European Family Fun

Well I kind of took a break from my blog over Christmas, which I spent with my family here in Germany. You've already heard about their arrival and first day here, so I will get right to the Fleisch und Kartoffeln of the visit. Here are some highlights.

(I will apologize in advance that I left the memory card to my camera in my computer for most of the journey. My mother has all the pictures on her camera. If you are If you are a hip under-thirty who has facebook, or an over-thirty still clinging to your youth who has facebook, or an over 40 who got facebook to keep track of your children, you can check out my sisters facebook profile for some pictures.)

Monday Dec. 22:
I gave the grand tour of Uni-Wuppertal to my family. They got to walk a lot of stairs. I gave them a piano concert in the practice room where I normally practice. We made reservations at an Indian food restaurant that we tried to go to the night before, and ate there for supper.

Tuesday Dec. 23:
Off to Cologne. My mother found an apartment to rent by the day there. We went to the Christmas Market in Cologne in the afternoon. Since everything closes on Christmas Eve we also went grocery shopping for a little German culture. That evening I got my family a little lost when we were looking for a brewery, and we ate at a different place instead. It was still a good time.

Wednesday Dec. 24:
Christmas Eve. We went to two Christmas Eve services kind of on accident. First we went to what I thought was more of a Christmas Eve concert, which turned out to be a whole Catholic mass. Then after that we went to a beautiful midnight mass in the Cologne Cathedral. It was kind of interesting to compare the two services. One was in a smaller church and felt a little more homey, the other was in the giant Cathedral packed out with people, many of whom were probably tourists. They both followed the same kind of program though, with a sermon, communion, and much of the same scripture.

Thursday Dec. 25:
We slept in after being at church until past 1am the previous night. After a brunch, we had a mini gift exchange. My mother made meatloaf for Christmas dinner which ended up being kind of in between lunch and supper. We then enjoyed the Christmas day by baking and eating peppernuts, and playing card games.

Friday Dec. 26:
We traveled to Stuttgart, a little more south and east of Cologne. The hotel we stayed in had apples that they left you in your room every day. The 26th is still a holiday in Germany, so shops and some restaurants were closed. We did manage to find a neat beerhouse that was open that day. We tried some of their Christmas brew, and had some late afternoon refreshments. No trip to Germany is complete without eating at a Doener Imbiss, so afterwords we ate at a Turkish restaurant, and made friends with one of the employees who cut us a special deal on his "Doener Plate." It was a lot of food.

Saturday Dec. 27:
We sort of decided that Stuttgart was a little bland. It felt kind of like every midsized American city, so we made a day trip to Esslingen, a small town just a little ways away from Stuttgart. The old part of the city is very cute, and stayed intact even through World War II. There were very small streets that are all now pedestrian zones. Some of the buildings lacked the perfectly square architecture that I had come accustomed to. They were either built that way, or settled into that shape as time went on. We ate at a quaint cafe for brunch, and walked up the hill on the edge of the city where the vineyards were.

Sunday Dec. 28:
We liked our little outing so much the day before, we decided to do it again. This time we went to Ludwigsberg where we saw a palace which some call the Versailles of Germany. It was very large and impressive. We then took a walk through the area that was used for hunting, and saw some kind of deer.

Monday, Dec. 29:
Another travel day. We decided to explore a place called Lorsch before going to Heidelberg (where we had our next hotel). We got off in Bensheim and took the S-Bahn to the little tiny town. Lorsch's train station has two tracks the second of which is only accessible by walking over the first. What we saw there was an old Monastery that was built in the 700s and was functional until the 1200s. It was later destroyed, but in its time it was the center of intellect in Swabia.

Tuesday, Dec. 30:
We explored Heidelberg and did a little walking tour. The old part of Heidelberg is really interesting and pretty. Then we climbed up to the Heidelberg Castle. It seemed so perfect like something one would see in a movie. It had a beautiful terrace with a great view of the city. I could imagine feeling pretty safe from enemies in that location (but it might have just been that I missed my Christmastime tradition of watching all 3 Lord of the Rings).

Wednesday, Dec. 31:
We traveled back to Wuppertal on our way to Duesseldorf. My sister and I did some laundry, then we headed off to Dusseldorf. I was a little afraid that the restaurants would be closed, and that nothing would be going on in Dusseldorf's old town. But after a very friendly middle-to-elderly aged woman who had lipstick on her teeth "helped" us get to the old town, we found a great Restaurant where we had Croatian food. It was quite tasty and meaty. It turned out the the Alt Stadt in Dusseldorf was actually really full. People in Germany just do their fireworks in the middle of the streets, and it seems to be a fun game to throw firecrackers at people or into crowds. So after exiting the warzone and getting back to our hotel, we played games and rang in the new year.

Thursday, Jan. 1 (2009):
This was the final day in Germany for my parents. We went to a bakery for breakfast/lunch, and explored the old town in daylight. It was quite cold, and we took shelter in one of the Alt Bier breweries, and had a couple beers. The manager must have known that we were from the US and gave us Uerige (the brand of beer) 2009 pocket calenders. A little more walking then in the Alt Stadt led us to seek warmth in a coffee shop where we played cards for probably 2 hours. For an early supper we headed to a Thai restaurant and then back to the hotel. We played more games, and prepared to send my Parents off in the morning.

Friday, Jan. 2:
This day was not my day. Here are the things that went wrong:
-I slept really poorly.
-I got my family on the wrong tram line while we were attempting to get to the airport at 7 am. I had to backtrack and walk with my family through the snow. We decided to take a the next cab we saw instead of trying to use public transport.
-After saying goodbye to my parents in the airport, Taylor and I headed back to Wuppertal. We had purchased two twin rail passes one for my parents and one for my sister and I. On our way back I couldn't find ours. Taylor and I had planned to to a little traveling on our own. The pass had two days of travel left on it, and I didn't know where it was. I was almost sure my parents had taken it with them and it was checked in their luggage to Chicago.
-Also on the way back to Wuppertal I couldn't find my key. I had left it in my apartment. When we got to Wuppertal, luckily it was a Friday, and the janitor was on duty who could unlock the door for me. If it had been the weekend or after hours, I would have had to pay someone 31 euro to unlock my door.
-When I got into my apartment both my keys and the train pass were in my room. I was very happy, until. .
-Later that night my sister and I went to the Wuppertal Brewery with a couple of my American friends. On our way out the door, we locked ourselves out. Again. After hours. On a Friday night. If I wanted back into my apartment before Monday, I had to call the key-man. So I did, and gave him his 31 euro. I did however get a very detailed receipt that I am thinking about framing. Other than that, I just like to pretend I never had that money.

Saturday, Jan 3:
This was a day for my sister to recover from our travels, and prepare to go on our own travels. We decided that we would go to Salzburg, Austria for one night, and then to Munich for two. Thereafter my sister would meet up with the Bethel Germany interterm trip. We also did laundry, but didn't have enough credits to dry, and Taylor had to wait until things were dry to pack. She finished about 12:30am, and our plan was to leave at 5:21am to get to Salzburg by 1pm.

Sunday, Jan 4 (Today):
Taylor coughed throughout most of the night at about 5 minute intervals. I know because I was awake hearing it. At 4:10 when I got up, I asked here if she was still up to going to Salzburg; I was happy to cancel our reservations at the hostel if she wasn't feeling well. She said she still wanted to go, but on the way to Cologne she said she felt very sick, so we got out and went back to Wuppertal. Today she has been resting in hopes that tomorrow we will be able to go to Munich.

That's the end of my saga.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and I wish you the best in the new year.

--Austin