Week Three in Bonn - Adventures with New Friends

We are finally settling into our apartment and Bonn.  We met some new friends and saw them two days in a row this week.  We met them on Wednesday at Pirateland, which is an indoor playplace.  We all agreed that this would never exist in the US.  We saw liabilities everywhere. We almost never made it to Pirateland.  The boys and I got lost and after a quick prayer while on the verge of panic, we got back on the bus heading toward the main train station and then I saw the sign. 

On Thursday we went to the Cologne zoo with our new friends and had a blast.  Their elephant exhibit was the largest we have ever seen with 10 elephants including a baby.  We have no photos because this is the day I lost my camera.  I found it the next day in wrapped in a pull-up  A clean one, Praise God.

Here are a few photos from Pirateland.

Andrew and Mark on the Pirate ship.

I really wish I would have gotten a better photo of this.  It was a huge blow up T rex, I think.  Every so often the head would rise up and the mouth would close.  Kids would be hanging off the mouth, screaming.  Notice there is only one row of gym mats around it.  Would  never exist in the US.

 Our new friend Thomas pulling Andrew.  There were very cool riding toys.

 Andrew and Mark in the balls.

Mark and Vivic on the cars.

The Four Day Weekend - PartIV Oberammergau and Mittenwald

What can I say about Oberammergau and Mittenwald?  Rick Steve calls Oberammergau the "Shirley Temple of Bavaria".  They are the cutest and quaintest little towns with a small town square that can be easily walked in 30 minutes and littered with shops and cafes.  One thing I have come to LOVE about Germany that although they are a "no-nonsense" people (and I have encountered that many times) they certainly know how to relax and enjoy life (at appropriate times).  The Germans (and perhaps even Europeans in general) don't rush thorough anything.  They are very thorough, even in their leisure time and meals.  Every city or town we have been in has countless number of outdoor cafes where people take time to sit, relax, and have a kafee or eis (ice cream is BIG here).  A meal is more of an experience than a means of nourishment.

Oberammergau is known for it's woodcarving (which was everywhere) , it's painted houses, (which other little towns much have copied b/c those are frequent in Bavaria as well), and the Passion Play.  When the Plague came through Bavaria, wiping out whole towns, the people of Oberammergau prayed that their town be spared.  It was!  They vowed to put on a Passion Play every 10 years in thanksgiving.  It is evidently a HUGE production.

Entering Oberammergau. That's me looking very overwhelmed, as I have been in all the cities we've visited.

Painted houses depicting the Passion are everywhere.  Absolutely beautiful.

Humpty Dumpty in lederhosen???  Great photo op  for the boys. 

Crucifix on the house.  They most definitely DO NOT have an ACLU here.

Cute little town.

 

Cemetery at the church.  Look at how they care for their gravesites.

Beautiful church in such a small town.  This is very common.  The church is usually huge and the tallest building in these small towns.  

 Finally, I just really liked this.  It is painted on the side of house.

Mittenwald - just as cute, if not cuter, than Oberammergau.  We ended a VERY long day with dinner in Mittenwald.  It was glorious.  I had spinach stuffed ravioli with a white cheese sauce, which was divine, the boys had the best schnitzel we've had in Germany, and Bruce had some meat concoction whick consisted of a steak, covered with bacon, covered in what looked to me like thin onion rings.  Anyway, he loved it.  We are all ready for our heart attacks.  Good thing we hiked up and mountain and down into a gorge that day.  We probably hiked 10 miles. 

What I absolutely LOVED about Bavaria is how Catholic it is and many, many of the buildings have paintings and plaques with Saints.  Here is a building in the middle of the square with plaques of 4 Saints.  The one in the bottom left is St. Joseph.

The Four Day weekend - Part III - Mark and Andrew

I apologize that it has been so long since my last post.  We had technical diffiulties with the wireless internet at the apartment and MY laptop, not Bruce's.  Not sure what happened, anyway, I'll try to start catching up if I can.

 Bruce and I have been so relieved  I mean pleasantly surprised at how well the  boys have adjusted to the change and travel.  Yes, there have been some rough spots here and there, but mostly they have been wonderful little world travelers.  They always seems to find fun everywhere we go.

Playing at the fountain in Munich

Their never ending quest to eat ice cream almost every day of our trip (and almost succeeding thus far).

Markie and Momma at the Hofbrau Haus.  He is not drinking beer.

Andrew was fascinated by this Statue Man in Munich.  We have since seen them everywhere in gold, white, silver, etc.

A contemplative moment.  I wonder what he is thinking.

Battling the wild boar statue in Munich.

I guess the wild boar statue won.

Double stroller??

Did I mention about the ice cream?

Mom and Andrew eating lunch in Oberammergau

Words cannot truly convey the excitement of these two little boys when they saw these bunkbeads.  You would think they were filled with candy.  Personally, I think it reminded them of home.

Eating suckers near the lake by the Pension in Austria. 

Sitting the steps 5 minutes before mass starts.

Andrew on the mountain.  I love this photo.

 Feeding cows on the roadside in Seefeld, Austria.

The Four Day weekend - Part II Austrian Alps

We were so excited to see the mountains. It was crazy trying to hook up the carseats, which were very different, without English instructions. Once the carseats were in and our pension address typed into the GPS, we were on our way. Here is the photo from the car of our first views of the mountains.

We made a short trip for lunch and a walk through the town center tin Oberammergau.  I'm going to post on this quaint little German town and another one we visited our last night in the Alps.

The Austrian Alps!  Words, and these photos, can't describe the splendor of these mountains.  Bruce says they remind him of the Rockies, but since I've never seen the Rockies, I have nothing to compare.  Spectacular comes to mind.  Grand.  Bruce and I spent our first night here meditating on the beauty and mightiness of God and praising Him in His creation.

Scenes from the terrace at our pension.

I actually think one of the boys shot this next one from the terrace.

Once we unloaded and refreshed ourselves, we hiked down to a little lake right next to our pension.  The boys loved watching the ducks and observing nature.  Andrew found a whole school of fish.  They actually looked like trout.  He was upset we didn't bring their fishing poles.  Yea, I could see us travelling with fishing poles  They wanted so desperately to swim in the lake, but we didn't bring swimsuits.

That night we found a restaurant that had a playground including a trampoline.  We ate dinner on the terrace and while Bruce and I slowly enjoyed our meal and drinks, the boys played until almost 9:30, after which we went back to the hotel and they collapsed.  I know 9:30 sounds late, but have I mentioned before that it doesn't get dark here until 10:00 and we have had trouble getting the boys to bed before 9:30.  I hope their bed time adjust back when we get back to Texas.

After breakfast the next morning we attended mass in the ski town of Seefeld, which is a hikers haven during the summer. We attended a beautiful church in a lovely square, which Bruce must have loved (from a landscape architects perspective) because he took many photos.  To our surprise, the boys were fabulous in mass.  This was a huge blessing because if we are very distracted by them, we are there simply in body only because the mass is in German..  However, we were able to follow along pretty closely with our Magnificat.  The readings weren't same since Ascension Thursday is a holy day of obligation here, but we just read the Ascension Thursday readings from our Magnificat.

After mass, we headed to a place where we could take a train halfway up the mountain.  The views literally took your breath away.  It wasn't just the mountains, but the beautiful meadows with wild flowers of blue, purple, pink, yellow, and white.  God is so Good.   Poor little Markie had trouble walking on the mountain, gravity kept pulling him off balance.  I felt it a few times myself.  We had a lunch of soup, weiners, and pommes frittes (french fries) and hiked as far as we could up the mountain.

Andrew running down the mountain.  Yes, that is him, the little speck.

The kings of the mountain.

That was only the first half of a very long, but wonderful day.  After hiking up the mountain, we hiked down into a gorge.  The photos don't really convey the beauty and fear that we, I mean I, experienced walked on the metal bridge suspended 300 ft above a gorge with my children running carelessly back and forth.  At one point, I leaned over to Bruce and whispered in his ear, "I am freaking out, but don't want to scare the children".

Here I am blissfully unaware of the fear and anxiety that is awaiting me just a few yards down the road.

We ended the evening with dinner and a walk through Mittenwald.  More of that in a later post.