On Thursday, after Amsterdam didn’t work out for the weekend, one of my co-workers, M, offered a day trip on Friday to go see a UNESCO world Heritage site called Goslar, Germany. It’s a midevil mining stronghold full of half timbered houses, a beautiful old fortified house where the German emperors held court in the 1000’s and right on the river.

Despite the potential for bad weather, we discussed it for the better part of Thursday. All told, we figured on 2.5 hours to get there, 2.5 hours to get back and a few hours wandering around. Initially, we were going to take the dog – but after hearing the weather forecast, I decided to leave him at home because it was supposed to rain/sleet/snow and M’s car didn’t need to smell like wet dog for the next 3 weeks.

So, on Friday, I woke up to a light dusting of snow – got everything ready, and thought hey, I’ll toss a couple apples in my bag. Just in case I get the munchies, after all, it’s going to be alot of walking. I was bundled up in a couple layers of clothes with my down coat, grabbed an umbrella and was sure to wear my waterproof boots. We left at 8am and made great time – an hour and a half – and then we decided to stop at another town on the way to Goslar – to see the town and another fortified house. (several of the towns including Goslar and the other one we stopped in are well over 1000 years old.)

We got to Goslar about 11 am, ate lunch and wandered around for a bit. Then, we went into the Emperor’s house and took the 3 pm tour. Once we were done there, we wandered back to the car (yes, I took another few hundred pictures – who do you think I am?!?)

We left around 5:30 pm. Hit the road, and it was sleeting – then snowing. And because we were trying to follow the signs, we wound up going on the wrong road – for about 35 minutes – headed toward hannover (north west) instead of toward Berlin (north east). After realizing what happened, well, we cut back across and hit the Autobahn and were stuck in and out of rain, sleet, and snow showers. M kept saying it’s slippery… and of course, it’s getting dark. Meanwhile, we’re going 120 km per hour (about 65 mph) and other cars are just flying past us. Not long after a car drove past going so fast to almost blow our doors off – I commented – you watch, he’s gonna slip, slide, and wind up in a ditch somewhere….

It’s funny how premonitions are, and even funnier how thankful I am for our little detour.

You see, our detour took us about 35 minutes out of the way and another 20 to cut back across. While that was happening, the sleet/rain/snow mix continued and hit just outside Magdeburg on the 2 Autobahn. We were running about 55 minutes behind where we should have been –

WHERE THERE WAS A 60 CAR PILEUP DUE TO BLACK ICE.

The result? We missed the black ice – and got stuck in the traffic trying to use the autobahn. We hit the slowing traffic about 6:25 pm or so – and were stopped stuck for nearly the next 3.5 hours. All we kept hearing on the traffic report was how bad it was, and that the traffic was backed up nearly 5 km (about 3 miles). Yeah, I admit that at some point, M and I got off and waited at the “rest stop” area (lord knows we could have just walked to it, taken a leak and walked back and not moved more than 5 feet). I also admit that we turned on the radio and I was so stir crazy that I started karaoke-ing to the songs on the radio – nearly all of them – from Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve got you babe” to the Police’s “I’ll be watching you”. Poor M, because not only was he being tortured by my singing (yes, include that horrible titanic song) but also by the fact that things weren’t going to plan – we’d planned on being back earlier so my dog could be let out; he could get some sleep and so on.

In the end, I got home about 1 am – opened the door – and the dog hadn’t made a mess – but he too had a new record – 18 hours with no potty. I will NOT do that again (poor baby) – because he literally pushed past me on the way outside as soon as I got the door open (I had expected that) and barely made it to the nearest bush. He’s SUCH A GOOD BOY! *gives him an extra hug, kiss, treat, loves, and thanks for his patience*

Also, speaking of records -for me, this was a new record for being stuck in a traffic jam – that didn’t have to be. 3.5 hours – before we turned off (we went north and took a route I’d scoped out by map while 98% of the traffic went south on the police planned route) out of traffic to take a detour and get back on a couple exits later.

The only brightsides – a) at least it wasn’t us caught in that mess – and b) I’m fairly certain that somewhere in that 60 car pileup – was that dark blue mercades that went whipping past us on the autobahn almost the same time as we made a wrong turn….

Ahh, Instant Karma.

PS – pictures posted soon – once I’m done posting those from Prague.