Weekend Wrap-Up (President's Day) - (Germany) Day 415 - 418

A unique public toilet in downtown Stuttgart

Normally I break the weekend down each day, but I think I may start doing just an actual "wrap-up" for each weekend. This was a four day weekend and my wife's cousin and her daughter came to visit us from England. They flew in on Friday and we had a great time visiting with them. My wife's cousin has lived in Germany at various points in her life. She had her middle school years here while living with her parents who where stationed here in the army. Her husband is in the air force (currently deployed) and they were stationed in Germany again. Since her cousin has seen a lot of Germany already, there wasn't anywhere special she wanted to see…except Patch Barracks down near Stuttgart. She wanted to see her old stomping grounds where she spent some of her childhood. We made the drive Saturday and when we arrived she said it was like stepping back in time…not much has changed on the post at all. She got out at a few places and took some photos telling us stories the entire time.

Breakfast at McDonald's in Germany...some items are the same 

and others like this are a traditional German Breakfast

We then headed to downtown Stuttgart and I accompanied the girls while they checked out all the shopping. Stuttgart has quite a bit of shopping with many big name stores. I took advantage of grabbing an iTunes gift card while I was out on the local economy. Since I've lived here for a while, I hear a lot of German music on the radio. I want to buy it on iTunes, but a lot of it is not available in the US Store. With a German iTunes gift card, I was able to create a German apple ID and then fund the account with Euros from the gift card. After that I was able to download the music I've been wanting. It's a bit of a pain, but I now have two accounts that I can use to purchase from both the US and German iTunes store. Once the songs are downloaded they play seamlessly on my iPhone and AppleTV.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of hanging out and visiting. The girls went out and got their hair cut and just had a great time being able to hang out all weekend long. Unfortunately both my wife's cousin and her daughter started getting sick during the final part of their stay. This cut short some plans to check out some sites, but I think all in all everyone enjoyed themselves. It was nice spending time with family.

Driving on the autobahn...fog and snow today

 

Whenever there is a wreck on the autobahn, backups (stau) can be extremely 

long and take forever to get going again...when you gotta go, you gotta go!

We finally found out what was causing the long backup on the autobahn!

Weekend Wrap-Up (MLK 4-Day) - (Germany) Days 387 - 390

The front of the Cologne Cathedral

Friday: My wife had to work today, so I took her to her office and dropped her off. I stayed home and took a nap first and foremost. I then basically just hung out watching TV and doing a little schoolwork until I could go pick her up from work. We spent the evening going to the theatre on post and watched "Gangster Squad", which was just up my alley…lots of action and violence.

Saturday: In an effort to get out and about again, we decided to take a road trip to Köln (Cologne) Germany. We have heard from others that they enjoyed this city and we have yet to visit. The drive is a little over two hours and for whatever reason it seemed that I had to go pee the entire time! I went before we took off, then we also made a pit stop at a rest area along the autobahn. The rules at these rest areas are quite a bit different than ones back in the states. A bus was unloading as we pulled in and what seemed like the entire busload of guys was lined up outside and relieving themselves. There was a line of guys making yellow snow! This is just something you wouldn't see in the states, but things are different here. They did have bathrooms, but it seemed nobody wanted to wait and nobody really cared if they just had to go pee. It wasn't just the guys in the bus either, cars were pulling up and people were getting out and going pee in the snow. One of the other things you have to get used to about relieving yourself in Europe is the fact that a lot of the bathrooms cost money to use. It can be as little as 20 cents to a Euro.

We finally made it to the city and found a parking garage in the city center next to the main cathedral. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we headed to the church to check it out. The building itself was pretty impressive, with two large towers looming high above the rest of the neighboring buildings. There were statues around the entrance and once inside we were amazed at how huge the place was…and also how cold it was inside. I could still see my breath as we were walking around. There was a worker making sure everyone took off their hats once inside. We took our time admiring the various sculptures and stained glass, then headed off down a shopping street filled with a ton of people. We took a few breaks inside some various shops just to warm up a bit before moving on.

We then visited the National Socialism Documentation Center, this was the headquarters of the Gestapo in Köln and has now been turned into a Nazi museum. It was pretty interesting checking out all the pictures, but the most interesting part was the basement. This was used as a jail by the Nazis and is still very well preserved. There are a lot of inscriptions from various prisoners. A chilling reminder of what life was like for the unfortunate that had to spend time there.

With the weather being so cold and my wife not feeling a 100% we decided to call it a day, but we do have plans to come back and see some more of the town.

Sunday: Today we pretty much just chilled together, we did a little cleaning and a little laundry…typical Sunday stuff. We then headed over to our CAM's house and met up with my boss and another NCO from the maintenance side of the ComSec office. We had a bunch of food and drink while we watched the NFL conference championship games. It was nice to see everyone again and just hang out and have some fun together. My boss told me that I will be going to Wiesbaden after Heidelberg. This is good news, but I can't pin all my hopes on it until I actually see some orders. Things change so much, it's hard to plan too early for anything.

Monday: A pretty laid back day. I was going to meet up with a high school acquaintance that lives here in Heidelberg, but the snow caused some problems with the train schedule and he was unable to make it. So instead my wife and I just hung out together all day…we didn't do a whole lot except TV and some schoolwork.

I've been thinking quite a bit today about my future in the army and here in Germany. I'm hoping that Wiesbaden will turn out to be a lot better than my time in the army here in Heidelberg. There are still a ton of places that I want to visit while I'm here in Europe. I would also like to have a good experience with a job in the army, I would like to learn something new, I would like to feel that I'm advancing in my career field. I also want to finish school while I'm here in Germany using tuition assistance. It seems that tuition assistance is always in a position to be cut when budget talks are going on. I have 7 more classes to complete in order to get my degree. The downfall is that I do have health issues that I'm dealing with. I know I could just deal with the pain and go on, but I don't want to end up even more injured once I get out of the army in a couple years. I guess I'll just take it one step at a time as I have been…but the sound of moving to Wiesbaden makes me feel a little optimistic.

Photos from our day trip to Cologne in the slideshow below:
Edit: Flickr ended up deleting the slide show I made, so I grabbed this one:

  The Nazi basement jail cells

Intel 35 Day 10 (Final) - (Germany) Day 269

This morning was a little different than previous mornings, since it is our last day here in the hotel, I had to gather up all my crap and load the car. We ate breakfast and thanked the owners for their great service and wonderful food. We headed off to pick up our classmates on the way to class. The car was pretty full with four people and all our luggage.

We headed into class and were given the instructions for the final exam. There will be no talking or taking breaks at the same time. We then started at 0830 with a time limit of 6 hours to finish, we also were told that there was a mandatory lunch at noon until 1300 if we were still there. The test was actually easier than the master scenario that we did the previous two days leading up to the test. We basically setup more accounts and did some more with various accounting procedures. We did work with others in the class as other accounts, so at times we had to send stuff via floppy disk and wait for stuff from them. This was only an issue once because one of the students in class was very slow, double checking and triple checking every single mouse click. I ended up taking a small nap during the test while waiting on some material from her.

We all finished the test before lunch time and the instructors graded each of ours one at a time. We needed a 75% to pass the test and I received a 91%. I made a couple of typos and also made a stupid mistake while on autopilot at the end of the test. No worries though, I passed and made it through both courses now. Because of this, I was awarded "The Creed of the ComSec Custodian". A funny take on the various army creeds, but applied to the ComSec world.

We headed out and ate lunch at the food court before heading home. Unfortunately the way home was full of frustration. The autobahn we were traveling was closed, so we were rerouted along a detour. The traffic was horrible and we decided to have the GPS calculate an alternative route. We took the alternative route, but ended up hitting quite a bit of traffic off and on. Traffic backups on the autobahn are called a "Stau" and this term is used by both Germans and Americans here. The autobahn is awesome when you can drive at whatever speed you want, but when you run into a stau, it can suck big time. We found plenty of staus along our way home and instead of getting home at our original ETA of 1605, we arrived at 1930. It sucked, but it was nice finally getting home and seeing my wife again. Hopefully I won't have any training, or any more TDY assignments that take me away again for a while.

Weekend Wrap-Up - (Germany) Day 236 & 237

The joys of rest areas on the Autobahn...some have bathrooms and some have the woods

(My boss during one of our stops on the way to Vilseck)

Saturday: Today pretty much sucked all around only because I felt like crap. I went to bed with a headache last night and woke up with a major headache in the morning. I didn't have any plans, so I just stayed home and tried to take it easy. I'm not exactly sure what brought the headache on, usually I'll get these bad headaches after I've done something to my upper back like wear my body armor or run (the impact from the running)…but I didn't do anything physical that would cause this. The only thing I can think of is that it must be brought on by stress. I mentioned a few posts ago about this training that I have been told I have to attend. It has stressed me out a lot because it's just ruined all my plans. Plans we've already bought tickets for! I'm not sure if that is what is causing it or what, but it seemed like no amount of aspirin or even my muscle relaxers would do anything to help it. I stopped taking aspirin after a while for fear that I might end up with a hole in my stomach if I keep taking them. Being in pain sucks, and it's really taking away from my quality of life. There were times when my kids were here and I wasn't able to play with them like I would have liked to because I was just in too much pain. I wasn't like this before I joined the army, I just hope I can find some solution…I hate it.

The only thing I was able to do for the day was get my bag packed for the training and do some laundry…other than that I either sat or laid down. My wife (bless her heart) took care of me and made a nice steak dinner and we had some cake and ice cream since I'll be leaving Sunday.

Sunday: Happy Birthday to me. I got to spend my birthday getting up at 0620 and leaving the house at 0645 picked up by my boss and our platoon sergeant. I then headed to the office to get some paperwork before we all headed off to Vilseck Germany, which is about a 4 hour drive. I just sat in the back seat listening to my boss and the drill sergeant (our platoon sergeant) talk…some of it interesting…some of it boring. I still had a pretty severe headache, but not quite as bad as yesterday, I tried to lean my head back and rest.

When we arrived at the base, we headed to the food court for lunch. After that we headed to go get me registered. I filled out some paperwork and was told I will be staying at the army lodging on post since I will not have a car. I was told we would find out today if I would be able to make it into the class because officially I'm on "stand-by", but their computers were down…so I have to wait until tomorrow. I was also told that if I don't get into class, then I will have to pay for my night's stay in the hotel and get reimbursed by my unit. That's just great! Not only do I have to wait until tomorrow before I find out if I'm even in the class, but if I'm not I have to pay for my room. I know getting the money back from my unit will be a long involved process and if I do ever see it, it will be way down the road.

The only good thing about my room is that it does have free internet. So I was able to do my schoolwork and then catch up with everyone on Facebook as well as video chat with my wife. If I do end up staying here, I should be able to focus on my schoolwork and watch a lot of movies…LOL. Right now though I'm in pain and I'm a little pissed off. Let's hope that tomorrow brings the good news that I will not be able to attend this class because it's full. I will then be able to attend my motorcycle course and see England. I'm crossing my fingers!

First Day (FTX Day 1) - (Germany) Day 112

A typical rest area along the autobahn....some have bathrooms 

and some let you use the old fashioned bathroom....the woods!

(Due to the FTX my posts may be a little sporadic, I found out the USO offers free Internet and will be toting along my laptop and uploading posts as I get a chance)

My sergeant had called me yesterday and let me know that I didn't need to come to formation. He would be picking up the TMP and coming back to pick me up with SPC Whirlwind. We were all wearing civilian clothes because we were traveling a long distance off post. So this was a nice surprise, I got to sleep in a bit and I was able to wear regular clothes.

They picked me up around 0700 and we took off in the TMP. I spent the ride drifting in and out of sleep. We stopped at a German rest stop along the side of the autobahn. The rest areas are a little different than I'm used to in the states. Some are normal with a small bathroom and some park tables and benches, but others like the one we stopped at didn't have much of anything. If you want to go to the bathroom you "utilize the woodline" which is what all of us did.

We made it to Grafenwoehr and onto the main post in about 3 and a half hours. We went and checked out the PX which was a lot bigger and nicer than ours in Heidelberg. We ate lunch in the food court and as we were leaving we asked some MPs how to get to the actual camp we were looking for. Turns out it was pretty close to where SPC Whirlwind attended Warrior Leader Course (WLC). Once we arrived shortly before noon as stated on the message sent to me, we were told nothing is ready yet and to come back at 1300. So we drove back to the main post, filled up the tank, and then waited around a while before heading back where I was dropped off.

I waited around for about 15 minutes before some others and the main guy came in. The took down our names (there is only 5 of us) and also asked who had admin privileges, only two people raised their hands. I guess everyone that was supposed to come, was supposed to have admin privileges already. We were given a small brief and then told to check in at another place in order to get our beds and temporary badges.

We headed over to another building, but they were not ready for us yet either. We had to just write our names down on paper, then we ran into the NCOIC that is in charge of the help desk and he told us to come into his barracks and get settled in. There are a number of beds, but only 5 of us here, so it seems a little empty. Surprisingly there are only a couple power outlets, so we are gathered around them and I quickly put my power-strip to use so me and the guy next to me can both use this one outlet.

We were then shown where the shoppette, laundry (coin operated) and bathrooms are located. After that I hung out on my bed for a while, just reading my book. A few of the others headed out with the NCOIC to the main post. Besides checking in today, we don't have anything planned. I napped for a bit, read a book (Steve Jobs)  on my iPad and watched a movie. Tonight's special was "Blade" starring Wesley Snipes. I hadn't seen it in forever and with all the current vampire craze that's going on, I wanted to watch an old school vampire movie (on my laptop).

Marriage Retreat - (Germany) Days 88 - 90

Me and my wife in front of Neuschwanstein Castle

Friday: This morning we woke up at 0600 and proceeded to get ready to go. I didn't have to go to PT formation or anything which was nice, I get the day off and the weekend off because of this marriage retreat. We left about 0700 to the shoppette to pick up some supplies and then to the gas station to fill up before we headed out. Not sure if I mentioned how gas works here in Heidelberg or not, but it's not like other bases I've been to where there is a gas station located on post. Here we are given ration cards (looks like a debit card) that is tied to our vehicle. We're allowed 400 liters of gas a month. The card acts just like a debit card, meaning that we have to fill it up with cash at any shoppette on post. Once it has money on it, we can use it at any Esso gas station. Even though we purchase gas at the Esso station on the German economy, the card is only charged the US prices. This gives us a lot more options than just one gas station on post which is nice.

Anyway…back to the day. I put the address in the GPS for the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort and we took off. The autobahn still amazes me when I drive on it for any length of time. I found that my car will not let me put it in cruise control at 100, the max is 89. Even while driving 100 MPH I was still passed by quite a few cars. I'm not talking a car slowly driving by on me left side, I'm talking I see some lights in the distance and before I know it a car goes flying by me! Keep in mind that I stayed anywhere between 85 and 100 MPH…it didn't matter.

The drawbacks of the autobahn is that there can be some serious slow downs when there is a wreck or construction and we ran into both during our trip down. One accident involved 3 semi trucks! As we went through a tunnel and came out we went straight into Austria. I wasn't planning on leaving the country, in fact we are supposed to fill out some special forms and crap anytime we leave…we are also supposed to have an international drivers license. My darn GPS decided this way would be faster. I have to admit though the scenery in Austria on our way to the Edelweiss resort was just amazing! There was still quite a bit of snow in the mountains with the small towns, this made for some breathtaking views.

We finally arrived about 4 hours later. The Edelweiss Lodge and Resort is army operated for the military. You have to show your military ID to get in just like any other post. The place is the sister resort of The Dragon Hill lodge located at my last duty station in Yongsan Korea. Edelweiss is located right at the base of a number of mountains, so there are great views everywhere you look.

Because we were coming for the marriage retreat, the lodging along with breakfast and dinner were free. We had to attend a few hours of classes starting at 1300. These were mostly on communication, which I always tell my wife is perhaps the most important thing in a relationship. After the classes we were free for the night, but after the drive and the classes all we wanted to do was relax. We did do a quick workout in their fitness room and then spent some time in the hot tub :)

The view (although a little foggy) of the mountains from

The Edelweiss Lodge and Resort 

Saturday: The morning started at 0630. We woke up early to attend breakfast in order to avoid the rush. We had the buffet and then headed back to our room to get ready for our morning classes. The classes were from 0900 to about 1130. We then decided to head to Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. The drive was about an hour and I think it was well worth it. Once we parked, we had to make a half hour walk up to the castle which is located on a hill overlooking the valley. The castle was amazing, it's just unfortunate that we were unable to take pictures inside. The only way to go inside the castle is via a guided tour, but the tour was interesting and they have them available in English as well.

After the tour we drove back and spent the rest of the night in the hotel. We had dinner at the steak house located in the hotel. We then relaxed and watched a movie in our room.

Sunday: The morning was the same as yesterday, we got up early and ate breakfast. We had to check out of the hotel, but still attended a couple hours of classes in the morning from 0900 until almost 1100. Once that was finished we were released for the weekend.

We had decided to go to the Dachau concentration camp. This is not your typical vacation destination, but it was located on the way home and is a place I wanted to see just because of the historical value. It took us about an hour to get there, and we spent a few hours taking it all in. The camp is still setup with the fence and guard towers. They have a museum on the grounds which also offers documentaries that you can watch in various languages. We happened to arrive just in time for the English version. We sat down in the theatre and watched about all the horrible things that happened there. After the film we checked out more of the camp. There are memorials setup to see, they also have barracks you can go in and check out. The most disturbing though was the crematoriums. They had a small one that couldn't keep up with the demand, so a larger one was built. There are several memorials around it marking the thousands upon thousands of people's ashes that were buried in the area. I was also able to see the gas chamber that was made to look like showers.

The entire experience was pretty eye opening and jaw dropping. To walk around where thousands of people suffered and died was a somber experience. We headed off for home after that and drove the long drive back along the autobahn…which even when driving 100 MPH still can take quite a while.

We arrived home about 1800 and just kicked back and relaxed for the rest of the night. I watched some NCAA basketball…who knew a marriage retreat/vacation could make you so tired.


Neuschwanstein Castle:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Dachau Concentration Camp:

Created with flickr slideshow.

 

Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day) - (Germany) Day 81 - 84

The entrance to the Saalburg Roman Fort

Friday: I woke up this morning with my legs still extremely sore. I actually could barely walk around the house, so I'm glad I had the day off! I spent most of it with my butt planted on the couch watching the NCAA tournament. I also continued to do the only I.T. work I get to do these days…which is work on my own computers. I finally upgraded all of them to 10.7.3 and made the move to iCloud from MobileMe. This is supposed to promise better synchronization between our computers and our iOS devices. The downfall is that I cannot host my website on iCloud, which is the reason I started using WordPress for my current blogs and moved the main site to the free Google Sites. Most of the content is still there including my basic training and AIT journal. Google just doesn't allow for enough free space for all the photos I want to upload…even using Flickr, I would have run out of space too fast.

So the entire day was mainly recovery for my legs along with some I.T. work and schoolwork. The schoolwork I'm finding very tough. It's hard to learn programming from an online class. This is one of those times I wish I could attend class in a normal classroom environment with a teacher, a lecture, other students asking questions, and practice time on a lab computer.

Saturday: After sleeping in and taking the morning easy, we headed off and picked up SPC JayZ and his wife at his barracks. We then headed off to the Schwetzigen Castle. It's actually only about 20 minutes away or so from Patrick Henry Village. The castle is not so much a castle in the traditional sense. It seems more like an large fancy building than a castle. It does have a very large garden area with a number of statues and fountains (that weren't running at the time). After walking around and taking in everything I knew we'd have to come back in the spring or summer time after everything has bloomed. I'm sure the garden area looks spectacular and the fountains just add to it.

We took a tour of the castle, but unfortunately they only had tours in German. They did hand us pamphlets to read as we were on the tour that explained everything that the guide was saying in each of the rooms. It was a pretty interesting tour and it gave a lot of insight into how not only royalty lived, but also how their servants lived back in the day.

After the castle we had dinner at a Cuban restaurant outside the castle called Cubar. The food was pretty good and it was a nice way to relax a bit after walking around all day. Once finished we left and headed home after dropping off SPC JayZ and his wife. The rest of the night consisted of schoolwork and a TV show or two.

Sunday: We had pretty much the same morning as yesterday, taking our time getting ready and then heading out in the afternoon. We headed up to visit a friend of mine that I made over 20 years ago when I was an exchange student here in Germany. This guy actually came and lived with me and my family for a bit once I came back so he could experience America. Before we visited him, we headed to the Saalburg Roman Fort. This place was pretty impressive, just walking around it and thinking of all the history that took place here way back in Roman times. The fort held 500 to 600 soldiers and while everything is in German when walking around, we could still get a great idea of everything there. I had checked out the website first, so I knew a little of the history.

After that we checked out the Schloss Castle which is a castle that has been turned into a 5 star hotel. The place is very impressive, but we weren't sure if we could just walk in and check everything out or not, so we just walked around the outside taking pictures and basically just looking around.

Our next stop was Grosser Feldberg which is the highest mountain in the Taunus area. It offers a view of the surrounding area, but our time there was limited as we were pretty cold. When we left Heidelberg it was not too cold, but we should have brought our coats! We snapped a few quick pictures and then headed off to visit with my friend in Kronberg which is very close to Frankfurt. We arrived and visited for a couple hours. I'm so glad I have my GPS, I can't imagine trying to find all these places without it! We talked about the old times, the new times and the in-between times. It's crazy how much has changed over the years, but he is still a great guy and his family seems very nice as well. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him more during my stay here.

The drive back was uneventful…I still can't get over how I can be going 80-90 MPH and have people pass me like I'm standing still on the autobahn. Once home it was time for more schoolwork.

Monday: Monday was a day of rest for me. My wife had to work, so I took her into work and then came back home to do stuff like catch up on laundry and schoolwork. My legs are finally starting to feel somewhat normal now. It feels like I had a normal workout yesterday and my legs are only a little sore…nothing like the pain and agony I had been feeling with every step I took…especially when going downstairs.

My class is still pretty tough. We had the first person drop the class from our team. I don't blame her, it's very tough to learn on your own. I'm just hoping I can somehow fumble my way through it and get it over with. Programming has always been very difficult for me and I have no fantasies of actually being a programmer when I grow up.

As for pictures….I'll be sending a lot of them up to my flickr account in the next day or so…time just got away from me this weekend.

Here are the albums on my flickr: Saalburg Roman Fort & Schwetzingen Castle


Or you can check out the slide shows below:

Saalburg Roman Fort:

Created with flickr slideshow.

 
Schwetzingen Castle:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day) - (Germany) Days 53-56

A picture of some of the many tombstones at the American Cemetery and Monument in Luxembourg

Friday: We woke up and had an easy going morning, drinking some coffee and having breakfast together. Then we all got in my car and we headed off to the Frankfurt airport. My wife's cousin brought their GPS which made everything very easy. Ours is in the mail being sent from back in the states. This is something I would recommend to anyone traveling Europe, it makes everything so much easier and gives you a sense of security knowing that you will not be getting lost in a foreign land!

This was my second time driving on the autobahn since arriving here. The first time was following my boss back from when we picked up my car. Now I was driving solo…not following anyone. Many people don't realize that the autobahn does have many places that have speed limits. Some are reasonable like freeway speeds in the US around 60-70 mph…others are 130 kph which is about 85 mph or so. There are portions…large portions that don't have any speed limits. I kept it around 85 to 90 mph because I had a car full of people and I wanted to keep it pretty safe. I was still amazed at how many cars passed me like I was standing still. One thing the drivers here are good about is staying to the right unless you are passing others. Unlike the states where you have "parade makers" that stay in the left lane no matter what…causing a long line of cars behind them. I found a couple of times I'd be passing someone and way back in the distance I would see lights flash a couple of times at me…by the time I passed the car in front of me and moved over, a car would already be caught up and zooming by me. It would be really fun to drive a high performance sports car here and just let loose!

We arrived at the airport and picked up my wife's niece (her cousin's daughter) who happened to be on a field trip with others, but instead of flying back home to England she just came with us since we were there. We went to the altstadt (old town) of Frankfurt and did a lot of walking around checking out the amazing architecture and scenery. It's amazing seeing such old buildings with modern skyscrapers in the background. Among some of the interesting places we saw were some ancient Roman ruins as well as a very old church called Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus. The building was amazing as was the art and sculptures inside it. It's awesome to think about all the history here.

I then had some Spaghetti Eis (Spaghetti Ice Cream) one of my favorites from the last time I was here 20 years ago. It's vanilla ice cream with raspberry topping made to look like spaghetti. :) We then drove back home and hung out for a while. We were introduced to a new game (for us) on the iPad…Family Feud…and we ended up all playing it together for a while before turning in for the night.

Saturday: We woke up a bit early today in order to start the day. Once everyone was ready we drove to Luxembourg, which I'm ashamed to say I didn't even realize is another country. It's one of the smallest countries in Europe, so I guess it's easy to miss. It's located to the west of Germany and was a strategic location for the Germans in WWII. They invaded and took over Luxembourg so they would be able to invade France. There were some great battles fought by the Americans during WWII and there is a US cemetery and memorial that we visited. The place beautiful, everything was well maintained and beautiful. Walking around looking at all the names and ranks on the tombstones was pretty sad. It's hard to think of all the young PVTs and PFCs that died there. It's strange to see an American memorial in another country, but Luxembourg is very grateful for the soldiers that died liberating their country.

In contrast we went to a Nazi cemetery about a mile away. The mood there is totally different and the fog just added to the very gothic…almost haunted feel to the area. Instead of one name on each tombstone, the Nazi tombstones have 4 (two on each side). It was a very interesting experience indeed. (You can check out more photos from this trip on my flikr site here)

We then drove back to Germany to a town called Trier. We headed straight to the altstadt portion of this town and entered through the "Porta Nigra" a very old gate that was used back in the day. There was a lot of shopping and such, but the highlight of the stop here was an ancient church called the Cathedral of Saint Peter. Like the church in Frankfurt, this one was full of amazing art and sculptures.

We had dinner at a place called Big Emmas which is close to Rammstein Air Base on the way home. This place was just plain crazy. Every "normal" dish served looked like something you would see on the show "Man vs Food". I laughed out loud when I walked in and saw a guy's hamburger in front of him. The dude was looking at this thing that was literally much bigger than his head trying to figure out how he was going to eat it. My wife and I ordered 1/4 sized meals and were unable to finish them. I then ordered ice cream for dessert not realizing that the desserts were the same gigantic portions. I choked when I saw them bring out this huge bowl filled with multiple scoops of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, and vanilla wafers. I was able to finish it with a little help from the others at our table. (You can check out more photos from this trip on my flikr site here)

Sunday: This morning we said goodbye to our guests as they left in their car for the drive back to England in their funny backwards car. After they left my wife and I just took the day off and hung out in the house the entire day. We watched a movie called 50/50 which was pretty funny. It's about a guy who gets cancer and how it changes his life. Not a funny subject, but some of the situations that come up are funny.

Monday: We finally got to sleep in for once this four day weekend! We spent the morning drinking coffee and having a pretty laid back time. We watched some college basketball and then my wife went for a drive for the first time here in Germany. She is starting her job tomorrow and will have to drop me off and pick me up from work. So we drove the route she'll be taking a couple times so she would feel comfortable. By the time we finished she felt good, we gassed up the car and headed home. Gas is rationed here for us in Germany, but unlike many posts that have a gas station on post…we have to gas up at Esso stations located all around Germany. Our posts do not have gas stations here, so we're given a gas card which also acts as our ration card. It works just like a prepaid debit card. We put money on it and then we can use it at the Esso station. It is so nice because gas is very expensive here, but we only pay the average US gas price. So I filled up for 69 Euros today which would be $91…but I only paid around $45. Gotta love that!!

You can check out my main flickr site and see the albums with descriptions, or just browse through the slideshows below: (Edit: I've moved much of my flickr content to Google Photos since flickr is no longer unlimited free photos)

Altstadt Frankfurt:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Military Cemeteries in Luxembourg:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Trier:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Weekend Wrap-Up - (Germany) Days 26 & 27

Saturday: We woke up early this morning to get ready and head out. My boss picked up my wife and I at 0845 and we headed off to Ramstein Air Base. The drive was about an hour and we were able to view the German countryside while speeding along on the autobahn. I was surprised by how many wind turbines I saw along the way. The Germans are serious about going green, between the clean energy and all the recycling they seem to be far "greener" than the U.S. We heard about the PX at Ramstein and how huge it is, when we arrived we were not disappointed. The PX itself was huge and there is also a small mall of shops as well as a food court connected to it. Our goal was to purchase a bed for our room and the spare room. We didn't ship ours because we didn't know how big these houses were going to be and we weren't sure if our big beds would even fit.

After strolling around the shops we headed into the PX and picked up a few things before checking out the beds. Once we decided what we wanted, we found out that they no longer ship to Heidelberg. We have to go to our Heidelberg PX and make the order there. So we wrote down the item numbers of what we want and headed on our way. Even though we didn't leave knowing our beds were going to be delivered soon, we still enjoyed the trip and seeing this big PX. We had lunch at Chilli's and then headed back to Heidelberg. I'm looking forward to when my car arrives and we can decide to go places without relying on others.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out and watching TV shows as usual. We did start a couple new shows...The Firm and Homeland. Still too early to tell if we will keep watching them though.

Sunday: We slept in which was nice, then my wife made me breakfast :) We didn't do a whole lot today, in fact the highlight of the day was walking to The Strong Hold gym and working out. The rest of the day and night consisted of poking around on the Internet and watching TV shows while hanging out with my wife.