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...