JUIST, GERMANY (and Easter - Ostern!)

I might have had a hard time remembering the name of the island we were going to visit the week before Easter, but now I know I will never forget.

Example #1 of Covered Wagon

Juist was a such a cute place! Most of all I loved that it was car free. Christof, Sandra, Mathis, Ilse, and I arrived midday after a 3 hour car ride and 1 1/2 hour ferry trip. The first thing I noticed: covered wagons. There were so many covered wagon taxis on this island, and since I had never imagined covered wagons existed outside of American pioneer stories from the 1800’s, I was loving it! There were horses everywhere, including a garbage cart horse. Our apartment was great, and I got a whole bunk bed to myself. 

I couldn’t wait to get Mathis to the beach for the first time, so Sandra and I walked to the water immediately upon arriving. The beach was incredibly close. The water, not so much. I had never in my life seen a beach span so long from the dunes to the waves. I swear it is a couple of football fields. Also, the North Sea has so many mussel shells! The long kind that are pastel colored, that I used to covent when I was a kid. 

Mathis before.

So many mussels!

Trying to see Norway.

Mathis after.

The five days went by very smoothly. We took Mathis to his first restaurant, and then took him to two more, since he was so well behaved. (I’m sure all of the patrons thought it was as funny as we did when he made a loud “MMmmm” sound every time he had new food in his mouth.) I walked on the beach with Mathis. I walk to almost the end of the island with Mathis. I got a massage without Mathis. My first ever massage and it was way too short. 

In our beach basket. 

Sunset and Beach Baskets

I was so lucky to be allowed to come along. These people spoil me I swear. Juist was great, but the green apple soft serve was especially great. Sounds gross, tastes like heaven. 

Not as good as green apple soft serve, but Mathis is enjoying it.

Speaking of heaven, Easter was on Sunday! We came back with just the right amount of time to dye some Easter eggs and for me to make a four layer Easter cake, the poor Germans. On Sunday, after finding some candy in our garden (thank you Easter Bunny!), Sandra made us a wonderfully tasty brunch including melon with prosciutto, a new favorite food! Soon the entire family was over eating my too sweet cake, while the little boys ran around naked with intentions of using the 2 feet x 2 feet inflatable pool in the backyard. When no one except Mathis wanted to swim, Sandra set up the sprinkler and I think Sandra, Julia, and I were the only ones to run through it. Before Christof made a wonderful steak dinner to close the deal, I got to talk to my parents and Grandé on Skype, and the whole Niemeier/Kückmann clan waved “Hello!” or “Hallo!”. In Germany, they build giant bonfires to burn on Easter in order to smoke out winter and make way for spring. That night Sandra and I rode bikes to meet up with everyone, and after a short photo shoot with Ben and a tractor, we all enjoyed beers and watching the fire. 

I need to practice egg dying. 

It's supposed to have Easter Eggs in the middle.

Easter Fire!

Germany's Next Top Model 

Boys and Fire

Tom being hilarious in his stroller.

Then the Tractor of Death came and gathered the fire together. 

Missed all of you at Easter and can’t wait to make up for all of these missed holidays together next year! 

Hiking the Alps - Wandern in den Alpen

Oh beautiful, beautiful Switzerland. Everything they say about this landlocked country is true. It’s breath taking. It’s the ultimate in extreme sports. It’s incredibly expensive. It’s also chock-full of Americans, which I was not expecting.

I would like to live there, please. 

My friend Liz from College of Charleston and I decided to add to the American ranks in Switzerland the weekend of March 25 when we met up in Lucerne. After a train to Dusseldorf, a plane to Basel, and a train to Lucerne, I was more than a little tired and disoriented when I arrived at midnight. I ended up wandering in the right direction towards our hostel, which happened to be located directly on the other side of traveling circus. Lesson learned: Circus’ are not so welcoming/are completely terrifying at night.

Near the 9 Towers of Lucerne, whatever that is.

pretty Lucerne

In the morning, Liz and I got our first glimpses of the Alps, and after wandering around Lucerne and claiming that every mountain peak was the inspiration for the Swiss Miss box, we caught the scenic train to Interlaken. And “scenic” was not an overstatement. We snapped picture after picture of the landscape, and the mountains got higher and higher as we approached Interlaken. Our hostel was super quaint and gingham, and the Australian lady who worked the desk was a riot. (Maurice? Mandy? Marcie? I can’t remember.)  We looked around a little bit, ate dinner and swiss chocolate, went to the hostel’s club, left the hostel’s club quickly, and got some rest for our big plans coming the next day.

Views from the train

Sunday was hike day. It was sunny but still slightly cool outside, and after a map and a route was provided for us by Marsha or Michelle or whatever, we went shopping for bread, cheese, salami, and apples for our picnic lunch. We left the supermarket feeling never more prepared for a hike. A bus took us to a train station, where a train took us up, up, up to the start of a glacial valley. We followed our route through a little town, and then down a road for a few kilometers past some goats and stayed on the road for a few more kilometers. The Australian Lady who’s name started with a “M” had lead us on a walk, not a hike! We took out our map and got to work, and found a pretty easy loop that would take us up an Alp and to two small Alpine towns.  We broke off of the road and started hiking straight up the side of a mountain. 

Road Portion of our hike.

Glacial Valley

And now we'll go up!

I mean, straight up the side of a mountain. We walked straight up a mountain for almost an hour. I’m talking the equivalent of climbing on a StairMaster for sixty minutes. We found signs promising only an hour to the first town at the top and our trail gradually leveled out slightly, but we were still headed up. At clearings the view was incredible, and it was so mesmerizing that we almost didn’t notice the snow starting to accumulate on the trail. We decided to hike through it and were certain it would clear up, but when it didn’t, we decided to just hike a little further anyways. And a slightly further. A few ice and snow covered narrow paths beside steep cliffs later, Liz had finally convinced me to keep pushing ahead, and we had the greatest lunch in the most beautiful spot I could imagine. Turns out Mildred/Maybelle/Martha had given us a summer map, and instructed us to take the other route since most of the trails were above the snow line on our map. Whoops. Fortunately the snow cleared, and we hiked up, up, up mountain pastures, taking in the best views of any mountains I have ever seen in my life. I swear we walked right past Heidi's house. That night after hot chocolate, warm showers, and fondue, I feel asleep in about 1.5 seconds. 

Liz: "It's all clear just ahead!"

Picnic

Heidi's House

My final hours in Switzerland were spent in Basel, while Liz waited for her train to Prague and I waited for my flight back home. I can not say it enough. I am so lucky for being here.  I have the opportunity so often to take in new things, to laugh about experiences I couldn’t even imagine before I had them, and to get a little bit closer to seeing every inch of this earth. How much luckier can you get?

Giant Chess at our hostel. I won.

Twenty Three - Drei und Zwanzig

I'm 23!

March 22nd rolled around without much warning, but we celebrated right. I walked downstairs to find that Sandra has probably spent half of the night baking an almond cake for me (my favorite German cake, so far), and decorating the table to say Happy Birthday! and 23! with a bunch of adorable balloons. Mathis gave me his present right away, and I love the shirt with a German Fairytale about being friends until the end. I need to exchange it for one a little bigger though (you know men and their judging-the-right-sizes -for-women skills). My birthday brunch was wonderful and was only women and boys under four allowed.
We had so much great food!

Sandra pulled out the deck chair for my birthday nap, and I fell asleep outside on the sunniest day I've had since I've been in Germany. Really! It was warm, and happy, and a great nap. Sandra and Christof spoiled me with a great dinner at an Italian restaurant that we'd never been to, and I came home to beautiful flowers and great birthday presents. I really loved my German memory game and a big map of North Rhine Westfalia marking scenic bike routes. Mathis! Let's go!

I can't call it the Greatest Birthday Ever, because two the "Greatest _____ Ever"s in a row is a little excessive, but I will say this: These people really know how to make a girl feel appreciated for being born.

Road Trip - (Christof has informed me there is no German translation)

Who knew you could see so much of two whole countries in a long weekend! Sandra and I set off on Thursday, March 10th on a mission to visit Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, the coast of the Netherlands, and Amsterdam, all in 3 days and 3 nights.  And did we ever.

Brussels

Ghent

Bruges

Atlantic Coast

Amsterdam

Sandra came home from work on Thursday, we packed really quickly, and were on the road with a set of directions in German. Terrible idea. I’m going to go ahead and place the blame on the instructions, in order to avoid blaming my German skills, but I literally could not find one single thing from the directions on the actual roads! I would read and reread, and the road names would never match up. It could of been worse, probably. If they were in Italian or Arabic or something, that would have been harder, I’m guessing. I ungracefully found our way to a few miles before the German border, just around the time Sandra realized she had no form of identification what-so-ever. No passport. No European Union ID card. Not even a driver’s license that stated her married name. Whoops. After laughing and brainstorming how we could attempt at checking into the hotels the next 3 nights, we realized it could have been worse, probably. I was so thankful that Grandma Martha had told me to pack my passport, so we could use it to check-in everywhere. That woman knows what she’s doing. 

In Brussels we turned on the GPS and were surprised to find it worked outside of Deutschland. I respectfully and immediately resigned from my position as Director Reader. The GPS lead us straight into a dead end, but with the use of my fantastic English skills, we called the hotel and found we only had to drive through a parking garage to get there. Logically. (I’ve said it before, but it should be said again: I am incredibly lucky to have English as my first language. It also needs to be said, though, that sometimes I have to ask Sandra what people are saying to me in English, and she can always seamlessly translate English into English for me.) We checked into our hotel, which was in the most central location possible, and headed out to explore!

We knew we had only have one night and one morning in Brussels, so we stayed in the Central Market area, which was beyond convenient seeing that every important site was one minute from the door of our hotel. I saw old market squares, old churches, old beer halls, and Manneken Pis, the smallest, most underwhelming statue that held historical significance that I’ve ever sought to visit. We went to a really classy retro bar that night, and in the morning we bought too much chocolate from the factory that invented the very first filled praline! The comic TinTin is from Belgium, which I’d never heard of, but we went to the store for Sandra and ended up picking up a present for Mathis and a magnet for me along the way. We left Brussels before we got too attached, and headed for our pitstop in Ghent. 

Manneken Pis, approximately 30 cm tall.  

I broke my no dessert in Lent promise
to eat so many chocolates.

Grand Markt in Brussels

TinTin

Beer Hall!

Ghent was the town that invented waffles, which in itself is spectacular, but it is also a booming university town with a lot to see. We found a parking place outside of the city center, due to almost the entire inner town being a car free zone. The waffle place I’d read about was closed, but it could have been worse, probably, because we found beer and french fries with mayonnaise to eat at an outside cafe. Belgium invited french fries too, so close enough! During our snack break Sandra said, “It’s times like this when you can’t really complain. Right now, life seems pretty great.” and I have to say I could whole-heartedly empathize with her statement. We made a tourist loop, got back in the car, and drove to Bruges.

Sandra's second time in Ghent!

If I had to pick favorites, which I don’t but I can’t help it, Bruges would be at the top of my list. The very, very top. It was the coziest town I’ve been to in Europe, and I love the mix of canals, bridges, white-washed homes, shopping, and churches. It was a beauty. I especially liked our hotel (which was wonderfully located once again) and an abbey community centered around a field of daffodils and creeks. That night we had reservations at a small, local restaurant with Belgian food, which was quant and delicious. This is your city in Belgium, everyone. Go as soon as possible. In the morning I didn’t want to leave, but knowing that the European side of the Atlantic and Amsterdam are next on the agenda is pretty motivating. Our thoughtful hotel gave us a little travel bag to take with us containing candy and two bottles of still water, not sparkling! (take that, Christof Niemeier)

Beautiful hotel room with super high ceilings.

Bruges!

Sunny Canals in Bruges

Belgium Waffle! from Belgium!

Belgien food is delicious.

After driving a couple minutes in an under water tunnel, we made a lunch stop along the coast in the Netherlands. It was the first time I’d ever seen the Atlantic from this side, and the daydreams quickly took over concerning my friends and family waving on the other side of the ocean. After Flemish pancakes and a trek to the shoreline, we were on our way to Amsterdam, with the help of the GPS, thank goodness. 

Yup, we're underwater.

Flemmish Pancakes! and Sandra.

Me almost falling into the Atlantic.

It led us straight to our hotel's address, and then things got exciting. After battling the narrow, pedestrian filled streets of quirky, inner city Amsterdam, Sandra breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled onto our street. And quickly as humanly possible, she sucked it back in again. There were bikers, at least a hundred motorcycles, on either side of us, and before we knew what was happening or where we should try to drive, cars had blocked us in from the front and the back. We both sat in silence, waiting for the English or German words to come to us that would dictate the hilarity/helplessness of the situation, but there was no time. Suddenly, every biker started its engine, and slowly bikes we never even saw peeled from the street from every direction until we were alone and facing the perfect parking place revealed before us.

And that was my first 5 minutes in Amsterdam. The rest of the day was a whirlwind of following canals, stumbling across cute shops, taking in the sights of the flower markets, and finding two pairs of high heels within 10 minutes. That night we visited the Ann Frank Annex right before closing time, something that I would recommend to everyone if I ever write a travel book. The line to the museum was a couple blocks long earlier in the day, but that evening, besides a few other stragglers, we were alone to take in what I remember as the most interesting story covered in all of my English classes. There was something eerie and completely mesmerizing about walking around during the only time the previous tenants were allowed to move, to breath without holding back, and to return ever so slightly back into themselves. My last hours in Amsterdam consisted of a cumulation of first time experiences:  visiting a typical Amsterdam coffee shop; seeing working prostitutes in the Red Light District; being enclosed on all sides by singing  intoxicated Dutch in a mini karaoke bar; buying a hot dog off of the street (which I’ve never done in the States!); ordering room service; and the next morning, getting to see 100 Van Gogh’s in the same room during a visit to his museum.

Hey! That's my last name.

Canals, Canals Everywhere. 

Flower Market

Secret Bookcase in the Ann Frank Haus

Those little red barriers mark the Red Light District.

Our Breakfast Buddy

Van Gogh Museum

I can’t even begin to thank Sandra enough for all of the planning and driving she put into our trip, to thank Christof for agreeing to take on the mission of “Mathis Alone for Four Days”, and to thank Martha for being the greatest fill-in Au Pair in existence. Thankies. Thank you so much. Danke schön.

Greatest. Christmas Present. Ever.