Home Again

We finally made it home late last night, it felt even later than it actually was, cause our bodies were still on German time which made it like 6 in the morning before I went to bed. Unfortunately none of our luggage made it home with us. Not our souvenirs, dirty laundry, or toiletries. Needless to say I won't be leaving the house until it comes. They say our bags should be getting in at about 5 tonight, and then they will be transported to our house. The only shorts I have are my dirty ones I was wearing on the plane, and spent like 20 hours in those things.

Zach is disappointed because we can't give him his Eiffel tower yet. He's the only kid that asked for anything in particular. He said he wanted a little Eiffel tower, not the real one cause that would break the plane. Every day that we'd talk to him he'd ask about his Eiffel tower.

"Have you seen the Eiffel tower yet?"
"No, we're in London, That's in Paris."
(a couple days later)
"Did you buy my Eiffel tower yet?"
"Um, not today, we thought we'd do our shopping tomorrow."
(Next day)
"Did you buy my Eiffel tower yet?"
"YES. We bought your Eiffel tower."
I think once he even asked what color it was. But he probably asked about it every other day. The other kids just said "surprise me". And Christopher had no comprehension that we were going to be leaving him for ten days to travel to the other side of the world. He punished me when we got back, he plugged his ears with his thumbs and closed his eyes and wouldn't look at me for like 20 minutes.

So hopefully our stuff will come tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get some laundry done before Wednesday. The plan is to take off with the kiddos on Wednesday to Utah for about 10 days, we only bought grandma a one way ticket, so we need to get her home. That leaves me about 2 days to recuperate, clean the house, and pack, but the packing will have to wait until we get the suitcases.

Last day in Europe

Our trip to Germany would not be complete without a couple things, a concentration camp and a world famous beer hall. We headed in the direction of Munich, which is normally where most people visiting Germany go, not Frankfurt, although Frankfurt is at least registered in our travel guide, but only if you were spending like 3 weeks in Germany. Stuttgart did not. That's where our plane flew out of. We stopped by Dachau, for a depressing and sobering hour or so. It was a work camp where the Nazi's sent people they didn't like to work until they die. The first prisoners there were the leaders from the opposing political parties (if they weren't just assassinated first.) Also torture, humiliation, starvation etc. were other activities that went on there. It wasn't an extermination camp, but plenty of people died there. One interesting fact I learned is that because of their ugly history, most people don't display the German flag except in times of big national football (soccer) events. Also, most people don't know their national anthem. I kind of thought that was sad. I think they are still trying to find that balance between being proud of their country and who they are and separating themselves from the Nazi-fascist "we're gonna take over the world and everyone else is a second class citizen" mentality. From what I've picked up, most Germans weren't like that anyway, most were just ignorant of the goings on until it was too late, or really really scared. Nobody was safe.

The first sign is the plaque in memorial to the US soldiers who liberated the camp in 1945, It is just oust side the entrance to the place. The second picture is the infamous iron gate the prisoners walked through- the English translation is "work makes you free."

After that we stopped by this little family owned place for some lunch. Several things about eating in Germany deserve some comment in my opinion. First off, the price is the price. Tax and service is always included, so if you order a meal for 8 Euros, and a Coke for 2, then your total will be 10. That's it. None of this 10.72 nonsense. And mostly they don't mess around with the numbers- you rarely see 7.95, or 7.99 or anything. It was nice. I think I'm gonna lobby the restaurant commission or something and make them regulate that here. Also, since 15% tip is always included, the service is generally slow, but I didn't get the feeling that the waiters were lazy, they were generally rushing around. I think people in Europe spend more time eating, and talking, and relaxing over their meals than Americans. It's expected. McDonald's were everywhere, but that was about it as far as fast food or drive-thru's. Also, I think this little place was one of the few that spoke no English, you can tell when they write down your total and hand it to you- he gave us a menu in English, but I what I thought was funny, was that it was all Americanized food. It's like they left all the traditional stuff off the menu cause maybe we wouldn't like it. John got spaghetti, and I got chicken cordon bleu.

We headed off to Munich, or Munchen as the locals call it, (John says I need to spell it with the little dots over the u- "oom-louts"- or something, I don't know how to do that. ) After figuring out where we can park, (most people where on foot- It's a big marketplace we were headed to), and finding a space available, and parallel parking without hitting the Alfa-Romero behind us we finally found our way to John's Hofbrauhaus. (I think I'm missing some "oom-louts" again) He took German for 5 years in jr. high and high school, and every year around Oktoberfest, they would sing the famous Hofbrauhaus song. It was a pilgrimage of sorts for him, and since I dragged him to the Pantheon to see Victor Hugo's coffin, it was his turn. Which is weird cause I read Victor Hugo, but John doesn't even drink beer. It was funny to us when people John would work with heard he was going to Germany, those who didn't know him very well would be like "Have a beer for me!" and those who do know him would be like "What a waste! You don't even drink! Why are YOU going to Germany?!?"Although we didn't even order anything, we stopped to listen to the polka band play their music, and listen to drunk men boisterously singing along. Pretty entertaining stuff actually.

After this we headed to our hotel in Stuttgart so we could catch the plane in the morning. Excited to get home to our own beds and see the kids we'd been missing more each day, but not too happy about leaving the perfect 70-75 degree weather, and come home to 109 degrees. ugh. I think I really could live there in the summers.

Rothenburg

One of the funnest little places to visit in Germany is Rothenberg. It's this really well preserved little medieval town that's now a fun stop for tourists. At one point it was a rich, prosperous place because of it's position on the trade route, but trains, wars, and the plague took it's toll, and there the town sat, untouched by progress for like 250 years. Now once again, it's prosperous, but this time it's tourism that does that, ironically enough because it was ignored for so many years. It was a fun little town full of crazy, crooked, narrow, cobblestone roads, original buildings that date back hundreds of years. It has all the charm you'd expect of a little town like this. We ate and shopped, and checked out the sights, and took a tour from the nightwatchman. We liked it so much we checked into a hotel and stayed the night.

Frankfurt Temple

On our way out of Frankfurt, we made a quick stop to check out the Frankfurt temple. It was small, and pretty, and quiet, and peaceful, and we took a couple of pictures then were on our way.

Castles, castles, and more castles

After three days with our rental car, we finally figured out how to put the top down (it's a convertible). The directions were all in German, we were gonna grab a bellhop or something from the hotel to help us figure it out, but my suggestions worked so we didn't need to. This of course was the best day to figure it out because we took a scenic tour down the Rhine river which was totally studded with castles. Perfect weather, perfect day. Back in the day, there were like 300 different little kingdoms, many on the Rhine river because that was the best way to extract a toll from merchants. Many of the castles today are either restaurants, hotels, hostels, or private residences. Some you can tour through. Some didn't quite survive the many wars of the past few hundred years. My favorite was one that got destroyed.

Our first stop was Burg Eltz. It was a hike down a steep mountainside (or you could pay 1.50 for the shuttle) but the views were spectacular.

The castle was neat, it survived all these years without being seriously damaged in any attack, I think time has been it's worst enemy, but we are talking about hundreds of years. We were able to take a tour in English, and they only have some of the rooms available for tourists to see, but they were all done up right with original items decorating it. We ate lunch at a little cafe inside there.

We drove down the Rhine river and saw many castles from the side of the road, some I got some good pictures of, some not so much.

One of my favorites was this old castle that got destroyed by the French like 500 years ago. It's huge now, but I guess it's size today is nothing compared to what it was back in it's prime. For years they kindof used the place whenever they needed extra building material, and hauled stuff away, now it's just a shell. It's a monstrosity of a castle sitting on top of a cliff, and by the time we made our way up there (even with GPS we managed to take a few wrong turns)the guy said they were closing soon, and it was too late for us to get in. They had already closed the cash register (entance fee was less than 5 Euros), and they were going to close the gate in 35 minutes, but it takes at least an hour to explore the whole place. But I begged him to let us in and promised that we would be out by six, so he let us in for free with a warning that he would be locking us in at six. He wasn't kidding about needing an hour to explore the whole place. It was so awesome. I totally felt like a kid. The first castle was very "just look, don't touch", but this one you could explore your heart out. There were tunnels everywhere, I actually bashed my elbow on one of the tunnel entrances, and that hurt like mad for the rest of the day, now I just have a lovely purplish bruise. But this was one of those "We HAVE to take the kids here" places, but I told John we'd need at least 4 hours there, one to explore the whole place properly, and three to find the kids.

Luxemburg, Belgium, and a Cathedral in Koln

After John’s class our first full day in Germany, he decided he wanted to visit a couple other countries, since we were so close. So we took off on a little adventure, and went and visited the countries of Luxemburg and Belgium. Not a whole lot to see. We drove through, picked up some post cards to say we were there, and ate dinner in Belgium. They speak French there. It was kind of a little town, so I wasn’t sure if they spoke much English, so while waiting for our waiter to take the order, I consulted my little translation book and memorized how to say “Please I would like the chicken salad.” (I’m sure my translation was terrible) the guy looked at me, and in perfect English said “You want fries with that?” No kidding. I felt like a dork. Maybe I got points for trying. I don’t know.We didn’t take any pictures. Not much to see. Probably not the best use of our time, but now I’ve been in 5 other countries besides the US. Woo-hoo. (I’ve never been outside the US before this trip) On the way back, we stopped in a city called Koln, or Cologne, I think either spelling works, (I could SOOOO be wrong) There’s a really neat Cathedral there. John wanted to see it lit up at night. The problem was is that it was already like 10:30, we had a two hour drive ahead of us, and it was barely starting to get dark. You don’t get the full impact unless it’s really dark out. Kind of disappointing for us. It’s a neat Cathedral, years of history of course, amazing architecture, but it was closed so we couldn’t go in it, and they were cleaning it, so there was scaffolding around it in spots. It was right next to a train station, so it was grody. I think they couldn’t get some of the blackness off in spots. Some of the walls looked like they had done their best then moved on. Maybe they need to borrow the laser from the Notre Dame cathedral.



Oh and funny story- Since we got to drive on the Autobahn (which of course has no speed limit) John got our little 4 cylinder Ford Focus up to 200 km/hr. (133 mph or something?) But that’s not the funny part, on the way back to the hotel, we are fairly certain we got a speeding ticket. A red light flashed us. He was going like 130 in a posted 100. We were under the impression those signs were “suggestions” I guess sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not.

Euro 2008!!!

The big sport everywhere else in the world is football, or as we Americans call it, soccer. Right now they are having the Euro cup, or whatever they call it. Euro 2008. The World cup for soccer is played every four years, and the Euro games are played every four years as well, but not the same year, there’s a two year span between the big games. One game just ended in the guarter finals an hour ago. Turkey played against Croatia, and Turkey just won, so they get to go to the semi finals. I am sitting in my hotel room typing this in this teeny little touristy town, Rothenburg, that time forgot (I’m typing this in word, the internet is down), and I can hear cars honking and people celebrating. It’s totally crazy. I missed the celebrating when Germany won their quarterfinals game last night. I was so exhausted I passed out early. But the fans are really into it here. We actually met a guy who worked in this little shop in this town who just retired from playing on a local American Football team. He works in this shop that his grandma owns, and his dad and uncle work there too, so when I asked him about it, his proud father whipped out newspaper clippings to show me. But he had to retire because it was too expensive. There are no sponsors, because no one goes to see the games. It’s all about soccer here.

You can tell some of the bigger fans, because they like to fly their flags proudly in support of their favorite team (or home country) I took a few pictures.

This flag was flying off the back of a tanker truck driving down the Autobahn.

It was a common sight to see flags attached to cars. This car was parked in the parking lot at the LDS temple in Frankfurt.
It was also common to see flags flying from windows. This house had an actual mounting for the flag. Most people just hung them out the windows.
One of my favorites was this bakery window display. Notice the soccer ball in the center, in the place of honor.

So of course I’m rooting for Germany. Any other team I might have supported (England, France) is already out. I’m not sure if Italy is out, but I’ve grown pretty fond of Germany.

Seriously!?! They are still out celebrating? The game was over like an hour ago. There’s THAT many Turkey fans here? And cars honking? The streets are a NIGHTMARE to drive through- we got so lost- all cobbled, and one way, and narrow. The last game Turkey won we were in Paris, so all the guys that were driving around yelling and honking and waving flags and hanging out their windows, wasn’t as surprising.

Frankfurt, etc.

There's not a whole lot for a tourist to do in Frankfurt itself. It's more of a "big city" type of place, not really what you come to Germany for unless your a banker or something, or a geek taking a training class.

Our first night we went and checked out pretty much the only little touristy area, a place called Romerburg. But we got there late and everything seems to shut down around 5:30, so all there really was to do was look at the architecture.

Oh and I got some ice-cream. Raspberry. Then while I ate my ice-cream John watched one of the soccer games on one of the big out door TV’s one of the local bars provided. It’s the Euro cup, which is huge here (more on that later). The football (soccer) fans here make American football fans look tame.

You get what you pay for- part zwei (two)

The hotel in Paris was small but nice, (I didn't bother taking a picture) we had no complaints except we couldn't work the heater, but when we showed up in Germany this is what we found waiting for us in our room

It's very nice. Everything is square. Even the toilet. I liked the fact that we each got our own comforter. I'd never seen that before. But John's work is paying for it, and they chose the place, so it's all smiles here! (The view isn't so great though, I guess you can't have everything)

Driving in Europe

In London our hotel was in the middle of town and we could walk many places. We also had pretty good access to the Underground (subways), and we got pretty good at navigating those. We also used one of those sight seeing buses. They had a "hop on, hop off" system, and a whole bunch of buses, so if you saw something you liked you could get off, go check it out, then get on the next bus. We did take a taxi a couple times, like from the airport to the hotel, then back to the train station, it was just easier with the luggage.

But Londoners were pretty crazy drivers. Besides driving on the wrong side of the street, and having the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car, (which totally tripped me out to see someone driving from the passenger seat, especially when no one was in the driver's seat).

If I thought Londoners were bad, the Parisiens were worse. They might drive on the right side of the road, but they still scared me in general. There were many, many motorcycles and bicycles on the road as well. We walked a lot, and took the Metro (subway) there a lot too. Our hotel was pretty close to the middle of town again, so everything was pretty convenient. Again, we used a taxi to and from train stations, it's just easier with the luggage.

Here in Germany we have a car. It was supposed to be a Mercedes. B-class. I guess they don't have those in the states, I think it's supposed to be a pretty small car. Europeans like their small cars. There are no Yukon XL's here. (Not that I've seen anyway. ) Gas here is like twice as much as in the states. You wouldn't want to drive something that big. So we were supposed to get a Mercedes, but the guy at the rental counter looked at our baggage and asked us if we wanted something bigger with more room for the baggage. (we each had one suitcase, plus one other bag). We're driving a Ford Focus. So what I want to know is how small the Mercedes was if the Ford Focus is the BIG car. So that's totally irritating that I am in Germany, a country known for it's automobiles, totally surrounded by Audis and BMWs and Mercedes everywhere, and I am driving a Ford. The only upside is that it is a convertable. I'm sure this afternoon I won't be complaining too much.

We have a car because we aren't in the city. They have a subway here, well, not where we are, but in Frankfurt itself. We are outside of the city, more on the countryside. We are staying in a hotel close to John's training center (whole reason for this trip). This hotel is the one that has the contract with, or was recommended by, or is the suggested place to stay for those doing this training. It's a pretty nice hotel. But like I said, it's not close to anything. There are no subways, and walking anywhere is out of the question. We need a car.So far the Germans don't seem to be as crazy drivers as the other cities we've been in. All the cars are stick shifts, you can get an automatic if you really want, but you'll pay through the nose. Good thing my dad made me learn to drive a stick shift. All our cars are automatics now, but I still know how. That doesn't stop me from forgetting the clutch when I'm starting the car, or remembering to take off the parking brake. I am concerned about driving in cities, cause I can't read the street signs. They're a little different. I'm worried about finding parking and not getting tickets, and I'm terrible at parallel parking. I avoid that at all costs.

We have a map, and a GPS, so this morning I took John to his class, then programmed the GPS to take me back to the hotel. Here's where the plan failed. I'm totally driving down this road, lined with these huge trees. Huge big green, leafy, old trees everywhere. It's hard to get your bearings because it all looks the same. The trees obscure most of the buildings, and there are fields everywhere as well. I pass this turn off and I think to myself that that looks like the turnoff, or it looks like my turn off, but I could be mistaken, because I get confused easily. I look down to check the GPS and make sure it says I am still going the right direction, and I realize that it is totally dead. AAACK!!!!!

I am seriously out in the middle of the German countryside, alone, without a cell phone, map, translation guide,or GPS. Plus I think I could be lost. I have a sneaking suspicion that that was my turnoff, but I don't trust my own judgment. I get turned around easily. I generally have NO sense of direction. So I followed the road through some very pretty countryside, found the first place to turn around, went back to that turnoff, and within seconds I saw the hotel. Whew! I rewarded myself with some fresh strawberries from a fruitstand nearby. I'm okay now.

Train Rides

Since my kids are such train nuts, I thought I’d mention this briefly. After we got past security, we took a train to France. We went through the tunnel that goes under the English Channel, hence the nickname- Chunnel. It’s a pretty fast train and then we got to whip through the French countryside. Since I had no time to blog in France, and the internet connection sucked bit was flakey, I am actually doing this in Word on the train to Germany. And then when we have a decent internet connection, I’ll transfer it to my blog. (good thing I have my geek with me) Every once in awhile I look up to take in the sights. It’s pretty and green and hilly. Here as well as France there were all these little towns nestled in valleys with the church in the middle. Very picturesque and beautiful. Serene would be a good word as well. (a short while later) We are still on the train headed to Frankfurt. John informed me that we are passing through the Black Forest right now. I said it looks green to me. John said that they call it the Black Forest because it is so thick that many parts get no daylight through the branches and leaves, so it is very dark inside. It’s still pretty and green from my train window.

Last day in Paris

Our last morning in Paris, we woke up and ran to the Musee d'Orsay. That's another museum across the street from the Louvre. It used to be an old train station, now it is home to famous pieces of art from Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, amongst many others. This picture is of me in between a couple of Monet's works. I'm really not as bored as i look, I am actually happy to be there, it was just one of those things where the camera caught me at the wrong moment. I guess I could have had a stupid look on my face.

We had just a couple minutes and the cafe was calling to me, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving Paris without one last piece of tart, so we stopped and got me a slice of raspberry tart, and some hot chocolate. The cafe was in this neat area right behind one of the big clocks, so the atmosphere was pretty cool, plus the food was fabulous, and the hot chocolate was downright sinful. It was like drinking a melted down bar of dark chocolate. John felt the need to take a picture of me because i was enjoying it all so much. I am including a picture where I am making a stupid face just for fun.

Just outside the cafe you can go out onto a patio and look over the city. There was another American couple there and we took turns taking pictures of each other with each other's cameras.
We had to leave immediately after this, pick up our luggage and catch a taxi to the trainstation. We thought we would need to get there early so they could check John for bombs again, but I guess not. They didn't have any security check points here. Interesting. I enjoyed Paris a lot more than I thought I would. Honestly I didn't have high expectations. The people were nice and friendly, the food was amazing, and there was a lot of really neat stuff to see. Maybe I just had so much fun on my Segway tour that it tainted the whole trip, but I had a good time there.

Paris- day two

We slept in. Until 9:30. So mad. But we were exhausted. We had a busy day the day before and we were up past midnight. Actually the past couple days were pretty busy, or maybe jet lag was finally hitting, or I don’t know what, but we were dead tired. The alarm went off at 7:00, John turned it off, then I dragged him out of bed which is totally crazy cause I’m the night person and he’s the morning person in this relationship.

We grabbed breakfast in a Café, then headed to Sainte-Chapelle. That’s this amazing church with all these stained glass windows. Supposedly the whole Bible is written in stained glass pictures. Totally amazing. The story goes that the guy who built it paid more than what he paid for the church to buy a couple artifacts from Christ’s crucifixion. The crown of thorns and part of the actual crucifix. Years later they did carbon dating on them, and found them to be fakes, that they were like 500 years too late to be around during the time of Christ.



After that we hit Notre Dame. So amazing, huge, very grand. So elaborate. Very pretty. We didn’t go up to the bell tower (time always seemed to be against us). What totally blew me away was that it is still being used as a church. The worshippers didn’t seem to be bothered by all us tourists wandering around, taking pictures. (John and I tried to be respectful)



This was a cool fountain I needed a picture of. Not being fluent in French, I’m not sure what it was for, it was just there.
Next on our lists was to go pay our respects to Victor Hugo. His remains are in the crypt down below the Pantheon. He shares a room with Alexandre Dumas. Voltaire was there as well. Very pretty building as well. I guess that’s the thing about Paris, they were all amazing buildings. When we got there they were power washing all the grime off the front of the building. (It was kind of gross. A lot of the buildings were really blackened and dirty, they must have a job trying to upkeep them.) Dimitry, our segway guide, said that they used lasers to clean off Notre Dame. They did keep the tall skinny tower in the back blackened just so that people could see the difference.

We took the Metro (subway) to the Louvre, but not before stopping at a pastry shop so conveniently located on the corner next to the Metro entrance and getting a couple tartlets. It was there as I sat in the Metro station waiting for my train, that I decided I needed to either come back to France when I am rich and take some cooking classes, or figure out how to master the tart/tartlet on my own. I wasn’t so worried about Weightwatchers cause I was walking my tail off.

The Louvre was impressive. Seriously. Like, I knew it was BIG. I’d heard that, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I was standing there going, “This is ONE building?!?” During one phone call home, Madison asked if we’d seen any castles. I think the French don’t really have castles, but they have Palaces. The Louvre used to be an old French Palace, and each ruler in turn would have to add his own wing to the place when he came in to power. At first glance, you don’t notice anything, but then when you are standing in the courtyard, and you look for it, you can see all the differences each ruler would have on his wing. (Inside as well) There is so much to see inside, that if you were to spend just one minute at each piece of art, it would take you nine months to get through the place. We saw the Mona Lisa of course, and the Venus de Milo, and a statue of Ramses, statues by Michaelangelo, but I think I was most blown away by the Apartments of Napoleon. Extravagance is an understatement. Seriously crazy opulence. Supposedly Versailles is more of the same, so it’s no wonder the people revolted. I get it. With nine months worth of stuff to see, we were only there like three hours before the place closed and they made us leave. This first picture is looking towards the Lourve. That's only one wing, and I couldn't get the whole thing at that. It's just as big off to the left of the picture.
This picture was take from the Louvre looking down upon that same pyramid. The buildings on both sides are still the same building.

We were totally ready for our boat ride up and down the Seine. Too tired to get out though, luckily we saw all the stuff the night before. I think I actually fell asleep at one point on the ride though. This picture is of the Eiffel Tower behind the Pont Alexander III (Pont means bridge). Oh and this picture of our shoes is for you, Nancy. We were typical American tourists in our white shoes. But we weren’t about to sacrifice our feet for fashion (I already did that once this trip- stupid black and white polka dot wedge shoes- still suffering for that one)