Deutschephilia

We are back from Germany. We loved it! A beautiful, fascinating, green, clean country. I am certain that my sister, a comfirmed Anglophile, might also become a Deutschephile after a visit (especially considering her love of good beer, great bread & cheese & chocolate, bratwurst, Ikea style furniture, and lovely gardens).

Considering the challenges of long airplane travel, a 9 hour time difference, a virus that got us all but hit the Papaya especially hard, and a painful emerging incisor for the Banana, the kids were great travellers. We spent the first few days (at a friends' house in Kaiserslautern) mostly enjoying the green humidity, walking to the excellent local bakery & buying cheap, fresh bread, watching the five kids (ours & our friends') play together, and admiring the beautiful flowers everywhere. We spent the next few days in the green, rolling hills region of Bavaria, staying with Papaya Daddy's folks & visiting small villages, castle ruins, and large cathedrals in bigger towns. We did a beautiful, short river cruise with towering cliffs on either side of us and enjoyed a little bit of Germany's wonderful rail system. Then we traveled to the mountain region of Bavaria & took in the breathtaking scenery of the Alps. We rode a cog rail train that ascended a couple thousand meters towards the peak of Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak (on the Austria border), then got on cable cars that took us almost the rest of the way up (some stairs, a ladder, and a few well placed cables facilitated our climb to the very summit). We rode more cable cars to an indescribably lovely alpine hiking base called Alpspitze. We toured the bizarre Wagnerian-opera fantasy castle that Mad King Ludwig built in the late 1800's. On the way back to Frankfurt for our flight home, we stayed the night in a converted monastery inside Rothenburg, an amazingly preserved medieval walled city.

We packed a lot into a short two weeks! And we are tired.

Things we loved about Germany:

1. Nice mix of the old and the modern. Lots of history - almost every town has its own castle ruins, cathedral, or both. But the houses had (on the indoors) a nice, modern, clean-lines, Ikea-like style that we favor. There were all kinds of well-made, convenient features - like heated floor tiles, roulades at all the windows, cool toilet flush mechanisms (you could choose big flush or little flush each time), big bathrooms, heated towel racks, etc.

2. Child friendly. There aren't enough children being born in Germany, so the government actually subsidizes (generously) its citizens to bear them. The corollary to this is that the country itself felt welcoming to children. Kids under 6 years old were pretty much free of charge everywhere and on all public transport, which is usually not true in the States (although the States wins out as far as kids meals in restaurants go). There were lots of public playgrounds everywhere.

3. Good, cheap bakeries. Good cheese. Great cheap produce. Cherries everywhere, basically falling off trees (it was the season for them). Very good, cheap chocolate. You can buy great food from all the EU countries without paying import tax.

4. Relatively green (as in environmentally friendly) - compared to most places in the States, anyway. (The fact that gas is about $7.00/gallon probably has something to do with this.) Bike & pedestrian paths everywhere. Great train & public transport systems. Huge windmills everywhere. Lots of solar panels. Subsidized biodiesel at the gas stations. Smart cars are ubiquitous. Virtually everything is recycled, even garbage scraps.

5. Small fear of dumb lawsuits = more fun for kids. The play equipment available in parks, as well as the super-fun preschool attractions at the Playmobil theme park we visited, allow kids to do fun things that they never could in the States, because of the possibility of hurting themselves & suing the pants off somebody. Basically, Germans expect parents to use their common sense & be responsible for their kids rather than trying to ensure safety by allowing only boring, safe play equipment.

6. Wonderful gardens & beautiful flowers everywhere. Fragrance & the smell of verdancy in the air. (Of course, we came at the right time.)

7. Friendly people (on the whole). Nice to Americans (at least to us), even though we speak almost no German.

Things we didn't like about Germany:

1. The beds. After sleeping in three different German "double" beds, we can see why the government is paying such a premium for babies. It seems like Germans really like their own personal space at night. All the "double" beds we saw or slept in were really two twins pushed together, with seperate fitted sheets & separate twin duvets on top. Invariably, either Papaya Daddy or I would sleep (badly) in the crack in the middle, and both of us would end up with uncovered legs at some point(s) during the night in our effort to sleep with our bodies touching while using two personal-sized covers.

2. The small, slow washers and dryers. It takes about 4 hours to do one small load of laundry. I was very glad to get back to my own nice equipment. If I lived in Germany, I might not enjoy doing laundry quite so much.

3. Icky meat stuff (mostly pork tidbits) mixed together & encased in tubes. Everywhere. Lots and lots of it. I asked a waiter about a "salat" I saw on a menu, only to find out that is was a salad of cold, sliced sausage in a vinaigrette. My sister, who craved bratwurst in pregnancy, probably would have loved it - but we, vegetarians-that-eat-meat-on-vacation that we are, couldn't quite stomach them.

4. The Frankfurt Airport. What a mess! We arrived 3 hours early for our return flight, and by the time we got to the gate they were already boarding the plane. During those 3 hours, our passports were checked & scanned four times, we went through three different security-type checkpoints, and each one of us was wanded & frisked thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. The security lady even squeezed the Banana's diaper, front & back, to make sure there was nothing scary in there (besides the expected, which is often scary to us). She stuck her hands down my pants & underneath my bra & made me remove the scrap of paper she detected in my back pocket & show it to her. The next time a security breach happens concerning air travel, it will probably not be at the Frankfurt Airport.

5. Second hand smoke. This is the non-child friendly part of Germany. They are still in the dark ages as far as non-smoking areas go. There is smoke all through the airport and hanging thick in the air of almost every restaurant. In fact, restaurants have cigarette vending machines at the entrance and they are also ubiquitous in hotel lobbies. We were very glad it was summer so we could eat outside most of the time.

6. Germany is 9 time zones away. Enough said. We are zombies.

Money saving tip in case you ever visit Germany: Learn to pronounce leitungswasser (tap water) well enough so that waitstaff can understand you. You will save a fortune, since a glass of bottled water costs the same as beer.

Okay, enough disjointed reflections. On to the pictures! What follows is but a sampling of the wonderful things we saw. (Any of the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.)

Waiting in the Phoenix Airport, full of energy & excitement (at least the kids are).

On the 767 in Chicago, destination Frankfurt. Energy is beginning to wane.

An ancient ruler of Speyer - and us

The jetlagged Papaya sacks out in the Speyer Cathedral. Roman emporers are entombed in the catacombs beneath him.

The small, nontouristy village of Kalmunz in Bavaria (we were climbing down from the castle ruins)

Skipping rocks at the destination of our short Donau River cruise from Kelheim

The Banana amuses herself on long van rides.

Num-num fountain in Regensburg


View of Eibsee from cog train (on the way up to Zugspitze)

Standing on top of Germany (summit of Zugspitze)

View into Austria from Zugspitze cafeteria (Austrian side)

Heaven (aka Alpspitze) - see the cable car?

More heaven. Hiking trails everywhere, from easy to expert

Not a bad place to kick up your feet

Coffee & cake break

"Climb every mountain..."

Picking a dandelion bouquet for Mommy

Walking the old city walls in Rothenburg