We are parked up at a beautiful campground next to a small river near one of our favorite towns in Germany. We are going to meet two of Tons best friends from Thailand on Tuesday in a town near here. When I told Ton that the town was near Bamberg she said that it was one of her favorite towns and we should go back there. Bamberg has over 200 breweries near it, and also good food. Bamberg also has the campground that has the best showers we have found in Europe. So our plans for the next couple of days are settled, some beer, some good German food, and long showers.
I said yesterday that our plan for today was to visit a military commissary in Weisbaden to stock up on some American goodies. After going to one military base near our campground and only finding a small 7-11 type store, we discovered that the main shopping was on another base about 20 minutes away. As a retiree from the military we have commissary and exchange privileges as part of the retirement package. But, some countries have put restrictions on access to these facilities as part of the basing agreement, on the theory that people using them should use local groceries. We ran into that in Spain as they have restricted usage to them to active duty military. We expected no problem today because we have shopped in the commissary in Germany twice before, and the exchange several times. So we had filled a small shopping cart with American goodies, when we went to pay at the self-checkout aisle, I showed the clerk my military ID and was getting ready to scan our first item when he asked “where is your pink card”. I told him I didn’t have a pink card and didn’t know what it was. He said that without a pink card we were forbidden to use the base facilities and we could not purchase anything or the German customs would fine the Army. This was news to us as we had freely used both the commissary and exchanges several times when passing thru Germany. I didn’t doubt him, but I did not like his officiousness, he seemed to enjoy blocking us from using the facility a little too much for my liking. It turns out there is a provision in the basing agreement with the Germans that prohibits people who are not based in Germany or permanent residents of Germany from using military stores. However, the pink card is very rarely checked as so few of the customers are like us, that’s why we have never been checked before. Unfortunately, this time we ran into a guy who enjoyed being a pink card cop.
After our shopping disappointment we got onto the road to Bamberg and arrived mid-afternoon. We decided on a day of rest before heading into one of our favorite towns tomorrow.