More Pictures...

Lynn made a new friend at the Hofbrauhaus. We never heard for sure, but we're pretty sure his name was Gazoo.

Dinner and beers at the Hofbrauhaus. We made a couple of new friends.

120+ mph on the Autobahn.

Here's Brian at BMW Welt. The excitement was almost too much for him.

Buon Giorno

Greetings everyone from beautiful Venice, Italy (Venezia). This trip continues to be amazing. Sorry I wasn't able to update the blog yesterday. We have been having Internet issues here. It's really not an Internet issue as much as it is an electrical problem. The power adaptors we brought from the states aren't working here in Italy. I have just enough battery juice right now to give a brief update.

We have spent the entire day today touring the city...by boat. As you may or may not know this city is "completely" covered by water. There are no cars. You have to go everywhere by boat. We have been using the water taxi to go from place to place. I'm not going to be able to upload any pictures during this session, but will make sure to do so during my next update.

We spent the better part of yesterday in the car driving from Munich to Venice. I think I put about 375 miles on the car yesterday. I managed to take the car up to 125 mph on one stretch of the Autobahn. It was very smooth and very stable. Most of the trip through Germany we drove between 90 - 100 mph. Brian drove a 2-3 hour stretch yesterday, mostly through Italy, and he hit 100 mph. It's going to be very difficult coming back to the states and driving 55 mph. Reminds me of a particular Sammy Hagar song.

Any way, hope you are all well. I'll do my best to get some updated pictures uploaded soon.

Arrivederci!

Dan

First Things First...

Our luggage has arrived at the hotel. The holiday can continue...

Dan Takes Delivery Of His New Car

BMW Welt ( translated "BMW World"). That's Olympic Stadium across the street, site of the 1972 Olympics.

Dan sees his new car for the first time.

The car had 0.2 mile on it when I took delivery.

I am now the proud owner of a BMW 335i sedan. The car is beautiful and it handles like a dream. Brian was mesmerized by the whole delivery process. His enthusiasm is obvious by one of the photos shown above.

Shortly after leaving BMW Welt we had winter tires/wheels mounted on the car. We can now drive anywhere without worrying (me) about getting a 400 Euro ticket. Pictures of the car are above. By the way, the car did not even have 14 miles on it before Brian ripped a HUGE fart on my new leather seats. I would say I was surprised, but that would be an obvious lie. So much for the "new car" smell. If a new car smelled like this they would call it a Yugo.

Tomorrow we're off to Italy. Pictures to follow...

Good News (and bad)

We made it to Munich and I am sitting in the Premium Lounge at BMW Welt updating the blog. The delivery center is absolutely gorgeous. We are taking lots of good pictures. The four of us are scheduled to take the factory tour at 11:30AM. I should take actual delivery of my car around 3:20PM.

Now the bad news...British Airways lost Jerry's, Lynn's and my luggage. We have absolutely no idea where it is (and either do they). As you can imagine this has really put a bit of a damper on the trip. I know my bag made it to Seattle because I saw it through the open luggage compartment door as I was getting off the plane. Somewhere between Seattle and Munich it got lost. For whatever reason Brian's luggage made it through.

Will try to upload pictures later. This may prove difficult because our room does not have Internet access. Until then here are a couple pictures of Jerry and me in our British Airways First Class seats. In my lap I'm holding my British Airways Sleep Suit (pajamas). Hey, if you've got to fly you might as well fly First Class!

Stay tuned...

We Made It To Seattle

Well, we just finished eating a verrrrry average meal here at the airport. I'll go ahead and attach the first picture of the trip.

Right now we're sitting in the British Airways First Class lounge. Apparently membership DOES have its privileges. We board our flight in about 30 minutes. A mere 13-hours and we'll be in Munich.

The Big Day Is Here...

After what seems like an eternity our departure day has finally arrived. Lynn, Brian, Jerry and I will board a Horizon Airlines plane at 5:00 p.m. today to travel to Seattle where, after a 3-hour layover, we will board a British Airways 777 jet to fly to London's Heathrow airport. About an hour and fifteen minutes later we will board an Airbus 320 jet for the nearly 2-hour flight to Munich, Germany. We are scheduled to touch down in Munich at 6:25 p.m. on March 9th. BTW, Munich time is 9-hours ahead of Portland time.

The current weather forecast for Munich on March 10th (delivery day): 56 High / 34 Low, 20% chance of precipitation.