We had one free travel day, and yesterday was it. Lydia and Daniel suggested we go to France, or to Munich, but I chose Heidelberg. Everyone was a little fried. It's a little city to the north of here. I wanted to go because my father graduated from the University of Heidelberg and I so wanted to see the place.

German autobahns have no speed limit, but they do have construction, so getting to Heidelberg wasn't as fast as you might think. It was kind of nasty, in fact. The first thing you see in Heidelberg is an American style diner called Mandy's and an old fashioned coke sign. There's lots of electrical wiring and these really crappy looking industrial confabs which I guess are apartments. We found this underground public parking garage and put our car there.

Right away, we could tell this was a working class city. There were none of the expensive outfits you see in Stuttgart. Lot of punks in Heidelberg, too. Lots of Koreans as well, because first and foremost, Heidelberg is a city of tourists. When you leave the newer section of town, you essentially fall into a time warp. Overlooking the entire city, are the ruins of a castle. The older parts of the city are old, I mean really old. There was a sign on one building which essentially said "Goethe was here".

I think stepping off the edge of the known world was good for Lydia, who has been major stressed about her opera.

We spent a good chunk of our time in Heidelberg exploring the castle. It sits high up on a hill. I'm frightened of heights so I had to be a bit careful. We took the funicular to get there, rather than risk my freaking out on the way up.

Afterwards, we sat down for an authentic German dinner in a Heidelberg restaurant. Lots of beer, sausage, saurkraut, wild boar, and knoedel. I'm surprised we didn't break out in a shtunkel.

When we got back to the apartment, I discovered a strange email from Megumi: Elena, we've taken a vote and we're flying the zeppelin home. No offense, but if you put us back in your luggage, we'd just end up in Australia.

Yesterday was a day of cultural exchange. While scarfing down breakfast around two in the afternoon at a fabulous little place in the center of town, we discussed music. On the German side, the names Heino, Roberto Blanco, Costa Cordalis and Howard Carpendale, all big stars of the seventies, came up. During the course of the conversation, we learned that my daughter and her boyfriend have this fabulous idea of bringing German dance to the U. S. in an extravaganza called "Lord of the Schunkel: The German Dance Experience". Anyhow, here's a You Tube link to a sampling of a little Heino.

Having a bunch of Koreans in the in Puccini's a Fancuilla del West really worked best in the second half of the opera where it went from being Wild Bill to being Kill Bill, with the Soprano stepping over bodies in a yellow jump suit, all the while singing. Mid way through the opera, I noticed the theme from Phantom of the Opera, Music of the Night. Good old Andrew Lloyd, borrowing whole sale from Puke-ini (as my daughter pronounced "Puccini" while she played the buxom barmaid who introduced the show in perfect Southern accented English)

The best thing about the opera wasn't the opera, but being able to attend with Tobias Hagge, my friend the seven foot bass singer from Berlin. That he's here in Stuttgart was a big surprise. He and I spent a fun summer last year at my house, watching horror movies on TV and imbibing cold drinks. Boy, those are good memories.

The other best thing about the opera was that I finally got to hear Lydia's boyfriend sing. He played Ashby, who walked around in stilts and an Uncle Sam costume. Wow. Not only does Daniel sing extraordinarily well, he can do it while totally off balance. NOW that's impressive.

Today we have a choice of what to do while poodling around here in Stuttgart. Do we take in a museum or go bowling? High culture or the opposite. I mentioned the Mercedes museum as kind of middle ground, but my daughter Julia said nonono.

I guess we could, if we wanted, just sit around the house watching the stack of horror movies I brought from America.

I got a message today from the Goth Scouts via carrier pidgeon. It contained some of those German words my daughter is learning. I'm glad to see those Goths are being kept busy.

The key to retrieving luggage is American Express. You call them, give them your information, then they send out a SWAT team to rough up the airport personel. Within a few hours, the luggage is at your doorstep.

Of course, my luggage came replete with cartoon characters. Within fifteen minutes, we had the Goth Scouts and the baby polar bear in a cab, heading for the Goth Organization of Secret Handshakes jamboree deep within the wilds of the Black Forest. I can't wait to find out how they're doing.

We're pretty well consigned to the fact that our German vacation will be spent here in Stuttgart. My daughter has to work, so we just figure out things to do between times. We thought this would be vacation for her as well, but we were wrong. Yesterday, we traipsed around looking at Euro fashion which would be really cool except for the Euro prices. Today, we're headed for the outdoor market so we can learn all the German names for various fruits and vegetables.

My daughter wowed the waiter at the restaurant yesterday with her recent acquisition of certain German phrases. "Mein Freund ist geil!" she told him, which means roughly "My boyfriend is hot!"

The weather here is pretty much rotten, with rain and cold.

I received an email from Keesha this morning. I'm not exactly sure how she found a wi fi connection deep in the wilds of the black forest. "Gnomes suck," she wrote. I'm not exactly sure what she means by that, but I'm sure I'll find out.

Tonight, we're off to the opera.

We have learned that the luggage will be delivered to the apartment momentarily. Unfortunately, we learned this three hours ago.

In the meantime, Julia and I have discovered German Tabloids...Britney Spears! Paris Hilton! Lindsay Lohan! Verraten und Verkauft! Dina Lohan! Sie ist verlogen! Jennifer Aniston! Jens neuer: sex oder liebe? Now THIS is the way to get the most out of learning a foreign language.

Also, it passes the time. Besides having to wait for the luggage...unsere gepeck...my daughter has to work at the opera today. That's her job...associate director of the Stuttgart opera. The opera suffered a disaster after the premiere performance of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West this past Saturday. Fake blood landed on a seventeenth century cello in the orchestra pit resulting in half of production cost going to its repair. Of course, the German government covers the cost of operatic disasters in the long run. Ah, government support of the arts.

Julia and I are going to see the opera tomorrow. The program shows a bunch of Koreans running around in cowboy outfits, no doubt singing in Italian. Koreans are flooding the German opera market the way Toyotas flooded the car market in the U.S. back in the seventies. My daughter's boyfriend is the guy in the Uncle Sam outfit. He tells us that apparently the only English word Puccini knew was "hello", so there's a lot of hello's in the opera.

Lydia just got back from work. The girls are engaging in some eyebrow plucking.

I received yet another email from those miserable little Goth Scouts: "Elena, the little polar bear at the tiergarten followed us back to our luggage...er...your luggage...whatever...can we keep him?"

Well, here I am in Stuttgart. The weather's really great. I'm staying in my daughter's fabulous apartment. It would be nice if I had something beside this KLM issued t-shirt to wear, but alas, my bags are missing in action.

It all started at JFK airport, ten o'clock flight to Amsterdam, when the entire KLM computer system apparently suffered cardiac arrest. After two hours in a super heated airplane cabin watching the other passengers sweat, we took off at about midnight. This meant we arrived in Amsterdam just in time for me to watch my Stuttgart connection take off into the not so clear blue sky, leaving me to queue up at the transfer desk with the other thousand or so stranded KLM passengers. Luckily, behind me stood a very friendly British couple whose traveling woes made mine feel so insignificant. Their flight to Canada had been cancelled. Since planes take off from Amsterdam to Canada only so often, I have a feeling they may be in Cathay around now, still trying to find that magical flight to Vancouver.

Me, on the other hand, I easily snagged another flight on a Stuttgart bound puddle jumper, but my luggage, alas, did not.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I put the Goth Scouts into my luggage so I wouldn't have to pay fare for a bunch of cartoon characters. I just received an email from Lola. She writes: "Hey, Elena, you know these coffee shops in Amsterdam have nothing to do with coffee."

I have a feeling I'm never going to see my luggage ever again.

The Goth Scouts are presently getting ready to go on their big excursion into the wilds of The Black Forest where they'll be attending a world wide jamboree of Goth Organizations with Secret Handshakes, commonly referred to as GOSH.

In addition to the Goth Scouts, fearless leader Madame Gothskaya will be going, along with her two vampire children, Vladu and Mimi. You can read about the last Goth Scout trip by clicking on the Undead in Los Vegas story on the Tales of the Vampire Bed and Breakfast web page at http://vampirebedandbreakfast.com/pages/3/index.htm

With a little luck and a wi fi connection, I'll post updates. Auf Wiedersehen!

Goth Scouts love their merit badges.

Every so often, I like to post a description of what it takes to earn one of these babies.

I'd say that the road to happiness is paved with Goth Scout merit badges, but actually the road to happiness is paved with receipts from sales of Goth Scout cookies. But I'll save that for another blog.

Ever wonder about the people responsible for the recipe of a twinkie? Some grandmotherly type puttering around in a ruffled apron? No way. It was a gang of chemists, probably the same gang of chemists who worked to cryogenically preserve Walt Disney's head. Twinkies never go bad. Ever.

So a cooking show called "Cooking with a Mad Scientist" isn't really something far fetched. It could probably be the name of a show originating from the Pillsbury kitchens. Of course, they'd have to duke it out with Goth Scout Tammy in order to get the name. She spent at least fifteen minutes thinking it up, maybe even sixteen.

File all this information away somewhere in your brains just in case the cole slaw goes a little crazy. I haven't even mentioned the genetic engineering happening in agriculture. Modern food just isn't what it used to be.

Bwah ha ha ha ha!

Still in the dungeon.

Humorous has set it up so my cartoons can be uploaded in advance. That's good, I guess, but then with all my cartoons running in the future, who needs me...but wait, wait, here comes Humorous Maximus, with keys!

Okay, so quickly let me tell you about the Queen of Everything who appears in today's cartoon. She's hot, I mean really hot, especially for someone who has lived more than eight centuries. Her mystical spell books are huge sellers. Although pummeled as nothing but trash by the occult bluebloods, among the magican hoi poloi, her steamy recitations of ancient druid rituals are more than enough to tingle the chains of the netherworld. Yowsa.

Well, gotta run now guys. As luck would have it, Humorous Maximus managed to trip over his own feet and he's lying unconscious here in the cell. Boy, he really should be careful when he feeds the inmates bananas. There's no trash bins for the peels.

Just kidding.

Humorous Maximus just looks like a big ugly snot. In fact, he's a big lovable pagan with a thick latin accent no one can understand and we just adore him around here. We know he's just kidding when he threatens to throw us to the lions for not uploading our cartoons. It's just his gruff yet adorable way.

Anyhow, I'm sure he'll let me out of this dungeon in a day or so.

In the meantime, let me tell you about Goth Scout Tammy who is presently featured in the Cooking with a Mad Scientist series. She up and decided one day to have her own public access television show. Like all aspiring public access personalities, she traipsed down to the cable access office to discuss her ideas with the station manager. Once there, she proceeded to convince the manager by biting her leg, refusing to let go until all the necessary forms were signed.

The rest, as they say, is history.

You know, I just noticed that there's a human skeleton next to me. I do believe I'm going to go bang on the door with my leg iron for a bit.

Oh, Humorous Maxiumus, you can let me out now...

Glad to be here, oh Humorous!

HM welcomes Elena, and her Goth Scouts!!!

Welcome, Elena!