We were watching the winter Olympics on Screensport in Cathy's Munich apartment and they were showing the 4 man bob. The TV commentator said something about when these guys are finished here they are off to St Moritz in Switzerland tomorrow (Sunday), for the next race in the world cup. We looked at each other and said that's not that far away lets go and watch. So, we got up early the next morning, 8am, and headed off to St Moritz. We dropped down into Austria and headed west driving on what was marked on the map as the main highway between Austria and Switzerland.

We soon learnt that a main highway in that part of the Alps was a 2 lane track that often seemed to go through people's back yards and right by some front doors. Eventually, after 8 hours, yes 8 hours, we arrived in St Moritz, parked, walked up to one of the ice walls that you see on TV, saw two bobs go by at great speed at 10 feet above our heads and then it was all over.

So, we went to a restaurant, mainly to use the restrooms, had something to eat and were astounded by the prices. Then less than an hour after arriving we were back in the car heading home./font>

Eddy Maurer

When Cathy accepted the job offer from Amadeus in Munich She could not believe her luck. Cathy always wanted to live in Europe. Ever since her elementary school teacher came back from summer holidays with a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. When she checked in a Miami airport the cheek-on clerk noticed that she was traveling on a ticket issued by Amadeus (1A in airline speak). The clerk asked something like "are you sure you want to do this? Amadeus is already a dead duck in the water." And there was Cathy with standing at the desk with 3 of her 7 cats and everything she could pack in to a suitcase. Her answer was "I have to!". This was in 1991 and by 1999 Amadeus had become the second largest reservation system after Sabre. She never looked back and always lived Europe to the full. Even before we met 9 months later Cathy had already been to Prague, Buda & Pest, Colmar and Amsterdam. We soon continued this whirlwind tour of Europe visiting Venice 3 times, Lake Lugarno in northern Italy where I had the 5 course fish meal (yes even desert was fish), Luxembourg City (mainly for the Chi-Chi's), all over Frei Stadt Bayern (Bavaria looks on itself in a similar way to the lone star state), the black forest, Colmar and Strasbourg in France, Gent, Brugge, Antwerp, Amsterdam again, London of course (but not on the top of our list), the Bayerisher Wald and the Czech Republic. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that we traveled anywhere and everywhere at the drop of a hat. We never managed to go skiing in the Alps.

Eddy

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