I can't believe we actually did it. Our first trip to the continent as a family. It was quite the experience, and we learned a lot. But we had a great time.
We got up early and drove to Dover to get on the ferry. The boys were so excited to "drive our car right onto the big boat!"
Here is N looking out the window of the ferry. It rained from the moment we got on the ferry, and continued all day long (well, except where it turned into snow)! Yes, the only country it didn't rain in that day was England. How's that for irony?
Then the real fun began. To get to Germany we had to drive through France and then Belgium. We needed lunch and decided we needed to take home some yummy French goodies, so we stopped at a French grocery store / cafeteria. It was pouring out, so we didn't feel like roaming around town. First the caferteria. Let me tell you, my five years of high school French was still really rusty at this point, and I was sooooo not able to think fast enough. As the lovely little French woman behind me was pushing my tray along much faster than I could mentally translate, I just ended up pointing at random foods. Let's just say we ended up with an interesting lunch!
Then we wanted to go into the store to get some Nutella, bread, wine, and cheese. Yummy! We saw "truck carts" you know, the cute ones kids ride in the front of and pretrend drive around the store. We had told the boys we could use one of them in the store, after all, we were taking them on an eight hour car ride... truck carts seemed like a reasonable request for them to make. However, said carts are locked up next to a sign that seemed to say something about an attedent, a form of identification, and €1.50. OK, so after Korea I'm used to paying a deposit for a cart. But I couldn't figure out why I would need a form of ID, nor did I see an attendent anywhere in sight. So while trying not to make a huge scene in the French supermarket, we try to move the boys to the normal carts that I can actually figure out how to unlock. But they weren't convinced and so a very nice French woman saw our misery and took us over to the customer service desk (ahhh... the attendent) and told her we want a cart. Mind you, we were waaaay over the truck cart at this point, but didn't want to offend this nice woman who was trying to help us. Eventually I figure out that to use the truck cart I had to leave a form of identification as a deposit and pay the €1.50, which was not a deposit, but a fee! €1.50 to use a cart! This entire conversation went on in French, no English. Remember I only had high school French, and it's been (ahem) a while. So I kept thinking must have missed something. Nope. Take it from me, if you ever travel through France, don't get a truck cart for your kids! It's not worth it. We eventually did get our French goodies and headed out. Back into the rain.
Which somewhere around Brussels (which by the way is a HUGE city, and I don't recommed hitting it at rush hour... not that I would know) turned into snow. Snow and traffic. Let's just say our eight hour drive got much, much longer. We did eventually make it to Germany and our friend Christie's house.
After a not quite long enough night's sleep, we went touring in the morning. We stopped at this amazing old castle right near Christie's house. The boys had a great time exploring. N had to go up and down every possible staircase and wanted to explore every nook and cranny of the castle. And I do mean every one.
Miss Christie was very helpful in letting Noah explore every corner while I kept taking pictures!
Our first stop was lunch right off this amazing square in the center of town. I think these buildings are so beautiful!
Then we went to the local cathedral. Amazing. It's interesting to me how many renovations and additions these old buildings have gone through over time. This is a good example of a building with two very different architectural styles. This church was built over several centuries!
This is my new favorite family photo. I love the back drop of the old castle wall.
Miss Christie was very helpful in letting Noah explore every corner while I kept taking pictures!
We pratically had to drag N out of there. I think we will be visiting many more castles in our future! We spent the rest of the day letting the boys refuel with lunch (mmm weinersnietzel and French toast...) and rest with really long naps. But they weren't long enough because after dinner we experienced a massive N melt down. I mean massive. I suppose that's what you get when you take a three-year old who really, really likes routine and drag him through five foreign countries in four days. However, on the way to dinner we had a really funny conversation. N wanted to know if Miss Christie is a pilot like daddy. We said no, she's a doctor, like when you're sick you go to the doctor and she makes you feel all better. He responded by saying, "Oh, I don't like that!" Which cracked us up!
The next day we went to another city, Trier. The drive was beautiful. Germany definitely has the some really neat little towns. The roads were amazing. If you've ever wondered how a country with mountains has the autobahn and really high speed limits, the answer is bridges. Huge, huge bridges that literally span entire valleys and go over entire towns. Amazing engineering. I couldn't believe how high off the ground we were! I tried not to think about the fact that were on the very same high bridges the night before in the snow and dark, and just didn't know we were that far up!
N was almost asleep in the car when we got there, and was more than happy to continue to rest on Daddy's shoulder.
Our first stop was lunch right off this amazing square in the center of town. I think these buildings are so beautiful!
N loves Europe. I think he had hot chocolate with almost every meal. Here he is enjoying his before his Belgian waffles. Hot chocolate and waffles for lunch, what could be better?! Well... maybe the banana and Nutella crepe that I ate. Yum!
After we finished off our way yummy lunch we headed to the main attraction in town. The Porta Nigra. Which was built in the 2nd century. Yes, I said the 2nd century. It was the original gate into town, and is still pretty impressive.
We went inside and climbed up to the top floors. Now, I am mildly afraid of heights. And my children and husband are not. So they always want to go to the top of every structure and peer off the ledges, down to our impending doom below. So usually E takes one child to the window, and I plead with the other to allow me to stay safely in the center of the room. Thank goodness we had Miss Christie there. She held onto little e and they could all peer through the not quite close enough for my comfort bars in the windows, down to the plaza below.
She even carried him up the stairs for me, so I could focus on the walls and try to pretend we weren't as high above the incredibly hard stone floor as we were. And no, we don't think the cement staircase dates from the 2nd century... unless they had some amazing ironworkers back then!
Here is the other side of the gate. We were way up in the top of that structure!
Then we went to the local cathedral. Amazing. It's interesting to me how many renovations and additions these old buildings have gone through over time. This is a good example of a building with two very different architectural styles. This church was built over several centuries!
Sadly on Monday morning it was time to leave. We decided to take a different route home and drive through France the whole day. (We at least know some French... not so much German!) But before we got out of Germany E was very excited to take advantage of driving on the autobahn. I think he had the Jetta up to 90 at one point on a down hill stretch! (I didn't know that until after the fact... which was probably a good thing!) We did have another driving snag on the way home. We made a wrong turn before we left Germany and ended up in our fifth country of the trip. I'll let you all try to figure out what country that was! We cracked ourselves up because we had a conversation that went something like this.
me: What road are we on?
E: I don't know, I'm just following Emily (our Sat-Nav, or GPS).
me: I think we're going the wrong way
E: What does Emily say?
me: I don't know, what country are we in?
Yup, it could be bad when you don't even know what country you're in! The country borders in the EU are pretty much just like state borders in the states. We only had to show our passports once the whole trip, and that was to get back into England.
We did eventually end up on the road we wanted to be on in France, and we had great weather for the drive home, so we made good time. We were going to be a little early for the ferry, so we decided to stop in a random French town and just drive around and see the sights. This town (which didn't even get a listing in my France guide book) had this amazing cathedral sitting on the top of the hill. We drove up some really windy streets (and wrong way down a one way... ooops) and stopped to take a photo of this amazingly huge church. When I was a kid, my family took a trip to New Zealand and my parents were quite taken with all the hills and sheep. I was not. I just couldn't (and still can't) figure out what was so exciting about all those sheep. I'm pretty sure N and e feel the same way about churches. E and I are so fascinated with all the huge, and I do mean huge, old churches around here, that we always point them all out to the boys... but to them, it's probably just another really big church!
Finally we made it back to the ferry that would take us back to England. The boys are still recovering from all the activity, but we had a great trip and I'm already planning my next one!
These crackers are a British Christmas tradition. When you pull them, you get a loud "cracking sound" and a cool surprise inside. N and his little buddy helped each other open theirs!
