Rude as you like!

The day of my birthday was spent in a town called Rudesheim - which because of this story is how I remember where I was! After taking a little train from the ship up the hill to the mechanical musical instrument museum

and here we met "Gretal the Grinder"

our tour guide who showed us around the museum. She was dressed in olde worlde clothes and was as happy as Larry! She showed about 40 of us into a small and airless room where we watched her crank an old monkey grinding music machine. At first it was great - we're all thinking imagine music in those days....... how funny now we have iPods etc..... then as she played her 5th song and said with too much enthusiasm for the 5th time - "Please feel free to dance if you feel you want to" - we all looked at each other in that collective concerned way where you all realise at the same time that you have in fact been locked in an airless, windowless room with a nut.

We finally got out of that room, but were then subjected (even thought it was quite interesting) to a number of other airless rooms, where she played just as enthusiastically calling out he old catchcry "Dance if you feel like it" the last room naturally led into the museum shop where my Jenny bought me a beautiful music box that plays "Love Story" for my birthday.

Next...... Jen and I took off up the cable car to the top of the highest hill that overlooks the Rhine Gorge and the amazing town of Rudesheim - hills covered in grape vines.

And at the top of the mounting - this amazing statue of Germania - a symbol of the unification of Germany.

Jen and I then went to lunch..... and here comes the crux of the story..... we order from this surley waitress, who is, I'll admit, made to dress up in a traditional costume - but that is still no fault of mine. We consume a beautiful lunch and listen to some wonderful music and sip a couple of well earned German beers.... then Jen got up to pay the nice lady who has not even come close to a smile the whole time we're there, and I slowly saunter off into the street to browse the shops whilst I wait. I had only got about a metre away from the restaurant and was (hardly running away) looking into the shop window when our happy happy waitress came running around the corner (nearly running into me) and said, quite loudly I might add, "You haven't paid!" To which I replied - yes, my mother is paying inside now." Without a word - she spun around on her heels and flew inside. I followed to make sure all was ok. When I got there and Jen was signing the docket the waitress avoided eye contact with me, even though I was clearly wanting to make eye contact with her. I wanted an apology. Even something small like maybe....."Oops, sorry about that. We sometimes get people who do runners and even though you don't look like the type of person who would do that sort of thing, I just have to be safe - but I really shouldn't have spoken to you like that and whilst I'm being honest here - I really should have smiled whilst serving you and made you feel a little bit more welcome in the establishment in which I work....." something like that. She was giving me absolutely nothing. I was being denied the verbal recognition of a waitress in a small German village who I was pretty much guaranteed never to see again that I was actually an honest person. As we left, I pulled out the only gun I had left - sarcasm. And as I passed her cleaning up our table and in ear shot of the people at the next table who had seen the whole shamozle I said, "You have yourself a really nice day, won't you?" to which she replied with a little bit of surprise, a smile and not an ounce of sarcasm "Oh, thank you - bye" - completely genuine! Happy as you like..... Rude as you like!

On the way back to the ship, we passed this sign - any ideas as to what it might mean and any guesses as to why they would need such a sign?