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!