Day 1 in the Black Forest

Wednesday, June 13^th, 2012

Today’s gonna be a great day!  We are at Andrea’s house where we’ll be for the rest of the trip.  We got a good night’s sleep.  We had made arrangements to have breakfast at her parent’s house which was going to be a fun experience since her parents don’t speak English & Lee & Kelly only know some numbers & colors in German.  It all turned out well though.  We had a nice time with her parents & Marius before hitting the road once again.  We are definitely putting some miles on her car.  We stopped at Fremersberg to check out the surrounding area & then made our way to Baden-Baden.  I had never done the Merkurbahn so when Andrea suggested it I was game.  It was fun!  We rode to the top of the mountain, climbed the tower, & played on the playground.  Of course, as I was playing, I thought of Davis & started missing home.  Before I could get too depressed, we headed back down the hill.  The day wasn’t really planned out so it made for some nice surprises.  The best was the trip to Gagenau for an Unimog ride.  Instead of me explaining what it is, here’s a link to Wikipedia so you can check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unimog.  There’s a museum & a ride but we opted for the ride only portion.  IT WAS A BLAST!!!  I’m going to try to attach a video but I can’t guarantee it will work.  Just take my word for it. 

  After such excitement, we all needed some food.  Our next stop was Gernsbach so we all voted on having a Döner.  It was Kelly & Lee’s first & I don’t think they were disappointed.  After lunch we walked around town.  As if we hadn’t eaten enough, we decided to go to Bühl for some ice cream.  We had to go to Bühl to drop Marius at the train station so it worked out perfectly.  He got the Spaghetti Eis which really does look like spaghetti & it tastes delicious.  He left for home & we hung around town for some shopping.  After spending some dough, we decided we were hungry…AGAIN.  Tonight was Flammkuchen night so we made the trek to Elsass, France.  We all stuffed our faces until we were almost sick…ok so maybe we were sick but it was good & I’m sure it was healthy.  Too much cheese can’t be a bad thing right?  Tonight was the Germany vs. Netherlands game so we made it back to Andrea’s for the second half of the game.  Germany won 2 to 1!  & on that note, it was time for bed….

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 





 
 

Lee cracks me up!

Visit with family & friends

Ok…since I’m so far behind with my writing, I’m going to combine the 11^th & 12^th into one post so I hope you can keep up…

11^th:

We started the day with breakfast at a bakery in the city center & then some light shopping on our way back to the hotel.  We checked out & hit the road for Zürich.  Lee was such a gentleman & let me sit up front, which helped a little.  I was still a little woozy but it was nothing like the day before.  The drive was nice but it rained a good bit of the ride.  The scenery was still beautiful despite the rain.  We parked & then headed to town to meet a friend of Andrea’s for coffee.  After that, we just walked around.  The city was nice but not my favorite.  We did get to see a church whose stain glass windows were done by Chagal.  They were beautiful but I wasn’t allowed to take pictures =(  We didn’t spend too much time in the city because we had to get to Maur, just outside of Zürich, for a bbq at Ulrike’s.  Andrea & Ulrike have been working a ski camp for kids the past couple of years.  The group gets together once a year & it happened to be the night there were 3 Americans in the mix.  We had a great time.  The food was AMAZING & we were able to sit around a good old fashioned camp fire.  Of course, there were no smores but I wasn’t complaining.  At around midnight, we decided to call it a night.

  

  

  

               

12^th:

We didn’t rush today which was nice.  We got up, dressed, & had a lovely breakfast before hitting road around 11.  Our first stop of the day was the Rheinfälle which are the waterfalls on the Rhine river.  It rained pretty much the entire day which was nice for me because that meant it was cool.  The waterfalls were really nice to see.  We walked around for a while & then decided to hit the road for Emmendingen.  I was apparently pretty out for most of the trip because we drove the Freiburg on the way to Emmendingen.  As we drove through, I woke up long enough to say, “Are we in Freiburg? Yay!” & then went right back to sleep.  It was a good day for a drive =)  When we got to Emmendingen, we had coffee & cake with Andrea’s brother & his family.  It was delicious!  Of course, we’ve sat in the car all day & then had coffee & cake so we decided it would be nice to walk around before we had dinner.  We walked up to the Hochburg, took some pictures, & then headed to town for some ice cream…as if we needed something else to eat but it was ABSOLUTELY YUMMY TO MY TUMMY!!  We saw downtown Emmendingen & headed back to the Ernst house for some dinner.  I cannot tell you how good the food was.  Jürgen is an anesthesiologist by day but should be a cook by night.  He was in charge of the Schnitzel & Petra, his wife, made some carrot salad that makes you want to “slap yo mamma”.  I ate a little more than I should’ve but hey…when in Rome!  We had a nice visit before getting on the road to Sinzheim.  Stay tuned for what happens next…