Berchtesgaden & Koenigssee

Yesterday Shanna & I took a USO tour with some friends of ours to the town of Berchtesgaden, Hitler's Eagles Nest, and Koenigssee, a huge lake made by a glacier, which sits surrounded by mountains.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate...it was foggy, raining, and cold all day.  We've decided that we're not going to book any more USO tours where the destination is even partly weather dependent.  We could have driven ourselves and made it a day trip, and waited for a nice day.  But it was a learning experience, and while the weather didn't cooperate, it WAS an interesting trip, and we enjoyed seeing it with the group of friends we've made here.

The tour bus left base at 0430, which means we had to get up EARLY...0300 to be exact.  The drive, with the 30 minute break we took for breakfast, took about 4 1/2 hours.  Most people slept along the way, so it wasn't that bad.  When we got to Bertesgaden, we switched buses and got on a special bus designed for the steep 27 percent incline going up the mountain to the Eagle's Nest.  Part of the experience is supposed to be the spectacular view, but with the massive amount of fog up there, you couldn't see more then 15 feet in front of you.  It was interesting to hear the tour guide talking on the drive up, though.  The workers who built the Eagle's Nest were from all over Europe, and were not forced labor.  Italians were brought in for the marble work, for example.  It took a total of 13 months to construct, and during that time the workers did not leave the mountain.  Below is a picture I took on the patio outside...it will give you an idea of how foggy it was.

When we got to the top, we disembarked and walked down a long tunnel.  At the end we got on an elevator made from polished brass on the inside.  It took us up 124 Meters (406 Ft) to the top.  The Eagle's Nest was used by the Americans from 1945 - 1952.  When they turned it back over to Bavaria, it was schedule to be destroyed much like most things that belonged to or reminded people of Hitler.  The Mayor of Bavaria stepped in and requested they not destroy this, and save it as a historical monument.  It was allowed on the condition that it never be turned into a memorial to Hitler or a museum.  In order to make that work, and still keep it open to the public, the dining parts were turned into a restaurant which still operates today.  We walked through the restaurant area, and then to Eva Braun's tea room where the guide told us all about the Eagle's Nest.  We were then allowed to walk around for an hour and eventually met down at the bus stop near the tunnel.

When we got back to the bottom we noticed on the entrance to the tunnel that the front doors (made from metal) had names & dates etched on it.  The soldiers from the 101st Airborne that first got to Eagle's Nest in May of 1945 had left etchings of their names & dates and they are still there today.  It was amazing to see, and I'm glad it was never removed.

We took the bus back to the base of the mountain, where we then were given a guided tour of the underground bunkers in the mountain.  These were put in place to both act as an a shooting range for the SS, store documents, and the event of an emergency, be an escape route off the mountain.  It was never finished entirely, but parts of it are stable enough to tour.  Below is an etching in one of the bunkers left by French Soldiers that entered on May 5th, 1945.

After that we had time to tour the museum at the base of the mountain, then took our tour bus to Koenigssee. The fog on the mountains was actually pretty, but of course, a nice day would have been preferable.

There was a bunch of shops that led to the lake.  I actually found a hat big enough to fit my head for my Oktoberfest outfit!  I was excited about that.  We found a tavern to eat dinner at, then took some pictures in front of the lake.

At 5:30 we all met back on the bus and left to head back home.  It was a LONG day, but we all had a good time, and it was neat to once again see things I'd only read about previously in our history books.

Click here or any of the pictures above to view the photo album.

Shanna's Birthday Weekend

Shanna's birthday was this past Sunday, August 15th, but we made a weekend out of it.  It started early Saturday when I signed us up for a USO trip to Evelin's Spa in Bingen-Büdesheim.  The USO rep was driving, so we all met up on base at 8am.  It was a small van with me, Shanna, and 6 other ladies.  Needless to say I had my headphones ready, because it would have been a LOOONG 2 hour drive (each way) without them.  Bingen-Büdesheim is a quaint little German town.  There were multiple wineries, and you had to cross over a small brook to get to the town.  When we walked into the Spa, the ladies who ran the place had coffee, tea, and water set out, as well as two pound cakes the owner's husband had made that were DELICIOUS.  This was definitely a place geared toward the ladies...they had strict rules for guys who wanted to use their bathrooms:

After the small breakfast they let us know that they could only take 4 people at a time, so the first four went, and the rest of us waited.  The Spa was attached to a small stain glass window shop, and the Spa owner had arranged for us to watch the guy who owns the shop make some of his stain glass figurines.  It was actually pretty interesting watching him cut the glass, solder them together, and make things.  After that Shanna & I walked around town.  All over the place they had grape vines stretched around, going from building to building as shown below.

We stopped into a wine shop where the clerk spoke very little English.  Between the little English she knew, and the bit of German we knew, we were able to buy a few bottles of wine.  Eventually we made our way back to the Spa.  It was lunch time now (which they provided) so we sat down to eat.  The owner had walked over to the butcher across the street and purchased Salami, Ham, and cheese, and made us sandwiches.  Since it was all fresh from the butcher, it was REALLY good.  Then the spa treatment started.  First it was a facial and foot rub, then it was a full body massage.  It was VERY relaxing, but my only complaint was they used enough oil to lubricate a car, so when we were done, you could feel it all over your skin.  The ladies seemed to like it, but Shanna & I weren't big fans of it.  Other then that, though, it was great. As were were getting ready to leave, the owner came over & asked Shanna what her favorite color was.  She told her, and the lady said they'd over heard us talking about how it was Shanna's birthday, so they gave her a free stained glass heart.

Once we got back to base, we drove to a Pizzaria I'd seen that looked good.  I had to laugh at the inside of the place...it felt like 1985 all over again with the old fashioned cigarette machine and the Alf trashcan.

When we got home I gave Shanna her bday card.  I had thought about getting the standard Hallmark card at the PX, but decided to go local.  I walked down to the Rewe near our house and got her a card in German.

I didn't notice until after she opened the card that it said "Geburststagskind" instead of "Geburststag".  That changes the meaning from "A cheers on your birthday" to "A cheers to the birthday child".  In my defense, though, I've never seen a child's birthday card with Champagne flutes on them.

Sunday, her actual birthday, was a relaxing day.  We purchased an NFL pass to watch all games live, and games that have already aired on demand, so we spent the day watching the football games that had aired the day & night before.  We had dinner, then I took her & the dogs downtown to a surprise dessert place I'd found, the Cupcake Boutique, where we had cupcakes & milkshakes.  It was pretty good!  We walked around town for a bit, then headed home.

This is unrelated to Shanna's Birthday, but it doesn't warrant a separate post, so I'll add it here.  Tuesday evening when Shanna got home from work we headed downtown to get our Oktoberfest outfits!  They are pricey, but we'll be using them at least 3-4 times this year, and we'll use them for the next few years too, so it's worth it.  Below is a picture of what we got:

When Shanna got home yesterday, I put everything on, grabbed a stein, and was ready for pictures!  I didn't have enough beer in the house to fill a full stein, so I used apple juice for the picture.  Come Oktoberfest, though, it'll be beer. :)

Ulm

This past weekend Shanna & I did some traveling.  Two friends of ours, Jenny & Chris, had invited us to go with them to explore a city nearby called Ulm.  We met them at Patch Base, got some deli sandwiches from the Commissary, and hit the road.  They have a Dodge Caliber, and one feature that I love is the glove box is air conditioned, so we could leave our drinks in there and they stayed cool.  Before we got to Ulm we stopped in Giengen at the Steiff World Teddy Bear Museum (click the link to read more about it).  Jenny wanted to get a souvenir for her niece whose birthday was coming up. We considered taking the tour, but decided 8 Euros to see a Teddy Bear museum wasn't worth it.  We walked around the town for a bit, then headed out.  

We had one thing we wanted to visit in Ulm...the massive church at the center of town.  It's the tallest church in the world at 161.53 Meters (530 Feet).  There are 768 steps that lead all the way to the very top.  When you see the pictures we took you'll notice how they progressively appear higher & higher...that's because while it's 768 steps to the top, there are "breaks" at various points along the way so you can catch your breath and see the view.  I'm definitely glad we did it, it was a neat experience.  When we got to the last "break" before the very top you could see for miles & miles.  At that point you were 143 Meters high (469ft).  Here's where it got tricky.  Up until that point there were two sets of spiraling stair cases, one that was for going up and one that was for going down.  At this point there was only one spiraling staircase, so people were going up & coming down at the same time.  It was narrow, so you had to turn sideways and slide by people.  I was the only one who decided to go the last 20 meters up.  I figured I'd come this far, I might as well go all the way.  It took awhile to get up because at the top there was not a lot of room.  You had to stand sideways, flush to the wall, to move.  The pictures & the view made it worth it, though.  

After we got back to the ground (which was MUCH faster then going to the top, I might add), we walked around the town for a bit.  There wasn't too much to see, so we stopped at a local tavern and had a few drinks.  After that we stopped at an Italian place that was right along a brook with a large turning water wheel.

The pizza was AMAZING there...if we're ever back in Ulm again we'll definitely be heading back there.  After that we headed back home.  It was a lot of fun, the church was neat, but mostly it was nice to spend the day with new friends.


Sunday was a relaxing day where we didn't do much, but one thing of note is we went to Stuttgart's Summer Fest.  That's right, another fest.  During the summer months they seem to have one fest or another every single weekend.  There wasn't anything too special about this one, it was live music, food, and drinks, but it was nice to walk around with the dogs downtown.  Normally we take the Ubahn, but it was a nice afternoon so we decided to walk there.  We had dinner at a Spanish food tent that was set up...it was good.  I had to laugh at how acclimated we've become to the price of beer here, though.  The place we ate charged 3.30 Euros for a 12 oz beer and we both had the same thought...wow, that's expensive.  We've really gotten used to the half liter (17oz) beers that usually cost between 1.50 to 2 Euros.  Afterwards we walked back home, put on some TV, and called it a night.  Below is a picture of Murphy sitting under the table while we ate.  What you can't see is Milo is under me, sitting down, so people would walk by, see them, and get a big kick out of it.  A few kids even came up to pet them.

One last thing before I post the link to the pictures.  If you look at the picture of the church I posted above (the larger one on the website I'm going to link to below) you'll see the design at the very top.  For perspective, I posted a shot that I took while looking straight up at the top of the church while I was on top...it shows you how high up we were off the ground.


Click here to see the pictures, or click any picture in the post above.

Update

It's been a bit since my last post because not a whole lot has been going on. I went with some friends the other day to the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart. I was really impressed with it. The Porsche museum was neat, but the Mercedes museum was massive. I really liked the way it was laid out. When you start the tour you take an elevator all the way to the top, then start to walk down. As you enter each level of the museum the audio guide would automatically tell you a synopsis of the cars in the section, then you could push the guide button in front of any specific exhibit to get info about it. Each level was considered an "era". As you walked down between eras there were pictures and captions telling you about what was going on in the world at that particular time so you had perspective of what was happening while the cars you were about to see were on the road.

One thing that really impressed me was there open discussion of WWI and WWII in the 1914-1945 era level. The Porsche and BMW museum completely skipped over 1914-1918 and 1933-1945, but not Mercedes. They openly discussed it and even went so far as to talk about the forced laborers who made up over %50 of the German workforce from 1939-1945. They had a book with a list of names of all the forced laborers they used during the war, as well as a statement about how they apologized and made reparations to them after the war.

Aside from that, Shanna and I have been taking German language classes two nights a week for the past few weeks. We both really like our teacher...she's funny, nice, and most important, patient. An interesting note I learned last night is she is also the only female firefighter in the town she lives in. I'm definitely looking forward to the day I don't have to ask the locals if they speak English. I've improved 100 fold since we got here, but still have a ways to go.

Today we spent the day cleaning the house and getting ready for a friend to come visit this weekend. She lives up in Heidelberg, but this is the first weekend our schedules have lined up. We're both looking forward to seeing her again.

Not too much else to report. Deutsch Telekom is coming out tomorrow, so fingers are crossed that after 2 1/2 months of living in the house we'll FINALLY have home phone and Internet.

That's all for now...hope everyone is doing well back home. We miss you all.

Finally, I'll leave you with a picture I just took on our back deck of the sunset over Stuttgart.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 4

Location:Mühlrain, Stuttgart, Germany

Shanna's First Blog Update

So, I spent ALL weekend unpacking and decorating the house. I also managed to find the dogs actually using their beds. Most of the time, they commandeer mine!
Here's some pictures of one room at at time.

Fishmarkt & Tübingen

Yesterday Shanna & I had made plans to head down to Tübingen, a college town 45 minutes outside of Stuttgart, with some friends we've made since coming here, Jenny & Chris. At 10am, right as we're getting ready to walk down to the train station, we get a call from Chris saying that Jenny woke up that morning not feeling well, and they were going to head to the clinic. We had planned on going to the Fischmarkt while it was in town (July 8th - 18th), so we figured now would be a good time to go while we waited to hear back from them.

Yes, as you can see, Murphy had a field day trying to get as many pieces of dropped food as possible.  The Fischmarkt was great...seafood isn't easy to find around here, and the selection they had was huge.  They also brought some beer from Hamburg.  It wasn't anything spectacular, but it wasn't bad.

They also had vendors set up in giant boats (or Boots as the Germans say).

After lunch Jenny calls us and says she's feeling much better and still wants to head to Tübingen.  We finish up at the Markt, take the dogs home, then head out.  Jenny & Chris get on our train when we get closer to their house in Böblingen, and 20 minutes later we reach the Tübingen Hauptbahnhof.  

It's a neat little town...it has a good mix of young students and tourists, plus the town was never bombed in WWII, so all the old buildings are original, and not re-made.  In comparison, Stuttgart was leveled during the war, so 60 percent of the city is less then 70 years old.  We first stopped by the Tourist Info center to see what there was to do around town.  I saw this in the window and had to take a picture.

After that, we headed into the older part of town.

At this point it had started to get cloudy and cool, so we walked around looking at the shops, and eventually stopped a coffee shop to sit & relax.  A brief shower came through, and when it subsided, we started walking around again.  It's definitely a city I'd like to come back to again, it was nice walking around the old parts of town.  Dinner time rolled around, and we headed to a brewery / pub we'd seen on the way in to town.  They had GREAT food, and good beer.  That's where we spent most the night, just talking and enjoying some beers.

Finally the night wound down, and we all headed back to the train station.  All in all it was another exciting day in Germany. :)

Maastricht

A few weeks ago when Shanna & I watched The Netherlands upset Brazil in a World Cup game, Shanna said if The Netherlands made it to the championship game we should go watch it with the Dutch in Maastricht.  So Wednesday night last week, after the Dutch were in and Germany was out, we booked a hotel.  Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea, so we had some trouble finding hotels that weren't ridiculously expensive and that also allowed dogs.  Unfortunately we couldn't find any, but a lady we'd gotten to be friends with at the hotel we stayed at for the first month has always said if we ever wanted to get out of town for a weekend, she'd be more then happy to look after the dogs.  She has several at home in the US and misses them, so she'd love to have a few dogs running around for a few days.  She was free Sunday, so Sunday morning we dropped them off and hit the road.

The drive up was almost uneventful.  At one point traffic slowed down, and we could see smoke ahead.  As we got closer we saw a minivan completely engulfed in flames, and parts of the grass around it on fire.  It looked like everyone got out unhurt, but neither of us had ever seen anything like that in person.  As we drove by it was amazing the intense heat we felt coming off the van.  Other then that it was smooth sailing all 4 hours to Maastricht.

We got lucky with the hotel...it was two buildings over from the hotel we stayed at the last time we were here 2 years ago, and it was just a few minutes walk to the Market Square and the town square.  It had a "Hollywood" theme to it, and was nice.  The only downside was it was HOT that day, and there was no AC in the hotel.  We changed into our Orange clothes, and hit the town...but not without taking a picture first.

We got out to the square around 4:30-5:00...a full 3 1/2 to 4 hours before the game started, and the market square was already starting to get packed.  We got lucky and found a seat outside, and all the bars in the square had TV's out.  It was fun watching with the huge group of Dutch fans, but unfortunately they lost.  If they had won the place would have gone nuts, but since they didn't, people just started quietly leaving and going home afterwards.  It was disappointing, but still a unique experience watching them play in their home country.  

The next day Shanna had heard about a fort used as a storage bunker in WWII, and an American WWII cemetery near town.  We drove to the fort, but it was closed.  The Cemetery, though, was open and VERY impressive.

It had the names of everyone buried there engraved along the side walls, and the center tower was a bell tower / chapel.  In the back is where all the men were buried.  When you first walked up there was a side section that laid out in detail the Allied liberation of Holland.  An interesting fact is The Netherlands donated the land in 1960 to the U.S., and the U.S. Government built and currently maintains the grounds.

As we left there we wanted to find an Albert Hijnes, a grocery store chain found all over The Netherlands.  Just like we had done in Belgium, we wanted to buy some of the local beer to bring back.  The cemetery was outside of town, and the closest AH was in a small town further out called Valkenburg.  Neither one of us had heard of it, but it was a quaint little town!  The AH was right next to their part of town that was lined with restaurants, taverns, and stores.  We had planned on just getting what we needed from AH, and heading home, but we had to walk around.  We found a little pub to eat lunch at, and ended up talking with three older guys who were also at the pub.  They asked where we were from, and were shocked when we told them America.  They thought we had traveled to their small town all the way straight from the US.  They were a little less surprised when we told them we actually lived in Germany.  It was nice talking with them though.

After that it was getting late, and we didn't want to get back to Stuttgart too late since our friend was doing us a favor looking after Milo & Murphy.

To see the pictures from the weekend, click here or click any of the pictures above.