Robin Chartier – Page 79

Partnach Gorge

We woke up on our first sunny morning in Germany and hit the road. We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to bike as a family for the past . . . 5 years? We used to bike in Monterey, but left our many bikes in storage since we were only going to be in Egypt for 1 year. How many times can we laugh about that?

Anyway, the resort we stayed at has bike rentals for the entire family, including a trailing bike for Camille. She was thrilled to be riding with the big boys. We all got geared up and fitted with the right size bikes and off we went.

Germany is AMAZING for riding. I am not an amazing photographer while trying to ride.

Our route today would take us about 30 minutes down the road to a gorge where we would hike and explore.

Camille was so relaxed, she was riding one handed and throwing up peace signs.

Oh German countryside, I love you. Clean air, breeze in my hair, sun shining on my face. Paradise.

Approaching the Olympic stadium ski jump — I just looked up that it was built for the 1936 Olympics. I didn’t realize it was that old. We don’t head for the stadium today, but turn off and head toward the mountains, to the gorge.

Proof that I was there too.

We rode along the river and between the mountains.

We parked our bikes at the entrance to the gorge and walked in. There were lots of other tourists today because the previous few days had been dark and rainy.

I have to come to terms with the fact that none of these photos are going to come close to showing how green, beautiful, sparkling, saturated, and alive everything was.

There’s a path that hugs the mountain on one side with a wire guide rail on the other while the river rushes below.

Since it had rained heavily the night before, the waterfalls were streaming down the rock faces. We all wore our raincoats to stay dry.

Looking down on a double rainbow

The path ahead

The two men in this photo are Josh (in front) and Calvin (grey backpack). Two summers from now he will have graduated from high school and be figuring out what to do with his future. I can’t even imagine.

We made it through the gorge to the other side. The hiking opportunities are endless.

We decided to follow the river and take a path that headed up one of the mountains. The sign said if we walked for 10 hours we would reach Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. We aren’t that hardcore. We’ll take a bus to get there later in the week.

Snails are a novelty. Caleb found a huge one and named him Fat Albert.

Tadpoles! We haven’t seen these since our time in Northern California.

They were daring each other to eat one, like they did at camp, but I told them that once they had eaten one, they never had to prove it ever again.

Instead they had a contest to see who could hold their hand in the freezing water the longest.

Back down the mountain and to the gorge.

It’s amazing that there are places like this on earth

the raincoats go back on

Through the gorge and time to bike home

She finally figured out how to pedal forward

We miss being able to do things like this while living in Bahrain. Too much traffic, sand, pollution, heat, and crazy drivers. Plus, there’s nothing to look at except buildings or oil fields.

Tour de Chartiers

A perfect adventure. Then we went back to our hotel and ate dinner there and the kids ran around on the lawn and played at the playground. It doesn’t take much more than some grass to make them happy. Meanwhile I relaxed on a patio chair and read a book. This became a point of contention later that evening as Josh felt like my idea of a vacation meant “checking out” and I thought my idea of a vacation was “checking out.”

He expressed that he was unhappy spending our evenings at the hotel (Little America) whereas I thought it was delightful that the kids were having such a good time meeting other military kids and hey, it gave me more time to read my book! (Rob Lowe’s “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” in case you’re wondering what I was finding so absorbing. Fantastic writing and storytelling. Read it.) Josh didn’t care two bits about my book and I told him he was acting just like my dad when he took us to vacation on Balboa Island and was mad when all we wanted to do was stay in the beach cottage and watch MTV, which we didn’t have at home and besides, they were playing New Kids on the Block’s “Please Don’t Go Girl” and Van Halen’s “When It’s Love” every hour. I made the point that dad was getting his money’s worth because he paid for the cottage and we were actually using the cottage, but he wasn’t impressed by that argument.

Josh wasn’t so impressed either, but somehow we worked things out to where he understood that if the kids were getting something that they can’t get at home then it was OK to “do less” and I agreed to read more judiciously (meaning, I agreed to choose him over Rob Lowe when possible).

Return

We are back at home after a grueling travel day yesterday that started at 6:30 am with a train from Munich and ended 16 hours later after several hours on the ground in Saudi Arabia while the mechanics worked on a door that wouldn’t close properly and then had to be secured with screws, one of which got stuck and took another 45 minutes to remove and replace. At least by then most of the plane had emptied and we were able to spread out and chat with other passengers and the flight attendants. One passenger said he was going to tell his brother that he was delayed because “our plane was screwed.” Maybe it was the late hour and travel fatigue, but we all thought that was hilarious.

The captain came back several times to make sure all was fine and to give us personal updates on the progress, assuring us that he was impressed with the equipment they were using and that all was safe, they just had to follow all procedures. At the end he reported that the plane was fixed, but before we could take off they had to take a photo of the paperwork with a cell phone and send it to headquarters in Germany, but the internet was slow so that was causing another delay. Ah, the Middle East. By then they had fed us and turned the movies back on so we just laughed and went back to watching Everybody Loves Raymond, Big Bang Theory, the Spongebob Movie, Modern Family, the Insurgent movie, and Doc McStuffins. Lufthansa has upgraded their entertainment offerings. Big thumbs up.

The pilot also came back and invited the kids up to see the cockpit of the plane and to sit in the captain’s seat. The staff did a great job of making the best of an unfortunate delay.

We finally made it home after midnight and we all slept until about noon today. We are unpacking, scavenging for food until we can go out and get groceries and figuring out how to spend the 4th of July. I think we’ll end up going to a friend’s house for a BBQ that won’t start until after sunset because of the Ramadan restrictions against eating or drinking in public until after sundown.

I love traveling, but it’s also good to be home.

a wet welcome/fires in the sky

Our first morning in Germany. We started our day by checking out the German gear in the hotel gift shop. This kid is begging for lederhosen. I told him he could buy them himself if he wanted them badly enough (they are expensive!)

We headed across the river to the base commissary — a luxury that we don’t have in Bahrain.

Good grief is food cheap when it’s government subsidized. Carter wanted to smuggle a bunch of these ribs home: $2.98 per rack. All the prices had my mouth agape: $1.89 for a box of Cheez-its (instead of $4). My blue corn tortilla chips were under $2 instead of $3, chocolate for .77 cents instead of $3 . . . we definitely aren’t getting enough COLA (cost of living allowance that varies from country to country). Anyway, we bought a boatload of snacks for cheap and then decided to head into the town of Garmisch.

We are surrounded by mountains on every side

The weather is cool and overcast, but it’s great for walking. We did figure out the bus this time and didn’t miss our stop (so yay for that), but had to wait way too long for a bus to come since it was the weekend. Josh snapped a photo of the bus schedule so we’ll be able to time our travel from here on out.

Gorgeous, quaint and all you’d imagine from German-Bavaria.

Lush garden and adorable cottage right downtown. There was a metal sculpture with a water pump style fountain right next to the garden. This group of Indian/Pakistani guys were filling their water bottles from the fountain. I asked Josh if he thought it was meant to be drinking water and he said no, but same as me, figured that it was much cleaner than what would be considered drinking water back home.

Rain clouds gathering. There was a music festival going on and we could hear the orchestra playing — I hope they were under cover at least.

She wanted to try on the hats like her brothers and then decided it was time to dance.

We wandered around town, popping into every outdoor sports store we saw. Since we are coming back in December, our long term goal is to get everyone some sort of shell/jacket that will be waterproof for skiing.

The skies opened up and it was pouring so we ducked into a cafe for hot chocolate and cappuccinos.

We found perfect jackets for the middle two boys. Good for now and later!

My jacket is a new acquisition from our time in Poland. The shopping was so good there. The prices were equal to or better than what we could get online.

Even McDonald’s looks like a Bavarian cottage

We caught the bus and headed back up to base/our resort. We had made special plans for the evening.

Every year, for the summer solstice, over the border in Austria they have the mountain fires. They’ve been doing this annually for a few hundred years. There are people who make designs on the sides of the mountains and then crews that carry the flame to these spots and light all the different fires that make up the image. As you stand below the mountains it’s like playing a game of connect the dots, guessing which image is being created before your eyes.

The very first signs of fire. One up top and one below.

Eating sausage and drinking beer while we wait

We made our way out to the middle of a grassy field to get a good view of the 4 different mountains where the fires were being lit.

See the fires over Caleb’s shoulder?

I can’t do it justice, but here’s the start of a candle!

Behind them are the beginnings of intertwined hearts, a praying angel and a cross. Most of the designs are religious symbols.

We made a new friend, Crystal, when she was assigned to our van for the drive to Austria (only about 25 minutes away).

The finished hearts! We also saw an amazingly detailed crucifix, an angel/cupid with arrow and heart, a church, a chalice and candle and more. At the beginning the weather cooperated, but then the downpour began.

We took cover in the beer tent. Calvin can drink because he’s 16 (and because we bought him a beer).

She’s a big drinker, but we’ve limited her to non-alcoholic apple juice.

A fun, once in a lifetime experience in the Alps! More info about it here.

workin in a salt mine

One of the touristy things to do in Krakow is a visit to the salt mines. It sounds a bit yawn-inducing, but this salt mine is more of an underground city than a hole in the ground. Anything with caves, hiking and climbing are on my kids’ must-do list so we headed out on the morning of day 2. We weren’t sure how much rain we’d be getting that day and figured it would be a good time to be underground and dry.

Walking to the bus. Lots of old beautiful buildings.

We stumbled upon the right bus (a miracle) and Josh figured out the ticket machine and we were off. 45 minutes later we arrived and had a short walk to the entrance of the mine. It was a bit like Disneyland with souvenir booths, food for sale and long lines of tourists.

We had about an hour before our timed tour with an English speaking guide so we had a lunch of Polish sausage with mustard, water with gas (sparkling water), coffee and ice cream. No $5 churros here. The food was cheap enough that Josh and Calvin went back and ordered seconds. The weather went from warm and sunny to a sudden downpour, but we pulled our chairs in toward the center of the umbrella and ate in the rain. Really fun.

We lined up with our fellow English speakers, got headsets to listen to our guide and started into the mine, 300+ steps down, down, down.

This is from the bottom, looking back up the shaft toward the top. I made the mistake of looking down part way through our descent and started feeling woozy.

We all had earpieces to hear our guide but every time he’d round a corner he’d start breaking up. “this– the end–1857– the men . . .” I missed much of the content, but the most important part is that it’s ALL made up of salt.

Yes, it’s lickable.

Yep, that’s salt too. There are salt sculptures and carvings in every room.

More salt sculptures. These are life sized. I think they are telling the story of how the salt mine came to be. And other rooms demonstrate the method they used for removing the salt from the mines.

The humidity down below creates moisture on the surface of the salt and as it evaporate it creates this cauliflower effect. Some of the rooms have stalactites hanging from the ceilings. The guy said they have to knock them down once each year to keep them from growing too big.

A demonstration of how the early miners had to burn off the methane gas that would collect in pockets — they’d walk around with a torch and crossed fingers waiting for something to blow up.

Salt, salt, more salt.

Tons of underground walking. The tunnels went on forever. Supposedly we walked about 2.5k, but the guide said that was only 1% of the tunnels.

Bob, picking salt off the wall to eat.

One of the kings. Salt.

Hiking down more stairs, further and further into the mine

Bob tasted this water too. I was sure he was going to get some sort of stomach issues from all his wall licking and tasting (though salt is an excellent bacteria killer). The water was super salty too.

They keep the tunnels with the sculptures air conditioned to remove the humidity from the air. This is what happens when they don’t — they “melt.”

Wooden Jesus. Not salt. The miners used to come visit before starting work each day as protection against their dangerous jobs. (I think that’s what the guide said. Don’t quote me on that.)

Wooden Mary (these two are the only 2 wooden sculptures down below). Mary is stomping on the crescent moon, a symbol of the Muslim faith.

The HUGE underground church. Salt stairs, salt floors, salt carvings on every surface. Not salt chandeliers.

Worth every step. It was breathtaking.

Salt nativity

Modern Dome of the Rock behind Mary and Joseph and Jesus headed to Egypt — a bit anachronistic.

Pope John Paul II is beloved in Krakow because he was their priest before he became pope. His image is everywhere.

As low as we go today — 425 feet underground.

After the tour was over, we gathered in the underground restaurant for a meal of Polish favorites: sour soup with sausage, fried cabbage, beets and other yummy things that taste better in Poland than anywhere else. We were told after we exited there would be an elevator to take us back to the surface.

But they didn’t tell us that we would have to walk a mile or more to get to the elevator.

Not a big deal, except the guy leading us was going at a sprinter’s pace and started the walk out by yelling at us in Polish so the entire way out had a much darker feel than the way in. Josh joked that we were probably on our way to “the showers” or that we were going to have to grab picks and work our way out before they’d let us go. Completely insensitive joking, but it felt the same way to me too. Especially with Josh’s parents trying to keep up it felt a bit like they were going for a survival of the fittest approach.

They did actually let us leave eventually and we bussed our way back to Krakow, relaxed a bit before dinner, and then headed into old town again to eat dinner on the square. We ate outside wrapped in blankets, sipping hot mulled wine and laughing as twilight slowly switched over to dark.

We’ve been eating at 8:30 because it’s light out until almost 10!

Another gorgeous night on the square. Love you, Krakow!

Poland to Bavaria

It’s 9pm, still light out, and my kids are running on an expansive stretch of grass with the new friends they just met. Germany is proving to be a delight already. I’m parked in a patio chair on the front “porch” of our hotel room with a cup of coffee, looking at the mountains stretched above me. And I have coffee. A good end to a bumpy day.

It started out brilliantly. Our last morning in Krakow we went to get our morning basket of raspberries. The huge baskets, the size of my hand and more than 2 inches deep, are about $3.25. And perfectly ripe cherries are only about $1.80/pound. We can eat like kings here.

If we lived here I’d eat raspberries every day that they were in season.

Then to round out our breakfast we stopped for ice cream. Everyone in Krakow eats ice cream all day long. We would see kids on their way to school eating cones, lines of kids after school, and adults walking down the street, feasting on multiple flavors at all hours of the day.

The flavors vary based on the shop and the day. Today was orange and chocolate, black currant, mint, and raspberry. The strangest one we tried was pink grapefruit — it wasn’t even sweet. Just tart like an actual grapefruit.

Then we headed to the park that encircles the Old Town and found a bench.

Living it up.

It’s actually this green there, (#nofilter) but I did crop out the dead rat that was lying on the edge of the grass about 10 feet away. The kids ran and chased the pigeons while I treasured my remaining raspberries. I’ve been reminding the kids all week that Germany isn’t going to be the extravagant party that Poland has been. Where else can you get double scoops of ice cream for less than $2?

And then to top it off, we stopped for pastries at the shop across the street where a cappuccino and huge pastry cost less than 3 dollars. No sharing required. Everyone got to pick their own. Rationing starts tonight.

We walk through the wedding dress district to get to and from our apartment each day. It makes for lots of “Say Yes to the Dress” jokes. Good grief, my eyes are puffy! I guess the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet.

Killing time at the airport, waiting for our flight to Munich. I thanked God a million times over that they belonged to me instead of the kid that kept jumping on all the chairs and running back and forth in front of me. I had a burning desire to stick my arm out and clothesline him as he kept jostling me while I was trying to read, but since I was reading a Christian book about “loving the world” I thought that might not be taking the book’s message to heart. But I thought ugly thoughts about the mom who was letting him run all over like a crazy person, including permitting him to climb down the up escalator as we were all trying to go up it on the way out of the airport. Some people . . .

More green. Germany looks like Poland from the air.

I like looking at clouds, but not flying through them. Calvin said our descent was bumpy (and it was), but I was mostly able to ignore it and read my book. Yay me.

We land in Munich and head to the train station. I hadn’t done my detailed research on which train number/time/platform we needed so it took a bit of guesswork. We deduced that we should take the commuter train to the main train station and then figure out where to go from there.

God bless kind Germans. We had 4 different people help us along the way, three of them without even asking (we must have looked lost!). Two people on the train looked up the connection times for us on their phones as we rode into the city (Josh and I were sitting separately), one man pointed us in the right direction as we were looking for the regional train platforms and another saved us from sitting in part of the train that was going to be disconnected and headed in a different direction 1/2 way through our journey.

Heading to our train. A team effort!

The trains are fast, quiet and clean, but it was still a long day. We left Krakow around 11 am and didn’t arrive in Garmish until 7 hours later.

The view was beautiful all along the way.

Camille was popping back and forth from one side of the train to the other (and driving me crazy in the process) as she was pointing out mountains! cows! geese! green! I’m happy she was so excited, but I wanted her to quit jumping off the auto-folding seats (that would flip up with a bang) as she ran from window to window.

Getting closer to the mountains. We are staying at the base of the tallest mountain in Germany, Zugspitze.

We’re not in Bahrain anymore, Dorothy. Babies drinking beer on the train. Meanwhile, back at home, no one can drink anything during the day and alcohol is especially forbidden for the month. It’s like night and day.

We arrived in Garmish only to find that the cabs were all too small for us (I had read there would be minivan cabs that could take up to 8 people, but no.) and the nice Germans all must live in Munich because the surly cabdriver who we asked about a ride ignored us and drove off. Josh spent a few minutes figuring out the map and which bus we should take (it turned out to be one on the other side of the street) and after waiting 5 minutes that felt like 30 the bus arrived and we boarded along with a man who was carrying 10 foot long wooden skis that almost wouldn’t fit inside the bus. I’m not sure what his deal was, but he was in some sort of official costume/uniform and his skis looked like they were from the 1800s with leather buckles . . . I was just happy we weren’t the only nutters dragging excess weight onto the bus.

Novice bus riders that we are, we assumed the bus would stop at the scheduled stops — nope, in true German efficiency, it blew right by where we needed to get off. Whoops. So we got off at the next stop (after finding the STOP button) and then had to cross the street and wait for another bus to come back the other way.

She was a trooper. Nothing to eat since breakfast except 1/2 a sandwich on the airplane. Though every time I say things like that, I think of all the people who went to Auschwitz crammed in cattle cars with no food or water for 4 days or more at a time and think, “Wow, we are soft.” Josh says I’m not allowed to play the Auschwitz card anymore after I used it when he was crabby that the suite we booked has two beds in one room and a pullout sofa in the other so if we want to be by ourselves we have to sleep on the couch. Hey, I’m just saying . . . it seems shallow to be mad about a lack of privacy on vacation when we could be stacked like cordwood without food or water, but I’ll let it go.

Let part 2 of our vacation begin!