Space-A Disappointment

Monday, Feb. 12, we cleaned, did laundry, and packed.  That took the whole day, lol.  Bob did take the younger kids to McDonalds for a special treat for lunch, and they brought home fun "Happy Meal" boxes in German, plus some Snoopy toys.  You can tell it was a fun special treat because we *never* get happy meals at home!

Tuesday morning we packed up the car and headed back to Ramstein, leaving at 9:00.  I had checked the Ramstein terminal space-a page earlier, and it said 50 seats were being released, so we were all feeling pretty good about our chances!

After we got gas in the rental cars, we even had time to stop by the Officers' Club to take a picture!  This is where my parents met, back in 1963!

But then we got to the terminal.  After signing in and being marked present, we started talking to the others waiting around.  One group of retirees had been trying to get out for the past WEEK!  They were actually on an airplane to McGuire earlier that morning, and it took off, flew out for 1 1/2 hours--and then turned around and headed back.  There was some mechanical problem, so they took off again and limped on back, but they weren't allowed to take passengers or extra luggage.  How disappointing for those 30 space-a passengers!  So all those people, plus many, many more were waiting to get on this same flight we were.  And we were at the very bottom of the list.  There were at least 70 people ahead of us!

My one regret this trip was that we hadn't really gotten any souvenirs, other than the books from the bookstore and the items from the Roman fort.  But in all our walking, there was no "souvenir shop" that we passed, and even in Ludwigsburg Palace, their gift shop was closed for the winter!

Because we were early, however, Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and I ran across the street to the big KMCC complex, where there is a little Express Shoppette that retirees are allowed to shop at (we can't use the regular BX and commissary or get gas on base because we're not stationed here).  They had some fun little things, so we bought another magnet for our fridge, plus Caleb and Jonathan got these nice glass steins (which were much, MUCH cheaper than the lovely ceramic ones).  So we came back over and managed to fit them into our suitcases (after Caleb and Jonathan inaugurated their steins with coke from the vending machine).

The USO upstairs in the terminal was having a special Valentine's Day brunch, so we all went through the line and got scrambled eggs, hash browns, french toast, and cupcakes.

But alas, after waiting around for a long time, the plane only ended up taking 25 passengers.  Not even all the active duty people got out.  And there were no flights on the horizon for Wednesday, so that meant all those same people would be waiting for the net flight to BWI on Wednesday, same as us.  Sigh.

We decided to see if we could stay in a TLF ("temporary living facility") on base, so we would be close as we tried to get out.  Bob went across the street, and yes, there was a 4 bedroom unit available!  Retirees can stay on a space-available basis in lodging on Air Force bases in Germany, but not on Army posts, because ... well, no good reason except the Army is interpreting SOFA differently and more stringently.  We also stopped by the car rental office (we drove there this time, which was much nicer, lol) and were abl to extend the use of both cars.  Whew!  We were disappointed to not get out, but at least we had cars and a close place to stay!

Ludwigsburg and a Visit with Friends

Sunday morning, Feb. 11, we decided to do one more big day of sightseeing.  ONe place that was on my Germany "bucket list" for this trip was Ludwigsburg Palace.  A good friend of mine is from not far from there, and she and her husband had stunning formal wedding pictures taken in the palace.  I had seen the pictures, and I really wanted to see the palace in person! 

It is about 2 hours from Wiesbaden.  Once we got into the town, we had a bit of trouble finding a good parking garage, so we had to turn around.  Then we missed another turn, so we sort of took the scenic route around the palace, lol.  Eventually we found the parking garage.  Incidentally, both this parking garage, and the one in Trier, had a public restroom right there, which was so convenient for those of us traveling with people with little bladders!  I had been worried before we got to Germany that we would never be able to find restrooms, but that fortunately did not turn out to be the case!

Here we all are in front of the palace gates.  Bob flagged down a random stranger to take this picture, which was mortifyingly embarrassing to the teen/tween portion of the family.  But we wanted at least one picture with all of us!  You can barely see Drew though--just his Minion eyes, lol.

We got there with just a few minutes to spare before the English tour.  I had looked at the website earlier to find out the times, which was very convenient.  But then it took a little bit for the guide to get there, so we really didn't need to rush.  Again, the palace gave us the family rate, even though we definitely had more than 4 kids!

This is a picture down the hallway where we were waiting.  Once the tour started, we couldn't take any pictures inside the palace.  Our tour guide, Martina, spoke excellent English, and she was funny!  She thoroughly knew the palace and the history, as well as lots of extra little fun tidbits, so it was a really interesting tour.  Bob's back was really hurting by this time, but what we found in several tourist attractions is they have these little folding chairs that you can just bring with you.  They fold up much smaller than what we think of as folding chairs, and are much easier to carry.  So Bob carried one of those around, and he just sat whenever we stopped for awhile in one room.

For just a brief history, the palace was originally built as a hunting lodge back in the 1600's before getting razed by French forces.  Then Duke Eberhard Ludwig wanted to rebuild it in the early 1700's in the style of Versailles.  He had a rather scandalous life, leaving his wife back in Stuttgart and installing his long-time mistress at this palace.  But his legitimate son died, and so he needed to reconcile with his wife and try for another son, so the mistress was kicked out.  But alas, the wife was in her 50's, so nothing happened, and a Catholic nephew became the duke.  Eventually King Frederick of Wuerrtemburg and his wife, Queen Charlotte, used it as a summer residence.

You can see the wall coverings and furnishings, pretty much just as they were back in the 1700's, when Frederick was living there, which is amazing.  The contrast between those rooms, and those of the servants, was quite striking.  The had the room in the inside of the palace, with no windows and really low ceilings (two rooms on top of each other in the space of one royal room!)  The chapel and the ballroom were probably my favorite rooms. The palace was SO cold though--no wonder it was just used as a summer residence by the king and queen!

The little kids were amazingly well-behaved on this tour, and we got several comments about them.  That was a big relief, because it was a large tour group, and if they had been fussy, it would have been hard for anyone else to hear the guide!  The kids must have been awed by either the cold or all the lavishness, lol.  Fortunately the stories of romantic entanglements and parties of the various residents went right over their heads!

More pictures of the outside from the courtyard, where we could take pictures.

I'm sure this is a very stunning fountain in the summer when it is turned on!

This is the oldest wing.

The place where we met the tour group was in that portico and up the stairs.

The outside of the palace from the garden, which we didn't take time to look through because it was cold, and Bob's back was really hurting.

After we got back to the car, we had another quick lunch in the parking garage of lunch meat/cheese on brotchen.  Then we headed down to Stuttgart to visit an old friend whose husband is stationed there.  It took less than 30 minutes to get there, and we didn't make any wrong turns!

Verity was thrilled that Lisa and Ramey have a daughter the same age as her!  Her name is Anna Claire, which is neat because that is exactly what our Anna's name is!  They ordered tons of pizza, which we all enjoyed.

They live on post, on the 4th floor.  I know all those steps get annoying, but they had a beautiful, light-filled 4-bedroom apartment!  We really enjoyed catching up with them.

Later we played a really fun game called Telestrations.  It's sort of a combination of "telephone" and pictionary.  You can play with up to 12 people, and everyone picks a word off their card.  Then they draw a picture to represent that word and then pass the book to the next person.  They look at your picture and write the word they think you are drawing.  Then they pass the book to the next person, who draws a picture of that book.  By the time all the books get back to their original owner, the pictures/words have morphed hilariously!  We all laughed so hard! 

Micah and Drew had a great time with their youngest son Zach and all his toys!  It was really a great evening for all of us.  We didn't want to leave, but we had to drive back to Wiesbaden!  Fortunately it only took us 2 hours on good Autobahn roads, so it was an easy drive. 

I was so glad we got to visit them!  Lisa and I go way back to 1984.  Both sets of our parents went to the AMCF World Conference in Seoul, Korea, that year, so we met in the kids' program.  Then Lisa and I were on summer support staff at White Sulphur Springs during high school, which was tons of fun.  I think the thing I like best about facebook is being able to keep in touch with friends from way back, whom we have never really lived anywhere near.  Then, on the rare occasions when we do meet in person--it's like we had just seen each other yesterday!  So fun!  Military friendships are a real blessing!

Down Day

Saturday, Feb. 10, was a day where we didn't do too much.  After our big cold day in Trier the previous day, no one wanted to go anywhere or do anything!  By this time, Bob's back/leg was really hurting him, and he could barely walk.  He had been having some back problems for a little while, but they were really exacerbated by all the walking we did in Germany.  He hoped a day of rest would be helpful, although it ended up not really helping.  But I needed to do laundry, and we needed to go back to the store to stock up!  Siri had told us that pretty much all stores are closed Sunday always, and most stores, like the grocery store, would also be closed Monday and Tuesday because they were holidays--the 2 days before Lent started!  Brian said that Germans aren't all that religious, but they like to celebrate the fun parts, lol.  But that meant we needed to get enough cereal, (tiny) cartons of milk, yogurt, lunch meat, cheese, and bread to sustain us until we hopefully we got a flight back on Tuesday!

We did need to get the kids out of the house though, so we went on a walk around the C's neighborhood in the afternoon.  We were hoping to go to the nearby park Siri had told us about, but alas, it was locked up for some reason.  Ah well, it was still good to get out of the house, and we had a nice walk.

This is a church a few streets up from the C's house.  There is also a church below them, and so they can hear the bells from both churches when they toll!  I really liked hearing the church bells throughout the day.  It's kind of an audio reminder that the day is passing, and I think they sound pretty.

This is the C's house.  It is surprisingly big as far as German houses go!  There are 2 main stories (with 4 bedrooms on the second story, and 2 full bathrooms), plus a beautiful, light-filled attic with a big room and a small room, where we stayed.  There is also a big basement with 3 more rooms that could be bedrooms, a large laundry room, and a bathroom with a shower.  It was very nice! 

The stairs are really compact, space-saving spiral staircases, which I liked a lot because they just don't take up too much room.  Drew, struggled with them, though.  He fell down them, not once, not twice, but 3 times before he got the hang of them!  It turns out he was letting go of the rail at the same time as he would move his feet, and that just wasn't working for him, poor guy.  His back was so bruised!

*Artsy picture looking up the spiral because I just thought it was so cool!*

Some things that jumped into our cart at the grocery store were these Milka chocolate bars, which were on sale, as well as these "Toffifee" things that Anna had been dying to try out.  Verdict was, they were all delicious!  We got several options of chocolate bars.  The ones that were "triple" caramel and "triple" chocolate were really neat--each row had 3 different sections, one with a solid crunchy caramel or chocolate part, one with more of a nougat thing, and the last with a more liquid-y filling of either caramel or chocolate.  Yum!!  

Even though we got some flavors that weren't specifically nutty, Caleb didn't end up ever eating anything chocolate because we just weren't sure.  We made sure he had gummy stuff to make up for the lack.  It was definitely hard, since we couldn't accurately read labels, and no one wanted him to take any chances!  Plus, he doesn't love chocolate, so it was not such a huge loss. 

A day of relaxing, which ends up eating yummy chocolate, is a good day in my book!  

Trier

Last Thursday, Feb. 9, we visited Trier, which is about 2 hours away from Wiesbaden.  It was a cold, dreary day, which was probably not the best weather for tromping around an old city!  Bob and I had been to Trier on our honeymoon, but at that time I was really not remotely interested in Roman history, so I didn't pay that much attention.  Now, after all my years with Latin, I have become much more interested, and this was probably the place I wanted to visit most.  Others were not that interested or excited, however.

When we got to Trier, I was in front, which is never a good thing, and I didn't turn at the place where I had wanted to go to find parking.  So we parked further away, and when we came up out of the garage, I was completely disoriented.  All we had was a tiny map Siri had photocopied from my library copy of Fodor's Guide to Germany, and it didn't have that many street names on it!  We found 2 street names and launched out in the opposite direction.  Unfortunately, we veered too far in one direction, so we ended up way off course, once we found another street name on our map.  Oops!  The younger set was tired and cold--and we hadn't even gotten anywhere yet!  Caleb really shined with his map reading skills, however, and he got us back on track.  Eventually we made it to the Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen), which I had remembered seeing on our honeymoon.  Now they have a nice visitor's center with a movie.  They were doing construction to preserve the ruins.

We were allowed to walk under the bath ruins.

The tunnels were creepy for the littles, but I thought they were actually neat.  There were "skylights" every so often, so it didn't feel too dark.  There were water passages in here, and this was also where the slaves heated up the water.

It all reminded me of some of Jonathan's mine craft mazes!

A look at the part of the ruins that remain above ground.  It was an enormous complex back in the 300's!

I had wanted to visit the amphitheatre, but alas, it was flooded and ice-covered, so it was closed.  Instead we walked down towards the center of town, towards this pink palace and huge basilika.  I took a picture of Bob in this same place when we were here on our honeymoon 24 1/2 years ago, so it was fun to take a picture here again, with 8 of the kids!

Right after this picture, we stopped at a cafe that was attached to the Landesmuseum, which we did not tour (but seemed like it would have been really interesting, with all sorts of Roman artifacts).  We again got hot chocolate.  They offered both white chocolate (the waiter said it was Swiss white chocolate), and brown, so we got a cup of both.  The consensus was that the white chocolate tasted like warm milk and wasn't very good, but the brown chocolate was pretty good, and we ended up getting 2 more cups of the brown.  Again, not as good as Saalburg, however.  It was a nice break for us though, and everyone warmed up.

This is the south wing of the Electoral Palace, which was finished in 1756.  It is very detailed and beautiful!

The palace was added onto the Basilika of Constantine, which he commissioned as a throne room in the early 300's.  It's being used as a church now.

At this point we were trying to find the parking garage again, since everyone was ready to head back home.  We remembered we had parked by a church, so we headed toward a steeple.  That steeple turned out to be the great Dom of Trier, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the oldest cathedral in Germany.  It was so massive--it's actually 4 basilicas joined in the middle by a baptistry.  It was built on the foundations of a Roman palace, and the church got burned down several times before it was restored around 1000 AD.  Interestingly, it is the resting place of several relics--the skull of Constantine's mother Helena, the soles of St. Andrew's sandal, a nail of the cross, and the "seamless garment" Christ wore while being crucified.  I'm not sure how verified these are, but they are in the treasury, which regretfully we did not see.

Another part of the Dom, built in a completely different style, so it looks like a completely different church.

That part was open, so Jonathan and Bob peeked in.  Bob said it looked like the cathedral in his hometown.  The doors are pretty neat!

We headed in a new direction, and this led us to the main old plaza in Trier.  Again, I remembered seeing this with Bob on our honeymoon!

The buildings are so neat.  The corner one has a McDonalds on the bottom 2 floors.

Another church, another steeple ("Be vigilant and pray" is what it says by the clock, if I remember my Latin correctly), and more cool buildings.

This was a neat archway.

Hey, look, a store just for me all the way over here!  My parents used to be stationed at Spangdahlem, which is not too far away from here before I was born, and my mom said this store was definitely new since then!  Ha!

And lo and behold, we made it to the Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate!  I was so happy!  We didn't go to the other side, because everyone was very much done at this point, but I was glad to see it.  It was built around 170 AD.  It is so unreal to think about how old these things are that are still standing solid and strong!  Amazing!

We were also happy to see "Fleishstrasse", which was a street we recognized from when we got out of our parking garage (if only we had taken it then!).  We walked down it, passing another cool square with this Roman-y statue in it.  And then--hooray!--we were back at the corner where we started our day!

This was actually the church the parking garage was next to.  It seemed plenty big when we were first in Trier, but after seeing the Basilika and the Dom, it seemed quaint and tiny!

We had the long drive home, made longer because once again I failed to read the GPS correctly, and I got off at the exit before the one it actually wanted me to.  (In fairness, they were close together, and it is really hard to look at the GPS and look at the ever-darkening roadway!)  So we had to wander through a cute little town, and then do this pretzel-like maneuver to get back on the road we were supposed to be on.  I was glad it wasn't dark yet!  Bob said it only took 3 minutes to catch up to their car, but it seemed like it took longer to me!  That is the downside of driving 2 vehicles.  The upside is being able to park in parking garages and other small places, lol.  So we made it home with no further incidents, but we were all pretty fried after the long, cold day.  We got frozen pizzas from the store Hit and cooked those, since the C's had headed off to a previously planned ski trip to Garmisch.  Then we collapsed into bed, exhausted!

Wiesbaden

Thursday was Faith's birthday, and we decided to stay more local.  We headed into Wiesbaden.

Siri gave us great directions right to the parking garage, which came out in front of this beautiful church.  We were surprised at how much graffiti was on the church though--we hadn't noticed it on other churches.

Our first stop was a gigantic 3 story book store.  We wanted to get Anna a few German books for her to practice with at home.  We looked around for awhile, but finally we settled on 3 kids books (one was a children's Bible, so that should be easier to translate and understand, since she is already familiar with the stories).  We also got a family cookbook, and a fantasy kids book that was bigger and harder for later.  Oh, and one more "seek and find" kids book that conveniently has vocab under the things you are supposed to be finding in each scene.  We were sorely tempted by a Nutella cookbook, however we passed.  We don't actually have all that much room in our suitcases!

Then we wandered toward a fancy tea room that Siri had taken Christine and Elena for Elena's birthday when they were over visiting.  She had given us clear directions, and I had looked at a map on the computer too, so it should have been easy, right?  This part of the town was really cute, and they had this handy model map for us to look it!

We found the street she gave us, and walked up it . . . but we couldn't find the restaurant.  Eventually we got to a part that didn't look like anything Siri had described, so we turned around.  Fortunately we spotted it on the way back down--they were doing construction on its facade, so we had completely missed it!  It's a good thing we found it too, because people in our family were literally dying of hunger, fatigue, cold, etc.  It was tragic.

It was pretty crowded in there, but amazingly there were several tables open.  The waitresses fended off some other people so we could take all of them.  We definitely felt a little awkward as a big group in this restaurant filled with little tables, so we were glad to sit down and be out of the center of attention!

Anna and I went up to the counter to order our desserts.  We decided to sample 3 things.

We got a cream puff thing with blueberries in the middle of the cream layer (just okay), an adorable petit four which was perfect for Faith's birthday, and a little round thing of chocolate mousse, which was in a chocolate shell (this was the best!).  They were all so beautiful!

Bob also ordered a terrine of soup and 2 hot chocolates (not anywhere as good as the ones at Saalburg).  The waitress had to help us figure out what soup to order.  We ended up choosing a "goulash" soup, which was a thick beef stew like soup.  It was so good, and it hit the spot on a cold day!  We passed the terrine around, along with the hot chocolate.  Then we split all the desserts so we each had bites of each kind.

Here we are outside the restaurant.  They had a display with these fake old ladies in the window.

On our way back to Siri's, we drove right by the Wiesbaden Hotel!  It used to be a US military facility, but we have since given it back to the Germans, and now they are using it to house refugees.  It played an important part in my story though!

Back in 1963, my dad was in between his sophomore and junior year at USAFA.  Back then, the cadets went on an overseas field trip that summer, so my dad was in Germany, and the cadets were staying at the Wiesbaden Hotel.  But then President Kennedy came through, on that trip where he gave that speech with "Ich bin ein Berliner" in it, and his entourage needed the Wiesbaden, so the cadets got kicked out.  They all headed over to Ramstein to stay there, but they didn't have anything to do. The wives club kicked into action and organized a dance at the Ramstein Officer's Club.  They invited any and all single young ladies in the vicinity--which included my mom.

My grandpa was assigned to a small radar station near Ramstein the summer before my mom's senior year of high school.  She did NOT want to move to Germany for one last year of high school, so she lobbied heavily to be allowed to stay behind in Springfield, VA, where she had been for the previous 2 years.  But my grandpa was adamant that the whole family stay together, so they all went.  My mom had just graduated from high school and was waiting to head back to the US to go to college at Vassar.  She went to the dance, and when she walked in the door, one of the hostesses selected my dad out of the group of cadets, and introduced the 2 of them!  And that was that!  My dad even came back and visited her family after he and some friends had taken leave and traveled around Europe by themselves after the official trip was over.  So my parents really have Pres. Kennedy to thank for them meeting!  

After another delicious dinner, Siri had made a horse cake for Faith, as well as a second caramel one with crunchy caramel frosting that was so good!  I think Faith had a very special birthday that she will remember forever!