Europe, part 1: Germany

The drama leading up to this trip of ours was sometimes a little too much. We decided last fall that we wanted to go visit Spencer's parents (and other places) before we had another child. I won't leave my kids to go on a trip until they are at least two years old, so I knew that if we didn't go before having a baby, it probably wouldn't happen. We booked our tickets before I was even pregnant; it had to be planned carefully - after tax season (haha) and before I would be 7 months along. Luckily, the timing seemed to be perfect.

I was diagnosed with partial placenta previa, and there was the chance we wouldn't be able to go. (At this point, I was SO glad we had purchased trip insurance - SO out of character for us, and that we had used skymiles, meaning that we could cancel and not lose money.) I read up on the likelihood of placenta previa "resolving" itself, and it seemed likely that it would...but maybe not by the time I needed it to. I got a blessing, and then just had to wait.

The morning of my ultrasound I was really nervous. Tyler was up all night with an earache and I was running around trying to get him in to a doctor as well as get myself to my appointment by 8 a.m. When they hooked me up they told me the placenta had moved! I called Spencer to tell him and said, "Aren't you so surprised??" He said, "No." :) I called my doctor that afternoon, got the official clearance to go on our trip (this was 10 days before we were to leave), and got excited. I resumed my research and planning.

Then came a natural disaster. What were the chances?? I would be thrilled to never again hear "Iceland" and "volcano" together in the same sentence. The volcano shut down airspace over Europe for 5 days and once again, we didn't know if we would get to go on our trip. I became a KLM, CNN, SkyNews, and BBC junkie over those several days, and once again put our planning on hold. Long story short, we were able to fly out just a day and a half after they opened the airspace. What a relief.

Anyway...we flew through the night and arrived in Frankfurt at 4 pm the next day. I was silly in thinking I would be able to sleep on the plane, when I know quite well that I cannot sleep sitting up. It was a long night. At least the flight was nice and they fed us almost the whole time. I also watched Avatar on the flight over and was incredibly disappointed; maybe if we had seen it in the theater in 3D I would feel differently. We arrived in Germany and I was so swollen everywhere as well as completely exhausted. But we had tons of plans and needed to get adjusted to the 9 hour time change as quickly as possible. We decided we would stay up until 10 pm, suffering through the exhaustion.

Spencer's parents were great to keep us busy. There was not even time to sit down and fall asleep. We saw the church's offices over there, drove up to the temple, and went downtown to the Romer.

On our first full day (Saturday) there, the touring began. I had one place where I wanted to go in Germany, a castle called Burg Eltz. We have become big Rick Steves fans, and he says this is his favorite castle in all of Europe. It looked incredible in the pictures. We drove about an hour and a half to get there. It was very cool....but they were doing restoration and there were cranes and scaffolding everywhere. It is one of the only castles that remains (and has remained) intact and is decorated and furnished as it was 500 years ago. The tour was excellent.

After the tour we ate some traditional German food at the cafe. Then we drove through the Mosel River Valley on our way to Trier. This drive was stunning! The little German towns were so quaint and the hills on either side of the river were covered in vineyards. We just wanted to jump on a boat and float down the river. There were also castles at every turn. Too bad Spencer and I were taking turns falling asleep in the backseat of the car...

Trier was really neat, but it's all a little cloudy for me as I was quite the zombie. It's the oldest city in Germany and was once a Roman capital. The cathedral there is the oldest Christian church in Germany. When we went inside there were TONS of little kids singing. The place was packed and it was so fun to listen in, even though I couldn't understand them.

The only still-standing portion of the Porta Nigra, which is the city gate/wall.

We also saw the Basilica. It is the largest intact Roman structure outside of Rome. The place was gigantic. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed (this didn't deter me later in our trip, but it did the first few days).

The next day (Sunday) we went to church. The meeting was wonderful, and the only uncomfortable part was when a serious Frenchman tried to talk to me. Even though I'm sure he spoke good English, I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Then we left Frankfurt and headed toward Salzburg. We stopped in Heidelberg (the Harvard of Europe) for a minute, and then us girls convinced the boys that we needed to go to Rothenburg, a cute walled city with lots of cute shops, and where you can buy traditional German Christmas decorations/ornaments and souvenirs. I loved it here and wished we had had more time.

(The "crooked house"). All the buildings were adorable!

We saw this t-shirt and I just had to get a picture. When we got to Germany, I saw this sign EVERYWHERE. I guess I'm not the only one who has wondered where the heck this place is. Turns out, it means "exit" (freeway exit). But doesn't it sound funny to say? I got a kick out of the t-shirt.

Spencer drove on the Autobahn for a little while. Now THAT was scary. No speed limits on certain portions! Kathy said, "When there's an accident on the Autobahn, it's almost always fatal." Uh, I believe it!

Joe also brought out another side of me...we stopped at a restroom (or, a water closet), where you had to pay to go in, but then you could turn your tickets in for credit in the store. Joe brought us back some ice cream bars, called Magnum ice cream. Oh man, it was the BEST ICE CREAM ever. Unfortunately, I saw it in every city we went to, and had to have it. In fact, in Harrod's (London), I found the mint kind and honestly it was the best thing I have ever tasted. And now I wish someone would market it in the states. To be honest, I don't love ice cream all that much, but this was the BEST stuff ever. And I'm sure the baby loved it too, and I'm sure I gained about 10 pounds this trip just because of that dumb ice cream...

We got to Salzburg on that Sunday night, checked in to our hotel, and drove the 20 minutes north to Oberndorf. There is a tiny chapel there, marking the place where "Silent Night" was written. Spencer's granddad related a really neat personal story about this place that was in the church news right before he died a year and a half ago. I won't copy the whole story here, but we knew it was a special place to him, and we were excited to go see it. I'm so glad we did, especially now, after having gone to Spencer's mission at the end of our trip (more on that later).


And that ends our first two days in Germany (and partly in Austria)...