2 posts tagged “anna”
Hi everyone! Kati and I are having the most amazing time!
Day 1: Driving (Germany)
After a LONG flight on the BIGGEST plane I've ever been on, we finally made it to Munich, Germany! The first thing that we did was get the rental car. Now, I had to rent manual because it was much less expensive, and I had one driving lesson from Tony. I did fine, until we tried to leave the parking garage. It was a little hill, and needless to say, I'm not so great at first gear on flat ground. After several stalls, the gate closed on me and I had to drive up to get another ticket. The whole thing was very embarrassing! We went to the Hoffbrau House for lunch (they had a live polka band!) and got completely lost driving around the city, but had a blast seeing all we could see. Once we got out onto the autobahn, I was fine (ok, I did drive a little slower than most of the people there). The German countryside is absolutely amazing - it's so green and lush! We drove all the way to Mindelheim (it did take us quite a while because we got pretty lost). The family there is just amazing - we were staying with Anna and Seigfried (Anna is my Oma's sister and Seigfried is her husband) and on the first night they rolled out the red carpet! We climbed to the top of this little castle that overlooks Mindelheim (Mindelberg) and got to see the whole city. We also drove past Mom's old house. The whole family came over (Heidi, Bergit, Helmut - my mom's cousins, Christoph - my 3rd cousin and one of Christoph's friends). Kati and I were exhausted, but it was so fun hanging out with them and meeting everyone!
Day 2: Neuschwanstein (Germany)
On the second day Kati and I had planned to go to Neuschwanstein on our own, however, the whole family wqnted to take us and show us everything around there. I was more than happy to relinquish my driving over to Johann (Heidi's husband). The German countryside was so amazing - there are lots of corn fields (I was later informed that there are 5 types of corn gorwn in Germany) and cows everywhere (with real cowbells!).We got to the castle and took a short walk over to the Alpsee, which is a lake in the Alps that the castle overlooks - it was so serene and beautiful. Then we began the hike up to the castle. Forty-five breathless minutes later, we were there, as was my 78 year old great aunt! I couldn't believe she made the whole hike! The castle was truely amazing - we took the tour and saw all of the rooms that were open to the public. After hiking back down the hill, we headed over to the cafe for a delicious German lunch, the highlight of which was the apfelstrudel! After leaving the castle we went to the Wieskirche, which is this beautiful Catholic church out in the Bavarian countryside.
Day 3: Rammingen and Munich (Germany)
Fannie, my Opa's neice picked us up on the third day and took us over to Rammingen where we met up with Martin and Seigfried (her brothers) and Jan (Martin's son). They showed us around the city and then took us to see the Swabian farmers museum, that has an actual villiage set up to show what things would have looked like during the farming times - it was so cool to see what the technology was and to see the actual restored buildings (our family farmed back in the day). After that, we headed in to see the Basilica, this extremely beautiful church that had an amazing pipe organ and some of the most ornate decorations I've ever seen in a church! We had another delicious Bavarian lunch (hooray for rouladen!) and then headed back into Munich. We stayed overnight zith Bernd (he's a third cousin) who was really cool - he speaks almost perfect English and took Kati and I out to dinner. After three days of struggling with my German, it was so nice to be able to talk to someone in English! We had to leave super early the next morning to catch our flight to Paris, so we didn't get to hang out nearly enough with Bernt!
Day 4: Paris (France)
We took the super early flight into Paris and began our navigation of the tricky metro system. We have these really cool passes that let us use the metro wherever we want to go, and I must say, Kati has found her niche. She's lost pretty much everywhere else in the world, but for some reason has absolutely no porblem navigating the streets of Paris. We took a great bus tour in the afternoon (after dining on a lunch of the best baguette I've ever had and some beignets) that tooks us all over the city - for 2 hours. We saw everything and then laid out our plan for the rest of the time here. Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. We had a little miscommunication and didn't get to climb the stairs up (we did take them down though) and finally made it to the top - what a fantastic view! we have some great pictures from up there and from the ground!
Well, that's all so far - I will write about today from the next cafe because we still have lots to do! There are tons of pictures that I'll send out once we get home, but for now, au revoir!
Greetings from beautiful Houston! It's much greener here than I expected! Anna (funny, I'm traveling with someone who has the same name and actually pronounces it the same!) and I got here at around 5pm local time. After a small fiasco with the rental car (mine wasn't ready, so we took a minivan) we headed over to meet some of the field guys for a delicious Texas steak dinner... it was FANTASTIC!
Now I'm in my little hotel room, working and getting ready for bed. I've discovered that's the crummy thing about business travel - you never just get to relax in your room. Instead, it's catch up time since you're busy all day. Oh well... I'll save the relaxing for some other time!
