When we were in Germany three years ago, we got ‘schnitzel-ed out’ about three-quarters of the way through the trip. So this time we skipped the schnitzel; until tonight, when one of us ordered ‘Classic Wiener Schnitzel’ in the hotel restaurant. At first it tasted good, but half-way through, that schnitzeled out feeling returned. Apparently after three years, you need a little booster shot and then you are good for a while more.

The real news of the day is that we returned the car to the factory. It was pretty dirty after 21 days on the road. We’re not sure when we’ll see it again. It goes from the factory to the port where it will wait until they have a full boat-load. Then it sails to San Diego and gets trucked to WA. Last time it took about eight weeks.

Overall we drove 4,673 kilometers, or 2,897 miles. Compare that to our trip last year from Seattle to San Diego and back. That would have been 2,500 miles if we drove direct. It was 3,300 with all of our side-trips. As another comparison, it’s just over 3,000 from Seattle to Boston, by car.

We drove a total of 61 hours and 37 minutes. The car tracks all of this data for us. We got 21.4 mpg according to the car; our own data says we got 20.8 mpg. We had gas in the tank when we dropped off the car, so to Day 23’s fill-up, we used 119 gallons of gasoline at a total cost of $1,058. That’s $8.89 per gallon. While that seems really expensive, we once paid over $6 for half-liter bottles of water.

Here is a graph of mileage for the days we had the car:

Day 3	Leipzig to Berlin
Day 5	Berlin to Copenhagen
Day 6	Day trip around Zealand, the island Copenhagen is on
Day 8	Day trip to Malmö Sweden
Day 9	Copenhagen to Stockholm
Day 12	Stockholm to Oslo
Day 16	Oslo to Bergen
Day 18	Bergen to Flåm
Day 19	Flåm to Sarpsborg, Norway
Day 20	Sarpsborg to Växjö, Sweden
Day 21	Day trip around Växjö
Day 22	Växjö to Copenhagen
Day 23	Copenhagen to Leipzig
Day 24	Leipzig hotel to Porsche Werk

The best drives were through the mountainous parts of Norway. Being above the tree line was amazing. The drive out of Flåm provided some amazing views of the fjords. We have a bunch of photos from both days on the Smugmug site. The drive from Copenhagen to Stockholm was great too in part because we came to realize how good the car is. It can really hammer on the Autobahn in Germany but crossing about 400 miles of Sweden showed how good a cruiser it is. We were quite fresh after seven hours of driving. The iPad/iPod integration is neat. The seats are really adjustable and comfortable. And they have fans to cool your buns while you drive!

There were a few niggling things the factory and/or dealer will have to tend to. But overall, it’s an awesome vehicle. We’re already planning a long drive in it in the US next summer.

After dropping off the car we took a taxi to the Leipzig airport. It’s a bit like the airport in Boise, overbuilt for the traffic it gets. It’s nice, just empty. The flight to Frankfurt was short, less than an hour. We kicked around the hotel and terminal for a while and are getting to bed early tonight so we can get out early in the AM for our flight home.