Rick and Linda arrived on Friday
morning, April 4th. Linda had her first German breakfast
then they both got a good nap to prepare for the weeks ahead. Life
goes on even with guests, Erin had Volleyball practice, Ryan had
basketball, then they both had baseball practice. We topped off the
night with dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, Tonhalle.
Even met up with the Quinns and Mangins to keep all the kids
entertained.
Saturday morning, Ryan had a soccer
game and Erin had her end of year hip-hop performance. Then we went
to Cologne for the night, MJ's favorite city, and his first stop on
all visitor's tours. We visited The Dom and had a delicious, albeit
late, dinner at Peffkin.
Monday was supposed to be a normal day
but Ryan and Mike were sick so they stayed home and recovered. (AKA,
played a lot of video games and watched movies). Rick and Linda
explored Düsseldorf and Erin and I met them for dinner.
Tuesday was a big day. Again, Mike and
Ryan were not ready to get back to normal. Today's viewing included
two Steeler's Super Bowl DVD's and Frozen twice. Myself, Rick and
Linda headed to The Netherlands to visit The Keukenhof. You had
never seen so many flowers in all your life! And it wasn't stuffy or
annoying, it was very comfortable to be there. Lots of playgrounds
for kids, lots of well-priced restaurants. And since it was during
the week, not too many people! I'll let the pictures speak for
themselves.
Afterwards, we headed for the beach.
Yes, it was about 7 degrees and raining and 20 kmp winds, but, when
you are a 20 minute drive from the beach you MUST go to it. There is
a law somewhere, I'm sure of it.
Since MJ was home sick with Ryan and
Erin was with the Quinn's (Thank You Stephanie), Rick, Linda & I
had time to head into Amsterdam for dinner. MJ searched and found a
great 'local' place for us to eat. (He couldn't handle our plan to
just drive in and happen upon a restaurant). It was a small family
owned place, and the guy at the table next to us was astounded that
we found it, because “this is kind of a local place, not a place
for tourists”. Maybe he was trying to tell us we weren't allowed
there, lol. The food was simple, but good, I highly suggest going
here for a unique experience.
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| There really are as many bikes in Amsterdam as everyone says. |
A small rant about driving through The
Netherlands. Ok, first of all, yes, we are spoiled driving in
Germany, most of the highways (and some small two lane farm roads)
have no speed limit. And we consistently hit about 100 mph on any
given drive (Mom, I'm kidding). At one point in The Netherlands we
were on a 5 lane highway, with a speed limit of 100 kmp (60 mph) and
EVERYONE was driving in the right three lanes. It was like the other
two lanes didn't even exist, like they were in our imagination. Or
maybe they were being reserved for landing aircraft, I don't know,
but it was bizarre. I felt like such a rebel when I dared to use the
4th lane. I don't understand.
On Thursday, I did the stupidest thing
I have ever done or possibly will ever do and accidentally washed my
book in my washing machine. I have always had a fear of placing my
phone in the laundry basket, and tossing it in, but you would think I
would have noticed a huge book! I do NOT under an circumstances
recommend this. And it wasn't a small book, it was about 1000 pages
worth of Winds of War. MJ was the hero and got the machine fixed, so
all is good now. Hold on a minute I need to go switch one of my 10
remaining loads of laundry. (Thank you here to Michelle and Steve
Mangin who let me interfere with their Easter Sunday to to do about 6
loads of post-vacation laundry)
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| Japanese Garden |
WEEK 2
With Rick and Linda in tow, we embarked
on a rather aggressive itinerary. Mike and I drove with all the
luggage, kid's scooters, & stash of Coke Zero. Linda, Rick &
the kids rode the rails.
Mike and I arrived in Berlin and
checked into our “Home Away” apartment. Great place, again, I
recommend it. Two bedrooms, a bath and a half lots of living space
and an extra bed in the living room for the kids, great location in
Charlottenburg with cafe's and a bakerei's right next door, and a
block from the U-bahn. (I can send the link).
You may remember the Christmas
Countdown Beer Calender (I refuse to call it an Advent Calendar).
MJ's favorite selection was an IPA from two guys brewing in Berlin.
So we tucked it away in our memory in anticipation of this trip. I'm
sure Mike will tell the story better, but long and short of it is we
were able to buy the beer at the restaurant for take out. The
waitress told him “it will be really expensive if you want to open
it here.” She said it would be €1.80 if he wants to drink it in
the restaurant. I think we could swing that.
Saturday morning we hit the ground
running (as usual) We started the day with Checkpoint Charlie and
the accompanying museum. Then back to Brandenburg Tor and the
Reischtag, then back to the apartment for a rest before dinner. We
went over to former East Germany for diner, and we quite honestly
waited and hour an a half for our food after we ordered. But the
restaurant was cute and the beer was cold, and we weren't all cranky
and tired (tiredness and crankiness increase exponentially over time
as a vacation goes on) so we were fine.
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| Starbucks outside the America embassy |
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| Holocaust Memorial |
Sunday, we visited Museum Island, and
took a boat tour of Berlin. You get a much different perspective.
Before dinner we walked down to Schloss Charlottenburg, which was
right at the end of our street. We ate at a great brewery.
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| Berlin Cathedral Church |
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| Schloss Charlottenburg |
Monday woke up rainy and cold. We had
tickets for a tour of the Reichstag Dome. (Quick history, the Nazis
started a fire in the Reichstag, allowing them to take control and
insert Hilter in power, we all know how that turned out.) After the
tour, Erin, Ryan and I headed to Pottsdammer Platz to meet up with
one of her friends from school. We had ice cream and went to see
Lego Movie (in English and 3D).
Monday night we ordered pizza and pasta
from down the street. Somehow I think the owners thought that we
were new to the neighborhood, and were living there and gave us a
bottle of wine to go with our dinner. I felt bad, but really had no
way to explain in Italian or German, so I took it with a smile.
Please if you are ever in Charlottenburg, let me know and I will tell
you the place and you can give them your business!
Tuesday morning we were back on the
road, this time to Dresden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden). I'm going to be brutally honest, I
wasn't taken with the place (even before “The Incident”, read
on). It has a ton of history, it's just bad history. And the
rebuilt buildings are beautiful, but they are in between yucky Soviet
era buildings, it doesn't flow well. Mike will say I'm too hard on
it, but it just wasn't for me.
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| The Fürstenzug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furstenzug) |
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| The Semper Opera House (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semperoper) |
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| Dresden Castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Castle) |
Wednesday, we toured and the Green
Vault, filled with crazy gold and silver and jeweled pieces. And we
went to Zwinger, both beautiful properties. Then we navigated the
difficult Dresden tram system, to get to “The Incident” and
Pfund's Molkerei, Guiness Book world record holder of the 'most
beautiful dairy'. I'll give it that. It was beautiful (it was on
the other side of the river, and not destroyed in '45) Upstairs
there is an ice cream, cake and coffee shop. Everyone ordered
elaborate dishes of ice cream and cake. Ryan's came with coffee
beans on top, so MJ took those off. About half way through Ryan said
he swallowed something. We assumed he found another coffee bean or
ate too fast. He never ate any more ice cream. Mike took a bite
then Rick did, and Rick pulled a huge piece of glass out of his mouth
from his bite, probably the size of a silver dollar. There was a
small hospital literally across the street so we hurried Ryan over
there, they sent us by super-fast taxi to the University Hospital and
their Children's Hospital. The triage nurse looked petrified as we
explained our story, but the doctor was fine, and Ryan got checked
out, including monitoring his blood pressure. He also had a camera
put down his nose to his esophagus to check for any cuts, and
thankfully there were none. After that, he housed every ounce of
food the nurses but in front of him, even wheat bread! We took him
home to the hotel to a much relieved sister and Grandma and Grandpa.
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Thursday morning we set off for Prague. At this point, Prague was my favorite city on this trip. They were having their Easter Markets, which are a lot lie German Christmas Markets. Lots of eating and drinking and shopping for things you don't need! We took a boat tour and toured Prague Castle.
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| Prague Castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_castle) |
On the way home, Mike and I stopped in
Nuremburg for a bite to eat. They were also having their Easter
Markets. We took time time to wander around, sampling some Nuremburg specialties and I even spun the golden ring on the fountain for good
luck.
A few hours later, we stopped by
Limburg Germany for a later snack. (No real meals today, just
snacks) Limburg is ADORABLE! I want to go back, it's probably only
about an hour and a half from our house, so it can easily be added to
any trip to our house. All the crooked half timbered houses look
like something out of a fairy tale. We sat outside a little cafe
(eating delicious Hawaiian flamekuchen) and listed to a couple of
musicians playing on the corner. The house behind us was built in
1294. Think about it, American wasn't even found yet and this little
house was sitting in the middle of Germany.
Monday we had one later adventure up
our sleeve. Mike Rick & Linda drove to Brussels, Belgium, while
the kids and I took the train. We visited th Grand Place, ate some
waffles and checked on the kid's favorite European landmark, Mannekin
Pis (I'm kidding, they hate this thing, we over-hyped it the first
time and now all over-hyped things are compared to Mannekin Pis)
Ryan has been heard to say “I pee everyday and no one made a statue
of me.”
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| Liege Train Station, very modern and unexpected |
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| Long Spring Break! |
We found a Chi-Chi's and had a
delicious (albeit expensive) Mexican dinner. There is still little
to no good Mexican food that we have found. Wiki research finds that
shortly before the salmonella tomato appetizer that took Chi-Chi's
fried ice cream away from us, the company spun off their European
branch, which survived. They are starting to expand, included one
reportedly opening in Brugge (where we are headed soon) After dinner
Rick and Linda headed off for a few in Paris and we all headed home.
I hope that we gave Rick & Linda a
great (maybe exhausting) European vacation and look forward to our
next visitor, Mary!
