I'm back

I'm back. More on the immense experience of the travels back to Michigan, which took approxiamately 34 hours! Especially enjoyable was the obnoxious, rude, ignorant tattoed man from LA everyone had to deal with (not that I have any opinion on him!). But I made it back...

Okay, back with the details (if you care) of the trip back! After seeing Trace and Stephanie off at their train to Munich (Muchen), I went to my platform to wait the 20 minutes for mine. A minor panic when the board changed to Munich and I ran downstairs to check a monitor, but I got on the train and rode back to Amsterdam. When I got there I had forgotten how to get to the tram to get me to airport - I now knew about getting the ticket and had plenty of change. After wandering around all of the sudden I was back out in front of the station. I finally just found a train to get me there. I knew I was cutting it close for an international flight, but got to the airport still with just over an hour and a half to go.

The nice lady at the desk gave me my boarding pass and told me to get in line quickly because it was long for passports. Luckily I went through that pretty quickly, got my carryon checked and then got aboard - in the last row, no window seat. It was okay, really, considering I'm not too keen on flying low distances. We were 20 minutes out of the Cincinnati airport (this would be almost 9 hours later) when the captain came on and said they were having weather and would have to circle around. Which they did three times. Then we started getting low on gas, so we had to land at the Columbus airport. We gassed up and waited. They would keep saying they closed the airport, then opened it, we'd get ready and then they would close it again. It was about this time that the mildly annoying tattooed guy in my row started turning into the obnoxious, rude, ignorant tattoed man from LA. Every other word he swore and then kicked things a couple of times. He started raising his voice and I wondered if it was going to be like those two drunk sisters who got arrested a few years ago. We stayed in Columbus for FIVE hours. Everything was locked (no food, no drink) for customs and we couldn't get of there because we were an international flight. So, we went on the 25 minute bumpy ride to Cincinnati finally and had to go through customs, had to get our bags and had to follow the confused airport people. I missed my flight by 15 minutes (I had a 5 hour layover). Then they ran out of hotels (I wasn't going to get one anyway) and had planned to put me on a flight for Sunday morning (two nights and a day later) - by 1:00 a.m. or so things had calmed down. I slept - kind of - in the airport with about 100+ others and got in line at 5 a.m. and got placed on standby and waited until 8:35 a.m. to get on the flight to Grand Rapids. But I'm back...and very tired.

Where I slept in the Cincinnati airport, trying to get a flight back (with extra bag for Trace and Stephanie's things)!!!

Mosel Valley - Trier/Cochem & Rhine Valley

Traveled to Trier, the oldest city in Germany, but just for lunch and to see the Roman Porta Nigra (Black Gate), which is the only surviving gate (thanks Napolean for not destroying everything) from the Roman days - 2nd century AD.


-Then came in to the wonderful, beautiful, cozy, hilly Cochem.
After we got the cute and inexpensive little zimmer (or room) with the small, chatty German lady (Andreas), we looked around town - not only an amazing castle, but hills, Deutsch-esque shops and the river right there.

We found the chairlift to the top of one of the hills, Pinnekreuz, to overlook the river and valley! We had less than 10 minutes to run out there, look and get back to the chairlifts, but we made it.

Ate at the Cafe Restaurant Hotel Vonderbeck. Had Goulash soup (Hungarian), onion Schnitzel (with fries, of course), apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce and some local wine. Walked around town to walk some of that off. Watched some crazy German game show that's kind of like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but in German and something to do with places and distance. We didn't understand it, but Stephanie and I were hooked! We all are hooked on the German language. It's just fun.

Day Two
Castle Day! First a full breakfast (okay, we all love soft-boiled eggs now, but do you think we actually knew how to eat them?), bread, eggs, fruit, tea, a bit of OJ, cheese, meat, jam, butter... We climbed the rest of the hill to Reichsburg Castle.

No English tour, but a sheet and a fun guide. It was all redone a couple of centuries ago, but still has that medieval look. It literally is at the peak of a hill overlooking the town.



Then we caught a train to Moselkern and took a road, then a path for about an hour to Burg Eltz. Literally all you can see is a bit of road, hills and the river...it's in the middle of nowhere. Again, no English guide, but amazing castle. It's been in the same family for over 800 years so a lot of stuff was original to the castle. Ate bratwurst, fries and dessert (I had Donanwelle, a cake with fruit, a bit of chocolate and some kind of cream).

Came back to roam around Cochem again. Stephanie and I went around to some shops. We got some snacks and Stephanie bought what was apparently apple juice. All I know is I smelled vinegar and looked up and she was coughing. She took a big swig of this strange vinegar drink (it was not cider vinegar). We laughed, tried to pull it over on Trace, but ended up dumping the rest. Even then it stunk up the whole room.Ate at Zom Stueffje, supposedly where the locals eat. I got a meatloaf type dish, with wine. We really tried not to get fried potatoes, but they didn't understand and we ended up with fried potato balls in the end.
The towns were dressed up for Easter (Frohe Ostern!), which was neat to see. I can imagine this place getting pretty crowded with tourists in the summer. Must be a madhouse!

Day Three
More castles on the Rhine. Travelled to Bacharach by train (Rick Steves Rhine Tour! Obsession has now caught up with Stephanie about Rick Steves, I think)and caught a boat to St. Goar, where the best sites are, I guess. The Rhine was pretty rapid and the boat was amazing to watch turning around. Katz, Maus, Loreley, Marksburg...stopped at St. Goar to go through the Rheinfels Castle, the best ruin of a castle. It is pretty amazing. Only a fifth of it remains and that's pretty big - especially when you consider they are ruins. Buildings were six stories tall, there's tunnels underneath and, during conflicts, the castle could hold about 4,500 people.

We pressed on again, this time to Koln (or Colonge), just up the Rhine. We got our hotel, which when I did get up early in the morning remind me of The Shining, since it was older, had old-fashioned staircase (and we went up two stories, four staircases) and just had that type of feeling. By that time German medicine had worked wonders and I got some relief for all my congestion (lovely being ill), however, I did realize later that is was the drowsy formula. Whether that caused my wonderful night's sleep or not, who knows.

Koln's cathedral is awesome - in the biggest sense of the word. Bruce said it was the most impressive cathedral he'd ever seen. I would say this and St. Peter's are the top two on my list. It's just huge. And impressive. And to see pictures in 1945 of everything around it destroyed and it still standing. We gawked, we looked inside, we were too late to go to the top of the spire (oh, well, next time I'm here). We tried to get the whole thing in a picture, but it's humungous! I got close.

Late we went to Brauhaus Sion - a bit like Hofbrahaus, but not quite. I got potato soup and a gigantic apfelstrudel (I definately didn't get even close to finishing that!) and had a couple of very small beers. We toured around the city at night and then went back to pack things up (or repack - I took a couple of things home for Stephanie and Trace).

Luxembourg

Yes, we went to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. About 30 miles wide and 50 miles long (smaller than Rhode Island), but well worth the trip! On our way the train stopped for over an hour, something wrong with another train ahead. We entertained ourselves with ipods (theirs, not mine), Chinese poker, eating cheese and Trace showing off his turban-tying skills. The man next to us really had a great time watching us.


It was kind of dusky when we came in, but the walk from the station to the "old town" part was great. It was sunset time and walking in on the bridge you noticed the whole old part was situated on this cliff and parts had been built up with an old citadel. We walked around and enjoyed the vistas and took a long time to find food. We splurged and got a great meal (EVERYTHING comes with fries. Even at nice places with a fancier meal, we still got fries!)...and wonderful desserts.


The next day we got up with the bells of the Notre Dame church, which were quite elaborate. Again we wandered around, got postcards. So, the Royal Family is highly thought of here - very normal considering. They send their kids to public schools, they don't show off too much and people just like them. Even Hermanio met the Grand Duke and Duchess!


We toured the casements which are a world heritage site. They were built in the 900s when the whole citadel was built. They were expanded from time to time, more than 20 were eventually built. During WWI and WWII they were used as bomb shelters and held 35,000 people. They just kept going and going and to think that was only one of them!


We saw Notre Dame, picked up a couple of things, found a playground (!) and pressed on to...Germany!

Brussels

Got into Brussels and was confusing to find where we were in the city (I guess we took the less used way out of the train station), but made it to our clean and "high IKEA" room. We did the Rick Steves Grand Place tour to get oriented with the city. It's so much bigger and more business-like than the other places we visited. The Grand Place is amazing. It's one of those things they say to see before you die. We just took it all in (and took many pictures) - just kind of surrounds you since everything is so tall and elaborate!

We did the chocolate tour starting with Godiva's, which started here, and then to Neuhaus, Gallers and others. With our sugar buzz we walked through Royales St. Hubert (first "shopping mall" you could say) and the cafe/restaurant lined Bouchers street. It was hard to capture that. You just have to go there...and also get hustled by the hosts to try to eat there.

From there we saw the art nouveau cafes surrounding the Bourse (Stock Exchange) and St. Nicholas Church with the shops built into the side of the church.

Of course, the Mannekin Pis statue that has been copied in every shop that sells garden-anything. Not terribly exciting.

We overslept (we all needed it) and it was raining when we woke up. So we skipped the gardens and went straight to the Atomium. Now, the stuff inside wasn't too inspiring, but the structure and going inside of it was. It was built in 1958 for the World's Fair and it's a giant (102m tall) Iron (ferrous) molecule. That was enough for us to go! They were still working on it, having started the update a year or so ago.

Left early afternoon for...Luxembourg!

Ghent

Ghent (Gent) was just a little stopover for the day before Brussels. Ghent, of course, we had to go to because of Mackinac (as in Treaty of..., signed Christmas Eve 1814, ending the War of 1812). We got wonderful waffles while we waited for Leslie to get to her hostel. Also, just roamed around town - a little more "real" and darker. Also found 1960s wallpaper.



Went to the huge castle, Gravensteen, which I got in on the "under 26" deal because of who I´m with and I guess how I look and act! Lots of stairs, vistas, implements of war and defense and just amazingly old and huge.


Stopped at the Souplounge for lunch - wonderful tomato soup and cheap. Since this is the food, beer and history tour, we take pictures of it all (broccoli soup that Trace and Leslie got). Highly, highly recommended.

Saw St. Baaf´s Church and the Adoration of the Lamb (Van Eyck) - but then realized it was only a copy. Still amazing and we didn't want to pay to see the real thing. Walked around a bit and then decided we need to press on to...Brussels!