“Travels to a Different Time” : August 9, 1971: Finally in Munich: Hello Fritz: Drinking Beer and Eating Sausages in the Shadow of Hitler: Hunting Wild Pigs in the Moonlight: 230 Kilometres an Hour in an Alfa Romeo Spider on the Autobahn

Bedraggled we got off the train in Munich at 2:30 in the afternoon. We made it to the Excelsior Hotel in Munich. In comparison to the barren accommodations of Yugoslavia this hotel was LUXURY but at $29 a night we could spend that on rooms in Yugoslavia for two weeks. We both had our first bath in close to two months. It certainly revived us. After my bath feeling like a million dollars I went out to buy some grapes and some pastry and when I returned ran into Fritz in the lobby of the hotel. I took him up to our room. It was difficult to get the conversation going but it got better as time passed. Fritz took us to the Olympic grounds and we went up to the top of the tower and what a spectacular view. After that it was to a restaurant for a snack and then back to the hotel for a rest. We both felt like we had jet lag as we had been up since 4:30 in the morning. Fritz picked us up for dinner and we went to the beer hall where Hitler had made many speeches. We had big plates of sausage and sauerkraut with an enormous mug of beer of which all of us could drink only half of it. I was happy to be back in the room where I read a newspaper while Mom and Fritz went downstairs to the lobby bar.

August 10, 1971: Mom woke up feeling very sick but went down to have breakfast with Fritz at 7:30. We were off to Fritz’s cabin in the Back Forest zipping along at 230 kilometres an hour in his red Alfa Romeo Spider. Things move up real quickly and Fritz said when there is an accident on the Autobahn it is usually very bad. However the roads are engineered for high speeds and Germans are good drivers. They must be as how can they pass a car going 230 kilometres an hour! Fritz had a meeting in Stuttgart so Mom and I spent an hour and a half wandering around a department store. We arrived around 7 p.m. at Fritz’s cabin and Fritz and I went to Albert the famer nearby for bread, eggs and ham along with fresh pressed apple cider and some beer. After dinner a couple of Fritz’s friends came and took me hunting but no luck. We returned to the cabin and we waited for the moonlight to come out so we could hunt wild pigs Again no luck.