth. The brandy had a strong peach flavor without as much of the alcohol taste. We bought a few small bottles of his flavored brandy.

That wasn’t all Stefan helped us out with. After discovering that nobody in town sold or had heard of a Loreley Sundae, we did some research and improvised. We purchased a vanilla sundae with fresh whipped cream and walnuts (no rum, grapes, and raisins available) from an ice cream store and then took it back to Stefan who graciously topped it off with some of his chocolate brandy (he didn’t think eiswein would taste as good on top). One of the best sundaes I’ve ever had. Thanks for everything Stefan!

After that we grabbed some food and a return train back to Cologne. We were able to squeeze in one more challenge before the 5:15 PM deadline and got back to the train station. From there we got our info for the next day and took a train to Amsterdam.

Tomorrow’s challenges? Much closer to town in general, but we’re looking to go the extra mile….

Auf wiederschen Germany!

It was a long night last night getting videos uploaded. So long, that we might have left out a few details on exactly where we went on yesterday’s trip.

Here are a few of the highlights:

- Decided to head up to Dusseldorf. We checked out a lot of the local architecture including Roggendorf Haus, the Colorium, and a bunch of awesome Frank Gehry buildings.

- We then walked up into Dusseldorf’s Altstadt district to grab some altbeer (altbier?) at the town’s oldest brewery and learn the local drinking song (it’s more of a secret than you might think). We also saw St. Lambert’s Church, which has a bizarrely twisted spire.

- From there we took the U-Bahn into Dusseldorf’s Japan Town on a scavenger hunt for Japanese goods sold in the stores there. It took some asking around, but… success!

- Next it was up to Duisberg where we said hi to the town’s “Lifesaver” mascot. From there it was a tram ride up to Landschaftspark, an old metal works factory that’s been converted into a very unique park. It was a great sight and one of the best parts of the day.

- From there it was a nice train ride all the way back to our hotel in Cologne (or Koln)!

That’s all for now. What are we doing today? Well we’re doing challenges in the same region in Germany, but like birds in the winter, we’re going………….

- Alex & David

We have had a great and very full day.

We left Newark on time after meeting up with all the teams and swapping stories.

Upon landing we took the train to Cologne and checked in to our hotel.  Lunch and some reconnoitering and the games were on at 2pm.  We had a list of tasks to choose from that divided into a northern and southern route.   We took the northern route and completed everything on our list, pretty much in the time we had planned.

We were pretty pleased with our planning and will try to keep the same strategy going forward.

We were able to send our picture evidence along the way and only had to worry about loading up the You Tube videos for the judges this evening.  This was more problematic than we planned and we’ll start on this earlier next time, though we did meet the deadline!

We were on a lot of trains, trams and subways today and were able to see a lot of Dusseldorf and parts north.   The new modern architecture is great and the old style Alt beer is pretty tasty too!  We visited Japan town, some old churches, a renovated factory that is now a very cool park and some pretty interesting monuments!

We paired up with Team Stimulus Package and had a lot of fun with Mike and George!

In the middle of video uploading, Alex crashed and burned due to a sleep shortage.  He’s had only four hours sleep since we woke up in NY on sunday morning at 8:30am.  I’ve had about 6!

Tomorrow is eight hours of challenges and then we take the train to our next city, which we won’t know until 5:30pm tomorrow.  We are partially planned for Tuesday and will have to finish in the morning as Alex is fast asleep!

For those of you familiar with Alex’s active sleeping habits, you’ll know what I mean when I say that I hope I don’t wake up bruised.  We are in twin beds, but they are right next to each other and not separable.  I hope he really has become as calm a sleeper as he says he is.

We are having a great time!  Thanks for all your support!

David and Alex

Let the games begin (in 48 hours!!!