Germany

Oct 27 - Nov 4, 2022

Thursday

We were fortunate to have James studying and dad working in Germany at the same time. Why not take advantage and make it our Europe family trip? Grandma has been asking us to go for some time and of course Jill and Noelle love any chance to travel so we did it. We decided to let Greta stay with her best friend Sophia and her family for the week. Sophia's dad is her hockey coach and Pam, her mom is an amazing mom and elementary school teacher. Greta had 3 Halloween parties, a Halloween 5k run, a music concert, hockey practices and her final soccer game (kids versus parents). Oh and not to forget trick or treating downtown, at school's trunk or treat and on Halloween evening. Wilson stayed with Brent our construction worker. Brent got his much wanted hunting weekend. By watching Wilson he had an excuse to skip a trip to visit his daughter out East to stay home and hunt and bring Wilson on drives in his truck. We had a direct flight out of O'Hare departing at 6:30pm. Probably the best way we could travel to Europe. We were able to sleep, well, kind of.

Friday

We arrived at 9:30AM. I managed to watch several episodes of Friends, Noelle watched a movie and Erm watched a Nazi movie and tried to sleep with her blow up pillow after taking her NyQuil. I had countless nightmares that passengers on our plane were puking. I woke up thinking I'm gonna get COVID. Weird what your mind fixates on. Once to our airport we were surprised to find Matt there. He came and picked us up. We headed back to Darmstadt and dropped off our bags in Matt's room. We were so tempted to nap but instead we went to lunch in the nearby square. Matt and Noelle shared a pizza and I got an arugula salad with shrimp. We wondered around to find German money and headed back to our hotel. Matt stayed back to be on conference calls while Noelle and I drove to Frankfort to pick up James from the train station. He took the high speed train from Hamburg. Noelle and I arrived early so we had to waste time going around the block several times before he arrived. He didn't have any data on his plan so Noelle had to screen shot our location on snap chat quickly before he left the train station. Thank goodness he found us. He drove us back to Darmstadt. Once back James and I found a Barber for him to get his hair cut. This evening we did dinner at a German restaurant where Erm was in Heaven with her potato dumplings. James did great at speaking German for all of us, ordering off the menu. The highlight of the evening was when we were trying to leave. We couldn't get out of our parking lot. After a nice family helped us brain storm how to get through the gate we finally figured it out. We had to go inside the store to pay, on the other side of the building. Once back to our hotel we crashed rather early.

Saturday

We all slept in today, 12 hours for most of us. I ran 6 miles through the nearby park. I remembered it clearly. Greta and I had walked through it seven years ago. We had planned on going to breakfast at our hotel but it ended at 10am. We instead found a cute bakery to buy chocolate crossants and drinks. I found an amazing pumpkin seed covered soft pretzel. We then jumped in the car and headed to Frankfort. James wanted us to go to the Zeil Mall. The mall was so crowded that we decided to head to the Ironbridge, a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river and over looks the Frankfort skyline. We found a cute beer garden in an alleyway. Grandma was happy to get potato dumplings again. Everyone else enjoyed the sausages and big German soft pretzels. We then walked through a church. We decided to skip the 162 step accent to the top. We walked through a central square and witnessed protesters. We then got ice cream and headed back to our car. Unfortunately, we again, forgot to pay for our parking in the machine before exiting the ramp. To us, it doesn't seem like an efficient system. Once back to Frankfort we decided to chill for awhile. I took a walk finding a nearby grocery store for qunique power bars and much needed blueberries and ginger green tea. We all decided to go out one more time for dinner so we walked a half mile to an Italian restaurant. Our waitress wasn't too excited about serving us, for whatever reason. This evening we all went to bed early but sleeping didn't come easily. At least not for Noelle and I. We stayed up and giggled while solving the world's problems until 2:30AM. Even Erma heard us.

Sunday:

This morning I ran in the nearby park. Matt came up behind me and decided to run a loop with me. We talked about the possibility of people living in different universes. Afterwards we ate breakfast at our hotel's restaurant. We then packed up our car and began our journey north to Hamburg, where James lives. That is when we wished we had rented a mini van. All 5 of scrunched into our Audi. Grandma didn't feel so good this day. Our halfway stopping point was at the Hercules monument in Kassel. We all joked that Matt's shelf butt resembled Hercules. We didn't spend too long. Our next stop was Subway for our lunches. We finally pulled into Hamburg around 6pm. We dropped off James so he could get ready for his hockey game while we checked into our NH Horner Renhbon hotel. Thankfully they had an extra room open for us, I had messed up our reservation by a day. Yikes. We then drove to a burger restaurant where we have amazing meals. The highlight was the fruity alcoholic beverages for Erm, Noelle, and Matt and the waffle dessert topped with powdered sugar and ice cream. We next went to James hockey game. His team is made up of guys his age up to men in their 40's. Dad jokingly thought they were playing against the "bad news bears". They didn't move quite as quick as James team. There team had two girls on it. Noelle, Erm, and I left before the finish. We were all spent!! We all crashed once pack to our hotel. Dad stayed the night with James on a spare mattress.

Monday:

This morning James walked dad to his 5:15am train so he could head back to Frankfort / Darmstadt for a day of business meetings. Meanwhile my morning run started with a loop around the former greyhound dog race track behind our hotel. I crawled through a fence to get there. Once on the loop there were these robot / rumba / ufo looking devices that were roaming the grounds. One started following me. I am still not sure what it was. Once back to our hotel we showered up and hit the hotel breakfast. I fell in love with the seedy bread, butter, honey, and coffee with cream. We then went to pick up James and started on our days' adventure. We were not aware that today was a German holiday so the Thift store we intended on going to was closed. We instead went to the top of an old chapel, found a place to buy doner (chicken sliced right off a meet slab), and walked down the most famous party street….actually the street that James got his wallet and phone stolen. We next toured by the harbor. We tested out the Hamburg train and bus systems. It is hard to believe they go by the honor system and don't check tickets or have gates to go through to utilize the transit. Supposedly you go online to pay?? James never has. We also were amused by the narrow streets. Two cars could barely pass one another! Once back to our hotel everyone took mini naps while I hit our hotel's sauna. One guy in his tiniest black undies was in there with his wife. I skipped the odd looking sauna to use the conviential one with wooden benches. The odd sauna had what looked like porcelain urinals except like bench seats that were separated so you wouldn't have to touch the person sitting next to you. I only stayed in my sauna for 20 minutes and then chilled while sipping lime water. After cleaning up we headed out to our mini train museum. It was right downtown. The museum was a mini version of the world on display with miniature trains traveling through. We spent a good ninety minutes walking around and then headed to our restaurant hotel for a late dinner. James shared his girl story of how off Natalie from the air force academy was once he started dating her. She wanted things her way. He had to face time her an hour every day. Oh boy…too much for a 20 year old. Soon after her panic attack he had to end it. Thank goodness. After Erm slipped the leftover butter into her napkin to bring back to our room we had to turn in for the night. Time for crazies to sleep. Erm fell asleep the quickest….started snoring. Noelle tried to sleep with her mattress in the front entry way but still couldn't drowned out the sound. I luckily fell asleep with the 2 sleep fans. James, on the other hand, parties it up till 2 Am with his buddies who returned for the school week.

Tuesday:

This morning I ran a 45 min out and back. Once back we attempted reaching James but he was still sleeping. We decided to go to a cafe down the road for a different vibe. I enjoyed my salted soft pretzal dipped in butter and honey with coffee and cream. Noelle got a chocolate muffin and Erm got coffee and a croissant. Finally James answered his phone so after picking him up we headed to the thrift store. Noelle found several sweatshirts for her and Will. We then hit the McDonald's in the mall for the royal burger (not a quarter pounder). Driving back to the hotel I went the wrong way on a one way street…oops! Once back to our hotel we had chill time…everyone minus Jill took cat naps. Afterwards we went to Meyers fresh market to buy James his groceries. Once back to his place we met all his hall mates. Everyone has their home flag outside their door. James is the only one from the United States. He cooked everyone a frozen pizza. Erm and I headed back to our hotel while James and Noelle watched a movie at his place. Supposedly all of James hallmates felt James and Noelle looked so alike, however Noelle is the "more beautiful one". Erm and I enjoyed ice cream, sorbet, and wine at our hotel's restaurant and hit the sack around 10:30pm. Unfortunately Erm wasn't able to fall asleep until 3am. I slept like a rockstar.

Wednesday:

This morning's run went out towards James place but then crossed the highway and went through a park. Once back we packed up and went to pick up Noelle. She decided to sleep in and skip James engineering class. We all had a hard time saying our good byes. Fortunately he will be home mid December. We hit the road on our next adventure, to Colone. We stopped once along the way for croissants, sandwiches, coffee, and green matcha juice. The odd thing we noticed on this trip was all the semi's in the far right lane. We believe it is because it is safer to have them off to the right so other cars can pass on the left. Once to our place Erm and I went on a 2 mile walk touring along the river, the Cathedral and down to the Towne Square. Meanwhile Noelle stayed back to finish her Spanish homework. We were all spent, so we ordered room service. Noelle and I then ventured out to find ice cream and see the Cathedral at night. Now back in the room Erm is watching game shows in ENGLISH! A warm shower is calling my name. Tonight unfortunately it was my turn to not be able to sleep.

Thursday:

This morning I ran across the bridge toward Rheinpark, the most beautiful German Park. I'm not too sure why people are so amazing by it. It is basically green space with a biking path going through it along the Rhine river. Once back to our hotel Erm and I had the hotel breakfast. I enjoyed my last of amazing seedy German bread. We packed up our bags and hit a bakery for Noelle to grab a croissant. A old guy in the shop hit on grandma asking her to safe him a table. She did. After we left grandma said he just wanted to get in her pants. Go grandma! The next adventure was figuring out how to put gas in our rental. The gas station clerk kept repeating in German how to do it even after I clearly told her I don't know German. Luckily another guy filling his car came over to help. James and dad on face time weren't gonna be able to help. We then made our way to Koblenz Grandma and Noelle made their usual calls to Lisa, Felix, and Will. Greta didn't answer her phone for us to catch up this time. Fortunately she hasn't seemed to miss us too much. Our stop in Koblenz didn't end up happening. The one road to our castle was blocked off and left too late to do our boat tour. The amount of concrete in the town turned us off too. We instead made our way to Darmstadt. Dad had a cancelled call so he joined us for a mid afternoon Italian meal. I then did a 2 mile walk to try and loosen up my cramped lower back. We borrowed umbrellas from our hotel and walked in the rain to have our final ice cream of the trip from Waffle House. After our final face time visit with Fuzzy we hit the sack.

Our trip came to an end. No major setbacks or injuries. We wish James was coming home with us too. Fortunately he will be home in just over a month. He may not agree that these last 6 months were worth it today, however down the road he may think differently.

Sent from my iPhone