We took 9 people from our shop to the Frankfurt auto show for our tenth anniversary of being in business. My partner and his wife were both Germans and the way we traveled and slept around southern Germany for the next week could not have been done without a serious German speaking guide. We stayed in Guesthaus's (sp? more than one) that often didn't speak English. It wouldn't have mattered to our trips through the Porsche or MB factories or museums or probably regular Holiday Inn type accomodations, but to get a picture of the real country having a German guide is most necessary or was 17 years ago.

I found it so important that I'll probably never go back as the situation will likely never reoccur as my partner died last winter and as a purely English speaker I would find it very annoying and humbling to not speak the language.

__________________
Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician