Another fun-filled weekend

Last weekend, we rented a car again and set off to visit my mom's brother at his new place in the Saarland. He just recently moved there and none of us had been to visit him. It turned out to be a rather short drive from Heidelberg, just over an hour. We left after Alex was done with preschool and got there in the late afternoon. They showed us around their wonderful apartment, plied us with champagne and had a tasty dinner ready. We stayed up a long time chatting, catching up, and telling old stories. The next morning, after breakfast, we set out for a long walk to a nearby biotope. The walk was long and extremely cold, but we were rewarded with storks, water buffalo, horses etc.

I tried to get a shot of the storks in their nests.

Here my mom and Alex are getting ready to work the telescope to get a closer look. (Alex liked the storks fine, but really wanted to see the ducks.)

Here, they are picking some grass and herbs to feed the cows.

In addition to the great wildlife, we were also greeted by this helpful sign. Thanks. ?!

After our trek outside, we were glad to come back inside and warm up with tea and a terrific lunch. Thanks Hartmut and Monica.

We headed back towards Heidelberg in the mid-afternoon, but decided to stop in the small spa town of Bad Dürkheim along the way. It's known for its wine and for taking the waters (Germans still go to spa towns for treatments and as far as I know German health insurances pay for one 3-week long spa stay with treatments every 2 or 3 years, if a physician recommends it!) Needless to say, we were't there for any mud-baths, but just to look around and explore the town a bit.

We found a nice square with a beautiful old church,

and a cafe with yummy treats.

Alex humored me with pretending to bite into the yeast dough bunny, but what he really enjoyed was the jelly donut.

After the snacks, we explored the town further. Here they are in front of a statue of a vintner carrying grapes off the vineyard in the characteristic basket/backpack.

And a few minutes later, they had broken into a dance in the park. (There was a bandshell for live music and dancing in the summer, but in the winter, our loud singing had to do.)

Finally, we made it to the famous so-called Riesenfass (gigantic barrel) that purports to hold almost 2 million liters of wine. (?!)

After a quick stop to stock up on some groceries, we were tired, but happy when we got home that night.

Since we had the car for another day (I got a great weekend deal), we set off again for more adventures on Sunday. Our first destination was Worms. It was a bit bleak and dreary on this grey Sunday morning, but the layers of history that exist in this town are truly breathtaking. I took a picture of this plaque that tries to capture some of the main events here:

The sign marks the location of a Roman temple, the castle of the Nibelungs, one of the main castles of Charlemagne (Karl, der Grosse in German), the court of the bishop of Worms, the site of over 100 Imperial Diets (yes, the "Diet of Worms"!) where Luther appeared and famously uttered the phrase: Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. That's a lot for one spot, isn't it?

We caught part of the Palm Sunday Service in both the Catholic Cathedral

and the Lutheran Church across the street.

Before heading out of town, we stopped at the impressive Luther Statue.

And here's a closeup:

Since Worms was cold and most places in town were closed, we headed on to Speyer to see another lovely town and cathedral.

But first, we had lunch. We stumbled into a restaurant called, the Golden Ram that looked suspiciously old-fashioned from the outside. On the inside, however it was modern and the dishes were a sort of updated contemporary German food - very yummy. I had chicken with Lebkuchen (gingerbread) sauce and a rice pilaf with raisins. My mom had sauteed goose liver with apple slices. It was a real great spot. 

Afterwards, Alex scored a raspeberry sorbet at the gelateria next door.

The atmosphere in Speyer was just great. We spent a good amount of time exploring the Cathedral and its surroundings. There was even a statue of a pilgrim on his way to Santiago de Compostela.

We were impressed with the artwork on the huge front door. This panel was just below eye level and I was reminded how the front pages of some magazines have to be covered up at the checkout counters at Kroger and here we have Adam and Eve with full frontal exposure on the front door of a major European cathedral. Go figure.

On the inside, we admired the central nave and even lit a candle.

We still had more energy and so we got back into the car and made our way to Schwetzingen - a beautiful small town with a chateau near Heidelberg. Since it was getting late in the day, we just enjoyed it from outside. It has famously beautiful gardens and we'll be back to see those - should spring arrive at some point.

Alex loved the friendly ducks

and we all liked the monument to the white asparagus washers on the main town square.

All in all a successful weekend full of adventures.

Of flea markets, piñatas, and eggs

We've had a lot of fun since we've been back.

In fact, we came back on a specific date to be here in time for the annual "Kindergarten Flohmarkt", the Preschool fleamarket/yardsale on Saturday. It's a fun event and also a fundraiser for the school. They had been advertising the event all over the neighborhood for a few weeks. Individuals or families from the community could rent (for EUR 5) a table in the yard, foyer, or hallway of the school building to sell their kid-related stuff. The school itself also had a table with toys, clothes, and books, donated by the families and staffed by volunteers. There was a bake and juice sale (I made a lemon-nutella cake that turned out really well, but was gone before I could snap a picture.) and some parents baked waffles with home-made waffle batter. The place was buzzing with people and in the hour that I staffed the school table we sold a lot of great stuff. Alex scored a puzzle (with 144 pieces, which he put together almost by himself), and a doctor's bag. We've been patients ever since. It was great that my mom was here, so that she and Alex could tool around while I could help out. I'm not sure how much money was made for the school, but everyone said it was a success!



On Sunday, Alex was invited to his friend Irene's house to celebrate her 4th birthday. There were a few other kids there as well and we enjoyed the party very much! There were treats and goodies and party games, but the best part, from Alex's perspective, was his first experience with a piñata. Irene's mom had some trouble buying a piñata here and so made one herself! It was awesome, big, and had a huge Hello Kitty face on one side and a large "4" on the other side. Alex could not believe his luck that he would be allowed, in fact, encouraged, to beat it with a large stick! See his eager anticipation here.

And then the piñata in various stages of destruction.

Here the kids are waiting with their baggies to go for the loot.

And then they dove in.

Finally, a group shot.

The party concluded with more playtime inside (it is still wet and cold here) and fruit on a stick!

We had a blast. Thanks for sharing your birthday with us, Irene.

Since Easter is around the corner, there are already a lot of seasonal things for sale here and everyone is gearing up for the holiday. At Alex's school, they're planning on coloring eggs and making an Easter basket for the Easter Bunny to pick up and deliver on Easter Sunday (if I've understood correctly). In preparation, all the kids had to bring several blown out eggs to school. I was so glad that my mom is here for this, because I'm not sure I know how to successfully blow out an egg, but she did a great job!

We enjoyed the scrambled eggs and I hope Alex will make beautiful eggs at school. Another morning, we decided it was time to tackle some hard-boiled eggs as well. Alex reminded me that this was really JJL's expertise, and I agree, but she wasn't here, so we tried it without her. Here are some results.

Road trip ... down memory lane

What a week we've had. My mom arrived for her much anticipated visit a week ago. I got a rental car and picked her up from the airport in Frankfurt and we've had fun ever since.

After two days of getting acclimatized and getting ourselves together, we headed out for 6 days of traveling clear across the country, meeting friends and family along the way. The day before we left, my mom and I had spent part of the afternoon sitting in the sun on one of the main squares in Heidelberg drinking a coffee and enjoying spring. The following day, we re-entered winter. Our first stop on our trip was Hamburg, which is fairly far north. As we were driving north, we could see the temperature dropping on the car thermometer. The car trip took us about 5 hours, but we spent a leisurely hour in between enjoying the offerings of one of the roadside rest stops. These are no longer the yucky, marginal gas stations of my youth, but full-service restaurants, cafes, etc. Here my mom and Alex are enjoying the surroundings.

By the time we got to Hamburg in the late afternoon it was well below freezing, snowing, and there were several inches of snow on the ground. It was perfect to come in from the cold and spend a cozy evening with an old family friend.

The next morning, the whole city was a winter wonderland, but we headed out to explore some of the sights. Our first stop was an enormous statue of Bismarck. For those of you who have read this blog since the beginning, you may remember Alex's fascination with the Lincoln memorial. Well, when he found out about this gigantic sculpture, he just had to see it. Bismarck, unfortunately, stands at a somewhat inconvenient spot, on top of a hill covered in deep snow, but we managed to get ourselves up there. You can see how large the monument is by how small Alex looks next to the big man.

Alex was completely undeterred by the rather large amounts of snow (possibly because he was in rubber boots), but here you can see him trying to climb to the top of the stairs - with the steeple of the beautiful Baroque St. Michael's church (affectionately called "Michel" by the locals) in the background.

After his ascent to see Bismarck, he and my mom got into a rather serious snow-ball fight.

After these wintry (and freezing cold) adventures, we were looking for some place to warm up and took the car down the hill towards the port to an area that houses a large and famous fish market every Sunday morning. We were a little too late for most of the fish (I think they start at 7 am and we got there around 10), but a live Sunday classic rock concert was still going on in the old market building. For a while we warmed up and rocked out to cover versions of classic rock classics in a great setting. 

Since we were already at the port, we decided to look around to see some of the wonderful museum ships they have here. This is a famous sailing ship permanently anchored in the Hamburg's port called the "Rickmer Rickmers." 

Before we could figure out how to get on board, I overheard some folks talking about a harbor cruise and my ears perked up. I remember going on those with my grandparents and just loved them. We quickly bought our tickets and hurried on board. 

The little ship (Barkasse) took us on an hour-long trip through the harbor. It was fantastic! We saw the old Speicherstadt, where 19th century merchants stored their treasures ranging from spices to rugs to tea and coffee. These brick buildings emerge from the canals and are beautiful. Here's a picture I took through the windows of our ship.

We also saw the enormous modern container ships. Here's one from China. Our guide said that it can hold 10,000 containers!

At one point, we also had a great view of the main harbor buildings, the Landungsbrücken. If you look carefully, you can see the Bismarck in the distance.

The tour was great! Alex and I my mom enjoyed the ride as well.

After all this, it was only 1pm! We spent the rest of the day with old family friends and all 3 generations had a great time.

The next morning, we continued our exploration of Hamburg, though the weather didn't play along very well. First we stopped by my grandmother's old place. It looked just the same as it did when I was a kid.

We went on to Poppenbüttel to check out our old neighborhood, but at that point it was snowing so hard that I could not stop to take pictures and we took refuge in a shopping center. In the afternoon, we went to my mom's god-daugher's house and spent a lovely afternoon. The kids played for hours and even had a long romp in the snow.

The following morning we left Hamburg and drove to my aunt's house in Hannover. I had not seen her in years and it was wonderful to check in. My cousin also took some time off from work and joined us for a little while. Neither of them had met Alex and they had a great time getting to know each other a little bit. After lunch, we headed on to Bonn where we finally arrived in the early evening. My mom's friend with whom we stayed had dug out a big box of Legos and it was almost impossible to pry Alex away and into bed.

After a luscious breakfast,we headed into the city which looked remarkably unchanged since our days here in the 1980s. We enjoyed exploring the shops and had lunch in a rooftop restaurant.

Afterwards, I bought Alex a pair of sandals (European size 31 for those of you keeping count!) in the hopes that spring will come some day. The shoe store had a cool carrousel for kids - one I remember from my childhood!

After shopping for a while, we left my mom downtown and headed into the suburbs to visit one of my friends from school. I hadn't seen her since 2006 and we had the best time catching up and talking. It's amazing how easy it can be to reconnect with old friends. Alex and her younger son Christian also bonded really quickly and built an amazing Lego castle.

Once both her boys were home from school and had finished their homework, we headed out into the woods and the kids went sledding! We were literally in the woods and the kids sledded down a hill between trees and stubs. It was terrifying - but apparently incredibly fun. We were literally frozen by the time we got back to the house. 

Finally, on Thursday, we visited our old neighbors and took a look at the house where I lived between the ages of 7 and 17. It looked just the same. It seemed weird to me that it was still there looking the same.

Then, we got back in the car and drove back to our current home, Heidelberg. I'm still trying to make sense of all those memories that got stirred up. We may have to go back to some of these places before our time Germany is up.