June 25th, Nuburgring, Germany

So it's about 1:30 here and we're relaxing at the hotel (Hotel Blaue Ecke - Nürburgring) that we've spent the last 2 nights in. It's raining outside, and nice and peaceful.

Later today we have a "track car" booked for rental to take out on the track. We've spent Monday evening, and all day Tuesday here exploring the region, catching different parts of the track (it's a 21km track) and seeing all kinds of taped off, cars driving around the track without emblems on.

Today we get to do the same in a BMW 3series with a roll cage and all. Everyone on the track has to wear a helmet and such. I'm a little scared! I will probably only do one lap so Aaron who knows more and is a better driver can get more laps in during the limited time window of the track being open to the public today. He's done a billion laps of this track on Play Station, it's like a huge deal to swap from PS2 to Real Life. The track has massive amounts of elevation change and I'm excited but nervous and intimidated as well. We'll check with our track rental car people today about 4:30.

Otherwise this area is AWESOME! It's like Hocking Hills meets Mid Ohio, the roads even off the track are pretty crazy, all kinds of bikers out in full gear (no one is even remotely stupid enough to not ride without FULL gear) just having fun. But at the same time it's lush, has huge rolling hills, and cute little towns with shops and such. Very cool mixture. By far a few of the most relaxing days we have had, a good way to recharge before the last two weeks of our vacation are over (hehe most vacations are 2 weeks, yet we're just a little over half way to the end of ours!).

Last night we walked the local town Adenau which is where our hotel is located. Did some shopping and a lot of looking at cool memorabilia and the like. Every store no matter what it is, be it a bakery or a hardware store or a book store embraces the racing history of the area and has cars or bikes and such in it's storefronts. So very cool. There is less soccer stuff around here, even though Germany is in the top four of the Euro 2008. Tonight is that game, against Turkey, I expect all the beer houses will be packed!

We had dinner at a Chinese place night, Sweet and Sour Chicken (much better then the stuff we get, even at high end places), and Beef Chop Suey. The Chinese lady that owned that place spoke great English, and German and Chinese. Pretty cool. We were just happy the menu was in English! Even this restaurant had racing pictures up in it's lobby.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the region, we got to hang out in the paddock of the Ring, see some film crews covering a concept car, saw the 4 door Porsche that is being developed, an R8, all hanging out in the paddock, and then we later were lucky enough to also see them on the track! So neat. From there we went to the main track entrance, found the web cam that Aaron watches every once in a while, saw some guys waving to the camera, kind of like we plan to do today!!! They called friends and told them they were at the camera, we don't have the luxury of a phone, but we've scheduled some time with some friends, so we'll do what we can. We had lunch at the Green Hell Restaurant, and watched more cars. After that we came back to the hotel, napped, and then took our walk around Adenau.

It's really HOT in Europe compared to what we thought, and everyone who is local is like What the Heck is going on! It's hard for us to sleep since there is no air or fans, since this is not normal. The only other thing that makes it hard to sleep here in Adenau is the church bell that is next to our hotel, it's crazy, it not only rings every hour on the hour, but at noon and midnight it rings about a hundred times, Aaron counted 247 rings at midnight the first night, I thought he was kidding (i slept through) but then I heard it last night, lol.

Otherwise that about catches everyone up on whats been going on with us.

Tomorrow after the track time tonight we'll sleep in (not too late, we have to wake up early enough to get some AWESOME breakfast from the Hotel buffet, it's GREAT!) and then pack our selves up and head to Heidelberg. There we'll be without net, but we have 2 days, Friday and Saturday to explore as much as we can. After that Sunday is basically a travel day, we are taking the high speed train from Germany to Paris, and then from Paris to London.

We'll have web access in London, we'll spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in London and then head to Oxford on Thursday for the British Grand Prix . . . the last hurrah before we're back to the States.

Eek, winding down. All our pics thus far are uploaded: Link in Aarons post below.

Well off to find some lunch and prepare for the track, the rain seems to be clearing out. Yay!