Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Five day was just not going to be a long enough visit. There were still friends the kids did not get to spend time with and people we grown-ups wanted to see as well. So, why not extend our visit 2 days, leaving for Germany on Friday instead of on Wednesday, as originally planned? I knew one big reason why not: trying to fly with confirmed seats (standby really) on a Friday is a terrible idea. Fridays and Sundays are notoriously bad days for standby passengers. But David checked the flight and said it looked very good. So, I agreed, albeit reluctantly, and Wednesday afternoon found the older kids thrilled to be at our former neighbors the Honeys for a sleepover, David having lunch with colleagues from work and me just relaxing reading a book I got from our Borders shopping spree.

Then came the phone call. David called from the car at 3:30 and said, "I just got a horrible phone call from work. Lufthansa employees are striking in Germany and the flights from Atlanta to Frankfurt are canceled Thursday and Friday (also Sunday we would discover)." This would mean that we would probably not get out of Atlanta for almost another week. David needed to be at work Monday and we didn't want to overstay our welcome with friends. So, I said, "OK, when is the flight today?" David replied, "6:00pm." "Well," I sighed, "Let's get moving."

Somehow, I still don't quite understand how we did it, we got packed, tore a tearful Micaela and James away from their friends Devynn and Jared, said our goodbyes, got in the car and were headed into rush hour Atlanta traffic within 1/2 hour. We had two hours to take what I figured would be a 1-1/2 hour trip to the airport, return the rental car, check our luggage, get through security, board the little airport transport train and arrive at the gate. Would we make it? And all I could think was, "Everyone who is trying to fly from Atlanta to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in the next 5 days is going to be there. Even if we make it in time, we won't get on the flight."

It was bumper to bumper through Atlanta and I thought, "That's it. At what point do we give up and just head back to our friends' house and skip this needless trip to the airport?" Then a colleague of David's called and suggested that we just leave our rental car in hourly parking and he would drive down to the airport and return it for us if we got on the flight. Hmmm, that would save us 30 minutes. Then traffic cleared up quite a bit. Was the impossible going to turn out to be possible?

We checked our luggage at the counter and the agent said, "I can't make you any promises, but right now you have seats." Amazing. We figure David got inside information about the flights being canceled that hadn't yet made it to the paying passengers. We got to the gate quickly and boarded immediately. The kids were miffed that they had to sit in coach and couldn't see the movie over the tops of the seats. It was a stupid drama for grown-ups anyway.

For some odd reason, and I never question the mysterious workings of the universe when they are to my benefit, I was assigned the only Business Class seat for the six of us. David told me to just take it and believe me, he didn't have to say it twice. I got to watch the film of my choice and lounge quite comfortably while David sat in the back with his four children. After the flight, two people approached him to compliment him on how well behaved his four children were. David didn't bother to tell them that it was because they were exhausted from so many sleepovers and crestfallen at having to leave Atlanta early.

Impressions of the United States

We've been having a great time in the Atlanta area visiting with good friends and shuttling our kids around to see their much-missed buddies. Having been away for almost a year (for the most part), we couldn't help but be struck by certain things here on American soil:

* Micaela and James, immediately upon exiting our plane at the airport, sighed and said, "Ah, signs in English! It's so great!"

* Beginning our long drive in the Washington suburbs, we noticed how shiny, new and rectangular all the big office buildings were.

* At a McDonald's for breakfast the following mornings, the egg biscuit I ordered tasted like it had been rolled in salt (It very well may have been. You sell more orange juice that way).

* In the Atlanta area, the size of the cars was striking. In Germany, you have minivans (usually small ones) and SUVs (regular sized ones), but sedans are still the norm. In this area, it seemed like 90% of the cars were large minivans or absolutely humongous SUVs.

* Seeing the $4.00 gas price as the gas stations was new since we left, though we pay almost $9.00 a gallon for gas in Germany. It's less meaningful when signs say 1.53 Euros per liter.

* American kitchen sinks are huge! I've gotten quite used to my tiny little sink and I noticed the sinks in every house I visited.

* Why are there so many cars on the road at 10:30am on a weekday right around the neighborhood where we used to live?

* Germans do have cell phones, but I have yet to see a German walking through the grocery store, shouting into his/her cellphone or wireless headset.

* My meal at Applebee's was disappointingly over-salted, but my chicken sandwich from Chik-fil-A was just a good as I remember.

* We stayed with friends who are avid recyclers. Whatever does not get picked up by the recycling truck (such as cardboard) gets brought to a recycling center. Compared to what we recycle in Germany (where virtually all packaging is recyclable and by law you must recycle), it still seemed like we threw away a lot of stuff while we were visiting.

* The weather was really hot. In Germany in the summer, it'll be 85 degrees one day and 65 degrees a few days later.

* We really miss having a Target and Kohl's nearby. We miss the selection, convenience and great prices. We got all of our school clothes shopping done within a 4-mile round-trip drive. We also planned ahead and brought 2 empty suitcases.

So, what exactly does " confirmed seats" mean?

Grandma and Grandpa left Tuesday the day after we returned from our trip, and they arrived home safely and with no stand-by problems. It was time for us to get ready for our week-long trip home to Atlanta and the flight was the following day, this past Wednesday. The evening before, David said, after sitting at the computer, "Well, the flight looks good tomorrow." Looks good? I replied, "Why does it matter how the flight looks? We have confirmed seats." We had indeed received an e-mail from Lufthansa with our seat assignments, so why was David checking on seat availability for our flight? His surprising answer was, "Well, they can always take us off the flight if a paying passenger needs a seat."

What?!!! I didn't know that. This is really just one step up from stand by and you all know how I feel about flying stand by, particularly with 4 kids.

It was with no small amount of trepidation that we loaded the family into a taxi the next morning and checked our luggage in at the counter. The agent didn't have much to tell us, but when we checked in at the gate, the agent there right away said, "I need to tell you right now that we are probably going to need to take you all off this flight....blah, blah blah. Overbooked, paying passengers, blah, blah, blah."

Just great. The kids were in tears as we exited the airport, took a taxi back home and did the walk of shame back into our house. We had said goodbye to several of our neighbors just a few hours before and felt a little sheepish explaining why we were back.

Once back home, I had to tell James that I could understand that he was upset, but that his moaning and groaning was getting to be annoying and I didn't want to hear it anymore.

The next thing I knew, James was sitting the table eating lunch with this note taped to his shirt. I guess this way, I didn't have to "hear" it anymore.

A half hour later, he turned it over and wrote this new note. We all felt the same way.

The next morning, David said the flight looked much better, so off we went yet again to the airport. Imagine our surprise when we went to check in and were told that Lufthansa had switched this flight to a smaller aircraft and they could tell us right away that we weren't getting on. The flights the next day didn't look good. So, we decided to try the Washington flight. We could always then catch one of the many flights down to Atlanta.

We were pleasantly surprised that we got on the Washington flight, and in Business Class to boot. Immediately upon landing, David checked on the flights to Atlanta and it looked hopeless. Rather than getting a hotel room and trying tomorrow and risk losing yet another day trying to get home, we opted to rent a van and drive the 11 hours down to Atlanta.

At least our kids were used to driving 12 or 13 hours for trips to visit family, so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to drive 5 hours, spend the night at a motel and drive 6 more hours the next morning after spending 9 hours flying across the Atlantic. And no one complained that they didn't have a DVD player to occupy them during the drive. They were too excited to finally be just hours away from seeing their friends.

Triberg and the Black Forest

Today we drove through quite a bit of the beautiful Black Forest in southwestern Germany. We were searching for the ski lift that would take us to the top of the Feldberg, the forest's highest peak, but, alas, could not find it. We enjoyed the drive all the same.

The Black Forest region is blessed with a particularly rich mythological landscape. It is said to be haunted by werewolves, sorcerers, witches and the devil in differing guises. Helpful dwarves try to balance the scales. They must have all been napping when we were there.

The Adlerschanze ski-jump was built in 1924 here in Hinterzarten. The cool weather today (probably in the 50s) and a little bit of shivering made it a bit easier to picture this area covered in snow.
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The last stop on our trip was the town of Triberg im Schwarzwald (Triberg in the Black Forest). This area is known for wood-carving, in particular cuckoo clocks. The selection in this store was mind-boggling. We hope someday to buy an authentic German cuckoo clock, but couldn't come close to making a decision today.

We visited a folk museum that has Europe's largest barrel organ collection.

Emilie liked this lady's hat which could be a variation of the traditional Bollenhut. Bollenhut usually have enormous red pompoms (if you're unmarried, black if you are) and is the hat that many female figurines wear on cuckoo clocks.

Thank goodness the clocks were all set to different times in the museum, so that we didn't have to wait 50 minutes to see a cuckoo.

One item at the museum where we didn't need to say, "No touch!"

Triberg is also famous for its waterfalls. The brochure claimed that these falls are the tallest in Germany, but my research has shown them to be the second tallest.

You can buy peanuts here to feed the squirrels. This was the only squirrel we found to feed. Squirrels in Germany are usually red.


Leaving Triberg, we happened upon the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock. This is not it. We thought it was. The actual Cuckoo Clock was on the other side of the building. Check out the pompoms on the ladies' hats.

This is the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock.

Freiburg im Breisgau

We left Strasbourg this morning, within 5 minutes had crossed the Rhine River and were immediately back in Germany. We stopped in the small town of Kehl, where the grownups enjoyed a cup of coffee in the square while the kids played on a playground. Our French breakfast earlier consisted of croissants and baguettes eaten with butter and cheese while sitting on a cold stone wall near the train station. Not what I was hoping for (nothing beats dipping a buttered slice of baguette into a steaming bowl of café-au-lait), but the French cafés were not open yet and it was either that, or breakfast at McDonald's. A cappuccino in Kehl helped cool my acute disappointment.


You never know what you're going to find at a European playground. In Strasbourg, it was wooden sculptures to climb on, here in Kehl, it's a big mosquito to slide down.

Our next stop was Freiburg, located on the western edge of the Black Forest. This is the Martinstor (Martin's Gate), one of the the two remaining old city gates and part of Freiburg's original fortifications built at the beginning of the 13th century. On our next visit, we'll look for the tablet mounted on the tower in 1988 in memory of the numerous victims of the witch hunts. Among the victims named are three Freiburg women who were convicted in 1599 of being witches and beheaded.

Click on the photo to see what eating establishment is located on its right.

We made our way directly to the Cathedral square or Münsterplatz to grab a bite to eat.

St. George, Freiburg's patron saint, adorns a fountain in the square.

The Historisches Kaufhaus, or historical marketplace, is a Renaissance building constructed between 1520 and 1530 which was once the center of the financial life of the region. Its façade is decorated with the coat of arms of the Habsburgs.

The Münster, a gothic gathedral constructed of red sandstone, built between 1200 and 1530. The Freiburg Münster is noted for its towering spire.

David and James climbed up to the cathedral's bell tower.

View from the cathedral of the Schwabentor, the other old city gate.

James doing a pretty good imitation of a hamster at the playground as we made our way to the Schlossberg, the mountain at the edge of city that we had every intention of hiking up.

After an arduous climb up to the top of the Schlossberg, there was still this tower to climb to get the best view.

Grandma, Rebecca and I were quite impressed with the view of the countryside from the ground, thank you very much, so we opted to rest a while. That's us, those tiny little specks down below.

View of Freiburg

Making our way back to the car, we came across this ring of amusing fountains.


What we wouldn't have given to see these fountains running.



The inner city is crisscrossed by small canals or Bächle running along the streets. These canals are constantly flowing with water diverted from the Dreisam River and used to be the irrigation system of medieval Freiburg. No, they were never used for sewage, as such usage could lead to harsh penalties, even in the Middle Ages. Legend has it that anyone stepping (or tripping) into a Bächle is deemed to stay in Freiburg and marry a Freiburger.

Detail on the corner of a house

Strasbourg, France

Grandma and Grandpa returned yesterday from their Finland trip where they visited with family and did some sightseeing. We gave them a little time to rest, but it was off today on our three-day trip to see some new areas of France and Germany. Grandma and Grandpa have been many places in the world, but never France.

We got a late start, though, when we showed up at the car rental office in the middle of the city to pick up our van (so we could all ride together) and they didn't have the van we reserved there. I don't think the agent would have gotten it if we had quoted Jerry Seinfeld to her:

Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

We lost almost two hours driving to the other side of Frankfurt to pick up another van at a different location, but in the end, we got the van we needed. Then it was a two-hour drive to Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. We didn't have time to plan out this trip, so we just went with the flow and it did take us a while to figure out what exactly we were going to and where we were going to stay.

The kids enjoyed the songs of this music box as we made our way to the cathedral.

You're wandering through the old part of Strasbourg, admiring the old buildings, picking up some French-language Harry Potter books at a stand, turn a corner and then, to quote Emeril LaGasse, BAM! A huge, beautiful 15th century cathedral suddenly comes into view.

Here at the cathedral, we boarded a tram to tour the old part of the city which helped us figure out what part of town to visit on foot. It poured during out tram ride, but the great part of that was that when we were dropped back off at the cathedral, the gargoyles were doing their thing.




The sun came back and the rain stopped in time for our leisurely walk, which started at the cathedral. Strasbourg Cathedral which began undergoing construction in the 12th century, was completed in 1439 (though only the north tower was built) and became the World's Tallest Building (until 1874), surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press here.

The Maison Kammerzell, an ornate and well preserved medieval building located in the cathedral square, is one of the most famous buildings of Strasbourg.

The cathedral was situated so close to other building, that getting a good shot of it was difficult.

Double-decker merry-go-round

There were only a few spots taken on the whole merry-go-round, but these French kids insisted on riding on this spinning do-hickey with Micaela, James and Emilie.

Lovely bakery sign

Grandma and Grandpa posing in front of la Maison des Tanneurs in the charming Petite-France section of town.

The name "Petite-France" was conferred by the former German inhabitants because of the numerous prostitutes working there in the Middle Ages — prostitution used to be known in Germany as "the French business".

A quiet moment near the Barrage Vauban, a defensive dam built on the river Ill in the seventeeth century.

Two of the four defensive towers that help make up the the medieval bridge Ponts Couverts (Covered Bridges) spanning the Ill.

We weren't sure if they were playing pétanque or boule lyonnaise

"You are the sunshine of my life...."

This playground was full of wooden sculptures to climb and sit on.


In this pose, Micaela reminded me of Manet's famous (and controversial) Olympia.


We enjoyed the mix of French and German cultures here and now understand why so many people put Strasbourg at the top of their "Not to be missed" list.