Germany day 5: Rothenburg

Friday, October 31th.

Where's Day 4, you ask? Well, there's really not much to share about Thursday. Jim graciously watched Lily in the afternoon (i.e. read a book while she napped) so Julie and I could squeeze in some shopping and a cappuccino. Other than that, nothing of note happened. Except more sleeping, of course.

So, on to Friday!

Conveniently, Jim's parents and his sister's family were also vacationing in Germany. From the beginning we planned to meet up Friday for a day in Rothenburg, one of Germany's few remaining walled cities. It has all the quaintness that you expect to see when you visit Europe. I absolutely loved it.

Items of note:

Schneeballen - a delicous pastry treat, about the size of a softball, that can be covered in cinnamon, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, powdered sugar, or anything else sweet that you can think of.

Schneeballen!

Being a tour guide - no body else seemed to care about the history and purpose of Rothenburg, but I took the opportunity to read up on it during the 2 hour drive there. Thus I became the unofficial tour guide. My style is "why I care, in three sentances or less". I don't like to bore people. As it turns out, I caught someone's attention, who thought I was a real guide. Ha! After a little bit of small talk we found out she was from Annapolis and owned a wine bar downtown, the Purple Tooth. (Fast forward a week, and while we were back in MD we went, saw our new friend Emmy and enjoyed a very high-brow evening enjoying wines and cheeses and talking about all of the things we saw on our trips. So cool. She even took this picture for us in the Castle Garden.)

The Grubes, elder Grubes and Bishops take on Rothenburg

Little Sage - who travels to Europe with a six month old? My sister-in-law, of course! Sage was amazing. I maybe once heard him cry, and only for a minute. It was cold and damp but he didn't complain. I'm convinced all the good genes in the family are taken and when Jim and I have our Grublets, they'll be hellions.

world's best traveler, Sage (and Jim, too)

A few more pictures...

warming up in a cafe with more schneeballen, and a pretzel!

me, Lily, Julie, Carrie and Sage

in the Convent Garden of Potions and Herbs

Germany day 3: jet lag and medication

Wednesday, October 29th

Our gracious hosts, the Howards

Wednesday started early. The Benedryl had worn off and my jet-lagged body thought it was time to get up. I was sick: my head was foggy and my nose had crusty boogers. Blech. Jim had spent the day before doctoring me through a constant supply of Day Quil, Benedryl, Sudafed, wine and Unterburg.

But now at 5am, all of that had worn off. Sleep was futile, instead I shot off a few emails and walked around the house waiting for everyone to wake up. No good. I finally heard someone's alarm at 6:30 but for whatever reason my brain finally shut down and I slept until 9. (Jim slept until 11:30. He's amazing when it comes to sleeping in. Seriously. Like world record status.)

The day was a lazy one. We met up with Ryan for lunch at REAL, a small German Walmart of sorts. It had a food court with weird looking food, but yummy pretzels. For lunch I had german pizza that's a little different than the American variety. Oh, and bottled water, that was unnecessarily carbonated.

This was also my first opportunity to practice my German. Oddly, I kept reverting to Spanish!? Didn't see that coming. "Um, un pretzel, por favor? Bitte schön." Over and over I kept trying to throw in a gracias or hola. Talk about a stupid American.

I bought my first Kinder Chocolate. It might possibly be my favorite chocolate in the world. Familiar with the Kinder Surprise Egg? You should be. A hollow egg with a toy inside that you have to put together. A puzzle and chocolate in the same thing? Brilliant! The reason you've probably never seen these is because they are banned in America. Yes, the FDA thinks our kids are stupid will eat the toy instead of the chocolate.

The rest of the day was a blur, but I know it involved a glorious 2 hour nap. And more Sudafed.

P.S. - There may be bit of a gap in the Germany posts. We've officially started the move and there is much to share. But don't worry, the Europe pics will be coming!

Germany day 2: pretzels!

Tuesday, the 28th.

After about 1pm, our plane landed on a beautiful, if not overcast, fall day in Ramstein, Germany. I kept pinching myself that we were really there. I got my first ever stamp in my passport. It was official. I was in Germany!

As we were waiting for our baggage, Jim pointed over my shoulder to Julie and both of us started dancing through the window at each other. Again, still pinching myself.

It didn't feel very German at first since we were on an Army post and everyone spoke English and used American dollars. But, Julie did treat me to my first pretzel and I was hooked.

So I would like to dedicate this post to all the pretzels I ate in the Deutschland.

There were 8, in fact. I made it my goal to have one every day. For the sake of honestly, I did miss one day (Trier apparently doesn't sell pretzels??!!) but I had two the day before so I'll count it even.I love German pretzels so much because even though they aren't always evenly salted, there's something salty in the dough that makes them just perfect. And Julie has a backarie (bakery) within walking distance of her home in Rodenbach. So I could have one just about whenever I wanted!

This picture needs a little explaining. It seemed that when I would order pretzels there was always some confusion as to how many I wanted. They would try to give me two and I never knew why. Until Jim was with me at one point and mentioned that in my excessive use of hand gestures to communicate, my one really looked like two. Because, in America, when we teach our kids 2, we make a peace sign. In Germany, they use their thumb and forefinger. (I know, it's weird that I stick my thumb out so much.) My bad.

This picture is another favorite because as we were all on our way to Belgium, I insisted on a quick stop at the backerie for my habit. I hopped out and returned with this mother of a pretzel. Heaven!

I didn't take pictures of all of them, sadly. But if nothing else, you can see that I also enjoyed a love affair with my green scarf. I didn't mean to look the same in every single picture, but warm is warm, and so there you have it.


Now that I'm back in the States I have developed what we addicts like to call withdrawl. I even twitch and shake. But my new goal in life is to open a backerie of my own and make pretzels every day. How hard can it be?

Germany day 1: getting there

Monday, the 27th.

Monday started in Suffolk, VA. It ended on a plane over the Atlantic. Somewhere in between Jim signed out of Fort Lee, VA (woohoo!) which included some paperwork drama. Enough drama that at one point we were told we couldn't leave for Germany until Wednesday. But no worries! Numerous phone calls, faxes and a favor from a friend sent us on our way to the Baltimore airport (BWI) with space-a confidence (mostly).

Before our flight we were even able to squeeze in a birthday dinner with Grandpa (happy 85th!) and Cousin Joel in Annapolis. I do love that Red Lobster cheesy bread.

We threw our bags in the car and raced to BWI to sit, and wait, and pray our name was called. There were 26 space-a slots and we just wanted 2 of them.

After a time the nice man in uniform yelled "Grube" and we exchanged smiles. Phew! I ran to use the courtesy phone to call my friends, telling them we were on our way (didn't work). Meanwhile Jim was required to fill out some crazy military paperwork and had to yell across the terminal, "How much do you weigh?" I might have rounded down.

A half hour into the flight and 10 minutes into The Incredible Hulk, and I was out. It was well after midnight and I was t i r e d.

Actually there were three movies. And three meals. I apparently missed one of each entirely. Didn't even know they happened. I was able to sleep 6 out of the 8 hour flight, a method I highly recommend.

As we neared our landing I was giddy with excitement. This is a picture of Germany from the air. Technically this was taken on Tuesday so I've gotten ahead of myself, but you've all be asking for pictures so I had to give you something. Here's another one to tide you over for tomorrow.

We were pretending we were gnomes. Spot a theme?

a quick peak and a good night's rest

I'm back! We landed a few hours ago in MD and are longing for a bed. It's 10pm EST, but it feels like 4am. I will have more details when I awake, but I wanted to post this Karen the Tourist in Europe picture. Note the Rick Steves book, the souvenir bag, the silly grin, the travel wallet. Do I look like an out-of-place American, or what? I had just gone into the cafe, ordered my "bockwurst mit pomme frites, bitte" and was way too proud of myself for using all German.

I'm sorry this is the first you've heard of me. I had every intention of sharing pictures along the way, but a slow internet connection and Blogger were not cooperating. So, tomorrow I'll start posting in earnest, with a complete day-by-day play-by-play. I promise.

Until then... Gute Nacht!