The World According to Gary: Gary's European Vacation, part 3

Here is the thrilling conclusion to my European vacation. I’d like to take a moment to thank Maverick and her husband for being awesome hosts during the ten-day trip. I had a great time on the other side of the pond and look forward to my next trip across the ocean, whenever that occurs.
--------------------------
The pace of the trip slowed down a little once we returned from Paris. We spent the day before Thanksgiving touring a castle near the Germany-Luxembourg border. Apparently, it was my second trip to this castle. My dad reminded me recently that I went to this castle back in 1999 during our family trip to Europe. And I thought that my memory was so awesome that I didn’t forget anything. D’oh.

Maverick and her husband made a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. It was without a doubt the tastiest Thanksgiving dinner I can remember. It was probably also the unhealthiest. The kick-ass sweet potato dish had three, count them three, sticks of butter in the recipe. Holy heart attack batman. Two married coupled from the air force base joined the four of us for dinner. Just to show how we live in a small world, one of the guests was raised in Southeast Michigan and was in the Michigan Marching band in the late 1990s. The lazy/yummy holiday was capped off with the traditional football laugher from the pathetic Lions. Has Matt Millen been fired yet?

The rest of the week was highlighted by a trip of the air force base where Maverick’s husband works and some wine tasting hilarity. We went to the house of Ernie. Ernie is well liked by the guys on the air force base. He grows grapes in the Mosel River Valley and produces/sells his own wine. The best way to describe Ernie is that he is a dirty old man. Very dirty, and very funny. Ernie told numerous raunchy jokes throughout our tasting session. My favorite was an analogy to describe the smell of the cork on a bottle of wine that had gone bad. I shall not repeat the joke here, but I invite Maverick to comment about it if she prefers. Ernie also believes that the only way to taste wine is to have a full glass. After tasting eight different wines, I was just a little drunk. By a little drunk, I could no longer taste the difference between each glass of win after the fourth glass, and I may or may not have chugged the last few glasses. It probably didn’t help that we skipped lunch either. At 5 euros a bottle, the wine was really good and really cheap. I bought a couple bottles of the 2003 Riesling that we tried first since it was my favorite wine from the day. The bottle I kept for myself is already finished! :)