Oh, and here's the car Mike hired. It's a fine young Mercedes, quite spacious, luxurious, and comfortable. Many bells and whistles, such as advanced KIT-style curb-feelers, GPS, and headlights that turn corners with the steering wheel. You can see Mike is quite happy to pose with it. But, as with all technological forays into the world of convenience, this Benzo in places has gone too far. Like Windows XP, it just barely crosses the line where helpfulness begins to piss you off. For instance, every 15 minutes or the stereo interrupts whichever Kraftwerk CD we're listening to in favor of a traffic report from the local radio station. We can neither understand these reports nor figure how to de-activate them. All in all, though, a bitchin' ride. As the sun rose on our drive out of Trier, driving down narrow streets lined with centuries- and millennia-old buildings, I decided to try and heighten my travel-induced cognitive dissonance by popping in NWA's "Straight Outta Compton." Umm . . . it worked. A little too well. As we hit the Autobahn, I decided to retreat to safer territory: KRAFTWERK! (Video of Autobahn with Kraftwerk coming soon!)

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