Travel Series: Misc
Miscellaneous activities in Germany that I want to jot down but don't fit into a trip post.
Bowling- we spent a lot of time bowling on Baumholder. The food was good, it was indoors, and the kids loved it. Best part was the guy never charged us! Say what? Yeah you read that right, he charged Matt if he bowled but the kids were always free. Pretty sweet deal.
The Bernards-one of my favorite people in the world, Nicolle, is stationed with her hubby in Germany. They have the cutest little boy, Cubby- and it was ridiculously awesome getting to see her because she keeps me grounded and sane and is my sounding board. I call her mom. And I'm not the only one to do this- she gives the best advice and just knows how to make you feel good/better. And she introduced me to Doners- what I'd give for a Doner right now.
How chocolate- the kids and I had hot cocoa just about every single day in Germany. I now associate hot chocolate with Germany.
BX adventure- the BX on Ramstein is huge. HUGE. It's filled with great food (omg chicken salad!), a police car ride that the boys became obsessed with (seriously obsessed with, we couldn't leave without going on that ride) a boat ride thing that was their fall back if they couldn't ride the police car, and allowed us to just be inside doing something but out of the apartment at the same time.
Snow- thank goodness I brought the boys' snow clothes. There wasn't much snow on the ground when we got there but by the time we left there was a pretty permanent snow pack and the kids loved it. Matt worked during the weekday and I needed something to keep the boys occupied during the day. Once the snow fell, that was it! It required some serious effort getting everyone in their snow gear but it was worth it because 30-45 minutes out in the snow guaranteed me a really good 2+ hour nap from my boys. I never quite figured out how to get them to stop eating the snow though....
Traveling back was significantly easier than getting to Germany. Matt was there to help me and we made it our first try. The boys slept most of the ride back and we got back to the states early in the morning, on inauguration day. Even though it was super late at night and I was exhausted from the time difference, I knew I needed to get out of the area before the traffic and crowds would keep me stuck there for another 24 hours. I drove about 30 mintues south of D.C. and checked into a hotel ready to pass out. Well, my kids slept the whole time I was driving from Baltimore to our hotel and they were totally refreshed. Once they finally fell asleep, they only slept for a few hours because we were still on Germany time and they were up and ready to party at 0400! I got a call from the front desk that people were complaining about the noise coming from my room- I couldn't blame them. My kids were up and energized; even though I was still insanely tired. I packed them up, loaded up on coffee, and we made the trek back home to southern Virginia. It took about a week for us to get back on schedule. I have to say the time change coming to the states was significantly harder on me and the kids than the time change on the way out to Germany.
Bowling- we spent a lot of time bowling on Baumholder. The food was good, it was indoors, and the kids loved it. Best part was the guy never charged us! Say what? Yeah you read that right, he charged Matt if he bowled but the kids were always free. Pretty sweet deal.
The Bernards-one of my favorite people in the world, Nicolle, is stationed with her hubby in Germany. They have the cutest little boy, Cubby- and it was ridiculously awesome getting to see her because she keeps me grounded and sane and is my sounding board. I call her mom. And I'm not the only one to do this- she gives the best advice and just knows how to make you feel good/better. And she introduced me to Doners- what I'd give for a Doner right now.
How chocolate- the kids and I had hot cocoa just about every single day in Germany. I now associate hot chocolate with Germany.
BX adventure- the BX on Ramstein is huge. HUGE. It's filled with great food (omg chicken salad!), a police car ride that the boys became obsessed with (seriously obsessed with, we couldn't leave without going on that ride) a boat ride thing that was their fall back if they couldn't ride the police car, and allowed us to just be inside doing something but out of the apartment at the same time.
Snow- thank goodness I brought the boys' snow clothes. There wasn't much snow on the ground when we got there but by the time we left there was a pretty permanent snow pack and the kids loved it. Matt worked during the weekday and I needed something to keep the boys occupied during the day. Once the snow fell, that was it! It required some serious effort getting everyone in their snow gear but it was worth it because 30-45 minutes out in the snow guaranteed me a really good 2+ hour nap from my boys. I never quite figured out how to get them to stop eating the snow though....
Traveling back was significantly easier than getting to Germany. Matt was there to help me and we made it our first try. The boys slept most of the ride back and we got back to the states early in the morning, on inauguration day. Even though it was super late at night and I was exhausted from the time difference, I knew I needed to get out of the area before the traffic and crowds would keep me stuck there for another 24 hours. I drove about 30 mintues south of D.C. and checked into a hotel ready to pass out. Well, my kids slept the whole time I was driving from Baltimore to our hotel and they were totally refreshed. Once they finally fell asleep, they only slept for a few hours because we were still on Germany time and they were up and ready to party at 0400! I got a call from the front desk that people were complaining about the noise coming from my room- I couldn't blame them. My kids were up and energized; even though I was still insanely tired. I packed them up, loaded up on coffee, and we made the trek back home to southern Virginia. It took about a week for us to get back on schedule. I have to say the time change coming to the states was significantly harder on me and the kids than the time change on the way out to Germany.
Comments
Post a Comment