Germany and Beyond!

Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed out, with no exact destination in mind. First, I had to find a geocache in Austria. I didn’t find one the night before, so we set out to locate one. We drove to the town of Feldkirch, Austria, and (after a little driving around) found a parking spot. The geocache was located within the walls of the Schattenburg Castle, but outside the actual castle proper. We were able to go inside the castle, where there is a restaurant, but we didn’t stay long. As Melissa told us when we first got here, after a while it is kind of, “Ho hum, another castle.” But I still think they are pretty neat to see. After finding the geocache, and looking at the castle, we walked back to our car and headed off to find another geocache that was nearby. We then wanted to go to Lichtenstein, and I wanted a geocache there, so I found one and punched the coordinates into the GPS. We stayed the night near the Austrian/Lichtenstein border, so we were only minutes away.

We drove through some beautiful farmland and popped out into a small town. We arrived at a small park area with some walking trails. We could see some stone walls where the geocache was at, so we walked up the trail and arrived at an old castle ruin. It was not a very well preserved ruin, but it was actually quite neat. It is used by people for a park, as there are a couple fire pits inside, but there was not very much left except a few walls. We searched and searched for the geocache, but could not find it. One of the irritating parts of geocaching! But, it still brought us to a neat place. I punched in some more coordinates and we headed out. We ended up in a small town that had a huge sports complex. We parked the car and walked around the complex. We found the geocache and kept walking down the path to the adjacent town. We stopped at a little pond and then continued on to the main cross road before walking back to our car. When we got back to our car the local firemen were doing a drill crossing a stream, so we walked over and watched them for a few minutes before heading out once again.

Lichtenstein is a very small country, and it didn’t take long to drive around in it. We then headed over the border in Switzerland. Lichtenstein and Switzerland share the same currency: the Swiss Franc. That is not all they share, they are both very expensive. Not as expensive as Norway, but really close. Switzerland’s road toll sticker was also very expensive. Where Czech Republic and Austria were around the fifteen to twenty dollar mark, Switzerland was almost forty five dollars. And this is just for us to drive around for a few hours! The cost of marking a new country off the map, I guess. I plugged the coordinates for a geocache into the GPS and we worked our way through some very small farm roads to the site. Right after we crossed over in Switzerland it started to rain hard. When we pulled up to the base of the hill with a castle on top (about where the geocache was), I wasn’t sure I wanted to get all wet to find it. But David said we were already way out here, we might as well go up and try to find it. Okay. We started walking up the very steep pathway (at least we were covered by trees for the first part) and lightning and thunder started up. Great. Oh well, we kept going. And we were glad we did. We walked past a hotel (way out in the middle of nowhere!) on our way up the slope to the castle. Not only was it a publicly owned, abandoned structure, but it was very well preserved and had stairs and walkways so we could walk around in it. This is one of the things I love about geocaching, finding off the beaten path places that are fantastic. We wandered around the castle, and tried to stay out of the rain as much as possible, and then headed back down to our car.

We then headed for Zurich. Driving in a new city is hard enough, but add in that I can’t read the signs and I don’t know the rules/laws very well, always add to the excitement. We looked for any kind of landmark, so we ended up going to St. Peter’s Church. Of course, I drove up some road (where the GPS told me to go) that I wasn’t supposed to. Technically it is drivable, but only for special circumstances. It was a cobblestone street, very skinny, going in-between storefronts with a multitude of pedestrians. Hmm. Then when some woman was really questioning what we were doing (and of course we have that whole language barrier thing going here), we made a few point turn around and headed back where we came from as quickly as possible. (I saw a sign later, which after knowing what I knew then, made sense. Yep, we weren’t supposed to drive there!) We found a parking spot and walked back up to the church. We checked out the church (yep, another church) and then wandered down a couple cobblestone streets looking at the stores. We then had enough and went back to our car. It was a bit crazy leaving Zurich, only one u-turn, but we finally made it back onto the highway. We then drove the two hours back to Melissa’s apartment. It was quite the weekend road trip. Over the three days we drove over 800 miles and went through four new countries!

Sunday was a lazy day. We didn’t have anything to do except drive north and pick up Melissa. It was rainy weather, so it was a great day to just relax. Of course we slept in, and then we lounged around until about 2:00pm. Originally Melissa was going to be in Sinsheim, at our meeting point (she was being dropped off by Jim, Jan, and Joanne), at 4:00pm, but because of the rain and heavy traffic she said it would be more like 4:30pm. It was about an hour and fifteen minute drive for us, but because of the weather and the fact that they were stuck in traffic, we left early. We arrived in Sinsheim about 3:30pm, never really hitting much traffic. We just missed it. We passed very heavy traffic heading south, so we weren’t in a hurry for Melissa to be there. Thank goodness. Traffic was so bad coming west (they were in Poland) that they did not get there until about 6:15pm! After transferring her pottery and glass purchases, we headed back to Böblingen. Traffic was still so bad that we took a side highway to bypass it. The “shortcut” worked great and we arrived back at Melissa’s apartment close to two hours later. We just relaxed and visited for the remainder of the evening.

We had another lazy day Monday. David and I sat around doing nothing. Okay, we actually watched a movie (the first TV/movie we have watched in “forever”), but just hung out until Melissa came home from work. (I actually walked around the walking path loop by Melissa’s apartment to get a geocache, but there were yard maintenance workers working at the exact spot the geocache is hidden. I will probably try again and I hope they didn’t destroy it!) When Melissa got home she made us all a steak dinner (delicious) and then we headed out.

Every Monday night Melissa goes to a pub for a trivia contest, so we thought we would join her. Many of her friends did not make it, so we only had one team consisting of seven people. It worked out well! Out of about 16 teams, we pulled off a win. There were three rounds of questions on sheets of paper. We aced the first round and did mediocre on the next two, but it was good enough for the win. Melissa had to work the next day, so left as soon as the trivia was over and got home around 10:00pm or so.

David and I figured that we should at least see downtown Stuttgart. Melissa explained which trains to take and we headed out on Tuesday “morningish.” We didn’t do their whole ticket system perfect, but no authorities ever talked to us so it worked out fine. We took the train to the main downtown subway station and walked around their huge pedestrian area. There were many people, shops, plazas, and booths set up for the festival starting the next day. (In Germany there is always a reason for a party or festival. They basically take down the banner for one and replace it with another.) As we were going out with Melissa that evening, we didn’t have too much time, so we walked around for an hour or so and then headed back to the subway.

We then took train to the Mercedes Benz museum. It is a huge, 8 floor building where you start at the top and walk down ramps to each floor. It started with the beginning history and the first automobiles, engines, etc, and then continued on to the present, concept cars, and racecars. Going down each ramp in between floors they had information on the walls about the current world affairs at the time of the floor’s timeframe. It was a great museum that we “flew through” in an hour and a half. This is definitely a place that you could spend many hours in. We caught the train back home. When we first got on the train in Böblingen, we purchased a roundtrip, four zone pass to get us to the city center. When we went to the MB museum, we had to purchase a roundtrip, two zone pass. No big deal until we had to return. We needed to use our two zone pass to get back to the main downtown station, and then use our four zone pass to get back to Böblingen. The problem is that it is the exact same train and we had to validate our ticket in the station. Trains run every fifteen minutes or so, but we didn’t want to get off and wait. There were a few people getting on the train at the station, so we ran off the train when it stopped, ran to the ticket validation machine, punched the ticket, and then barely made it back on the train before the doors closed. Phew! The last thing I wanted to do was get fined for not validating my ticket, even though they don’t check that often. But you know Murphy’s Law….

When Melissa got home from work we headed out once again. Melissa belongs to a running group (Hashers) that goes out every Sunday and Tuesday. (This is a world-wide group, with many people doing it all over the globe.) This is not a typical run, but more of a race through paths, woods, etc where you try to catch the “hare,” or leader. The Hare sets a course earlier in the day with dead-ends, etc and then runs the correct route during the race. He is given a head start and then the group tries to catch him. He leaves clues along the way, but sometimes they can lead to dead ends. The leaders of the pack trying to catch him will find his clue and then search all around it to find another clue as to which way he went. When they find the trail again, all of the others (sometimes still catching up with the leaders) take off in the right direction. Sometimes the catch the Hare, sometimes they don’t. It is all part of the game, but it is mainly about the run. On Sundays it is more of a family event where people bring their children and they will set up a shorter walking trail as well. Luckily for me and a few others, the Hare set up a walking trail for Tuesday. The group was close to catching the Hare, but they were a little behind by the time everyone got to the finish point. After the race every sat around visiting and eating dinner. (Usually everyone chips in and buys dinner, but the Hare was leaving Europe so he treated everyone.) After standing around and visiting for an hour or so, we went back home to bed.

Melissa was borrowing a car from a coworker, so David and I could take her car on a road trip on Wednesday. We dropped Melissa off at work just after 7:00am (she was taking her coworkers car from work) and we headed out. We were going to drive up to Luxembourg and Belgium, and see what happened. (I also wanted to find geocaches in these “new” countries, but I am not going to hash out every one of these in this post.) We were thinking we might spend the night somewhere and then drive back to Böblingen the next day, but we were not sure. The only thing we knew to go to was the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial. This is an American cemetery, taken care of by Americans, where many soldiers who died during WWII are buried. (Almost half of the servicemen who were originally buried here were reinterred back home.) This is also the cemetery that General George S. Patton is buried at. We took about an hour or so walking around the cemetery, reading the plaques and information boards, looking in the chapel, and roaming around the cemetery looking at all of the white crosses marking the graves. It is an excellent memorial and the grounds are kept up marvelously.

After driving around a little, we headed over to Belgium. I really wanted a Belgium waffle, actually in Belgium, so I found a place online that was supposed to be excellent. We drove to the town of Arlon, Belgium, and found the restaurant. Unfortunately, the quit serving waffles a couple hours before we got there, so I had to settle for a crepe instead. I was a little bummed out, but what do you do? After we ate we drove up to Bastogne. There was another great memorial there that I read about online. We were not expecting it to be as large as it was though! It was not some small memorial, it was a huge structure! Not only was it very large, but they also had a staircase so you could climb up to the top of it and look around the panoramic view. It is a totally open-air structure, and inside they have the story of the Battle of the Bulge written on the walls. Around the outside and inside they have the names of all fifty states inscribed. There is also a crypt onsite, but it was closed while we were there. After walking around, and taking many pictures, we headed out once again.

Because it only added about an hour and a half to drive through the Netherlands, we headed in that direction. We drove through a couple small towns and then we drove out to the countryside. There were many walking trails, and so this is where I found a couple geocaches. We then drove back over into Germany and ate at McDonald’s. We decided that it was too late to really do anything, so if we stayed in a hotel somewhere we would just have to head out in the morning to make it back in time to pick up Melissa from work. So we just drove back to Boblingen (saving the money for a hotel), arriving about 12:30am, so we could do something during the next day (while we had a car) before picking Melissa up from work. In all, we drove just over 600 miles and made it to three new countries in our 17 hour day. Not bad!

We slept in Thursday morning and didn’t get going until almost lunchtime. We drove about 15 minutes to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory. I had never heard of them (believe it or not), but they are quite famous for their chocolates. They have a museum, but they do not have a factory tour, instead we just visited their store and bought some “samples.” Ok, David bought a few bags of their small individuals and I bought a grab bag of their full size candy bars, almost 4.5 pounds of chocolate! Either they will melt or I will have quite the stomach ache coming up. (And yes, the “little” that I have tried is delicious.) We then meandered back to the apartment and hung out for a couple hours until we were to meet Melissa at her work.

We met Melissa at the base and followed her to her friend’s house to drop off his car. We then headed to downtown Stuttgart for the festival of the week. Not only was the festival area huge, but it was crowded! On a Thursday night, no less! It took us a few minutes to locate her friends that we were meeting, but once we found them we enjoyed a good dinner and sat around visiting for hours. We didn’t leave until after 10:00pm and it took us a little longer than it should have to get home. We got on the wrong train heading in the opposite direction that we needed to go and didn’t notice it for a few stops. We got off that train and took the next train back to where we came from. The only problem was, this train ended one stop before we needed it to. We then had to take a bus for the one stop (our ticket covered all public transportation, so at least we didn’t have to pay more!) We then arrived at the correct station and walked back to Melissa’s car. She had to work the next morning, so Melissa went straight to bed and David and I wound down a bit before heading to bed.

Traveling for two months can be exhausting. David and I have been so thankful for some easy days while staying at Melissa’s house. We have gone out and traveled a bit while here, but we have also had a few slow, relaxing days. Friday was another one. We slept in and sat around until Melissa got home from work. We went out to eat at a restaurant a very short distance from her house and then went back for the evening. We sat around visiting and watched a movie, and then went to bed.

We got up Saturday morning and headed out for France. We stopped off at the city of Strasbourg and toured around their Petite France area for about an hour or so and then continued on to Ribeauvillé. We met Jim, Jan, and Joanne (that we had met previously) for lunch in town, and then they had to head home. We then drove out to the campground and set up our tents. We sat around visiting with many people as they began showing up until 7:00pm when we then walked about a half mile or so into town. We went with some of the people that were camping and we met others that were staying in a hotel in town and we all went to dinner. We stayed at the restaurant until almost 10:30pm before finally heading back to the campground. The streets of Ribeauvillé were still quite alive! There was a large Irish bagpipe group playing and marching around town; so we followed them! They were headed in our direction anyway, so when they marched into the quarters and stopped playing, we just continued walking to the campground for the night.

We got up Sunday morning and hung around the campground until 11:30am or so, and then walked into town. Along the way we were able to see some of the parade floats and participants getting ready for the festivities. It was a taste of what was to come, and it was looking pretty fantastic. They had the whole main part of town blockaded and we paid an admission fee to get there. The town was crowded. There is no other way to describe it. We walked down the main part of town, through the throngs of people, and made it to our table. David and I wandered around town a little bit, and then met up back at our table. Some friends of Melissa stayed in the restaurant’s hotel, so they were able to reserve three tables right on the parade route. While everyone else stood for the parade, we were able to sit at our tables. (Of course, most of us still stood to take pictures and see up and down the line.) The parade did not start until 3:00pm, but our lunch was served at 1:00pm so we would be done before it started.

Here is a little background on the festival. The Minstrel Festival is the oldest festival in the Alsace region of France. It perpetuates the links between the Lords Ribeaupierre of Ribeauvillé and the minstrels they used to protect. Every year has a new theme; this year’s theme followed a Wagner opera. (I don’t remember which one off hand.) The parade participants are not just from the small town of Ribeauvillé, but from many of the surrounding towns. Each float in the parade told a part of the story of the opera, and each float was from a different town. The floats, music, and costumes were completely amazing! I have never been to another parade that comes close to topping this one. The parade took two and a half hours, and it left you wanting to see more! Pictures help show what it was like, but they cannot even begin to give the experience of being there. The atmosphere was so vibrant and alive!

The parade ended at 5:30pm and David, Melissa, and I decided to head back to Boblingen. We still had to pack up our bags for our morning flight, and we also had to hang up our camping gear to let it dry out. It was nice on Sunday for the parade, but it sprinkled on Saturday so we had to let everything dry out. Traffic was not the greatest, so we were glad we left when we did. It is about a two hour drive, but we got back to Melissa’s apartment around 9:00pm (after eating too). We then hung up our tents and gear in the attic to dry out, and then we packed up our bags and went to bed.

Our time in Germany with Melissa was incredible. I don’t know how much she enjoyed us being there, but we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Not only did we get to travel around a little bit and see other countries, but she was a great host and let us see her life. A lot of people always try to be tour guides when they have visitors (which Melissa did as well), but just being able to go out with Melissa and her friends was so much fun! Instead of being “tourists” in Böblingen/Stuttgart, we were able to “live” there for a couple weeks. The parade and festival in Ribeauvillé was the grand finale to our trip. We still have a few days in Iceland, but we are now in the “end of our trip” mode. We have already been to Iceland before, so we will see how much energy we have to tour around. The time in Germany was basically the end of our trip, and Ribeauvillé was a great way to end it.

One of Melissa’s friends, Jim, who we met previously, happened to be going to Copenhagen for work and that is where our flight connection was as well. We picked Jim up Monday morning and then headed for the airport, getting there about two hours early. Everything went fast and smooth, so we had time to sit and visit with Jim before our flight left. We arrived in Copenhagen to find out that the Danish security had gone on strike. Because Jim was staying in Copenhagen, he just went to find his bags and go to his hotel, but David and I had to go check in for our connecting flight and see what all was going on. We had an eight hour layover and had planned on going into downtown to sightsee. We checked in and got our boarding passes, and then found out that the strike had been resolved and it should all clear up by the afternoon/evening. The airport was very crowded with people who had missed their flights because they could not go through security. People who had already gone through security before the strike were able to leave on their planes (which left with very minimal passengers), but those who were not were on their own. Something like this is not refundable; so many people had to purchase new tickets to get wherever they were headed. When we boarded our plane later that evening, we sat next to a man who was taking it all pretty well. He had gone through security with plenty of time before his plane, so he went back out for a cigarette. He called it his “Twenty-six hour smoke.” He went out, the security personnel went on strike, and he could not get back in and missed his flight.

The strike was over so we decided to go to the downtown area. Luckily the Metro train station at the airport was at the terminal where we arrived at and were leaving from. It was a pretty short line, so we bought our tickets and boarded the train. It only took about 12 minutes to reach downtown, so we found a map at the train station and started walking around. We walked to one of the main areas, saw some neat buildings and their multitude of statues and fountains (not quite like Rome though), and then walked through a large pedestrian area with many shops. We browsed a couple souvenir shops and then grabbed some lunch. We were both completely exhausted from our long weekend and late night, so we headed back to the airport early. We only stayed downtown for a couple hours, but we decided we were tired and we also didn’t want to take any chances back at the airport.

We took the train back to the airport and saw that it was still quite hectic. We were also glad we took the train into town when we did, because when we got back the line to buy train tickets was very long. We assumed that it was because people who missed their flights could not get another flight, and then had to head back into town to find hotels. Glad we were just passing through! The security line was actually quite short, so we had a lot of time to kill. We sat at Starbucks for about an hour, then we went outside for a half hour or so, and then we decided to just head to the gate and wait. We still had a little over two hours before boarding, but we just wanted to sit in comfortable chairs and relax. We boarded our plane a little late and then we sat there. There is nothing worse than just sitting on a non-moving plane at the terminal. Because of all of the security problems, there was a huge backup of planes trying to take off. We finally got in line at the runway and slowly made our way to the end. A little over an hour late, we finally took off. An added bonus was the massive headwind we were flying into. This added an extra fifty minutes onto our flight time. Our flight was crowded and hot, so it felt like a really long flight. The saving factor is that it was an IcelandAir plane; they have great planes and are a great airline. Each seat has its own screen and you can choose many different movies or shows to watch.

We finally arrived at Keflavik airport in Iceland a little after 10:00pm local time. (There is a two hour time difference between Copenhagen and Iceland.) Keflavik airport is fairly small, so I was wondering about our rental car, but luckily the car rental agency had someone waiting at the airport with our name on a sign. He picked us up, brought us to their shop, and we were able to pick up our car. We then drove the 45 minutes to Reykjavik and arrived at our hotel, the same hotel we stayed at on a previous trip three years ago. By the time we finally got in our room it was closing in on 11:30pm (1:30am on our body’s time), so we went straight to bed.