Konrad traveled like a pro, a little jet-setter. He didn't cry or whine until the last 20 minute leg of our drive home from the airport, we are so proud of him. I have lots to say... we did a ton of stuff over there, saw a lot of family, traveled to some beautiful places. I won't get half of it in here, but I will highlight a few things.
Our home was nestled in the small village of Schweighof, which is just a 5-minute walk from Badenweiler. Badenweiler is an old swanky spa town with Roman bath ruins. Here is a Google Map of where we were.
We had such a wonderful time with Brendan's family, especially over the Easter holiday. A truly beautiful time to be in Germany. Brendan, Konrad and I were able to surprise his Grandmother for her 90th birthday, which really surprised her, the look on her face was priceless. It was a special time and I got to meet a few more German relatives. It's great, all I do is smile and nod and nod and smile and they do the same to me. LOL
Here is Brendan and Konrad in Mullheim at the farmers market. The butcher handed Konrad his first (real) wurst, he devoured it in seconds. And we kept the fridge stocked with them for the remainder of the trip.
And here is Oma being blown away that we surprised her for her 90th birthday. Talk about a tear-jerker.
I took some photos of Brendan, Konrad and Oma. I felt like Miriam taking all these pictures! I'm really happy with some of them.
And here is Brendan and his Mom in Schweighof, which is located in the Black Forest. SO Hansel and Gretel. And it was romantic, quaint, and beautiful.... Germans are known to vacation there for the fresh mountain air.
Brendan, Konrad and I did a few side trips here and there. The one main thing I wanted to do was see some World War I trenches (since WWI is my latest interest). So on a Sunday morning we drove to Hartzmannweilerkopf or as the French call it, Vieil Armand. It is located in the heart of the Alsace right smack-dab on top of the Vosges mountains. If you want, you can read about it here. It was a chilly-cloudy morning, the place looked desolate, no warm welcome center, the signage stunk (no big surprise there) and the building that was indeed there was shut down, it looked like it had been closed for decades, the monument (which we stumbled onto) was outright pathetic.
Then beyond the monument lay hundreds of graves of the soldiers that had fought for France. A total of 30,000 men died here. Talk about depressing, it was as if France didn't really care about what those men did for their country. I was dumbfounded. And this place is one of the four national memorials to WWI in France. It was a big difference from what I am used to here in the states, I guess I was expecting a little more. Their 100th anniversary will be in 2015, perhaps they will give it a face lift by then.
I was determined to see a trench, so we ditched the stroller and jumped the tattered chain-linked fence. We tripped our way down the path past the graves, squeeze through another gate thing and there was a sign, a real decent sign indicating where the trenches were (finally!). It was after that that we discovered we had to hike up a mountain. Brendan put Konrad on his shoulders and up we went, huffing and puffing. The entire way I was absorbed in the huge divots, bowls of land scooped out from shells and bombs, it was as if the ground were a big sponge.
When we got to the top, there were the trenches. It was amazing. It was as if the war had ended a few months ago. These trenches are known as the best preserved ones because the soldiers lived there for so long with three years of no- real combat fighting, just hundreds of thousands of men living in the trenches. The barbed wire, live ammunition... bunkers, it's all still there. My pictures really don't do it any justice. The thing that amazed me was the big difference between the French and German trenches. The French trenches were shallow and barely waist-deep, whereas the German trenches were very tall, built of stone and had intricate secret passageways, tricky and confusing paths, deep chambers... by far better than the French trenches.
After an hour it got very cold and started to rain.
And then when we started our way back, barely seeing the monument we had to hike back to was so far away, then the rain began to pour.
And POUR...
I felt terrible for Konrad, that I had put him through this (Brendan too). They marched way ahead of me as I struggled to lug the stroller over the fence and then back to the car. When I finally got to the car, Brendan was standing in the rain with Konrad and said that our car had been broken into and everything stolen. Everything meaning, everything in my bag... which had EVERYTHING in it. I melted. I'm -still recovering.
Try to imagine the 2.5 hour drive back home. Broken glass everywhere, child in the back seat crying, pouring down cold rain and bits of glass flying into the car. Sobbing and hysterical wife in the backseat with the crying child. And stressed out Brendan who took his jacket off to keep us warm in the backseat, freezing his tail off. I swore out loud that I never liked France, never had a good memory and now this... this was it. We scoured for the police station only to discover that they were CLOSED. Brendan later went back, when they were open for the two allotted hours of the day and got the police report.
The rental car was replaced, no charge. The remaining of the trip was spent recovering most the things that were stolen. Just hours after it happened, phone calls were made, things got fixed, our neighbor and hero Al back in Harpers Ferry helped us tremendously and ... I am really blessed with the best husband because he made immediate arrangements for us to get things fixed literally the next day.
So, back to the best parts of the trip:
Konrad had the best little garden to play in at our house.
And here is Tante Anna in front of our place.
And Konrad getting lots of loving from his Opa Ernst.
Our favorite hang out in Badenweiler was a place called Cafe Red Coffee Box.
Here is Konrad having his first Kinder Cappuccino (frothed milk with chocolate on top) it's served free to children.
I will post more pictures soon!
1 comment:
Oh honey, I love the story, I hate that your car was broken into. Sounds like it was lovely otherwise, but I'm glad you are all home safe and sound :-)
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