the C O L O S S E U M

The highlight of our trip.

We got up early for our second day of Rome. It was our only full day to see the city. We intended to make the most of it.

Our hotel had a nice buffet breakfast on the roof with a beautiful view of St. Peter's Basilica.

Lemon and orange trees lined the roof-top terrace. Anywhere the lemons and oranges can grow outdoors in January makes me happy. I wanted to sneak outside and pick one, but resisted the urge.

Having booked a Colosseum and Ancient Rome tour, we had studied the Metro system and how to get from our hotel {next to the Vatican} down to the Colosseum.

Looks easy enough, right?

As we were walking out of our hotel, I asked the man at the front desk to point us in the way of the Metro was just to make sure we did not get turned around. He strongly suggested taking the bus instead of the underground subway.

Rather than being in the dark, we could drive above ground and see all that there was along the way. The crazy driving down narrow streets was an added bonus.

It was great advice and we took it.

sights we took in along the bus route

The bus station was around the corner. It was around 8:00am- early for Rome. The big city was still sleepy and peaceful. When restaurants do not open until 7:30pm for dinner, you know they stay up late and sleep in.

We jumped on bus 81 which took us straight to where we needed to go. No transfers, no craziness, no crowds. Rome has a very efficient and user-friendly local transportation system- we were quite impressed and especially happy to not get lost.

Again, we had no idea what we were seeing. There were fountains and monuments and enormous buildings out both sides of the bus. A very kind non-English-speaking priest helped us by pointing out where we would get off for the Colosseum.

It was not hard to spot- the structure is incredible. You can't miss it.

Early for our tour, we stopped in a little Café for a sweet treat and a little bonus Lionel Richie on the local radio.

Our tour was small {eight others} and the best decision we made to get the most out of our short time in the city. With kids, guided tours can be long and frustrating as our boys are not always patient.

They get bored, we have to shush them {something Caden can't stand} and end up missing all the history.

We can't blame them, so we avoid the frustration all together and rarely spend the money or time on tours.

Today, we were ready for our history lesson. We hung on every word and detail our truly Roman guide Damien offered for the entire three-hour walk through the Colosseum and Ancient Rome.

This fine man of mine even took pictures- something that never happens. I knew we were somewhere grand for him to take charge of a camera.

V A T I C A N city

Living in Europe has taught us a lot.

We were reminded again this week that it seems the more we see and experience, the more we realize how much we do not know. 

As we walked {less than ten minutes} from our hotel to Vatican City, there was a moment that we looked at each other wondering where we were and what was in front of us.

We were completely overwhelmed not knowing whether to turn right or left. It is usually safe to follow the brown historical signs to see the sights. In Rome, the brown signs are on every single corner.

Rome is massive.
Rome is H U G E.
Everything is on a grand scale.

It is not like there is one really incredible building, or fountain or sculpture in the middle of the city.

The entire city is filled with more sculptures, fountains, buildings, churches, museums and history than one can possibly take in even in a lifetime.

We knew we were in Vatican City, but embarrassing to admit- we did not know much more than that about this glorious spot on the map.


We definitely did not do our homework. Instead, our motto was to take as much in as we could and figure out where we were once we returned home.

What we did learn {right} before making this trip is that Vatican City is its own state, ruled by the Pope.

With only about 500 people living in Vatican City, the city has its own post office, banks, currency, judicial system, radio station, shops and daily newspaper.  

As with every other trip we have taken, visiting Rome has only increased our desire to learn more about the ground we walked on, the churches we walked through and the fountains from which we drank.

We arrived on a Wednesday- just after Pope Francis addressed the audience.

Masses with the Pope at the Vatican can be celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica, in St Peter's Square or both together depending on the celebration and the expected number of people attending.

Mass is celebrated in the Church which holds up to 15,000 people or St Peter's Square, which is much larger and can host up to 80,000 people. The chairs were empty as we arrived, and the crowd minimal.

January is the time to visit as we did not wait in a single line.
We picked the right time to visit a place that sees millions of tourists from around the world each year.

As we stepped into view of the square, we saw metal detector lines.
Did we have to pass through them? Could we take pictures? Did we need to pay?

We turned right, only to notice that we could walk around the metal detectors and into the square and the fountain directly in front of us. What fountain? Not sure, but people were taking pictures, so we took one of our own.

Reading the signs, we followed the path and through the front doors of St. Peter's Bascilica- a massive, gorgeous structure. As Catholicism's most important shrine, the marble, gold touches, art and Michelangelo's huge dome are absolutely breathtaking.

The details are intricate.
The monuments and statues are too many to count.
A visit left us with more questions than we had going inside.

Impressive is an understatement.
We are changed from being here.

wonderful, but not P E R F E C T

We are still trying to wrap our brains around all that we were fortunate enough to experience in Rome.

It was beyond incredible. That does not mean everything was perfect.
Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.

I had that quote up in our home for a while. I forgot how much I loved it- I might have to put it back up somewhere.

For this anniversary trip, we started planning in October. Not crazy itinerary planning, but we found our tickets on RyanAir and committed to making the trip happen.

our incredible view of the Alps en route to Roma

If you are going to live in Europe, it is critical that you know about RyanAir.

RyanAir is a discount airlines. Cheap, cheap, cheap if you watch flights and have an open mind.

They fly out of Frankfurt-Hahn, a small {crummy} airport in the middle of the hills about an hour from our house.

The way they make money is in the fees. If you know this, you can easily avoid paying extra and experience really cheap travel to so many destinations in Europe.

There are also no assigned seats, so people get a little crazy rushing to board each flight. If you know this and go with the flow realizing the whole time it was so cheap- you are fine.

I'm still working on not getting worked up as these pushy Europeans cut in line- makes me CRAZY!

welcome to Roma

For us, we look at the days we want to travel, then see what destinations are cheap.

We had a few places we wanted to visit, Rome happened to be super cheap the week we could travel. Plus, it has been super high on our list.

With our tickets just 10 Euro each way {that's about $14 USD), plus airport fees and taxes we were able to both fly round trip to Rome for a grand total of $100. T O T A L.

Everyone knows if you check a bag, you pay. We pack light and carry it on.
If you want a coke, or bottle of water, you pay. We bring ours with us.

There are no warm washcloths to wash your face or hands.
Pockets in the seats in front of you do not exist.
There definitely are no movies.

For an hour and a half flight and a two-night, three day trip- RyanAir is the way to go.

As we parked in the parking lot and started to unload, we realized we had forgotten our backpack. Seriously? We have never forgotten a whole backpack.

We could live without the Italy book and itinerary I had put together and printed.
We could survive without the snacks we had packed.

our weather was perfect... this was on our return to the airport as the rain started

Our camera has video option, so it was no big deal that the camcorder was in there as well.

But, the one thing we really needed was the envelope that had all of the paperwork to go with our flight including our boarding passes. Yes, re-printing boarding passes is yet another way RyanAir makes money.
Once we realized we still had passports and could actually fly, we had to suck it up and pay for them to print boarding passes.

The grand total for two new pieces of paper to get on the flight: 30 Euro.

That's 15 Euro each, or $40.75 for them both. Boarding passes that cost more than the initial tickets.


I'm pretty sure on any flight we go on for the rest of our lives, we will never forget the backpack.

Kicking ourselves, we tried to move on and were fine until we realized everything else was in that folder including our hotel address, public transportation instructions {how to get from the airport to the bus to the metro line to walk}, and all addresses and phone numbers.

I had spent a lot of time planning this trip out and making sure everything was printed. Now, we were on our own with only our memory to rely on.

Walking a few circles around the underground Metro, we finally figured out which line to take. Fortunately, Rome's Metro is quite simple with just two lines- one red and one blue. It took me longer to recall which stop we were to get off at, but we did it!

Our first impressions of Roma... blue skies and perfect weather.

We bought our tickets and squished out way onto the crazy filthy Metro to our stop: Ottaviano- S. Pietro. How could I forget a name like that?

We got off avoiding all pick-pocketing, walked up the stairs and tried to get our GPS to work. By this point, we realized the hotel address was on Jim's leave paperwork in his wallet. Trouble was, our GPS never got past the searching for satellites screen. Ugh.

We just started walking and lucky for us- ran straight into the road. As we turned on the street, the hotel was right there. What a relief.

Not perfect, but we were ok and on our way- kinda.

Next, the hotel let us know that they did not have water {slight problem} and had rebooked us to another hotel. After several attempts at finding the USO office just around the corner from the hotel, we showed our IDs and were let in the door.

With this super small sticker on the door, I'm not sure how we missed it.

What a blessing the USO is to military members around the world. They are there to help with anything and a cold bottle of water and place to sit down was as welcomed to us as anything at that point.

With free WiFi, we tried to re-print our boarding passes to avoid the fees on our return. Hotmail noticed that we were in an unusual location and would not let us in without the code they emailed to my A Simple Impression email address.

I have not worked or used that email address in 3 1/2 years and could not even remember how to get to the site. At this point, I remember feeling that I was tired of thinking. We were on overload.

We decided to figure out the Internet thing later {Ty came to our rescue} and were on our way by foot to our new hotel. 

Only one or two wrong turns and we made it to Hotel Consoli.

Upgraded from a 3-star to a 4-star hotel at the same price, we checked in, took a deep breath and headed out for our first afternoon in Vatican City. We had sights to see and were on a mission. No rest for the weary on this trip.

Definitely not a perfect start, but a start to a wonderful trip.
Welcome to Roma.

as much as the M O O N and the S U N {and the stars}

Ten days ago, we had an anniversary.
This week, we celebrated.

In beautiful Rome.

Three days and two nights to experience this magnificent city together.
Thanks to Ty, we were able to make the trip alone.

Few people {especially new friends} know our family story. I like to think of it as our happily ever after.

Up until this anniversary, our little guys did not even know. As we have reached anniversaries, we have added ten years to our actual time married just to simplify things for the them.

Or, maybe it was to simplify things for us.

We knew they would eventually add up the years and the ages of the big guys and put it all together. Instead of having them so confused, this was the year that we broke it to them.

We really haven't been married forever, but instead eleven years.

As Caden and I were waiting for Coleman after school on the day of our anniversary- he asked me how long his dad and I had been married. I asked him in response if he wanted in on a big family secret. Of course, he did.

I kept it simple. I was married before. Justin and Ty were adopted by dad.
Everything was legal and perfect. There were no step-anythings.

He looked at me with his thinker face {if you know our little man, you know what I'm talking about} for a few seconds. Then, he asked if Coleman knew yet. He was excited to be the first to know.

Then, he asked if Justin and Ty knew that they were adopted.
That's it.

As soon as I told them that they knew everything, he was fine.
End of discussion.

Letting Coleman in on our family secret went about the same.
No big deal. No real questions and we went on with what happened that day.

As we returned home from Rome last night, this note folded and tucked perfectly inside of an envelope was waiting.

Our life is our happily ever after. No doubt, we have tough days and tough weeks.
We also have so much good to go with the tough.
My man is the love of my life; our boys are our joy.
So much life. I am one lucky girl.

how is P O T T E R Y manufactured?

Here is a beautiful video of how this pottery is made:
How is pottery manufactured?
{click on the above link to watch, it is just four minutes long}

Here every dish is manufactured by hand from beginning to end.

We were here in this factory, with these workers, touching this pottery. 
It was jaw-dropping fascination for us.

Knowing something is hand made and seeing it made by those hands was an eye-opening experience for us. Speaking no English, it was all smiles and nods with the workers. This man graciously stepped aside and invited me up to his place at the wheel.

It was the perfect day for pottery shopping.

I had already mapped out the stores we would go to and had a plan of the order to go. We were pleasantly surprised to be almost the only ones shopping which makes it so much more enjoyable. A personal factory tour was not on my itinerary.

Thank goodness for flexibility and having an open mind.

Now, I would highly recommend anyone going to Poland to shop to take the tour. It changed the way we feel about the beautiful items we purchased.

With floor to ceiling of pottery and some rooms being super small- even a couple bodies in a single store is too crowded.

One of our first stops ended up being our favorite and made the whole experience the difference between buying it on a shelf and buying it from the factory in Poland.

Manufaktura is a larger store connected to their factory. They also have two outlet stores in town which also happened to be our favorites even before we knew that everything came from their factory.

After shopping around for a little while, I asked the guy working there {seemed to be a manager} if we could have a quick tour. I didn't want it to take our whole day {we were on a mission}, but we could see the potters through the window and our curiosity was piqued.

He had someone cover the front desk and was quite happy to take us on what ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. We felt like we had a backstage pass to a rock concert. I asked if I could take pictures. Initially, he said I could but not faces.

After taking a couple pictures, he gave me the go-ahead that it was acceptable to take any pictures that I would like. After scaring one of the first workers with the flash of my camera {he jumped}, they warmed up and were fine with our presence and our camera.

Walking into the painting room was what I imagined walking into a factory a century ago would have been like. The girls were lined up in rows of tables painting side by side. As we entered the room, there was talking and giggling.

As soon as they noticed we were there it got quiet. They stayed quite solemn for the duration {maybe 10 minutes} of our visit. We did not move around much, I think we were just fascinated by what was going on in there.

Curious as to how much they are paid for their labor, I asked our new friend if the girls make a decent salary. He let us know wages are not as high as in Germany {as if the Germans are rich}, but they do alright.

He also said many of them are immigrants from Kazakhstan, Hungary, Czech Republic and Lithuania, so the wages are much better than they could ever receive in their neighboring countries.
They use paint brushes and special sponges to hand stamp the pottery. They colors are faded as they paint them on, then brighten after they glaze and fire it up. Nothing fancy. Plain and simple.

They were so fast.
Their designs are beautiful.

They have traditional designs, and special patterns called UNIKAT.
UNIKAT involves much more color and detail usually signed on the bottom with the designer's name. We now understand completely why they are more expensive. They are truly works of art.
 
I could have watched all day.

Moving on to the one girl dipping each piece of pottery in the glaze was incredible to us as well. The guy giving our tour told us it is all natural and pointed out that she was not even wearing gloves. 

The more we watched, the more we loved it.
We meaning both Jim and I.
We were equally intrigued.

At the end of our tour, we walked outside to see the clay in the back, pulled from the nearby rivers. 

It was time to wrap up our shopping and dinner.
With no time to stop for lunch, we were so hungry.

Polish specialties for dinner did not disappoint....

the price of S U P E R on the economy

I keep repeating myself. We are running out of time.

Looking at the months we have left in Europe and the places we need to see, I am not sure there are enough weekends to fit it all in. But, we are going to try!

We could have moved back without going to Poland again, but why? I am the only one who has gone, and really wanted to go back with Jim.

Last week, the boys were out of school on Friday which also means I was off work. It was a good day to make a trip somewhere.

We decided a day or two before for Jim to take the day off and make a quick trip. 
With the boys starting basketball in December, we know open weekends off are soon to be filled up.
Ty had to work on Friday, so we had a cute girl come over to babysit.

With Ty finally driving- the problem with transportation is solved. A beautiful thing.


Poland is super cheap. We could have done a 24-hour trip again, but decided to spend the night instead. Our room was not fancy, and the bed was not comfortable, but for around $50 {including breakfast} we were fine. 

We left Mackenbach about 3:30am and drove straight to Boleslawiec- the beautiful town of ceramics. North east of our house, we drove through Dresden {a city I would love to spend more time in} and just over the border into Poland.

Our destination was slightly south east of Berlin- another city on our list.
No police stops this trip {Jim was driving}, but we did have Esso station issues.

We carefully mapped out where the last Esso station in Germany was in order to avoid paying for gas on the economy or in Poland.

Before filling up, I went in and asked the ladies at the gas station if they would take our Esso card- pre-loaded with $ which allows us to receive our rationed price.

They were not sure if it would work or not, so we decided to just test it with 5 Euro before filling up our whole tank.

I'm not sure what part she did not understand, but as soon as I tried to run our card to pay the 5 Euro, she realized they would take our card and told us to finish filling up. I tried to pay the 5 Euro, but she reassured me that it was fine- go fill up.

Unfortunately, because we had two transactions, it would not go through. So frustrating. She told us to figure it out when we got back to Ramstein. We ended up having to pay {economy price} right there.

Price to fill up was a whopping 94 Euro, which is $131.50.
Ouch.

Fortunately, Esso made it right and after filling out a dispute {once we returned to the base}, they approved it and refunded us the difference.

In order to do this, they go back to that day and figure out the price of gas.

Convert the euro to dollar rate that day based on the euro.
Subtract what we should have paid {our rationed price} from what we paid. The bottom line shocked us. If the transaction had been done properly, we should have paid $58.61.

A huge difference {our refund} of $72.89 on one tank of gas- more than it cost us to fill up. Wow.
At least we had a full tank of gas and were on our way to a full day of shopping and togetherness.

L I G H T S would be nice

Polish pottery is very popular among military and civilian wives who live in Germany. You see it everywhere. With cobalt as the traditional color, I did not initially fall in love with it.

While having dinner with friends, or walking past it in the mall, I always thought it was nice, but I could maybe live without it. It was a lot of blue and we just don't have a lot of blue in our house.

Until this summer.
We now have some blue.
I'm also now in love with it.

I'm not sure we can ever have too much blue now.

I don't know if it is better or not that I waited three years to decided I wanted our own collection.

In July, we had friends over for dinner. They were moving back to the states and I knew she knew how to shop and buy polish pottery.

I threw out the idea of going on a shopping trip to Poland that week before she left so she could teach me how to shop and where to go.

We convinced the husbands we needed to go and within a couple of days we were on the road.

Along with another friend, we left at 2:00am on a Friday morning.

The drive to Boleslawiec, Poland, the polish pottery capital, is about six and a half hours.

Our plan worked perfectly with one quick stop {by the policja} along the way.
We had crossed into Poland and noticed the police in front of us on the highway.

Not knowing the speed limit, I decided to just keep going slow behind them. You can't speed if you are following the police, right? We were going really slow.

Within a minute or two, they held their lollipop STOP sign out the window for us to pull over.

Seriously, I had no idea what I did. It definitely was not for speeding this time.

They {two of them} came to my driver's side window.

My heart was beating a little fast, but I knew we were fine.

One of them knew a few words in English, so we spoke mostly broken German between us. Crazy, I know.

We figured out we did not have our headlights on. In Poland, it is law to have them on twenty-four hours a day.

Oops.

He said I was flashing them on and off. All we could figure is that I had them on auto and they must have been turning on and off. I'm still not convinced.

I gave him everything I had and we waited in the van.

Where we pulled over, there was a chain fence with a padlock.

Michelle {our pottery expert who just forgot about the lights... we were so excited to shop} let me know we were NOT going in that gate- no matter what.

We couldn't stop laughing.

This is not always a good thing when you are trying to sweet talk your way out of a ticket. This is not the first time to have this happen to me. In Poland, when you receive a ticket you are required to pay on the spot. They will take you to an ATM to get the money if you don't have it. They are serious.

A few minutes later, they motioned for me to come over to their car.
What police does that?
Polish police, obviously.

I had given him my international license, military id, germany driver's license, passport and our car registration. He asked which was my license and if I was a soldier.

Nope, not a soldier but I let him know my man was a mighty fine one. I'm not sure if they understood what I was saying, but they didn't ask me any more questions.

He wrote down one of the numbers from one of the ID's and let us on our way.  
Before leaving, I did ask what the speed limit was and reassured him the lights would stay on.
Lesson learned. Welcome to Poland.

Running in to no fewer than a dozen more police that day kept us on our toes.
They were out in full force, but we didn't let that ruin our day of shopping.

We shopped all day without another person in any of the 10-15 stores that we visited. It was amazing and overwhelming at the same time. In the states, the prices are outrageous. In Germany, on base they are maybe not as high but still very expensive.

Not only are the prices better in Poland, the experience is unlike any other.
We finished up when the last shop closed at 6:00 and headed back to Germany.

Driving into Mackenbach right at 2:00am, it was exactly a twenty-four hour trip.
This weekend, Jim and I decided at the last minute to make a quick trip back.

We had a fabulous time.
This time, we decided to spend the night.
And, he kept the lights on.

Y U M

So much food.
So delicious.
It's tough living in Europe.

our F O U R country day

It was supposed to be a quick day trip to antique shop in Tongeren, Belgium.
This could probably be a five-part series on how not to travel.
Instead, I am putting it in one to maybe paint the picture of how long a day it was...

We got up early. It felt really early especially staying up the night before watching a Highland Scotties football game online.

Ty had to work, so we decided to take the little guys plus the dog.
Ugh.

Oh, well.

It was supposed to be under three hours and looked like a straight shot on the map. With Jim in Alabama, he took our GPS. 

I borrowed a GPS from a friend with only the German maps. I knew this, but thought after looking at the corner of Germany to our intended destination in Tongeren that I could get us there- no problem- using a real map.

That was my first mistake. I should have known it was not going to be a straight shot.
Nothing in Europe is a straight shot. I know better.

The drive was pleasant until we left Germany and knew we might be a little off track. We kept driving {past our expected ETA} then noticed a sign welcoming us to the NETHERLANDS.

Oops.

We were only planning on Belgium, not another country.
No biggie- it was another check on the list- our {first} bonus country. 

After several other wrong turns, a gas-station stop to ask a Dutch attendant for help, no TONGEREN signs and driving in circles, we got back on track and actually made it to the flea market. Problem was we were there with less than an hour left in the market. I think we might have even had less than a half hour.
Our two-and-a-half-hour trip was now probably up to almost five {or more} hours one way.

The littles were not happy.

Everyone was hungry- including the tante. I had to keep reminding them {all} that surely we would stop at the first McDonalds that we found.

We decided I could come back any time- mom and Marine needed to get out and shop.

We found a parking lot at a grocery store and carefully backed in to the itty-bitty space. Coleman, Caden, Lady and I slowly made our way up to the market to find something to eat. 
Food always helps everyone when we are traveling.

We found a nice Belgian waffle place which helped almost everyone.
Mom and Marine found some really cool treasures in spite of power shopping.

We made our way back to the car and ran into even more troubles getting out of the parking lot. The arm of the exit went up and down before I could drive out.

Of course, it would not work again and we were stuck in front of a long line of cars trying to leave the parking lot.

This is Europe- most things are somewhat difficult especially with a language barrier.
Finally, an impatient man behind us got out of his car and swiped his card to free us.

We were on our way.

No more than five minutes down the road, we heard a loud clang. Realizing Lady's metal water dish was left on top of the van and was now bouncing down the old Belgian road was the least of our concerns.

It was good for a laugh.

Oh, our fun was not over.

Getting back into Germany proved to be even more difficult.
I did not think that was possible.

Gas on the economy is extremely expensive- at least double the price we pay for our rationed gas which about $4.10 a gallon. We can get our rationed gas at Esso stations in Germany.

I thought we had plenty of gas to make it to our planned lunch stop: Bastogne, Belgium. Why not throw some history into a trip we were already taking?

We would buy a little gas on the economy to get us to Germany, then fill up at an Esso.

What we did not know was that Bastogne {a major WWII city} was super small in the middle of no where.

We passed up an exit thinking there had to be a city center. Lunch would be good. We would have gas and be on our way.

It didn't work that way. We buzzed past Bastogne.

No lunch. No gas.

We were in the middle of no where and took a chance taking the next exit.

No gas there either and the gas light was now on.

I'm known for getting low on gas, but even I was a little nervous at this point. I am not sure I have ever driven with the light on for so long.

Remember, at this point- we were still in Belgium with no GPS.

All we could do was try to go in the right direction.

Plus, it was a Sunday- everything was closed.

At a small cafe, we stopped and asked some ancient Belgian Opa's where to get gas. They pointed us down the road. At this point, even I was worried we would run out of gas.

The grandma, the aunt, two littles, the dog and I headed down the road.
Ahh, we found the gas station. We made it, or so we thought.

We waited our time in line, the pulled up to the pump. Without an attendant, it was sort of like a pay at the pump if there is such a thing over here.

There was one machine at the end. We watched a man in front of us fill up after several attempts at getting his card to work.

I noticed from his license plate that he was from Bitburg- an army base Germany.
Another American who spoke English, what a relief.

We asked if he would wait until we made sure our card would work before he left. He graciously stayed with us to watch our card {or any of our five cards between Mom, Marine and I} would work.

None worked.

By this time, the line to pay was backing up. We still had no gas- you have to pay ahead. They were impatient {more french-like than german} and getting restless.

One lady told us to get to the back of the line. He calmly said we were not getting in back.

We tried to use his card, which would not work either- in spite of the fact that he had just used it to fill up.

A woman behind us agreed to use her card, we would pay her cash. Hers did not work either. Unbelievable.

She said there was another gas station down the road, we could follow her if we wanted to. Of course, we were already coasting on fumes, but we had no choice.

We finally made it to the second gas station where Marine's card worked just fine. We pumped and were on our way with directions to what we thought was a McDonalds just down the road.

Not so.

Not only did we not find a McDonalds, we found nothing but a beautiful cathedral. Yes, the boys were thrilled when I pointed it out to them.

Hungry, tired and kinda lost- we kept on.

At least we had gas.

About this time, we saw a sign welcoming us to LUXEMBOURG and call from Ty asking where we were. We were supposed to be picking him up from work. He was more than a little surprised when I instead told him we were trying to get back into Germany.

"You're not in Germany?" was his reply.
Nope.

Adding Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany- it wasn't a four-star day, but  a four-country day. 

I told Ty to get a taxi home, we would eventually make it back.

Following the signs and the map, we did make it to Germany and eventually home.

We had Ty order and bring home food from our Burgerstube down the road.

A McDonalds or any other fast-food restaurant was no where to be found.
No Sonic in every small-town village over here- that's for sure.

Seriously, this is Europe. 

I couldn't make their entire trip so easy. This was my life for the first year we lived here!

Our schnitzel and flamkuchen was delicious.

We were exhausted and relieved to be home.

I think Caden might perhaps be scarred.
He did let me know more than a few times if I had gotten gas when he told me to {back in Belgium} that this would have never happened.

He is his daddy's boy and his brother's {Justin} clone.

I don't think when I go back to Tongeren that anything I might say can convince them to go.
I'll take my man instead- he missed out on this party.

Always an adventure.
Always.

BEAUTIFUL Cochem and Eltz

A year and a half ago, we went as a family to Burg Eltz- possibly my favorite castle. 

At the end of that blog post {link above}, I said I would happily repeat a visit to this castle. 

I was delighted to take my mom and tante Marine. 

Even better, this time it was sans kids which made it the perfect day to take the tour.  

 

From Burg Eltz, we drove less than an hour to Cochem Castle.
The castle is beautiful,but the view of the Mosel River is my favorite part of going to Cochem.

We walked.
We shopped.
We ate.
Repeat.

I am obsessed with window boxes and the flowers here.
Flowers growing up from the smallest crack in the sidewalk amaze me.
{**click on picture to enlarge}

I was drawn to this window box in the above right corner. I then noticed an even more beautiful picture of the elderly woman next door standing at the window looking out.

This is typical and common. 

I still love it.

In our village, we have an older man who most afternoons can be seen standing in the window just watching the cars go down the roads in Mackenbach.

After a year of waving, he finally started waving back as we round the corner .
Now, we wave every chance we have.

not-so-homemade G E R K I N S

There are just some places in this world that I don't think you can ever tire of visiting. 

Two years ago, we went as a family to Kehlstein {Hitler's Eagle's Nest} with Starr and Mac.It was absolutely stunning and a place I definitely wanted to take my mom and Marine.

For this day trip from Garmisch, we left the little guys in the cabin with Ty while we headed down to the Austrian border alone for a day full of more laughs than we could have ever planned.

For information on the beauty and awe of Kehlstein, you can read about our 2011 trip here.

After our visit to the top of the mountain, we decided we were ready for lunch.

It is always a good challenge to find a cool off-the-beaten-path cafe or restaurant for meals.

It is way more fun hanging with the locals than with the American and Asian tourists, right?

Starving, we were shocked how difficult it was to find a place to eat.

It was early afternoon, but we weren't in France- things should have been open. Germans eat.

Finally, we spotted a patio area with umbrellas out that looked like a place food might be served. Taking a chance, we stopped.

In the small group of locals, one lady spoke English.
It was our lucky day! She and her husband had biked over the border from Salzburg to have a beer at their favorite little hang out.

She asked the owner if she had any lunch and let us know she would prepare us some sausages. It sounded perfect.

They literally pulled out the seat cushions for our patio chairs and made us feel at home. We were really excited- this could count as Germany and Austria being right on the border.

Doesn't get any more off the beaten path than this, right?

While we waited, we had a nice cold drink and soaked up some sun. The weather was delightful.

Then, our food came. It was not quite what we had in mind, but still very nice. Of course, her presentation was beautiful.

The breads are always delicious.
The tomatoes and cucumbers were garden-fresh fabulous.
The cheese was nice and mild.

Marine took one for the team and ate the onions and meats.
On top of this platter, we had pickles.

Delicious, crunchy German pickles.Not too dill. Not too sweet. Just right.

After being told {by our Salzburg woman} how everything was homemade, fresh and wonderful here we assumed that maybe the pickles were as well.

How in the world could we get a jar of homemade pickles?

By this time, our English-speaking woman was on her bike back to Salzburg. We were left with my rusty German and another man who let us know he spoke English as well.

On our first attempt, the woman said yes we could get more pickles and brought a plate out for us. We ate those, but still wanted to buy a jar. A whole jar.

The not-so-good translating of our German friend ended up with him taking a pickle off our plate back to the kitchen to ask her if we could buy some.

How hard could this be? Using my limited German vocabulary, I even told him gurkins. We want to buy gurkins!

The owner came out with the man in tow still trying to figure out what these crazy Americans wanted. When I told her gurkins- she said, "Ahh, gurkins... " We still can't figure out what in the world he was saying.

Even more funny, we ended up with a bottle {from Aldi} of Gurkins and an extra buck on our bill to cover it. So much for homemade pickles. I'm sure they are still laughing. We are, that's for sure.