Germany Day 4

BONN - BEETHOVAN'S HOUSE - CATHEDRAL - BOTANIC GARDEN - MINERAL MUSEUM - EVANGELICAL CHURCH - COLOGNE 

Fur Elise anyone? We started our day in Bonn visiting Beethovan's house. No pics allowed indoors, but we got a few in the garden outside. My biggest takeaway was that hearing aids have come a very long way since the 1800's. 

Clearly, I am really sensitive to culture and beauty.

The gift shop and my credit card enriched all of our lives with the addition of this rubber duck to our group. 

Oh, another Beethoven gem - a bizarre sculpture of a half-dressed Ludwig sitting on a chair adorned with creepy heads. 

Moving onward through Bonn we came across the cathedral.

Another awkward stroll inside with Ben. You'd think he would have gotten used to it, but nope.

The palace in Bonn is now owned by the University of Bonn and houses a botanic garden including plants from all around the world. I assumed this meant that if you weren't allergic to what was blooming in Germany at the time, you could find something else here to trigger your itchy eyes and runny nose. 

The palace also includes a mineralogical museum. Shockingly enough, we were the ONLY ONES visiting the museum (not sure what that is about!). This collection is not labeled in both German and English (an exception on this trip actually), but it was all interesting to look at regardless.

In the fourth room I found this sturdy cabinet. This intrigued me. Could it be? Could this be radioactive material?? My German is quite rudimentary, but I am pretty sure that "Uranprojekt" means uranium project and some of the other words reference Nazis. So, yeah.

We took the scenic route back to the car and found the German equivalent of a Little Library. 

AND another church!

Then it was time to jump back in the car and head to Cologne!

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Five

Day Six

Germany Day 3

HARIBO - SCHLOSS DRACHENBURG - DRACHENFELS - KOENIGSWINTER

As we were planning this trip, Rachel and I asked Ben what he would like to do. "Go to a Haribo store" ranked very high on his list. Okay, it was the first item on the list. It turns out there are many Haribo stores around the country, but Rachel found a very large one for us to visit.

Very large. 

Is the face of a happy boy or is this the face of a happy boy? Hint: this is the face of a happy boy.

We bought a fair ::ahem:: amount of candy at this store. The receipt was over a foot long (sorry, don't know how many meters though that would be more fitting I guess).

And then it was time to walk off some of that sugar. The owner of the Airbnb-esque place we were staying told us that we could easily walk up to the Dragon castle. He said the route was steep at the beginning and then leveled out. 

I am going to give him a pass since he isn't a native English speaker. However, as we hiked uphill the entire way, the quote "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" kept going through my head.  

It was a good hike! There was a tram we could have ridden, but why take a tram when you can walk?

Our first stop: Schloss Drachenburg

Just lovely! And look at those beautiful rays of sunshine!

Germans must LOVE roses because they were everywhere and all in bloom.

Naturally, Ben found the stairs. Behold, the north tower!

Just some of the stairs. This is the point when I started sending Mom pictures of stairs to get her excited about her trip later this summer. Ha!

It was worth the 50 million stairs.

We had a lovely lunch at the outdoor cafe on site. Rachel and I had currywurst with fries (very German) and Ben had a waffle with ice cream (less German).  Then it was back on the road to walk up to Drachenfels. Based upon how things looked up here, we assume this is where the dragon did most of its damage. 

A dragon OR the ravages of time. We choose to go with the dragon option.

It was a lot of walking and stairs for one day, which is why we then went to dinner. Followed by a walk along the Rhein. Ben found an artifact from an ancient culture and was almost trapped forever.

Ben was (and probably still is) sooooo sure that he is taller than Aunt Rachel. I tried to prove he wasn't time and time again, but he seems to think these pictures are fake news.

Signage in Germany is, predictably, different from the States. If a parking garage is marked "frei" (free) that refers to available spots not cost of parking. There are also a bunch of trails everywhere. Some of them are for pedestrians and cyclists - which sometimes have a strained relationship. So I really liked this little sign.

Eventually we returned to our room and tried to get some rest (jetlag sucks) for more walking and walking and walking and.....

Day One

Day Two

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Germany Day 2

BINGEN - RHEINSTEIN - RHEINFELSPFAD - KOENIGSWINTER

Our day started with some errands and lunch on base (Subway for Ben - continuing his American food tour of Germany). I wasn't allowed to go all the way in the building to Rachel's office, but took this picture in the lobby while she ran in to get something.

Our first stop of the day was the little town of Bingen am Rhein where we got our first views of the Rhein River and warmed up with some steps up to the top of Burg Klopp.

So picturesque.

Heading back down we stopped at St. Martin's Basilica.

This is where we discovered that Ben is acutely uncomfortable wandering around the inside of churches. We assured him that that the sign outside was in fact welcoming people in to look around and that this is what people do in Europe, but it is very different from how we behave in the States. I think he was always expecting that someone would pop up and get bad at us for being there. Which is unfortunate because Rachel and I did not let his discomfort stop us from wandering around as many churches as we could.

We eventually left the basilica and Bingen and followed the Rhein up to Rheinstein Castle.

I lost count of how many sets of stairs we walked up and down at this castle, but was lovely to explore all of the nooks and crannies and reading rooms. 

Did I mention stairs? This kid developed a sixth sense and could find stairs all over the place by the time we were done in Germany.

We spent so much time at Rheinstein that by the time we drove the very winding road along the Rhein to Rheinfelspfad it was close to closing time and Ben was suffering from severe motion sickness.

It turns out scenic river roads are less interesting when you spend a lot of time trying not to puke all over your aunt's car.

Who knew?

After Ben spent some quality time on terra firma and was dosed with Dramamine, we got back in the car and headed to our room in Koenigswinter for some rest before we took on a dragon.

Day One

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Germany Day 1

SEATTLE - WIESBADEN

Ben and I did a thing. A wonderfully exhausting thing. We started on a Saturday and didn't stop until the following Friday. Germany will never be the same.

This post is labeled Day 1, but that is a little bit of a misnomer. We left Seattle on a Saturday and landed in Germany on a Sunday. But it was already Sunday in Germany when we left Seattle so and the whole trip felt like a Saturday. Whatever.

After 10.5 hours that included no inflight entertainment (just punishing themselves from my perspective) but did include crying babies (didn't bother me - not my circus, not my monkeys) and an escapee cat (no, really) we arrived at the Frankfurt airport where our tour guide picked us up to start our adventure.

It's been a little bit since we've seen Rachel and Ben was so, so, so hoping that he would be taller than her by now. He's soooooo close. Also seen here - Flat Isaac. He went everywhere with us and pics were sent back to Isaac's teacher along the way.

It was so very tempting to crash at this point, but after a short nap (or an attempt at a short nap) we grabbed our shoes and walked to Wiesbaden.

First though, we found my street.

Wiesbaden has a lovely park area with a small lake, gorgeous flowers, trails, and ducks. Rachel and I both like walking (poor Ben!) so we took the scenic route. 

We found a church. It looked big at the time, but we were soon to learn this was moderate-sized (and actually puny compared to some).

Rachel took us by the Holocaust Memorial. These are always so sobering. But also refreshing that Germany doesn't hide from its past.

We'd worked up an appetite by this point and went to the Fußgängerzone to find a restaurant for dinner. We let Ben pick and he, being the adventurous and international gastronome that he is, picked Five Guys.

Interesting fact: the potatoes for fries in German Five Guys restaurants come from the Netherlands. 

Looking to clock at least 5 miles on our first day, we then wandered around Wiesbaden a while longer to admire the scenery and sculptures.

Who knows how many hours without sleep later and we returned to Rachel's place for our first night of sleep in Germany to prepare for the rest of our trip.

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Prom

 I wasn't home yesterday when the older boys went to prom. If I had been, the boys would have been incredibly irritated with the number of pictures I would have taken. As it turns out, I was in Bellevue at a library conference and no where nearby with my camera for the big day. Jason was struggling with a nasty cold and in survival mode so no pics.

Luckily we live in the era of smartphones and so I was hoping there would be a lot of documentation out there. And with some nagging, they found some for me. Michael more than Josh, but here they are.

Prom was held at the children's museum which I was skeptical of at first but I think actually was a great idea. Not all of the kids come to dance. Not all of them come with dates. But everyone has a fun time. Basically some genius realized that teens actually like the activities at the museum but it isn't cool to admit that in front of their parents. 

So yeah, they had a great time.