A visitor!

We had a very special visitor this past weekend. My dad!

My dad travels quite a bit for his work, and occasionally he does come over to Europe. He was in Finland for some job training. When he told me he was going to be in Finland I, by random chance, decided to look on RyanAir's webpage to see if there are a flight from where he was to Frankfurt. I was shocked to discover there was! I mentioned this to my dad, and as luck would have it he was able to fit a quick weekend trip to our house into his travel plans.

When I found out that he officially was coming to visit and the dates he would be there, we were in Italy. I had terrible phone reception and was doing most of my communication via Josh's IPod and free hotel wi-fi. In a panic, I emailed a co-worker to ask her to cover for me for the weekend my dad was there. I work with some truly wonderful people. Not only was my co-worker helpful in getting my days covered while my dad was there, but she was completely un-phased by me asking such a favor of her. It is so nice to work with such selfless, caring, sweet people. I can't even express how much I appreciate some of my co-workers.

I asked my dad what he wanted to do while he was here visiting, but he said he was perfectly content to just see our local area. I picked him up at the airport on Friday afternoon. We went out to lunch with my friend Melissa at one of our favorite restaurants. You know you are a frequent customer of a place when your "usual" waiter asks your dad if this is his first time visiting you, and how long he will be here for... ha ha. Whoops. Well, what can I say? Apparently I like Turkish food. It sounds silly, but I was very excited for my dad to meet Melissa. It's just nice to have your family get to know someone who you have grown close to and who you treasure as a friend.

After lunch I took my dad on base to check it out. My dad is passionate about aviation, and is a huge plane freak. Luckily on our base there are some "retired" planes out on display, which he was happy to look at. He was also able to see a C-5 on the flight line getting prepped, and he saw an A-10 in its hanger. I think he was pretty tickled with his first-hand look at things.

That evening we took dad out to one of our other favorite restaurants, which is a Thai restaurant. My dad loves Thai food, so we figured it would be something he'd enjoy. We were able to meet up with my cousin Megan and her family, and it is the first time my dad has seen them in a few years. It was generally just a nice catch-up evening with great food.

The next day we all slept in - I think my poor dad was still jet-lagged. I worked on a paper while he and Josh slept late. After breakfast we decided to drive down to Trier. Trier is the closest "city" to us, and it does have some historical significance as well as some neat sights. We wandered around the cobble stone walk-platz, went to see the cathedral, and then went up inside the Porta Nigra. I'm ashamed to say although I've been to Trier many times I don't really have any good pictures of the Porta Nigra - check out these google images. Trier is the oldest city in Germany, and it used to be under Roman rule. The Porta Nigra is one of the original gates or entrances to the city. You can go up inside of it, which we did. It gives you some great views of the city. As we wandered around there were some vendors out with little stands selling various things. I'm glad my dad got a chance to see that aspect of Europe, as it is one of my favorites.

After Trier we drove to Bitburg, which is where another base is. We showed him around that base (which is pretty dead and boring compared to ours). We also took him to our favorite toy store that we like to shop at for Zoey. We all walked out of the store with something for her. Josh and I got her a boat for the bathtub as well as some slippers and boots. My dad bought her a doll that had a dog which looks like my parent's dog Fritz. What a spoiled little girl! One of my goals while my dad was in Germany was for him to try ice cream at one of the many Italian ice cream shops. Our favorite shop is still closed for the winter, but we took him to a shop in Bitburg and he had his first spaghetti ice cream. I think he's hooked. Saturday night we went out to one of our favorite German food restaurants. There is no way you can come to Germany and NOT try schnitzel. We had a fun evening chatting, eating, and sampling beer.

On Sunday we were lazy and spent most of the day just hanging around the house. We watched a few movies (we always have to update my dad on the newest ones he hasn't seen. This trip the main focus was to get him to see Avatar. Yes, he is behind the times). After an early dinner we hopped in the car and drove him to the Frankfurt Airport. He had an early morning flight back to the states and had booked a hotel room near the airport. It was a bit of an adventure to find his hotel room... and it was a bit of a late night for us. However, I'm really glad he had the chance to come visit us and finally get to see our house and local area.

I did realize while my dad was hear that all that we did was eat. And drink. What can I say? Europe is an adventure for your taste buds! There are so many delicious things we have discovered over here!

I also realized that there really isn't a way to "show" someone Europe in a short amount of time. Anytime someone asks me for advice on where to go, or what to see (which still kind of takes me by surprise, as I don't by any means think I have some sort of authority on the topic) it's hard for me to narrow down my suggestions. The first thing I ask is "How much time do you have?" Based on that I could recommend things. I used to think (prior to being here) that you could book a 10 day trip and see a lot of Europe. And you could, I suppose. People do it all the time. Fly into one spot, zip around to a bunch of places, and fly out of another. However, I guess I just don't know how you could really see places that way. How you could get a whole lot out of them, or how you could pick up on the vibe. That, and I realized on our trip to Italy that although you can go a lot of places quickly via plane or train... that traveling still takes overall time away from your trip. That being said... I was almost unsure what to do with my dad being here for just two days. I know Trier would be fun and interesting to see, and we could do that in an afternoon. However, the only other thing I could think of doing was going to Koln, which is about an hour and a half or two hour drive away. Anything else I felt like we didn't have enough time to actually get there and see it. Which isn't what I used to think... but two days is enough time to see our little area and have some amazing food and beer!