Based on Scientifically Proven & Peer Reviewed theories

that all work and no pampering would turn The Old Dog ( @kus-knee )

and myself, @oneupontime, into dull boys,

we decided that a pit stop at Kellner's Spa in Badenweiler, Germany on our way back from the Bits n' Pretzels Founders Festival in Munich last Fall was definitely called for.

---

I had flown over to Switzerland from Canada

to meet up with @kus-knee. Then he and I had driven up to Bits & Pretzels https://www.bitsandpretzels.com/ in Munich. We wanted to meet the Bitshares-Munich team in person. The team would be manning a booth at the giant tech startup conference in order to introduce their BLOCKPAY payment system to the world.

The Old Dog is always quite the keener, as you can easily tell from his blog posts at https://steemit.com/@kus-knee as well as from the photo below lol.

Both of us were very interested in BLOCKPAY tokens. These tokens were launched by OpenLedger for Bitshares-Munich and are traded on the BitShares DEX (distributed exchange - you never need to trust your assets to a centralized exchange again! What a relief!).

BitShares is a sister blockchain of Steem, both use Graphene technology. Those of you already having a BitShares wallet, you will find BLOCKPAY to be a featured market. Steemians who are new to BitShares and trading might want to start here: https://bitshares.openledger.info

But we were there to be steemit ambassadors too! ^^

We wore our custom steemit gear with pride everywhere we went - at the conference as well as throughout Munich and at Oktoberfest beer gardens.

And you just never know if you are going to spot a whale.................

Actually, the fishing was excellent if you knew where to look:

Some of us knew where to look!

Isn't that Erik Voorhees, below left, famous founder of Satoshi Dice? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SatoshiDice
and of ShapeShift? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeShift
Beside him, isn't that @kencode and @xeroc ?
The Old Dog and I were definitely trolling interesting waters!

But conferencing and networking can be exhausting during Oktoberfest

Noisy, too!

So, conference ended, we were quite ready to leave Munich and head over for some peaceful R&R a few hours away in Badenweiler.

"Badenweiler is a health resort and spa in the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, historically in the Markgräflerland. It is 28 kilometers by road and rail from Basel, 10 kilometers from the French border, and 20 kilometers from Mulhouse. The permanent population is about 600; the nearest big city on the German side of the border is Freiburg, about 30 kilometers away. Badenweiler lies at the western edge of the Black Forest. It is sheltered by the Blauen, 1,164 m (3,820 ft), and the climate is excellent.[clarification needed] Its parish (Evangelical) church (1897) was built at the foot of an 11th-century castle which belonged to the margraves of Baden and was destroyed by the French during the wars of Louis XV." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badenweiler

However, when The Old Dog tried to get reservations for a hotel in Badenweiler,

he had one hell of a time. Everything was either booked up or, for us, outrageously expensive.

Finally he tried Kellner's Spa. Not only did they have rooms for the 5 days we needed, but they were very reasonable to boot! When he looked on-line for reviews of Kellner's however, prospects appeared a little gloomier. The one and only comment in English regarding Kellner's (the rest were all in German) was BAD! The reviewer had definitely not liked the facilities or service.

What were we to do? It was the only place that had both available rooms and was affordable. With some trepidation, he made reservations.

The moment of truth arrived!

In "Taking a Break - Part 2"

I will take you inside the spa, and show you how we managed to suffer through our 5 days of R&R :-)

Hint: You can't always trust reviews - not even bad ones.

Sometimes Life hands you amazingly pleasant surprises!

• All photos courtesy @twiceuponatime