“You’re drugged,” the customs agent said.
“Who isn’t these days?” Monk said.
The customs agent studied Monk. The man was clearly trying to decide whether or not to let an insane junkie into the country. I felt a pang of anxiety. What if the agent denied Monk entry? After a long moment, the agent sighed and stamped Monk’s passport.
“Have a nice trip,” the agent said.
Monk walked on into the baggage claim area. I stepped up to the same booth. The agent glanced at my passport, then up at me.
“Are you with that last guy?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Lucky you,” he said and stamped my passport.
We collected our bags and went into the terminal. Near the exit to the street, there were several counters where you could rent cars, buy food, or exchange currency.
I went first to the currency exchange counter to swap Monk’s cash for euros. He took some crisp euros from me and went to a hot dog stand while I went to a rental car counter to arrange our transportation.
I got the keys and paperwork, then I found Monk, who’d bought himself six different hot dogs, loaded them up with condiments, and put them in a carryout box.
“They have an amazing selection of sausages here,” Monk said. “I didn’t know which one to pick, so I took one of each.”
I was astonished. Hot dogs were at the top of Monk’s list of hazardous foods that should be outlawed. They were right up there with mixed nuts, granola, and scrambled eggs.
“You know that a sausage is seasoned ground meat stuffed into animal intestine,” I said. “And you know what intestines are usually stuffed with.”
“I don’t see your point,” Monk said, taking a bite out of one of the hot dogs in his box and squirting sausage juice on his shirt.
“Forget it,” I said. Why was I looking for trouble? If Monk was happy, I should be, too.
We went outside to catch our shuttle to the rental car lot. On the way to the shuttle stop, we passed a row of cream-colored taxis. All of them were Mercedes-Benzes. I wondered where the cheap taxis were.
The shuttle came right away. It was a large Mercedes-Benz van. I’d never seen a Mercedes-Benz van before. As we drove through the airport, I saw several silver-and-blue police cars. They were all BMW 5 Series sedans. If the bus drivers and cops in San Francisco saw this, they’d all want to move to Germany.
“This must be a very rich country,” I said to Monk.
“They certainly make a hell of a hot dog,” Monk said, his mouth full. “Wanna bite?”
“No thanks,” I said.
The rental car company shared a portion of an airport parking structure. The shuttle dropped us off in front of a little car called a Seat. I thought it was a strange name for a car.
We put our suitcases in the trunk and got in. I briefly studied the road map. Monk belted himself into his seat in the Seat and immediately fell asleep. I hadn’t even started the engine yet. One second he was awake, the next he was in a coma.
I didn’t mind. It made it easier for me to concentrate on my driving in an unfamiliar locale.
After a few minutes of driving, my initial impression of Germany was that it wasn’t so different from America. The portion of the airport we were in was brand-new and the surrounding buildings were contemporary as well. Except for the German language on the signs, we could have been at home.
Then I got on the freeway heading east and nearly got mowed down by the fast-moving cars. All the drivers seemed to be going blindingly fast and I could barely get my Seat to move faster than a sofa. So I got in the far right lane and just tried to stay out of everyone’s way.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to drive on the freeway for very long. I exited onto a back road that took me into the deeply wooded hills and that’s when things began to look very different from the world I knew.
The road narrowed and took us through the center of one ancient storybook village after another. The buildings were two or three stories tall at most. They were made of densely packed stones or half-timbered with exposed structural and decorative wood beams in the walls.
The villages were so well preserved and charming that they looked more like Hollywood sets or theme parks than real places that had existed relatively unchanged for centuries.
This was especially true of Lohr, which I found nestled between a curve in the river Main and the fabled Spessart Forest, where, if you believe the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney, a runaway Snow White was taken in by the friendly singing dwarfs who worked in the mines.
In the center of town was a stone tower capped by a wooden cabin with a rounded, baroque top. It rose over the steepled roofs, the pointed spires of the three churches, and the turrets of the castle. It was as if some tornado had ripped a cabin off the ground, whisked it into the air, and then dropped it on the tower.
I drove into the town square and parked behind the castle, which was now a museum. There was still a drawbridge leading to the castle but it was only for show. The moat was dry and lined with freshly mowed grass. A banner draped over the drawbridge featured a haggard Snow White and seven rough-featured dwarfs who didn’t look like they’d ever whistled while they worked.
Despite this somewhat commercialized acknowledgment of its fabled
