All roads lead to...: Ausfahrts, Sorties, and Life Lessons

I made it to the Netherlands last Sunday night fresh off a great weekend in Norway, where I was never asked for an autograph despite running around the Royal Palace for a few hours. Guess I don't look like the Crown Prince, after all. My buddy Thomas Ten Bokum, ever the gracious host, scooped me at Schipol airport in Amsterdam and drove me to his house 45 minutes south just outside of Utrecht. Our agenda for the week? A road trip.

Where to? I had no idea.

"I have a friend in Lausanne, Switzerland. Want to drive there and do some hiking and maybe rock climbing?"

And, just like that, we had our destination.

One night in Dusseldorf

After spending a day in Utrecht riding BMX bicycles through a swimming pool, we loaded up his white Volvo speedster and headed south. Since the trip was well over 500 miles, we decided to break it up with a night in Dusseldorf, hardly halfway but meant to be a nice city right on the Rhine River. One of the largest cities in Germany, Dusseldorf's quaint old town has a main pedestrian drag full of bars and restaurants, normally the perfect ingredients for a fun night out. While it seemed to be lacking another essential ingredient for fun - lots of people - we set out to find ourselves some mischief.

The evening began tamely, with a nice dinner near the promenade along the river that forms the old city's western edge. We hopped into an outdoor cafe at one of the famous brauhauses to taste the local delicacy: "altbier," a particularly hoppy, darkish beer that erases the contents of your brain after only a few pints. Our waitress was friendly, and I hoped one of my patented dumb questions may open up the secret to a fun night.

"So is Tuesday a big night in Dusseldorf?"

She didn't skip a beat. "Is Tuesday a big night anywhere?"

Fair point, meine Freundin.

Tuesday night in Dusseldorf

A few more pints in by 10 PM, we hit up an Irish pub near our hotel for a few more drinks and started making friends: the sardonic Swedish bartender who told me I'll hate Stockholm because it's full of smug Swedes staring at iPhones (thanks dude!), the very friendly Colombian guy living in Dusseldorf to study German, the Australian waitress who wasn't amused by any of our antics, and the shots of jaeger our new Colombian friend paid the Swede to give us.

Sometime later, Senor Colombiano, now taking an increasingly strong liking to Thomas, walked us to another bar in the old town to extend the night into Bill Cosby territory. ("Nothing good ever happens between the hours of midnight and 5:00 AM"). When a bald Iraqi joined our table and aggressively tried to sell us cocaine, we should have merely aggressively declined. Instead, we aggressively declined and handed him Thomas's iPhone to take a picture of the three of us, teaching the night's first important life lesson: don't give your iPhone to Iraqi drug dealers if you've been drinking all night.

An hour later, our unbelievably friendly Colombiano walked us to the police station in search of Thomas's missing iPhone, which he realized was gone sometime after the Iraqi left. Miraculously, thanks to the Colombian's German skills and incredibly accurate description of the drug dealer (he clearly didn't have any of those pints of altbier), the police solved the mystery of the stolen iPhone at 4:00 AM.

In a private celebratory moment waiting for the loot to be returned, Thomas's Colombian hero seized the moment. "Thomas, you should know something. I'm gay. I've had a great night and I want something to remember you by."

Thomas, grateful for his new friend's help in recovering his phone, happens to not be gay. "I had fun, too."

"I have a request."

"Yes....." I mean, what could he want? A picture of them together? His phone number? A hug?

"Can I see your d---?"

What? That's, like, a thing?

Men are gross.

Thomas got his phone and went home, armed with life lesson number two: never trust that a friendly Colombian who buys you shots, follows you around to three bars, and takes you to the police station at 3:00 AM has altruistic motives.

On the Road...

The next morning, nursing brutal headaches and bruised egos, we hit the road, meandering south through Germany into Switzerland. We crossed through Bern - where street signs switch from German to French, and ausfahrts become sorties - and large puffy clouds conspired with snowy mountaintops and still lakes to make my jaw drop. The rolling hills, draped with a deep green blanket of grass (or somewhat orange-ish for the color impaired), evoked images of Julie Andrews frolicking around, singing that they were alive with the sound of music. Let there be no doubt: Switzerland is as gorgeous as I imagined.

The advantage of German highways

Road trippin'

We arrived in Lausanne - home to the IOC and many of the major international sports' federations (including volleyball and, strangely, baseball) - and spent the next few days indoors avoiding the persistent rain. Instead of hiking or rock climbing outside and risking a lightning strike, we found an indoor climbing gym to expend some energy. We visited with my old MLB Road Show buddy, Ian Young, who moved to Lausanne to work in baseball but now finds himself a burgeoning burger mogul. We drove through vineyards that climb the hills around Lake Geneva and walked through the bustling old city to enjoy the views from the hilltop cathedral. Two days of rest and relaxation in the books, we headed back to the Netherlands.

Lausanne

Um...the Alps got...uh, nothing(?) on Healdsburg

The drive home was much easier - amazing how much you can endure when you're not hungover - and we decided to cross through four countries and make it back to Utrecht in one fell swoop. We crossed the border from Germany into France, not far from the Maginot Line, and found a tiny cafe in a charming little village for lunch. Two years of college French helped me conjure up enough vocabulary to say hello and thank you, and the waitress decided to leave the ordering to herself. Soon after, we were served a hearty "plat du jour" of meatloaf, white beans, and potatoes (nice choice, madame), then hit the road again, zipping through Germany past Luxemborg and Belgium, arriving in Utrecht in time for dinner.

All in all, a great week of road trippin' with Tommy Ten Bucks.

...and now I'm off again, hoping to prove the Swedish bartender wrong in Stockholm, starting tomorrow morning. Back to London on Friday night, then Poland the following week.

Prost!