High altitudes

Germany was magnificent. Aside from my camera crapping out and erasing ALL of my pictures from London, Edinburgh, Bath, Garmisch and Paris, it was probably one of the greatest trips I've ever taken.

As I mentioned before, my cousin Kilee lives just outside of the Ramstein Air Force base in a little village called Mackenbach. Her husband is stationed there and they have two kids, Caleb and Lilly. Lilly is the new baby of the family, only 5 months old, and I was the first in the family to see her!

Chelsea and I set off very early on Saturday morning to catch our plane out of London Stansted, which is a smaller airport about 45 minutes outside of London. Chelsea took a bus and I grabbed the train since I have a prepaid pass. I arrived to Paddington around 10:30am and was set to meet Chelsea at the Liverpool Street Station at 11:15. I hopped onto the Circle Line and arrived just after 11 to find Chelsea waiting for me. We walked around the station for a few minutes, grabbed some pasties for lunch and then grabbed the Stansted Express to the airport. We got to the airport and got our stuff all checked in a ready to go. Our flight didn't leave until around 3:30, but being American, we thought it a good idea to arrive early in fear of being hassled by security. Much to our surprise, security was pretty lax - we didn't even have to take our shoes off! We boarded the plane around 3 and sat back on what proved to be one of the most uncomfortable flights I've ever been on. I read a magazine article later that said the exact thing I've been thinking for a while: "It's sad that nowadays, it isn't about the speed, convenience and comfort, but how many people we can squeeze onto one plane." The seats didn't recline, not even a little bit and the obnoxious music and flight attendants selling things were just about enough to drive someone crazy. Thankfully, the flight didn't last more than an hour and we were on the ground about 75 miles outside of Frankfurt at the Frankfurt Hahn airport.

We walked through the doors that said Non-EU Passports, preparing our story for why we were in Germany. Surprisingly, their security was pretty lax as well, and after the 'You here on holiday?' speech, we got a brand new stamp on our passports. We walked to the baggage carousel only to discover that my bag had not come with the flight. We met Kilee on the other side of the doors and filed a report with the airline. We got in the car and drove (on the right side of the road) for about an hour through winding roads that took us through valleys and mountains and villages - nothing like we'd really seen in the UK. The trees had taken a bright orangish tint and the pine trees accentuated the orange with their dark green needles. It was absolutely breathtaking.

We arrived at Kilee's house just after 7pm and headed onto base to grab some dinner. Much to our surprise, there was a Taco Bell. For those who don't know, Taco Bell is not an international chain and we had just been talking about how big of a craving we had the week before. We chowed down on our Gorditas and Chalupas and American fountain soda before realizing why Taco Bell is not always a wise choice. We went back to Kilee's to settle in and get some rest. Unfortunately, I had been feeling sick the entire week prior to the trip and none of the British doctors would see me. My infection had spread to my glands and I was swollen basically everywhere. I started feeling feverish and nauseous and thought it would be a great idea to go to the emergency room.

We arrived at St. Johannes hospital just after 11pm to a security guard that spoke very broken English. We walked through the hospital to find the small emergency care unit and waited in the blinding white light until a man emerged from an equally bright white door. Just our luck, he didn't speak an ounce of English so we had to go back to the security guard and eventually down to a small flower shop at the end of the lane by the hospital where there was a doctor who spoke English. He wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic without even examining me or asking me any questions about my medical history and we left. I'm allergic to Penicillin, so I was terrified to fill the antibiotic he'd prescribed because Penicillin is typically used over there. Luckily, it was Penicillin-free and I started them on Sunday morning.

Monday, we set off for Garmisch, which is a little village very near the Austrian border and about an hour or so east of Munich. There was a really nice military holiday resort there situated in the Bavarian Alps and we had a suite booked for the night. We arrived pretty late after what we thought was a 3 hour drive turned out to be a 6 hour drive. We ate dinner, drank American beer and called it a night shortly after. The next day, we got up and decided it would be a great idea to take the cable car trip up a nearby mountain. The first car was a breeze and took us up about 2900 meters to a mountaintop cafe' and restaurant. We had some tea and warmed up, as it was just above 1 degree Celsius, before we boarded the next cable car that took us to another mountain that was about 2300 meters tall. We reached the next stop and took a 45 minute hike around the mountain to reach our final cable car journey, which descended the mountain. We were all pretty tired from our journey and decided to head back to Mackenbach a little earlier than we'd anticipated.

Wednesday, we slept in and shopped a bit in downtown Kaiserslautern, which hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2006. The stadium looked pretty sweet.

Thursday, we got up early and set off for Paris. Kilee's house is only a 3 1/2 hour drive from Paris, and we thought it to be a great opportunity to visit. We drove and drove until we reached Disneyland Paris, where we parked and caught the train into the city. En route, we had been listening to Disney showtunes and contemplated giving up our Paris journey for a day at EuroDisney. Thankfully, the front ticket gates weren't open and it started to rain, or I probably wouldn't have stories from Paris to talk about. :-)

Paris was incredible. Really, I haven't quite got the words for it. For those of you who know me well, you will know that I absolutely love New York City and that I will speak nothing but positives and have nothing but amazing stories about my trips there. But New York could never quite impress me and take my breath away the way that Paris did.

We arrived in the city just after 4pm and went straight to the Louvre Museum. Let me tell you...the Museum is unlike anything I've ever seen. It is MASSIVE. I could literally spend an entire day in there and not even care. We were pretty excited to visit because the Mona Lisa is kept there and we didn't have much time, as the museum closed at 6. We dashed through the turnstiles, purchased tickets and ran up to the first floor to catch a glimpse of one of the world's most famous paintings. How extravagant...not. The Mona Lisa, in all it's glory, is situated across the room from an absolutely massive painting that covers the entire wall almost the whole way to the ceiling. But the large group of people in the room was staring at this tiny portrait of a woman with no eyebrows. I wonder if Leonardo DaVinci ever thought that would happen when he painted this hideous woman. We moved on from the Mona Lisa and headed down to check out some statues on our way to the gift shop. We stepped inside an absolutely brilliant room with the most beautiful walls and ceilings I have ever seen - nearly brought me to tears.

We left the Louvre and began walking toward the Arc de Triomphe, stopping at a little baguette restaurant for dinner. I had a ham baguette with a raspberry tart. It was quite amazing and the smell of freshly made crepes basically took over the restaurant. We set off again for the Arc and stumbled across the premier of the 007 movie. Being the ignorant Americans that we are, we started snapping pictures while the French security guards were yelling at us in French. We thought they were telling us to keep walking, but apparently they were saying no pictures. We walked right through security and across the red carpet before realizing what we had just done. Oops.

After we made it up to the end of the street, we turned down a side street and headed for the Eiffel Tower. Now, I know how we Americans love this tower and I'm not gonna lie, I was just as giddy as anyone to take the elevator up to the top. We walked right on and started up the tower. Making it to the first level where there is a really swanky restaurant. We kept going up to the second level and then started the journey up to the top. Ears popping and my heart beating a mile a minute, we finally made it to the top of the tower. The city looked absolutely beautiful and we could see what it was these Europeans hate about Paris - the terrible traffic. The city was lit up with millions of lights and we could hear the sound of cars, buses and sirens passing below us. The rain and wind didn't stop us from going to the top deck to be in the fresh air. Absolutely amazing.

We left the Tower and headed for the train station to catch our train back to EuroDisney. We got back to the car just before 11pm and set off on our 4 hour journey back. Kilee started feeling beyond tired nearly halfway through the journey back and I took over at the wheel. Driving 130 kph, I was nervous to be stopped before realizing that it was late at night and the police don't hate 24 hours a day like they do in Ohio. We crossed over the German border and I pressed the pedal to the floor on the Autobahn, reaching speeds of nearly 110 mph. It felt really good to drive.

We got back around 3:30am and went straight to bed. Waking up on Friday, we spent most of the day hanging out and preparing for the Halloween festivities of the evening, which turned out to be a quick trick-or-treat with the kids, a couple of scary movies and going to bed early. Quite relaxing compared to what I would have been doing had I been at OU. :-)

We flew out of Frankfurt Hahn early Saturday morning, arriving back in London around 2. We took the train back from the airport and then grabbed the Tube to find a stop to get some pub food. We found a pub just down the street from the train station, had some fish and chips and some Fosters and watched some soccer. Then we grabbed the trains to start heading back to Cardiff. I got back to Cardiff around 7 and got my laundry and cleaning started. Proved to be quite a relaxing evening. Yesterday, I did more cleaning and got a run in before going grocery shopping.

I can't believe my Germany trip is over. I'm over halfway done with my stay here and I will say that I'm quite surprised at how fast it's gone.

I'm hoping to do at least one more major trip while I'm here before settling down and getting ready to leave - hopefully to Ireland, but we'll see.

I hope everyone is doing well! I'll be sure to update about work more this week. I can't believe the election is tomorrow. Absolutely unbelievable that we'll have a new president in less than 48 hours. Let's just hope we don't have another fiasco....

Until next time...