Frohes Neues Jahr aus Deutschland!

It’s only right to start blogging again on January 1^st, right?  New years resolution....  I shall blog more. 

Hahahaha.  Yeah right. 

Saying goodbye to 2013 and Munich, Germany today.  Munich was interesting.  We started out on December 28 at 6:00.  I was really proud of having everything packed and ready to go.  Traveling with my husband and two children can be quite a challenge.  My girls aren’t really as high maintenance as I make them, but I do know how hard it is to deal with crabby, bored kids.  So I try to think of EVERYTHING to take, including the kitchen sink.  Chris is also a “if you’re on time, you’re late” type of guy.  So he wanted to leave for the airport by 7:30 for our 10:15 take off.  We got out of the house at 7:36.  We were packed.  House was clean.  And I was able to get lunch going for some friends with dinner in the fridge for them as well.  To say we started off on a good foot is an understatement.  Expect our two crying children.  Chrissy was crying so hard and so loud you could hear her down the street.  Why you ask?  Pete.  Poor, poor Pete.  (He’s staying with some of our best friends, btw.  Before we went to bed I got a picture of him curled up on the couch with Kevin.  Yes.  Poor Pete.  Poor pitiful Pete.)

 Airport was easy.  Everything went smoothly.  We’ve gotten much better at going through security.  First, we cut everyone going through the VIP lane acting all VIP.  Even though we have nothing that shows we’re VIP.  Plus when you have 2 blonde hair girls with big beautiful eyes, who can say NO to them???  And second, we don’t have as much stuff to take off as we did before.  Put backpacks in, take coat and shoes off, and walk through.  Simple.  Easy Peasy. Flight was pretty simple.  Almost an hour late and a very last minute gate change.  Chrissy and I sat next a very nice German lady who cussed at the flight attendant for not giving Matti a “Welcome Aboard Airberlin” package because she was too big after giving one to Chrissy.  She said it was rude and uncalled for. They’re sisters.  They’re young.  They should both get one. Luckily, Matti could care less and Chrissy shared. 

Here’s something you might not know.  If you book your car rental through Sixt (German car rental company) they make you put down a deposit.  The deposit is the same amount as what you pay for your car.  Before I booked, I enquired about this.  Will I have a deposit?  Yes.  Ok. How much?  8% of the rental price.  Cool.  I can do that.  WRONG.  NO.  NOT THE CASE.  The deposit is the amount of the rental.  In our case that was 1,000 euro.  After paying for the car, the deposit, and tax it came out to a whopping $2780!  Normally I wouldn’t throw prices of things out there, but in this case, I am.  This, I think, is something people need to know.  Especially since I asked BEFORE I booked.  I’ve heard of horror stories and tried my best to avoid them. But in the end, I’m standing at the counter of a rental car company in a foreign airport, with my hand on my mouth trying not to throw up.  But what do you do?  You try to find another car company.  Guess what, almost all of them are like that.  And the ones who aren’t are out of cars.  BAM.  CRAP.  Thank the good Lord, and I’m extremely serious about that, that we had the money to cover it and it won’t hinder our trip.  I did have to do some maneuvering to make it happen, but God willing, it worked. Before all this jaw dropping money revelation happened, we waited almost 45 minutes for a mini van they had that needed to go back to France.  When you’re traveling with a rental one way, you get hit with a pretty hefty fee.  Well, Sixt had a van that needed to go back and we were traveling there.  Unfortunately, it didn’t have snow tires on it so we weren’t allowed to take it.  So they upgraded us from a VW Passat to a BMW station wagon for the same price.  So even tho we got jabbed with a HUGE bill, we are still going to come out on top because we have a much much nicer car for about half the price. 

Finally.  Here we go.  Car is loaded down.  It’s a NICE car.  Very nice.  I mean, we are in the land of BMW, it’s only fitting to drive one.  L-E-T-S-GO. Let’s go!  Let’s go! ….seriously…let’s go.  Ok.  In the car.  No key.  Cool.  Start/Stop button.  Cool.  Keyfob in cup holder.  Go.  Please.  Start.  No?  Push it again.  Definitely turned it off.  Hit the key again.  There’s an unlock button on the gear-shift.  Maybe we need to push that.  Nope.  Hold on, I’ll get out the manual.  Nope.  Can’t even figure it out with the pictures.  Google translate.  NOPE.  No wifi.  Phone doesn’t work here.  Ok.  Seat belts on, unlock button pushed, mouth right….nope.  25 minutes later we finally ask a very nice man.  He explains what all the buttons mean.  Ok.  Put your foot on the break and push the start button.  DUH!!!!  Seriously!!!!   How did we NOT know that?? Break has to be engaged to start the car.  It says it right there on the dashboard.  SMH.  Another good lesson about German cars, when you stop, they shut off.  Yup.  You pull up to a stop sign and it turns off.  You think you need to restart it.  Nope.  You don’t.  Just put your foot on the gas and varrrroooom.  Off you go.

We made it to the bed and breakfast 2 hours late.  Luckily while we were trying to figure out how to start the car, we figured out how to turn the GPS (which was free, yay!) to English and it took us right to our place.  If you’re traveling to Munich, Germany, I HIGHLY recommend Zeevat B&B.  It’s ran by a woman named Fatima from Brazil and her husband Jan who is from Norway.  They had a HUGE dog.  It was like a super giant sized Pete.  She was a Norwegian sheep dog and very protective of Fatima.  But that’s OK.  We kept our distance.  We stayed in the attic room.  It was the top floor and fabulous.  I didn’t think to take pictures of it, tho.  Plenty of room and extremely cozy. 

Our first night in Munich we went downtown and visited Hofbrauhaus.  It was highly recommend from not only all of our friends who have gone to Munich, but everyone else in the city.  It’s number 7 on the top things to see while in Munich.  And boy was it crazy!  It would have been a completely different experience without the kids, that’s for sure.  When you walk in, there are TONS of people.  And you basically walk around and try to find a place to sit.  All the tables are big and seat anywhere from 10 to 20, depending on how many people you decide to squeeze in the table.  It was a very awesome experience.  We sat next to 2 guys who knew enough English to help us order and share a little history.  They were from Germany but one lives in Switzerland now and the other one lives in Stuttggart.  They came to Hofbrauhaus to celebrate. Another couple from Amsterdam joined towards the end of the meal and gave us great tips on our trip to Amsterdam.  Chris and I both got pork.  His was a suckling pig with a potato dumpling.  Mine was a pork steak slathered in caramelized onions and potato salad.  Matti got homemade hotdogs and Chrissy got half a chicken roasted.  And that girl picked at that thing until it was nothing but bones.  Matti helped.  I did order the Hofbrauhaus original beer.  The flavor was amazing but the bubbles got to me and kept me from finishing it.  All in all, worth the trip and happy to put another check in the box.

The next two days we explored the nearby cities of Garmish and Fussen, which included the Neuschweinstein Castle.  What an amazing day we had with the Neuschweinstein Castle.  We had to get up and out the door by 6:40 to make it to our tour time by 10:10.  Glad we did, too.  When we got there the city was just waking up and we had no issues picking up our tickets.  Only downfall we had (other than me forgetting one of Chris’ gloves and him being pretty ticked about that since it was about 27 degrees there) was when Chris went to the bathroom and we didn’t get in the line for the horse and carriage ride and had to wait for the second carriage to take us up the side of the mountain.  It was 21 euro and worth every penny.  From what I understand, Walt Disney based the famous Cinderella’s Castle off of the Neuschweinstein Castle.  So it was extremely neat to take a carriage ride up to it like Cinderella.  Except “this isn’t her real castle and we’re not in a pumpkin, mom” says Matti.  I don’t care.  I felt like Cinderella.

(Garmish, Germany)

I took about a gazillion pictures of the castle.  How can you not?  It’s absolutely breathtaking.  Not to mention the views.  We came in with a very thick fog.  When we talked out of the castle, the fog was gone.  It was so cool to see the sleepy little foggy town turn into a vibrant alive city.   

The castle was never finished.  Ludwig (man who was building it) died mysteriously when he was 40.  He went out for a walk with his lady friend and they were both found dead in a nearby lake.  He only lived in the castle for around 170 days.  He was a loner and they say they don’t think he would have ever allowed anyone in his castle like they are now, but within 6 weeks they opened it up.  Pictures weren’t allowed :(

Exploring the city of Munich was fun.  Lots of little street café’s selling gluhwein (hot wine) and different foods.  We went and watched the noon show at the Glockenspeil.  The kids didn’t really enjoy it much.  Wish I would have explained it more to them before we saw it.  After I explained more, they appreciated it a little better.  

New Years Eve in Munich wasn’t what I expected.  We drove downtown to the square and saw tons of people, gathered together, drinking beer and wine, having a grand ole time.  Then BAM (literally) someone would light off a firework and throw it in an open space.  After driving around for about an hour people watching and sightseeing, we decided to head back to the B&B.  I’ll admit, at first I was pretty bummed that we were in Munich and going back to our room instead of staying down where everyone else was.  The whole point of being in Munich was so we wouldn’t be alone like last year.  But I think last year was harder because it was our first New Years without anyone and my mom & Jim left to go back home that day.  It was depressing and hard.  We vowed to never do that again.  And here we were, alone again, except this time in a different city away from our friends in Sicily.  I laid down in bed and napped from about 10:50p-11:30p.  The sound of fireworks exploding in the distance sounded like thunder and put me in a nice sleep.  I woke up just in time to stick my head out of the skylight in our room.  And what I saw was a city of explosions.  I have never seen anything like this in my life.  It was like the Fourth of July on steroids.  We turned off all the lights, propped the girls up so they could see it all, and counted down 2013 huddled together with all our heads outside freezing as one big happy family watching the city of Munich light up with brilliant colors. 

A knot is in my throat when I think of 2013 ending and 2014 beginning.  I’ve had an emotional rollercoaster of a ride this first full year aborad.  I’ve visited 2 new countries (3 if you could Sicily) and made countless memories with my family.  Being a small town girl, never wanting to travel, this is a HUGE step for me.  I’m looking around enjoying the scenery as we (and for we, I mean Chris) drive to a new destination.  Baden-Baden or bust.  

 Happy New Year!