1 November: Our Thrilling Farewell to the Nürburgring

November 1^st (All Saints’ Day) is a national holiday in Germany, and ever since our disastrous visit to the Nürburgring in October, we had been eyeing this holy day as potentially our last opportunity to return to the Ring before winter set in. (Well, disastrous might be a bit too strong, since we didn’t crash the car or anything, but it was a terribly disappointing way to end our string of otherwise-successful trips to the track, and John was determined to tally up a few more laps.) Fortunately our fearless Ringmeister Jürgen was able to get away for the day as well, so the three of us met up at the Grüne Hölle one more time on this damp, gray Thursday morning. This time Jürgen came in his old Honda hatchback with his 7-year-old son Timo in tow. Yes, Timo was going out on the Ring today! (In his car seat in the back seat with a helmet on, of course.) The first thing we noticed when we arrived was that the parking lot was about half as full as usual and there were hardly any motorcycles: good sign. Jürgen explained that many motorcyclists in Germany have seasonal licenses that expire on October 31^st, so our decision to come today was quite fortuitous.

Suffice it to say that the day turned out just about perfectly. John began his first lap following Jürgen, who quickly got away from us. Yes, you read right, Jürgen tore off in his crappy Honda. At one point I could swear that one of his rear wheels came off the ground. Over the course of the day, I put in three solid laps and John did five, putting his lifetime Ring total at 21 laps and mine at 20 (he had to have more than me, you see). Traffic was minimal and accidents were few. The clouds didn’t lift much over the course of the day, but the road stayed dry. I had an annoying exchange with an old seafoam green Opel whose driver apparently didn’t like being passed. I passed him, he passed me, and I passed him again. Some folks just don’t know when they’re beaten. John had one very exciting lap in which he chased down a silver BMW Z4. The BMW driver was obviously new to the track and kept taking a bad line, so even though his car was much faster than ours, John had a good chance at overtaking him. Unfortunately this meant that every time John got close to passing him, the BMW did something stupid (there’s nothing more dangerous on the Nürburgring than an inexperienced driver with a big ego in a fast car). I kept telling John not to follow too closely, because I was terrified that the BMW would make a catastrophic mistake and we would get tangled up in the mess. Finally John’s patience paid off and we successfully passed the Z4 and were able to gain some considerable ground ahead of him by the end of the lap. A Ring photographer managed to capture the moment on film, and we now have a memorable head-on photo of the SLK taking a sharp left-hand curve with the Z4 close behind.

We had our traditional lunch at Bike World, where we partook one last time of the excellent Schnitzel and browsed the cool rides in the shop. In the afternoon we needed to buy one more two-lap ticket so we could each get in our final laps. While we were waiting in line, a German guy came around offering to sell us a two-lap ticket for 30 Euro (a savings of several Euro). John was very suspicious so we had the guy at the ticket booth confirm that there were indeed two laps left on the ticket. On our final lap, I took some video clips, which I have strung together to provide a partial representation of a lap of the Ring. You’ll hear me reading instructions to John off our track notes (I’d like to point out that reading track notes and taking video at the same time is no small feat). At around minute 3:50 you will see a note appear on the video referring to an orange flag (which isn’t quite visible in this low-resolution version) and you can barely hear John say, “Put that down,” because he doesn’t want anyone to see that I am holding a camera. (Taking pictures and video while on the Ring is strictly forbidden, but I decided to take the risk on our last go-round.) At that point we passed an accident, but this lap was actually one of the cleanest we ever experienced on the track. You’ll only see four other cars in the whole video (three Porsches and a Suzuki). The video is about five minutes long and covers about one-third of the entire length of the track.

It was an exhilarating day and we didn’t want to leave. We knew that we would not return to the Ring for a very long time, if ever, and never again in our “own” car. (Next time we’ll be the ones in the “Rent-a-Racecar” that the locals jeer at.) The Nürburgring is like no other driving experience on the planet, and we will savor the memories of our five visits there (in three different cars – the smart forfour Brabus, E-Class, and SLK) with great fondness.

Jürgen had invited us to join his parents, who live about an hour away, for an early dinner after our day at the track. We met up in a small town near the Autobahn and had a lovely meal in a traditional German restaurant. Jürgen’s father was an English teacher in Finland when Jürgen was young; he sat next to John and they spoke English all night while I spoke German with Jürgen’s mother! It was an enjoyable meal and a nice way to end the day. After that, we said our farewells and made the three-hour drive back to Stuttgart.

More photos from the Ring:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604141684917/

7 October: Disappointment at the Nürburgring

Our fourth trip to the Nürburgring did not get off to an auspicious start. We thought we were being very clever when we anticipated a detour on the Autobahn that we had run into on our trip to Rallye Deutschland in August, and we got off at the appropriate exit despite the rather obscure detour signs. It was not until we were nearly to Trier that I took out the map and realized that we were going the wrong way…we were, in fact, heading almost due west towards the Mosel Valley and not north as we should have been. We should never have taken the detour, but stayed on our previous course for another hour or so. We had simply been on autopilot since we had so recently been up that way for the Rallye. Instead of backtracking, we ended up going past Trier and then cutting back northeast to get to Nürburg, which added about forty-five minutes to our trip.

We probably should have guessed what the day would be like when we arrived at the Nürburgring around 10:00 and found ourselves…stuck in traffic. A long line of cars was backed up on the road just waiting to get into the entrance to the carpark, which could mean only one thing: the track was closed due to an accident. We parked in the already-crowded overflow grass lot and went in search of Jürgen. He was, naturally, hanging out in the parking lot checking out the hardware. He told us that he had gotten two laps in on his bike before we arrived, but that it was about as crowded as he had ever seen it. We joined the throngs of people milling around the entrance gates. Cars and motorcycles were squeezed into every available space, some just inches apart.

We bought an 8-lap ticket and I took a moment to take a photo of the “General Terms and Conditions for Driving on the Nürburgring” posted outside the ticket booth, which includes the following excerpt from the German Road Traffic Regulations, section 3, paragraph 1 (I should point out that these are the same conditions that apply when driving on the Autobahn):

Drivers are only allowed to drive at a speed where they are always in control of their vehicle. This speed must be suitable for the road, traffic, vision and weather conditions at the time of driving, as well as being within the range of the personal abilities of the driver and appropriate to the capacity of the vehicle and its load.

I wonder how many people take the time to ponder these terms before taking their shiny new BMW or Porsche out on the track for the first time.

When the announcement came that the track was reopened, we hurried back to the car and got in line once more. We hadn’t moved more than fifty feet when the track was closed again. This was starting to look bad…very bad. We went into the Grüne Hölle café for coffee; we came back out and wandered around some more. There were an astonishing number of foreign plates in the parking lot – dozens of drivers had come down from England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and as far away as former Soviet states to lay down tread on the ‘Ring this fine autumn day. We saw a group of middle-aged American guys clustered around a BMW emblazoned with www.Rent-Racecar.de. They had their helmets resting prominently on the hood and were talking and laughing amongst themselves. I thought they looked a bit fidgety.

The track finally opened again and I was able to squeeze in two laps (John was letting me drive first for once, so he could “re-familiarize” himself with the track.) Those were the two most harrowing laps I have yet made of the ‘Ring. Never before had we seen so much traffic, cars driving so close together, or so much palpable pent-up energy and frustration. It was a recipe for disaster. A cherry red Porsche actually had the nerve to pass me on the right, which is technically illegal, even though I am very good about pulling to the right to let people pass. I even use my signal, for goodness’ sake. Needless to say, it was not exactly fun. I spent more time looking in my rear-view mirror and trying to get out of the way of a never-ending series of Porsches than actually following the line and enjoying the road.

The closest John got to getting on the track himself today was when he made it nearly to the entrance gate; there were three cars in front of him when the closure announcement came over the loudspeakers. It was almost noon, so, frustrated, we pulled out of line and went off to Bike World to have lunch. It was a lovely day and we sat outside, enjoying our Schnitzel and sunshine, but on the inside we were fuming. We had driven three hours to get here, presumedly for our fourth and final trip to the ‘Ring, and our day was being ruined by a bunch of octane-crazed loonies who couldn’t drive within their limits.

At some point Jürgen managed to get in another lap while we were still parked in line, but then I got a text message from him saying that something was up and he needed to make a pit stop. We met him in the grass lot and he told us that he had been run off the track by some jerk. I didn’t believe him at first, but sure enough, his black leather suit was a bit scuffed. He had crashed, but not badly – his right turn signal was torn off and he damaged his brake lever. Completely unphased, he opened up his bag of tools, took out a spare part, and repaired his bike right then and there. He went out for one more lap, by which point it was about 3:00 in the afternoon, and then told us he was done for the day. I looked at John and said, “Maybe we should call it quits too.” We could always give our leftover laps to Jürgen, but in the back of my mind I was already figuring that we would find a way to come back for another try before winter set in. Jürgen said, “I think that is a very good idea.”

We said our farewells and then John and I stood there for a few more minutes, watching the traffic and pondering the unfairness of it all. We figured we could stick around for another hour or two, as the track wasn’t closing until 5:00, and hope that things calmed down a little bit. Then we both looked at each other and realized that without Jürgen, we would be seriously up a creek if anything happened to us out on the track. Given the way people were driving today, such an unattractive outcome was looking less and less far-fetched. John, finally resigned to the fact that he would go lapless on his fourth trip to the Nürburgring, agreed to call it a day. Disappointed, but already formulating a plan for our fifth trip, we headed for home.

Someone did manage to snatch a picture of me at some point during my two laps (photo, right). We also took a lot of photographs in all of our time wandering around while the track was closed, which I have posted on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157603913305760/

15 July: Der Nürburgring, Take Three

In preparation for our third round at the Nürburgring – and our first in the SLK – we stayed up until nearly midnight last night watching videos from YouTube of people doing laps of the course and writing ourselves a set of detailed track notes. This was to be our first time venturing out on the track without Jürgen, our personal guide, so we were a bit freaked out. The co-driver (a.k.a. front passenger) is responsible for calling out information about upcoming turns and where to be on the track, rally style. Our carefully developed track notes thus consist of five pages of instructions that go something like this (the words in parentheses are names of turns):

• Approaching BRIDGE – stay middle right
• FAST LEFT; mid-apex; drift right to DIP, then left to curb
• FAST LEFT
• FAST RIGHT; mid-apex, drift left (TIERGARTEN)
• Aim for crash barrier on left, then SLOW RIGHT, stay right (HOHENRAIN)
• SLOW LEFT, mid-apex, to GP CIRCUIT, stay left
• SLOW RIGHT, mid-apex, exit left, then drift right

And that’s just the first thirty seconds or so. We practiced it over and over again, fine-tuning the details and arguing over whether a slight bend in the road constituted a real turn or not. It’s hard to get it just right, because you want to call out the instructions well before you get to the turn so you can position the car properly on the track, but not so far in advance that you forget what’s coming up next. Some turns come up so quickly, you barely have time to call anything out before you are on to the next turn and the next instructions. We knew it was going to be a serious challenge.

We had planned to meet Jürgen and Gert (who came along for the ride in the E-Class last time and would be driving his new Mini Cooper for the first time today) at the track around 9:00 this morning. We got off to a late start, however, because I insisted that we get a reasonable night’s sleep, seeing as how we had a three-hour drive before we even got to the track, and then we would need all of our wits about us for the Ring itself. When we finally arrived around 10:30, we knew it was going to be a crazy day because traffic was backed up along the access road leading to the entrance. The main lots were already full, so we had to park in the big dirt overflow lot nearby. By the time we got there, Jürgen and Gert had gone ahead and done a couple of laps in the Mini. Gert had a big grin on his face. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived, they announced over the broadcast system that the track was closed due to an accident. John bought us an 8-lap ticket and we all went into the Grüne Hölle café for a round of coffees (there’s nothing like a strong shot of caffeine to get you ready for the Ring) to wait for the track to reopen. Then we had to wait in yet another line to get from the parking lot to the entrance gate (photo, right; note Dutch BMW M3 in front of us and all the motorcycles cutting the line on the left).

We finally got out on the track and John did his first two laps. The SLK is a handful to say the least – woefully underpowered on the straightaways and climbs, but decent in tight corners and sweeping curves. Our track notes worked out pretty well, but it makes the experience rather miserable for the person serving as navigator. You have to focus all of your attention on the notes and you basically don’t get to experience the track at all. We noticed that there were very few “normal” cars on the course today, by which I mean your run-of-the-mill passenger cars and sport sedans. Nope, today it was all Porsche GT3s, BMW M3s, and Mitsubishi Evos (see photo of parking lot, above). In other words, today we were driving one of the lower-powered vehicles out there and we were getting passed right and left. We also saw an ancient beat-up VW bus that some guy had outfitted with a Porsche engine and brakes. He passed lots of people, including us.

When I took my turn at the wheel, it was all I could do to keep a halfway decent line while constantly watching in my rear-view mirror for overtaking traffic. It seemed like every last hot-headed Brit and Dutch guy possessing a reasonably fast car (with our without the experience necessary to drive it on a racetrack) had descended on the Ring today. It is extremely difficult to concentrate on technique when you are constantly having to pull over to let yet another Porsche or Evo pass. The fact that we have an Evo sitting at home in our garage in Michigan was never far from our minds. And as for my shifting…well, we just won’t talk about that. It was also miserably hot, and when I got out of the car after two laps, my back was completely soaked with sweat! I wouldn’t have cared except that all the other women were dressed in skimpy summer outfits and sandals and they gave me and my sweat-soaked shirt some odd looks. You can tell whether a woman is driving by the shoes she is wearing. Needless to say, I didn’t see any other women driving today.

We took a break for lunch around midday during yet another track closure. We went back to our usual lunch spot at Bike World for salads and pizzas on the terrace. It was Sunday, so sadly they didn’t have the shop open for the guys to salivate over the bikes. There was a bright orange Porsche GT3 with German plates in the parking lot, on which someone had scrawled in black (presumably washable) marker, among other things, this poignant thought: "To own a GT3 and never drive it on a track is like never f**k a supermodel."

Just as we arrived back at the track, we heard the telltale sound of the loudspeakers crackling – yes, it was closed again. John and I each managed to squeeze in one more lap, at which point I was starting to get more than a bit freaked out by the total insanity going on around us. I can manage my own driving just fine, it’s the lunatics passing me that I'm worried about. We drove over to one of the spectator areas to watch the madness for a while and got a couple of good video clips that might give a better picture than mere words can of the overall atmosphere on the track. It was getting on in the afternoon and the traffic was just getting crazier and crazier. The BMW M5 Ring Taxis were out in force and some of them were drifting around the turn in front of us, making for some pretty spectacular audiovisual effects.

Here's a video of a yellow Mitsubishi Evo and some other cars going by:

Here's a pretty crazy clip of a whole clump of cars coming around the turn together:

If you'd like to ride along for a lap of the Ring in a Mazda 3MPS, click here:

Lap of the Nürburgring

(You can also get this video off the Auto Express website and hear a bit of audio commentary from one of their reporters while watching the same lap. I can't get a direct link to the video to work, so you have to go to www.autoexpress.co.uk, type "Nurburgring" in the search box (without the umlaut or "ue") and it should come up with two videos, one of which is "Lap of the Nurburgring" from May 2007.)

Jürgen had squeezed in a few laps on his bike while Gert did a couple laps alone and even Jürgen admitted that it was pretty crazy out there today. I finally gave John a look and said, maybe we should save our last two laps for another day and just call it quits while we are ahead. Jürgen said, “That sounds like a very good idea,” so I knew it was a good idea, because if anyone knows a thing or two about taking risks, it’s Jürgen. John reluctantly agreed. We stayed to watch from the sidelines for a while longer and then packed up and headed out.

We had time on the way home to take the scenic route down the Rhine River. I have of course heard great things about the castles along the Rhine, but I had no idea there were so many of them! We got off the Autobahn near Boppard and headed down the west side of the river, through the picture-perfect villages of Sankt Goar, Oberwesel, and Bacharach. I know many people prefer the quiet serenity of the Mosel to the Rhine, but what the Rhine Valley lacks in scenic vineyards it makes up for in impressive fortresses and crumbling ruins. We must have passed close to a dozen castles in that stretch of no more than 50 km – Burg Sterrenberg, Burg Liebenstein, Burg Maus, Burg Katz, Burg Rheinfels, Burg Marksburg (photo, right), Alte Burg, Burg Schönburg (which I recognized as a highly-recommended castle hotel), Burg Gutenfels, Burg Pfalz (the famous castle on an island in the middle of the Rhine, from which river tolls were collected)…it was unbelievable! We didn’t have time to stop, so I had to make do with snapping quick photos out the window and making John promise to come back sometime before we leave Germany. We took a pretty road over the hills back to Rheinböllen, where we hooked up with the Autobahn again and headed home.

We came away today with our Ring Fever somewhat satiated and, as always, in awe of the challenges of the Nürburgring, although with less respect for some of the idiots who choose to drive it!

13 May: Return of the Ring Fever!

We were up bright and early to prepare for our departure for the Nürburgring. Gert drove up in his new dark silver convertible Mini at seven o’clock sharp and we all piled into the E-Class for the three-hour drive. I took the backseat and caught a few minutes of shuteye en route while John and Gert talked about Chrysler rumors and the thrills of working at Mercedes.

When we were about an hour away I turned on my cell phone to call Jürgen and found that he had already called me and left a text message. I called him back and told him we were 70 km away. He was staying with his family about 45 minutes from the track, so he said he would meet us at the Grüne Hölle (the restaurant at the entrance gate) at 10:00. We had to backtrack to find gas on the Autobahn so we arrived a few minutes late. (John insisted on finding a gas station where he could use his DaimlerChrysler credit card, as he wants to milk Mercedes for every penny!) I simply had to take this picture at the gas station (right) of a McDonald's, a strip club (the sign below "Erotic" says Erdbeermund, or "Strawberry Mouth") and a 24-hour casino, just to prove that the global decline in moral values is evident even in Germany.The weather was looking good – cool with some patchy clouds. The parking lot was not as busy as last time and we found a parking space easily, then located Jürgen socializing with some other bikers outside the restaurant. He was wearing a black leather one-piece Alpinestars suit, which he had to wear all day because he didn’t bring a change of clothes. He was riding his slightly battered blue-and-orange Yamaha, as he subscribes to the philosophy that one should not spend a fortune on one’s motorcycles, especially when one frequents the Nürburgring. (Remember, this is the guy who couldn’t tell me how many times he has crashed on the track!) Needless to say, despite the old bike, I would not be surprised if he was one of the faster guys out there today.

John was going to buy a 4-lap ticket at first but Jürgen convinced him to buy an 8-lap ticket since it is more economical and Jürgen could always use any laps that we had left over on another day. The photo at right shows the booth where you buy your tickets. If you want to pay cash you can use the Kassenautomat out front. John drove first, of course, with Jürgen as his trusty co-pilot. The next photo shows the entrace gate, with emergency workers and an ambulance waiting on the sidelines. Less than two minutes into our first lap we saw our first crash of the day – a dark green Lexus SC that some guy had slammed up against the wall only moments before. (We ended up seeing fewer crashes today than last time – a BMW Z3 that spun out and scraped the wall and a minor motorcycle accident, and two more that I will discuss later.) Jürgen must have been a little tired this morning because he kept mixing up right and left. Fortunately his hand signals are always on the mark and his most useful guidance is whether the next turn is “fast” (meaning you can coast through it without breaking or even accelerate a little) or “less fast” (meaning you need to tap the brakes), or “ very tight” (meaning you’d better slow down or you are going to end up slammed up against the wall just like that BMW!).

John did his laps with the traction control off and used the paddle shifters to manually override the automatic transmission. This can be tricky because once you have shifted manually, you have to hold the “up” paddle for a couple seconds before it switches back to fully automatic mode. The E-Class performed surprisingly well with four people in it – the tires had excellent grip, and the suspension, while a bit softer than we would prefer, held up to the rough-and-tumble nature of the track and was not so squishy that we were being thrown around too much in the back. The photo at right is a John's-eye-view of the final straightaway. After two laps, we decided to take a break and let the brakes cool off. John, Gert and I had coffee in the restaurant while Jürgen did a lap on his bike. He was back in no time at all, and then we watched some of the paddock action for a while. The BMW M5 “Ring Taxis” were out today but there was no sign of Sabine Schmidt, the "Queen of the 'Ring." There was also a bright red Viper taking individuals out for the tidy sum of 270 Euro per lap! We went out for two more laps as a light rain began to fall. I never looked at my watch once today, so I have no idea what kind of times we were doing - which is for the best. On one lap John came up on a bright orange PT Cruiser with flames painted on its sides; he went to pass on the left in a curvy section and we had our only real scare of the day – the PT Cruiser started drifting towards us and we barely made it, John had to cut the corner really tight, and we barely made it through cleanly.

We stopped again just after noon, and drove over to the Bike World shop where we had lunch last year. I had my favorite “death by schnitzel” – breaded pork smothered in mushroom cream sauce, with a pile of salty french fries and a side salad. Jürgen insisted on buying our lunch since he used one of our laps. After lunch we returned to the paddock area, I visited the restroom one last time (how could I forget Jürgen’s warning from last year about not getting into an accident with a full bladder?), and then hopped into the driver’s seat for my first turn around the ‘Ring. The rain had disappeared and the track was pretty clear. I must say I had butterflies in my stomach as I stuck the card into the reader, but as soon as that gate opens you are fully committed! I had already decided not to worry about shifting and just focus on my line. I also left the traction control on, which did wonders – I could barely tell I was driving a rear-wheel drive car; in fact, it felt uncannily similar to my old Audi A4, only, well, a bit bigger.

As usual, Jürgen’s calm instructions made the experience much more enjoyable than it would be without a guide. By this time I knew I could trust him when he said a turn was “fast,” but it is still hard to let yourself plough full-speed into a turn when you can’t see through to the other side (or over the crest of the next hill). I agreed with John that the 20.8-km track didn’t feel quite as endless as it did on our first visit, and driving an automatic was much easier.

After two laps we stopped for another break and were chatting in the paddock when we heard them announce over the loudspeakers that the track had to be closed due to an accident (we later found out that it involved two cars and no injuries). Not knowing how long it would take to clean up, we decided to drive over to the Formula 1 track to take a look around. Unfortunately the café there was closed so we didn’t get to look out at the track, but we wandered around a bit and visited the fan shop (where John and I bought a hat and three posters). On the way back we drove up the hill to Burg Nürburg, a very atmospheric castle with pointy turrets, where Gert bought a postcard and stole a piece of the castle (he collects both).

We could hear cars running from the castle, so we knew the track was open again. We drove back to the paddock and I headed out for my third and final lap of the day. Gert says he thought I was as fast as John on that last lap. It was exhilarating (even if I did get passed by about six motorcycles that made me feel like I was standing still)! When we got back to the paddock we saw a silver E-Class wagon come limping into the carpark with a smashed-up front fender. The car was packed with people and a trunk-load of luggage. It looked like some family had decided to take a spin around the Ring on their vacation and gotten into a spot of trouble. We also saw an S-Class and a couple of C-Classes in the parking lot but I don’t think we saw a single SLK today. There seemed to be a lot of BMWs and Audis, the usual garishly colored Porsche GT3s, a couple of Evos, a couple of Lotuses, and quite a few Ford Foci, but not quite the level of exotica that we had seen on our last visit. We did pass a tour bus on the track again, but the prize for slowest passenger car of the day must go to the slate blue Citröen 2CV!

Jürgen was itching to take another lap or two on his bike, and he wanted us to get some pictures of him, but he hesitated because he felt that he would be trying to impress us and might do something stupid. I pointed out that if he was going slower I would get better pictures of him. Finally his Ring fever got the best of him and we followed him over to one of the spectator viewing areas, where he left us, promising to come back after “one lap, maybe two.” We were at the 16 km point on the course so we had to try to estimate how long it would take him to ride back to the paddock, buy a ticket, and get to our point on the track. We watched anxiously with eyes peeled, hoping we would recognize his bright red helmet coming over the crest of the hill. As it turns out he was pretty easy to spot and I got a good sequence of photos while John took a video. (Note how ridiculously far he leans over in the turn; yes, that is his knee brushing the track in the second photo.) Unfortunately I didn’t have my zoom with me – if we manage to come back one more time with Jürgen, I will be sure to bring it. We weren't surprised at all when he came around again about eight minutes later, and when he returned to our viewing spot he was grinning from ear to ear. We hung out there for a while longer so he could cool off and then decided to call it a day, as it was approaching 5:00. We said our goodbyes to Jürgen and he extended an open invitation for us to come to his house and “drive” the Nürburgring on his Playstation setup, complete with an old Mercedes R-Class seat, steering wheel, and pedals. (All kidding aside, this is actually a great way to get to know the track safely and practice at the same time!)

The drive home was uneventful. Frau Dörr walked Cody for us today but he was still quite happy to see us when we got home just after 8:00.