Europe with Jon


the big sipper's perspective

Firstly, I have to apologize for the "rough draft" feel of this particular description. I haven't taken the time yet to polish this up (like checking addresses of things and whatnot). It'll do for now, though, I'm sure.
Our trip started on May 22 and went till June 12. In that time, we went to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Just to warn you, I didn't see a single 7-Eleven until we got to Oslo, which was fairly late in our journey.

Germany

It wasn't necessarily tough finding convenience stores. They call them "kiosks" instead (that's what they're called in Denmark, too; I'm not sure about Sweden and Norway). You can find them at train stations often, though they're sprinkled here and there if you can find them. We spent our first week or less in Frankfurt with my sister and her husband. She had warned me earlier about the unavailability of c-stores, so I wasn't shocked or anything. Supposedly they have laws in Germany that only allow stores to be open for so many hours in a day. They seem to make exceptions for gas stations, though. I didn't research this heavily, so you'll have to excuse my lack of complete knowledge on the subject. In those places that resemble convenience stores, they usually don't have beverages out of the fountain--this is a (minor) problem for me since my favorite part about getting a super big gulp is finishing off the ice that's left over. It's pretty hard to find ice in Germany. I had been warned about this, too, that all the drinks are warm. I found this to be a bit of an exaggeration, though, since things weren't warm, necessarily, they just weren't as cold as we're used to. Their refrigerators don't get as cold as ours do. But they're still usually cooler than room temperature. Since I'm adaptable, it wasn't too hard for me to get used to just drinking soda out of the bottle (or can) and foregoing the ice and the paper cup. Really, though, that turned out to be okay, because you can take a bottle with you more easily since it has a cap. Not only that, but knowing that I'd never find a fountain beverage led me to be happy with getting drinks anywhere instead of having to find a 7-Eleven or something. My favorite place to get a bottle of soda were bakeries, especially when we went up the Rhein. You have to be careful, though-- the largest bottle they have is the 1.5 L size (as opposed to the 2 L bottles I'm used to.. they even have 3L bottles, though I've only seen Shasta and store brands in that size), and some places don't go above a .5 L. They have cans that are .33 L, which is equivalent to a 12 oz can (within .01 L or so). I guess the point is that if you want soda in Germany, you can find it. But you have to plan ahead sometimes in case the stores in your area don't stay open past 8 pm (and some only stay open that late on one day of the week-- how do these people live?!)
I think if you want a beverage late at night, you probably have to get one with alcohol in it. They're not shy about alcohol, and the bars stay open later than the stores. There was even an Irish tavern across the street from Gina and Jörg's apartment, giving a nice view from Gina's kitchen.
We went around Frankfurt and surrounding areas with the newlywed Breuers for a few days. The weather wasn't too hot (it rained a couple of the days even), so getting a beverage wasn't too big an issue. One day, though, it was pretty hot. We had checked out Jörg's favorite iron mine and a palace and needed liquid relief (we were also sneezing from all the pollen.. it's a bit greener out there than it is in L.A.). We stopped to get gas in this little city (I have to check my sources.. it might have been Bad Homburg) at a British Petroleum, and we got big old bottles of our favorite beverages, and they were somewhat cold even! I would've liked ice, but ah well, when in Rome...
We left Gina's place to continue our travels. Our first goal was to go up the Rhein River and check out the castles. There aren't many castles in the U.S. except for gaudy ones built by the nouveau riche (like Hearst's castle), so it was pretty cool. Our first real stop (as opposed to cities where we made train and boat connections) was the city of St. Goar, home of Burg Rheinfels. We stopped at a bakery (another difference between here and there is the lack of small bakeries here and abundance of them there) and got some pastry and cans of soda for breakfast. Then we had to walk up a really steep hill for a half hour to get tot he castle, high on sugar and soda. Luckily, we didn't die. The castle was pretty cool, and the weather was nice. Back in the town, we bought some 1 L bottles of soda and a loaf of fresh bread, and walked around to see the little touristy shops and stuff. One store had a lot of cuckoo clocks (they're supposed to be a main export of the black forest, I guess), including the 'largest freehanging handcarved cuckoo clock in the world' (according to the sign).
From St. Goar, we went to check out the Mosel River which connects to the Rhein and is less crowded. We really enjoyed our stay in Cochem, sitting on a bench along the river eating our bread with some cheese and meat we bought at the local grocery store (which we luckily found within a half hour of closing time). It was such a pleasant experience, I didn't have to lament the lack of 7-Elevens.
From there, we went to Bonn to see the Ludwig van Beethoven birth house It's sort of a sad little museum, though if you're into Beethoven, it's worth stopping by if you have the time. Don't kill yourself if you miss it, though. We actually got into Bonn around 4:15 pm, and missed getting into the museum by a couple of minutes (they don't let you in after a half hour till closing time). We had to go back later, near the end of our trip, but we had an extra day on our German Rail Pass, so it all worked out fine.
The first time we were in Bonn, though, we were really thirsty. We had just been to Burg Eltz, and literally ran to and from the train station and our hotel trying to get our bags and trying to make the train in time to get to the museum (which we missed anyway). We didn't have time in between trains to get anything to drink, and the little trains we took didn't have a diner car. We were parched, can you imagine? We had first class rail passes since they weren't that much more expensive and guaranteed we wouldn't have to sit with lowlifes (not that we're snobs or anything). We weren't sure if they had been worth the price, though, until we got on the train to Bonn. The guy who asked us for our tickets checked them, and then said, "Would you like some coffee, or tea?" I said, wearily, actually, I could use a Coke if you've got it. So he brought us out some cokes in these fancy-assed glasses, and charged us the equivalent of 6 bucks or so, but it was worth it, damn you.
Anyway, after we got to Bonn, we tried to find the museum while still wearing our big backpacks. After we finally found the museum and heard the museum guy latch the door right before we tried to open it, we were still thirsty and exasperated. I searched around the streets of Bonn for somewhere to buy a drink. They had lots of bakeries, cafes, and even a Pizza Hutt, but I had trouble finding somewhere anything larger than a .5 L drink. Unfortunately, I didn't find one. I would have gone to the capitol building and personally asked Helmut Kohl about the lack of 7-Elevens, but I guess I didn't have time or something. We hopped on a train to Köln (Cologne), which was a nicer experience than Bonn. We actually at at a McDonald's there, out of curiosity more than anything else. It wasn't any better or worse than a U.S. McDonald's.
The second time we went to Bonn, there was a rally in the square that has Beethoven's statue. The rally had something to do with Kosovo and NATO, and not about the people's right to convenience stores.

Denmark

From Köln, we ended up on an all night train into Denmark. We were there to see Legoland, of course. It turns out that Denmark has the highest ratio of smokers per capita, which wasn't too nice at times. It also is pretty expensive. Although, in its favor, it has some of the prettiest women I've ever seen (I'm sure that wasn't too much of a consolation to my wife, though). We didn't really go for beverages much since were were only there for a day. I didn't see much resembling a convenience store, though, except for the kiosks in the train stations (which weren't open 24 hours).

Sweden

Next, we went to Sweden. We stayed with Leif (my grandpa's cousin), and so didn't really have an opportunity to look for convenience stores. We did see a few gas stations that were open 24 hours, which was promising. When we left Leif's to go to Norway, though, I saw something fairly beautiful. We stoppe at a gas station that had fountain beverages. Wow! It had four spigots, but no ice. No telling if it was cold or warm or whatever. The kicker was that their large cup size was very close to the size of a Super Big Gulp (I don't know what that is in liters, though). I was driving that leg of the trip, though, so I didn't feel like getting a big fountain drink. And besides, what would my grandma say? (That, and it was only 8:30 am and a bit chilly).

Norway

We stayed in Larvik first, with my grandparents (they have a condo there). There are 24 hour stores there, too, which we had to go to because our first day there was a holiday and nothing else was open. We actually found fountain drinks at a restaurant in the mall, too, where I discovered a drink called "Champagne Brus." It was sort of a sparkly fruity soda that my grandma said tastes like cream soda. It was pretty good, but I never did see it again anywhere else.
There's more detail in the other "diaries" I have, but the really short version is that we stayed in Larvik for 3 days, stayed in Oslo for a couple of days, and then went to Bergen for a day and a half. Oslo is the only European city that I know of that has a 7-Eleven in it (not that I know too many Euro-cities). It has at least two that I saw. When my parents went there last year, they took a picture from the bus of a 7-eleven. Upon review, it appears to be a different one than the one I took a picture of. Unfortunately, my picture came out a little fuzzy for some reason (maybe sub-consciously I wanted to make it more mysterious). This particular store is down a short hill from the Royal Palace. I assume this is the 7-Eleven that the king uses when he needs to, since it would be really convenient (except for the fact that he'd have to take bodyguards.. but maybe not.. who in their right mind would want to do anything to the Norwegian king? It's not like he has wide-ranging power or anything). I went into this 7-Eleven and was disappointed-- but far from shocked-- to find that there were no fountains like in the 7-Elevens back home. They had bottled drinks, though. They also had a special to rival the Super-Big-Gulp-and-Big-Bite-hot-dog-special that we have here in the states:  the Norwegian version involves an ice cream cone and a brownie. I think. I know it was ice cream and something else. The other 7-Eleven I saw was somewhere on the way to Vigeland Park. I actually am not completely sure that the two aren't the same place, since I didn't spend enough time there to get my bearings completely. Another possibility is that that other 7-Eleven I saw was the one my mom took a picture of... I'm going to revise this page after I check out a map of Oslo. Hjørdis Christine (one of our hosts in Oslo) is coming to California in September, so maybe she has more info, though admittedly she doesn't seem like the 7-Eleven type. We went through the Folk Museum, which is an open-air museum/park containing reconstructed buildings from various places (and time periods) around Norway. I stopped by the antique gas station, but no one was there to direct me to a 7-Eleven.
On the way from Oslo to Bergen, we took the train (duh). We made a stop along the way to check out fjords and stuff like that, part of the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour the kids are all excited about. It was a very nice day, weather-wise, despite the snowy mountainous parts we passed on our way there. To do the Nutshell tour, you get off the train at Myrdal and then take a train down the Flåm Valley. The views are quite lovely, you know (to see what I mean, go to that other page). We had to wait a couple of hours in the city of Flåm for the ferry to Bergen, so sat down and had lunch. I wanted to get an authentic Norwegian chocolate, so I found the only grocery store in town (it's kind of hidden behind all the touristy restaurants and gift shops), and actually got one on sale (without having to use a Vons card). A little later, we decided we were thirsty (duh), so Linda went into the place to get drinks. I wanted to get a picture of her walking out of the store with drinks in hand, but I didn't know she was looking at postcards, too, so I had to wait for a while with the camera in hand. Finally, she walked out of the Super Marked with the beverages.
After all that, we ended up in Bergen. While we were in Oslo, we were sort of being guided around by relatives, so we didn't get to go off on our own too much to make a brief search for 7-Elevens and stuff. In Bergen, though, we were all by ourselves. Of course, as these things happen, there weren't any 7-Elevens there. You know I was running around in Bergen
trying to find something. I didn't have luck finding fountain drinks, but I did have my own fountainhead experience, so to speak. There was an interesting statue, at least.. I don't know what it was called, but it might be something like "fish chastizing baby." Go figure. Actually, I did find something there. They have this Norwegian ice cream that's really something. It looks like a soft cone (Foster's freeze, McDonald's softy, soft serve, whatever you want to call it), and it comes out of the little machine like soft serve, too. You can have it dipped in cocoa, nuts, or fruity sprinkles if you like. When you first taste the ice cream, though, you know you're in a different world. Ice cream is graded based on fat content and the amount of air in it--that's why you can easily eat a half gallon of Jerseymaid (or other store-brand) but struggle more with a little pint of Ben & Jerry's. This deceptive looking soft serve is more like Ben & Jerry's quality-- it's really thick and smooth, and before you know it, it fills you up. I was kind of sad to have only discovered it on my last day in Norway, but I guess nobody's perfect. I got to have another one on the ferry from Norway to Denmark. The one from the little store in the Bryggen area of Bergen was better, though (3 kr cheaper and twice as big). You know, I coulda had that special at the 7-Eleven in Oslo. Ah, well, I can always go back, eh?

Links to other sites on the Web

Our diary at Eric's page
The travel page

By the way, the title of this page refers to the series of books and PBS shows by Rick Steves (his is "Europe through the back door"). Even though we were with natives for most of our trip, we found his guidebooks to be very helpful. His books are sort of a no-nonsense (but with a sense of humor) guide to Europe with realistic time-frames and helpful hints for getting around. And anyone who makes a joke about Nutella knows his stuff.

© 1997 jlabree@ix.netcom.com

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