Kindersitze

While the rest of us are in the Imax at the Technik Museum, Lambert volunteers to do a little online research–on my laptop, of course, using the Museum’s broadband. His research skills prove to be quite impressive–which makes me a lot less likely to doubt, for example, his account of the murder of Godfrey the Hunchback, which some historians have called sensational and melodramatic. Anyway, Lambert produces convincing evidence that German child safety laws are very strict indeed. Although Bruno says that contemporary laws don’t apply to Conrad–an opinion that wins him an admiring smile from Bertha–I decide that the risk is too great. If Conrad’s going to ride in my minivan, he’s going to use a car seat. An EU approved car seat. No more questions. That’s the way it’s going to be.

Pretty soon I’m driving past the cathedral again, looking for a Neckermanns store that’s supposed to be around here someplace.

Guess who springs for a 129 euro Ferrari kindersitz?

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Next in Main Story:
Bertha Begs Empress Agnes to See Her Excummunicated Son
Next in the Blogger’s Tale:
Bad Ideas on Vespas

Leaving Speyer: The Technik Museum

Well, Henry was right–on the way out of Speyer, heading back to the A6 autobahn, you go right past the big Technik Museum. And if you’ve got a 3-year-old boy in the front passenger seat of your rented minivan (I still haven’t figured out what the rules are over here–for all their scholarship, Bruno and Lambert profess complete ignorance of German child safety laws, and Bertha still hasn’t said a word to anyone except her son), you really don’t have a choice but to stop, especially when Conrad starts shouting “aereo! aereo!”…

So here’s the budget for this stop: Henry had given me 20 euros to take little Conrad to the Technik Museum. (I know, I know–it was really my money, and Henry was just giving me a kickback from the payment he had just extorted out of me, but the weird thing was, it felt like something else–like I had these special Imperial funds in my pocket.) But of course it turns out that kids under 5 get free admission to the museum, so even with the 7 euro ticket to the Imax, you might think I’d be ahead 13 euros, right? Hah! That would be because you forgot about the four adults in the Opel! Adult admission is 13 euros, plus the Imax tickets at 9 euros each, and nobody but yours truly made the slightest move to pay. (I’m beginning to understand what it means to go on vacation with two monks and the royal family.)

So basically we’re talking 95 euros, of which 20 had been “given” me by Henry, so even if I accept the fiction of Henry’s beneficence, and deduct the charges for my own tickets (I did enjoy myself), I’m still down 53 euros, plus the 200 (or should it be 180?–this feudal finance is getting confusing) that I had already given Henry.

Anyway, it’s great museum, it even has a Space Shuttle, which floated up the Rhine, on a barge.

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Next in Main Story:
Henry Learns of Godrey’s Murder
Next in the Blogger’s Tale:
Kindersitze