Germany - Part 4, Second Day in Berlin

Sunday was our next day and we enjoyed Berlin. As I mentioned before, our hotel was located in the middle of downtown or "mitte." What I hadn't really realized was how close it was to Checkpoint Charlie, a famous US Army Checkpoint between west and east Berlin when it was divided by the Berlin Wall.

What is really strange is that there is no other sign of the wall around. It looks like a street in Manhattan. Upscale shops, dining, hotels and more bakeries. But right in the middle of the busy road you see the original Checkpoint Charlie and the original signs that went along with them. In a way it is like stepping back in time. As you will see below, you could pay 1 Euro and have your picture taken with the "guard."

We spent about 3 hours in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and only made it through 2 of the 3 stories of the museum. It was HUGE. It told everything of the stories about how people tried to escape the East side to the West. I took one picture in the museum of a Volkswagen Beetle that was used by the man that owned that house which is now the museum. He helped 55 people escape the East in that modified Beetle. I found out after that that you weren't supposed to take pictures in the museum so I didn't take any more.

It was very eye opening for me to see all the different ways people tried to cross the wall. There were so many contraptions, from hiding in 2 suitcases to flat out running across and being shot at multiple times. Then there were the water escapes. Did you know that every body of water near the border had a screen of metal with huge metal spikes on it, only 3cm below the surface? And that Scuba diving equipment wasn't sold on the East side for fear of people using it to escape. But that didn't stop them, they used pieces of whatever they could find and stolen oxygen tanks and did it anyway!

Or that people jumped out of buildings that were near the border to get across, or tunneled through them? It is simply amazing to me the lengths people went to to get OUT of the east side. It must have been really, really bad over there, to build a whole wall and such to have to keep the people IN! How very sad!

The pictures of us by the wall are in front of the museum with an actual section from the wall. We had such a great time but alas our 5 hour drive home was calling. We snapped a picture of the Brandenburg Gate on the way out. It was kind of funny because on the way out the GPS kept trying to have us drive through the Brandenburg Gate (which you can't).

On the way home we encountered some VERY heavy fog. It was kind of scary! But we made it OK. And had a great time the next day at Neuschwanstein Castle.

Germany - Part 3, First Day in Berlin

On Saturday we headed to Berlin. It was a 5 hour drive. No problem except gas is quite a bit more expensive in Germany. We were paying 1.33-1.37 Euros/Liter, which equals out to be a little over $8/gallon. EEKKK! Now I know why so many people opt to take the trains! We did look into it, and unfortunately it would have cost $400 or so for us to take the train. After we had shelled out so much money on the rental car, we figured we'd just use that.

So off we went to Berlin for our concert, The Swell Season. This concert was the inspiration for the whole trip! The theater was beautiful. It was called the Admiralplast Theatre. It is what appears to be a very old theatre right in the middle of downtown. We booked our hotel based off the theatre location and only had to walk a block. Turns out Checkpoint Charlie was also on the same road about 1/2 mile or less away, but more on that later. Fredrichstrasse was the name of the road and the touristy book we had said it was comparable to 5th Ave in NYC. Designer everything and prices to match! Fun to window shop for sure!

We had a wonderful dinner before the concert. My favorite meal became a tomato, pesto, mozzerella Sandwich. I had this at more than one restaurant. Did I mention that you have to ask for "stillwasser" or "no gas" in your water? Turns out Germans really like their carbonated water! And the whole drink thing just is crazy. 4.5 euros for a tiny little water bottle or coke. Needless to say I didn't order a drink at all more than once! That is about $6 for a TINY thing of water that is barely 2 glasses!

We had a great time at the concert though and went back to our hotel and went to sleep! One thing that intrigued me was that there was no security to get into the concert at all. No bag checks, no searches. I can't remember the last time I went to a concert when I DIDN'T have all that stuff done.

Germany - Part 2, Rothenburg

Friday morning we decided to head out and be super touristy! Our very first stop in the morning was a German grocery store! And no, Niels wouldn't let me take any pictures! But it was still fun to go through and see everything. All the different foods, the in-store bakery that blew anything I had seen in the states out of the water! We got a soft sugar coated pretzel thing there, and boy was it good! It tasted more like a doughnut but was shaped like a pretzel.
You know what is cool there at the grocery store? Their cashiers get to sit down. A small thing I know, but anyone that has ever worked as a cashier can probably vouch for the fact that standing 8 hours straight is no fun! We came out of there with some very fun Easter Candy, chocolate, and some rice pudding. YUMMY!

On Friday afternoon again it was cold and snowy, but that just made everything all the more beautiful at our next stop, Rothenburg. Thanks to Staci, we had a pretty good idea where we were going to visit on our trip, and this town (which was also only 15 minutes away) was on the top of the list. It is a popular tourist destination, too. A lot of the people spoke English. This town was full of shops, Christmas shops selling Ornaments, and traditional German Christmas decor such as smokers, nutcrackers, and the candle powered things you see below. Why is it that I always forget the name of those things? There were also cuckoo clocks, coffee shops, and of course our first visit to a real sit down German Backarei (Bakery). YUM! Staci and her girls Ruby and Charlotte were able to come with us to the Backarei. Fun and yummy! We were very pleased to have them with us, beings how BUSY that lady is!

We spent the afternoon looking around at the different shops and sights including a really old church!

Germany - Part 1, Prelude & Arriving in Snow

The honeymoon we never took. That was the goal of this German adventure. With 10 years of marriage under our belts, on a total whim I planned us a surprise 6 day anniversary trip to Germany to see a concert in Berlin. Yep, a rock concert. The Swell Season from the movie "Once" to be exact. And I pulled it off, and totally surprised Niels, too! Which for me was no small feat considering the closest I'd ever been to going out of the country was walking across the border to Nogales, Mexico for a few hours all the while with Niels griping about how he wanted to leave. Not exactly what I had hoped for in International Travel!

The only things we DID have for the trip was our passports and a place to stay. Our passports had been waiting around gathering dust and making me wonder why I ever sprung for the almost $200 each they cost in the first place almost a year ago.
The place to stay was provided by my friend Staci, who's husband is in the military and her family just got moved from Hawaii to Germany (boo-hoo, eh?) We are SO grateful for her and her family's wonderful generosity, without it this trip would have been just a dream! Hotels in Europe plus eating out is VERY expensive!

But let me back up a bit to how I hatched this plan in the first place! Yep, we were coming up on 10 years of marriage. Niels and I haven't been anywhere together for longer than 1-2 nights without the kids since we had kids. Niels loves music. All kinds of music. And concerts, too. And his good friend Anthony told him about the movie I mentioned above. "Once". Nope I didn't watch it. I'm not a movie buff and after the first several f-bombs flew in the first 5 minutes I decided I'd had enough of that movie. But Niels loved it! And raved about it! And bought their music, and became obsessed to the point that I knew ALL their music just from the sheer fact of it having it played at top volume in my house for the last several months. I liked the music, just not the movie.

And so through Facebook which I log onto frequently and Niels does so about once a quarter, I saw that The Swell Season was on tour. And the thought hatched in my brain to see if I could plan us a weekend getaway to see a concert. Then when I got to the website my hopes were dashed. They only had 2 more shows in the U.S. One was that day, the other the next weekend, which wouldn't have worked even if it had been super local.

And then I scrolled down through the tour. All European dates over the winter. And look at that! 4 dates in Germany! And that got my brain to wondering if

a) if Staci really WOULDN'T mind us coming to visit
b) if I could even order tickets for a german concert
c) with finding a sitter, booking all sorts of tickets etc, could I really pull this off?

And piece by piece it DID come together!

International Driver's license, check Even Niels didn't know about THAT one since he went to Germany 15 years ago.
trip details like airfare, check
airline ticket for my mom to babysit, check
a new GPS with European maps, check (But I must mention it was only $50 more to get a whole NEW GPS, and not just a European map card for my current GPS)

Not that we didn't have rough patches along the way such as only renting standard cars (I don't drive a stick), my mom being sick for almost a month before she was supposed to come watch the kids, and did I mention ordering German concert tickets when you don't speak German? Oh yeah, that was fun including the $4.95/page international fax order that I wondered if it was going into oblivion. I got a receipt, also in German, but as the time drew very close to leave I didn't think our tickets were going to show up! International mail, it seems, is very s-l-o-w. And one more biggie. I thought for sure towards the end there after we got the yes from Staci that she wasn't going to let us stay with her anyway because her mom had been visiting her for 3 weeks, broke her arm on her last day and then spent 5 weeks at a German hospital with complications. Did I mention Staci has 2 young girls and her husband is deployed to Iraq? EEKK! I thought for sure she was going to change her mind, and I wouldn't have blamed her one bit!

But thankfully all came together and we boarded the plane for the LONG overnight flight to Germany. And below, this is what it looked like when we got there! Here are some pictures of us driving (lost) through the German countryside, (and I DO mean rural non-plowed roads) country side! LOL. How do you get lost with a GPS? Oh, that's easy. Just use the address of Staci's German friend, meshed somewhere in your overnight travel laden brain with the directions she gives you over the phone that you are absolutely sure she said it was a RIGHT off the autobahn. I even had it written down, WRONG! LOL. Good thing we paid the extra $25/day for snow tires! We ended up needing them a lot more than we had realized we would! I have to thank Niels for that one, he had his gut tell him go for the snow tires! My cheap self was going to skimp! LOL

For me, when we got into the airport it was a bit shocking. Seeing everything in German (and then in English). Then at the rental car counter the guy spoke some English so that wasn't bad. But then getting the car (and having Niels stall it a few times before we even got out of the parking garage) and heading out of the airport. Oh MY! It was a HUGE case of culture shock for me! Odd looking signs (not to mention trying to figure out what they meant), not being able to read anything. WHEW! I think I finally got some perspective on how other people feel when they have never been to the U.S.!

It didn't take too long though and I was starting to feel a lot more at home! But more on that later.

This was Thursday, the 10th of February and by the time we got to Staci's (had to go through the guard gate and such to get on the base) it was 4:30pm. We just decided to take it easy that night and then get going to see the sights the next day.

More to follow...