New Jack City: Jack Back from Europe Despite Getting Poisoned & Condom Scare

Plans for crisp roasted goose on Thanksgiving Day though went awry…

That’s because three days prior to my planned feast I came down with a severe case of food poisoning. Bad enough that my Frankfurt hotel had to change my room. I guess my Exorcist-like activities didn’t go well with housekeeping.

With prices sky high across the pond these days, they say that getting there is the cheapest part of a European vacation. Unless, of course, you treat yourself to a free first class roundtrip ticket as I did. More about that later. 

As for today’s living costs in places like Germany, at an average exchange rate of $1.40 to the Euro plus inflation, costs are high in just about every imagineable catagory. For example:

A gallon of gasoline – make that a liter – goes for between 1.50 and 1.75 Euros. Now multiply that x 4 for dollars and you’re paying in the unbelievable neighborhood of $8.50 per gallon!

It doesn’t stop there.

You may think that our average sales taxes of between 8% and 9.5% seem high, but they’re nothing compared to most Euro Zone nations where the sales tax on just about any product is 19% (the exception being certain necessity grocery items and medicines).

One highlights of my trip included visits to the former West Berlin refugee camps I was processed through and lived in after escaping from East Germany. I went to the spectacular Dom Cathedral in Colone and the St. Thomas Church in my hometown of Leipzig where Johann Sebastian Bach is buried.

I ran into into New Moon star Robert Pattinson and Twilight‘s Taylor Lautner in Berlin where they were on a world-wide publicity stop for ‘Breaking Dawn.’ OK, so that wasn’t that big a deal.

It was sweet crossing the Atlantic in first class splendor, especially since I didn’t have to pay for it.

I never would’ve been able to afford the nearly $8,000 tickets, I used frequent flyer miles instead. I used 100,000 going east on Continental and 125,000 for the return on Delta. Or was it the other way around?

What I got for that?

Incredible wide space and super plush seats that turn into completely stretched out beds as well as a full entertainment center. And the food was ALL GOURMET. For dinner alone I think it must’ve been a seven course serving on both airlines, with the booze and champagne flowing freely. Not to mention all the other special extras the carriers throw in.

Almost forgot…

Those ever present mini-bars in the better hotel rooms. Used to be they carried nothing but beer, wine and pop. Then they added other high-profit items like pretzels, mints and nuts. And a few years ago many hotels converted these little profit centers to sensor activated mini-bars. This often posed problems for me when I cheaped out and stored some of my own cold items in these small fridges.

Was I ever surprised to find that many European hotels have added boxes of condoms to their mini-bars!

So to make room for some food items purchased earlier in the day I had to move some of the hotel’s soda bottles—and the condoms.

And you guessed it.

When I checked out, the front desk attendant gleefully announced— loud enough for everyone to hear—an add-on charge of seven Euros for condoms.

"No sir, I didn’t buy them. I just moved them," I responded.

"Well, OK then Mr. Poessiger. I hope your stay with us was gratifying anyway."

It was.