Which Way Through Customs?

Largely an uneventful day. After a quick breakfast, we grabbed a large taxi – basically a minivan – and loaded up for the drive to Bremerhaven to retrieve our RV. We were tempted to take the train…. But… that would require more manhandling of our luggage and we were tired of it!

We arrived around 11:30 and were on our way around 1:30 – not too bad as it can take half a day or more, especially when you arrive at lunch time. No damage to the unit. Biggest issues are propane (it’s all but empty) and learning to drive over here.

We did mis-read the signage at customs and had to stop outside the customs checkpoint and walk back in to the office. They were very nice about it – followed me out to the vehicle to check the VIN and then stamping our paperwork and sending us along on our way with a chortle. They didn’t check what was inside the unit and they didn’t try to assess more taxes – to our surprise, it was a very simple, 5-minute transaction. Made us wonder why we didn’t ship the darn thing loaded to the gills. =)

We found our way fairly easily to the camp ground, Ehrlongspark Spaedner See. They have a Gasthouse on site, but don’t serve food until 17:00. We were all starving and it was 2 hours before food would be available. After a phone call for the taxi to take us to the bus (those were the directions), we learned we were maybe 1km from shopping. So – tired and hungry, we set out for a much needed walk. One problem – neither of us had a 1Euro coin for the shopping basket. We purchased whatever we could carry, having also to account for the fact that we needed to eat dinner and breakfast, but had no plates or cookware. =) Bread, cheese, eggs, bananas, wine – all set, right? How are you gonna cook eggs with no skillets? We made out just fine - new found requirement to get a lot of shopping done tomorrow (Thursday).