Pre-Christmas Weekend Getaway

As I said before... hosting Thanksgiving was touch stressful this year.
I knew Josh and I would have some extra time before and after Christmas to do some traveling (if we wanted). I had, on a whim, decided to look into Baden-Baden for the weekend before Christmas. For those who don't know, Baden-Baden is a somewhat famous spa resort town. Back in the day it was a destination for the rich and famous to come gamble at the casino and enjoy the Roman baths. After hosting for a bunch of people at Thanksgiving, doing something completely relaxing sounded like heaven. A girl I work with has frequented Baden-Baden many times for spa weekends and had lots of advice for me. In the end I booked us a hotel for a relaxing "spa weekend" to enjoy before Christmas. Best idea I've had yet.

I found a hotel which was in walking distance of everything (which, it turns out in Baden-Baden isn't that hard to do. It's a small area). But our hotel did have its own hot tub, sauna, pool, and spa facilities. My idea was we could go to the Roman baths... or we could never even leave the hotel. I normally have a laundry list of things I want to do and see... but this time my plan was to do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

We arrived Saturday afternoon, checked into our hotel, and then wandered around. We discovered the Christmas Market where I had the absolute best apple strudel ever. Ever. Ohhhh my goodness so amazing and delicious I wanted to lick my plate. After a bit more wandering and sight-seeing (which took up a total of about an hour) we went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon in the hot tub. Later on we had to peel ourselves off the bed and force ourselves to go out for dinner (tough life eh?).

We ate at a beer hall which was completely and crazily decorated for Christmas. Germans definitely go all out, I will give them that. It is so beautiful to see.

After soaking in the hot tub for so long during the day, we were quite tired. We went to bed early and slept like the dead.

In the morning we took our time lazing around before we went to the Friedrichsbad. Baden-Baden has two Roman baths, and there are two main differences between them: one is older and nude, and the other one is more modern and requires swimming suits. Friedrichsbad is the naked bath. My friend had really stressed (and assured me) that this was the bath to go to and the experience would be wonderful. I really wasn't worried about the naked part as far as other people looking at me (because why would they? And if they did... um... more power to them). I was more concerned that I would be so self conscious I wouldn't enjoy myself or wouldn't be able to relax. However, the weird and awkward feelings I had melted away within a few minutes.

The Roman bathing ritual, as they refer to it, occurs in a process. You follow the signs through 17 different rooms - through saunas, steam rooms, and various mineral water pools while showering at different times in between. At the very end you dry off, slather yourself in lotion, and then get wrapped up in a towel and blanket cocoon to "relax" for 30 minutes in a dark room. After this you go relax in a warm chair with a cup of tea and read a magazine for 30 minutes before getting dressed. Seriously. It is wonderful. Your mind clears, your muscles release, the warm air/water feels amazing, and you just find yourself completely relaxing. I'm pretty positive my skin is glowing, but that could be the amazing lotion they have. I bought three bottles (relax, I'm giving two away as presents) and I'm pretty sure I'm now obsessed with it. The inside of the baths is absolutely beautiful - full of marble, pillars, and statues. My family got the biggest kick out of the idea of us going to a naked spa, but the naked part was not at all a big deal. No one is looking at anyone, and nobody cares that anyone is naked. It's actually kind of freeing.

After our "bath," we found some lunch and then came back to the hotel. After being borderline comatose for an hour, we went to the hotel pool. Josh swam, I sat in a lounge chair and read. Later we went out for dinner, but made our way back to the hotel in short order.

Basically all we did all weekend long was lay around, sit in hot tubs (in various forms), and eat. It was fabulous. We are both quite relaxed and recharged. I can't wait to go back to Baden-Baden for another "spa" weekend. I will need a refill on my amazing lotion after all.

Christmas Markets

And now the fourth and final installment of Mom and Noelle's trip.

Friday, the day after we got back from Paris, was Noelle's birthday. Here's to turning 23! Originally I wanted us to go to Koln for the day - one of my favorite cities with one of the best Christmas markets that I have experienced. However, to get to Koln and get parked/situated, we really needed to be on the road before 10 AM. After our marathon excursion home, everyone was slow to get up, and everyone seemed happy to consider doing some more quiet and less ambitious for the day. We took our time in the morning, and in early afternoon went to Trier for the Christmas Market. We went to the market in Trier last year, and I liked it. Trier also had shopping (for Noelle), as well as a beautiful cathedral and a few other historical sites (so I could at least feel like I was showing Noelle something of value beyond shopping). I just generally love Trier, and we had a fun afternoon there.

That evening we went out to one of our favorite German restaurants, and Noelle got to have traditional schnitzel for her birthday dinner. I think it was a good day for her. The next day we decided to try out more Christmas Markets. We went to Bernkastle-Kues, which I haven't been to yet (which is ridiculous as it's only about a 45 minute drive from our house). Everyone raves about Bernkastle and their Christmas Market. I wasn't too impressed with the Christmas Market itself - there wasn't much there which got my attention. However, I did like the layout as the market sprawled through winding streets with lots of creative decorations. We did find some fun shops while we were there, including a little jewelry store where we all found treasures. I, in particular, found a few gems to add to my collection. I'll definitely head back to Bernkastle just for that shop.

We headed back home and headed to a local Christmas Market in Dudeldorf (yes, so ahead and giggle). Dudeldorf's Christmas Market is only during the first weekend of December. We didn't go last year as that was when I was enjoying the German hospital. When we got to the outskirts of Dudeldorf, there were cars parked all on the sides of the road. It seemed every available spot was taken. Josh was able to find a spot for us to squeak into, but we still had to walk a ways into the town. What I found interesting (and charming) about this market is instead of the usual booths, it seems people just opened up their garages and set out their crafts which they had been working on for the past year. I also found this market to be cheaper than other markets. It just had a much more... what the word?... homey? Quaint? feeling to it. The market snakes through the town weaving in and out of houses, garages, and stands. Everyone said it was their favorite market to date.

We spent Sunday being lazy around the house. I was game to attempt Koln or another near-by town for Christmas Markets or shopping, but everyone just wanted to relax. Which I was okay with as well. Movies were the order of the day. The next day, Monday, was their official last day here. We drove down to where I work so Noelle could pick up something for her job. We took advantage of being down in that area by going shopping. Mom was finally able to see where I go when I go shopping. I think they really enjoyed it. However, it had started to snow while we were shopping. Last winter we didn't have much snow at all, and I was questioning everyone's claims of Germany having crazy winters. By the time we got back on the road to drive home there was between 1-2 inches of snow on the ground, and it made driving a bit interesting (since this time, I have had more than one "interesting" drive into work). The rest of the evening was spent with everyone getting there things situated and packed up. The drive to the airport came pretty early the next morning - I wanted to leave with enough time in case the roads were bad. We got to the airport before any of the staff was there. I stayed while they got checked in, and then made my tearful good-byes. It was a rough drive home. I decided to spend my day feeling sorry for myself lazing on the couch watching movies.

All and all I think they had a great trip out. We were able to go a lot of places and do a lot of things. I had a lot of fun with them here. I only hope I've now convinced Noelle to come back out to visit.

Paris

Installment #3 of Mom and Noelle's Trip...

As I had said, my alarm was set for a very early 3 AM. I'm pretty sure I did not sleep at all prior to it going off. I should have been tired, but instead I was really excited about finally getting to Paris! The drive down to where we were taking the train was pretty uneventful, and we got the car parked and found the place we needed to be with plenty of time to spare.

Once our train got there and we got situated on board, we were off! It was a great way to travel. If we were to drive, it would take us about 4.5 hours from my house to get to Paris (but I would have to deal with Paris traffic and parking). Instead we drove 1.5 hours to the train station and road the train for a little over 2 hours. The train was (at times) traveling at over 300 kilometers per hour - pretty crazy.

We arrived in Paris, and I will admit... I really wasn't sure what to do. We all agreed we should go to our hotel and get our stuff dropped off and situated. That seemed like a good plan. However... I had no idea how to get there. I had tried to research the metro system prior to going... and yeah. I was a touch lost. Luckily we found a tourist information office and the man kindly showed me exactly what we had to do to get to our hotel. We bought passes and were on our way. Our hotel had advantages and disadvantages. The huge advantage was the price. I was trying to find a room for us and was finding prices around $600-$1000. Which.... well, that's a lot to swallow. My dad travels frequently for business and has a lot of rewards points built up with Hilton. Hilton had sent him an email about "deals" - and there was one for the Hilton at Orly Airport in Paris. And the deal was much cheaper than anything I could find. Plus, another advantage, was the hotel was a Hilton, so it was most likely going to be nice and clean (it was). The disadvantage was our hotel was quite a ways out of the city. We had to take a shuttle van from the hotel to the airport (free at least), then take a little shuttle train from the airport to the main rail line, then ride the train for about 20-30 minutes into Paris. At the time it really didn't seem like it took that long, but the total journey from hotel to Paris or Paris to hotel took about 45 minutes to an hour. Inconvenient. But. What can ya do.

We found our hotel and got settled (and I must say, for the first journey of getting on the right train, finding the airport train, then getting our hotel shuttle, we did well). We got some lunch at the hotel (another advantage of the Hilton - a restaurant and bar right there), and then headed back into the city. I decided an easy place to start (based on the train) was Notre Dame. As I've said before, I'm big into seeing Europe's amazing churches. This one definitely made it into my top 4 (which, if you're curious are, in no particular order St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Koln Cathedral, the Siena Cathedral, and Notre Dame). Gorgeous. No other words. HUGE. Absolutely huge. After walking through the inside we walked all along the outer perimeter. There is no detail which was forgotten when this was built. Notre Dame is celebrating its 850th birthday - but we were too early to see any of the festivities for it.

After Notre Dame we decided to walk to the Louvre. Noelle, in her own words, isn't a museum person. Which I understand. I told her the only museum we were going to take her to was the Louvre because you can't go to Paris and NOT see the Mona Lisa. We walked from Notre Dame to the Louvre. it should have been a straight shot... but... we got a little lost. Well, not lost... just took a few wrong turns. But that's okay because we got to see more of Paris. So beautiful!

We made our way to the Louvre and stood in line. As we were standing there my mom, calm as can be I might add, turns to me and says, "That's Neil Diamond. Right there." I asked her if she was sure (it did look like him, but I mean, come on, really?), and she told me to listen to him talk. Sure enough, it was his voice. No mistaking it. I wanted I (for my mom's sake - she's a huge fan) to say something or ask for an autograph... but instead we just let him be a tourist like the rest of us. Noelle did take a photo with her phone where he is in the background behind us... but I'm pretty sure we'd be the only people to know it is the side of his face/head. SIGH.

We went through the Louvre and did wander a bit to look at things... but our main focus was to see the two major pieces everyone wants to see: the Mona Lisa and the Venus Di Milo. We saw them both. Mission accomplished. Mom said she was a bit disappointed in the size of the Mona Lisa. I already knew it would be smaller from other people who had seen it and told me...

We left the Louvre and it was starting to get dark. We walked towards a large ferris wheel (which we had seen earlier in the day, but now it was lit up). I really want to go for a spin on the wheel because I thought it would be a great way to see the city, but my mom refused. She said Noelle and I could go for a ride, but she wasn't going to. I wasn't about to leave her standing alone in the dark... so we kept on walking. As we passed the ferris wheel I could see little stands lining the street ahead. The Paris Christmas market! We had found it! We spent most of the evening wandering up one side of the street and down the other - the market was huge! We had some Gluwein, Mom had her first waffle with Nutella, and Noelle had french friends with mayonnaise. I was a bit disappointed in this Christmas Market as it was very repetative - the types of stands simply repeated themselves over and over in a set pattern. But. They did have some amazing Christmas decorations.

After the market we started to wander around more - it was fully dark at this point and things were starting to light up. We wandered and took pictures... and then decided to head back to the hotel. We were on the train (we found a station and got on the right one - yahoo!) when suddenly they made an announcement about something, and the train stop we needed to get off at was listed. A bunch of people got off the train. I decided we should too. So, got off the train, went to an information booth, and discovered someone had left a bag at the station we wanted to get off at, so no trains were stopping there (possible security problem/bomb threat). We were told to go outside and take a bus to a certain point, then we'd be able to get back on the train. We waited in the cold for about 20 minutes for this bus. When the bus got there it was CRAMMED full of people. We barely had any room to breathe. I'm assuming the bus was so full because of the problem with the train. We rode the bus for about 10 stops and got off where we had been told to. But... we couldn't see the train station. We were no where near a train station. So. We started walking. We had no idea where we were suppose to go, or what direction this train station was in. My mom suggested asking someone, which I wanted to, but I wanted to pick the "right" person to ask (someone who looked friendly, business-like who most likely would speak some English and wouldn't want to mess with us). Somehow in our wanderings we stumbled upon the train station (miraculously). However, the station was still closed for security reasons. At this point I started to look for a taxi to just take us the rest of the way... but didn't find one. FINALLY the train station opened and we were able to get to the airport and to our hotel. It only took two hours. After that experience we decided to have some wine at the hotel bar. What a first day.

In the morning there were still some security issues - we weren't allowed to board the train at the airport. Instead we were told to take a bus to a specific train station. Luckily this bus dropped us off directly at said train station and we didn't have to wander around trying to find it. Our time on our second day was a bit limited because we had our tour that evening, so we decided to do a hop-on-hop-off tour bus. It worked out perfectly. We were able to see around the city, get some history, understand the layout a bit better. We also we were able to decide what we'd like to do the next day. After our bus tour, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our night out. This is another time where our hotel's location kind of shot us in the foot. We needed to have enough time to get back to the hotel, change and get ready, and then make it back into the city for our tour. Which ate up a big chunk of the day.

However, we were off back into the city anxious for our night of dinner at the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge show. We were suppose to meet at a specific business in the city. The business suggested three close metro stops. We took the metro to a specific stop, got off... and then tried our best to find our way. I had brought my GPS to try and help. It didn't help. We ended up walked quite a few blocks in the wrong direction. We eventually found the right place, but I was quite annoyed - mainly with myself. I felt like it was my job to get us to the right places on time, and it all depended on me... and well, all I seemed to do was get us lost. It's a lot of stress to be the severely near-sighted leading the blind.

When we got checked in we were told we were booked to see the 9 PM Moulin Rouge show (there are shows at 9 or 11). Seeing the earlier show meant that we would have to do the river cruise at another time on our own. I was prepared for this because they warned me of it when I booked the tour (which is why I booked the tour on the second day so we'd have another day to make up the cruise if needed). As it was, this worked out perfectly. We were bussed to the Eiffel Tower and taken up to the first level where we had dinner. At dinner we shared our table with a young girl from Australia who was quite fun to talk to. I thought dinner was amazing. My mom and Noelle were a bit more unsure. Our first course was raw salmon (which was delicious). I have to give them credit, Mom and Noelle ate it without much fuss. During dinner we had some great views of the city and were able to see what it's like when the lights go off (twinkle) from the inside. After dinner we went back out to the bus and were taken to the Moulin Rouge with barely enough time. We were only seated maybe 5 minutes when the show started. If there was ever a definition of "nose bleed" seats, we definitely had them... but, despite sitting at the very last table in the back, we still had a good view of the stage and the show. The show was AMAZING. Simply amazing. I didn't understand a single word of the French singing, and yes, the women basically danced around topless wearing a glitter G-string... and it was still just fabulous. A great show. At one point in time a pool rose up onto the stage, and there were snakes swimming around in the pool. A girl jumped into the pool (essentially naked) to swim and dance with these snakes. Ohhhh man talk about creepy yet awesome. After the show we took a taxi back to the hotel as I didn't want to put ourselves at risk taking the metro at night. Our taxi ride was surprisingly easy and cheaper than I had thought it would be. It was an amazing night.

The next morning we agreed our first priority of the day was shopping. We went back to the Avenue des Champes Elysees, which is where the Christmas Market was. We had noticed tons of shops around there the previous day. I find it amazing that you can walk only two blocks yet still make it into so many stores. We had a late lunch at a little Italian sidewalk cafe. Noelle had her first real Italian pizza. I had told her she would eat the whole thing, and I was right. Ha ha. After our shopping we decided to go back to the Eiffel Tower to take some pictures. We wandered around the area, took pictures, and then I made my mom and Noelle have a crepe with Nutella. You can't go to Europe - especially Paris - and not have a crepe with Nutella. Noelle was a bit skeptical, but she agreed it was delicious. After our snack, we decided to take our river cruise. It was close to 5 PM and it was getting dark. The cruise took about an hour. We didn't exactly see anything we hadn't already seen... but it was neat to see everything at night all lit up. When our boat got back we were just in time to see the Eiffel Tower's lights doing their "show." Such a beautiful sight. After that we called it a night - we were pooped.

The next morning we got all of our stuff packed up - our train was leaving at 1 PM. We decided to just head to the train station - we couldn't really thing of anything we wanted to do last minute, and we wanted to make sure we were there on time to leave. When we got the train station we had plenty of time to kill, so Noelle and I wandered around shopping while my mom enjoyed a cup of coffee. Our train arrived, we got on, and thought we were heading home. About a half hour into our journey, they made an announcement. They said it first in German, then in French before repeating it a third time in English. There was something wrong with the track ahead - a blockage? - so we were going to be parked in Lorraine, France for an undisclosed amount of time. My reaction to this was one of whatever. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it. A few minutes later they came back on saying we'd be re-directed... and the train would not be stopping at the stop we needed. Hmmm. Okay. We were informed that we would get off at the first stop the train came to, and we'd have to catch another train to another spot, then another train to get back to our stop. JOY. But again, nothing I could do about it. We were suppose to arrive at our train station originally at 3:30. We got to the new detoured station around 4:40. We got sandwiches and figured out where to go... and got on our next train, which we road for about 50 minutes. We then changed trains for another 30 minute ride to the station we needed. We arrived around 6:30.

At this point my nerves were beyond shot. I was stressed by the whole situation because I didn't have control over it, and (like so many other situations I find myself in) I didn't have the communication skills I needed. So I was stressing about getting all of us back to the right spot (because clearly I was in charge... the near sighted leading the blind) and I really had no clue what I was doing. I was just trying to get us to the right spot... faking it til we made it. At one point in time I really lost my temper with my mom. We were waiting to get off the train at our detour station when they made an announcement - first in German, then in French. There was a pause before they began to repeat the announcement in English, and my mom said, "What did they say?!" To which I responded, "I don't know, I don't speak French!!!" Which, I do feel bad that I snapped at her. I do. (Sorry Mom). But... honestly. I don't speak anything but English. She had a better chance of understanding the explanation in German than I did of understanding anything. I got annoyed a few times in Paris with her as well because she would ask if we were on the right train or going to the right place or in the right direction. Now, I may not have a clue where I'm going (I'll be the first to admit that), but I certainly have more of a clue than she did. Why are you questioning your (slightly lost and incompetent but nonetheless) leader? Noelle just chuckled through all of this saying she completely understood because her mom is the same way (she is. Sisters). At one point in Paris Noelle asked me if we were on the right train, to which I said, "Noelle. Your Claassen is showing."

But. At the end of the day all frustration and annoyances aside, we made it back to the right train station and made it back to my house. My final verdict: I really liked Paris. I have heard (as I'm sure many other people have) that the French are rude. I didn't find that to be true. Not as many French can speak English, so there is a bit of a greater communication barrier. Europeans in general seem to be, how do I put this, a bit more blunt than Americans. They are more like, "Yes, what do you want, what to do you need? Hurry up and tell me." That's just how they are, and it's not that they are rude or trying to be rude... they just... are blunt and maybe don't have the time to beat around the bush. I liked the sights in Paris. I want to go back because (as always) there is so much more to see that we didn't have a chance to see. I'd really like to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I want to go to the Orsay Museum. I'd like to see Napoleon's Tomb and maybe actually go up to the Arch des Triumph. Good thing Josh will need to go to Paris. I think, and I hope, Mom and Noelle enjoyed Paris. I know for Mom it was a once in a lifetime thing as my dad has no desire to go to Paris. For Noelle, well, maybe it was a once in a lifetime experience. I hope they enjoyed it.

Brussels Beer Tour

And now for part two of Mom and Noelle's trip.

After receiving our apology cakes on the day after Thanksgiving, we made our way to Cochem for the Christmas market. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone by going to Cochem - we could see a castle and go to a Christmas Market. The castle was easy (and nice) to see, but the Christmas Market was not what I was thinking of. There was only six tiny booths, and well, it was generally tiny. Not exactly what I had in mind. Not how I wanted to show off Christmas Markets. We did enjoy a traditional brat and french fries. Luckily everyone was content to just head home and hang out for the rest of the day.

The next morning we were up and driving to Belgium to catch our train to Brussels. I am so glad we used the train. It took us just about an hour to make it to the town we were going to leave from. We got parked, hopped on our train, and were in Brussels in about an hour and 20 minutes. There was no fighting with traffic (which we had done on our previous trip to Brussels), and the stress level was low. I was also able to find us a much nicer hotel closer to everything since I wasn't having to worry about finding a hotel with parking.

We got checked into our hotel and then went off in search of some lunch before our tour started. We wandered through the shopping district, which I didn't have a chance to see on my last trip to Brussels. I wish we had more time to get some shopping done while we were there. After lunch we had enough time to show Mom and Noelle some of the major tourist spots before our tour started.

I was really looking forward to our beer tour. I was hoping it was everything people said it would be online. All the reviews for it were positive. We met up with the tour guide and the other tour participants outside of a chocolate store and got started. The tour was pretty small, there was under 10 of us. The tour guide took us to four different bars, and though they were in the touristy area, they were definitely off the beaten path. They were bars we would have never found on our own. It was interesting because two of the bars we went to were old, and our tour guide told us some of the history about the bars. One of the bars was the oldest bar in all of Brussels. What I found interesting was this bar is located right by one of the most popular tourist bars in Brussels, yet we would have never found it without our tour guide. We didn't get full sized beers, but rather 0.2 liter "taster" beers, which I thought was good because I didn't want to be sloshed after the third beer. Each beer was different - some of the beers were fruity and light, others were darker. I have to say, I really liked all of the beers we tried, and none of them were beers I would have ordered on my own. My favorite was this cherry beer - something I would have never ordered. It was sweet, which I was surprised by, but still very refreshing.

All of us (Josh, Mom, Noelle, and myself) had a great time. In fact by the end of the evening, we were ALL (as in the whole tour) having a great time. Everyone on the tour (minus the tour guide) was pretty tuned up. The last bar we went to was modern and was playing popular dance music. The beer tour quickly evaporated into a beer fueled dance party. Which was highly amusing for me, and I'm sure even more amusing for any patrons of the bar.

The night ended with our tour continuing (unofficially) at another bar... then finally for a late dinner at  restaurant our tour guide took us to. We made it back to our hotel and I believe we all slept quite well that night. I believe everyone really enjoyed themselves. I think it was just what I was hoping it would be. It made for a fun introduction to Brussels.

The next morning we got up and were trying to decide what to do for the morning. We had pretty much done all the touristy things the day before, and the only thing Noelle and my mom were interested in doing was shopping. In true European fashion, everything was closed as it was Sunday. So we had a quick brunch at the train station and caught a train back to our car. Sunday was Josh's birthday. When we got home, he opened his presents and we went out to dinner. Luckily I didn't have to worry about making him a birthday cake as we already had three cakes at our house. The day was quiet, but I think he enjoyed his birthday.

We spent most of the evening preparing to leave for Paris the next morning. Our train was leaving at 7:15, and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the train station and get parked, so we were planning to leave the house at 5. Which for me meant getting up at 3. Maybe it was the anticipation of the trip ahead, or just knowing my alarm was going to go off so early, or knowing we were about to leave for Paris (PARIS!)... but I swear I didn't sleep at all that night. When my alarm went off I was dead tired... but so excited for the adventure to come.