I'm spending my New Years Eve morning drinking coffee, spending time with some dogs we are dog sitting, and reflecting on the new year. Once again I have been seeing a lot of posts from people discussing their New Year resolutions. Last year I had made some goals for myself - not resolutions, but generalized goals. I just re-read those goals, and I'm feeling good about the outcomes. I had wanted for Josh and I to continue traveling, and I believe we did. There was a period of time in the winter when we were preparing to move, moving, then unpacking where we did absolutely nothing. However, I feel like we made up for it after that. Another goal I had was to get more into the everyday German life - being a part of my village's celebrations, shopping at German stores. I feel I was successful in this goal. Thanks to our wonderful landlords we know when celebrations are happening and are invited. I feel much more a part of the community in this village, which makes me feel more like I am living the "German" life. I have had rousing success with shopping at German stores. I can't believe I was too intimidated to go shopping before! A final goal I had set for myself was to take things as they come, or one day at a time. I don't necessarily have to comment much on this... it is a life-long always working goal. Enough said.
Lessons learned in 2013:
1. When I plan ahead, we do more traveling.
2. Always sit at the front of the base buses when taking trips as the air conditioning only works for the first few rows of seats.
3. Just because a restaurant is advertised on a city website doesn't mean it is good.
4. There is no such thing as magic house cleaning elves. Damn.
5. Germans take their tax paying quite seriously.
6. Claim my time off at work early.
7. Cruises are an amazing moving hotel and I love them.
8. Walking tours are worth every penny.
9. If you are willing to pay the European price for gas, the destinations that can be reached greatly multiply
10. Do not feel guilty for the money spent on travel.
11. Do not feel guilty for the time you take off work.
12. Even if you travel home twice in one year you will not see everyone you want to.
13. Even when you have traveled home there are people who will not make to see you and then complain about it. (For the record... I flew across an ocean. You can come see me).
14. Life is short and opportunities are fleeting. If you don't snatch something up, someone else will.
I'm thinking about what I want for myself in 2014. A goal, or a continued goal, for 2014 is to continue traveling. I want us to make the most of our time over here and see as much as possible. I learned we do more when I have planned ahead we do more traveling. So, I just have to keep ahead looking at my calender and planning things out. Which for me is a fun hobby, so this really isn't a hard goal. I spent part of this morning making a list of possible day trips for us.
I've already got some fun plans for us in 2014. In February we are going to Barcelona for two days before our cruise - which will go to Morocco, the Canary Islands, and Malaga Spain. I am very excited about our cruise - getting out of the cold and gloom of Germany for warm weather and sunshine sounds amazing. Two things I'm exceptionally excited for in 2014: Aerosmith and Monty Python. It is like an amazing twist of fate that two of my favorite things in the whole world are going to be performing, and I got tickets to both shows. I can't explain my overwhelming excitement. Our tickets to Monty Python are in London and on a Wednesday, so we decided to turn this opportunity into a trip to England for a week. We will definitely spend time in London, but I think we will spend time in other places too. I haven't quite gotten that far yet...
Happy New Year everyone. I know for some 2013 was amazing, and for others it was a tough year full of challenges and heartache. I wish everyone a reason to celebrate today and to find joy in the last day of the year.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Christmas in Rotterdam
I decided I did not want to host Christmas this year and I wanted to spend our time off doing something or traveling. I just haven't been in the mood to host - last year was too much. I also don't want to have to rely on other people or try to work with other people's schedules. Additionally, two of my young, single guys who needed a place to go for the holidays are now back in the states, which added to my lack of desire to host. I wanted to go somewhere or do something instead of hosting, but wasn't sure what. When I was planning our trip I wasn't sure what time Josh was going to get off of work, so I wanted to pick a destination which was in close driving distance. At first I was considering Paris or Disneyland Paris, but both of those places are popular, and therefore expensive for Christmas (surprise). Josh has wanted to go to Rotterdam, The Netherlands since we got here. When he was stationed in Florida he knew someone from Rotterdam who constantly raved about how awesome her hometown was.I decided to look into Rotterdam for Christmas as it is only a three hour drive away. At first I just wanted to see what there was to do in Rotterdam, and if anything would be open on Christmas. When I was searching it appeared that Rotterdam had plenty of things going on for Christmas. One thing, which immediately caught my attention, was the Rotterdam Christmas Circus. It is a circus which has been performed at Christmas every year for forty years. Sign me up! It didn't take me long to decide I was sold on the idea of Rotterdam for Christmas. Then I found an amazing hotel deal, which sealed the deal for us. I was quite pleased with myself actually - it was a hotel deal for one of the nice, fancy high rise hotels in the city for about 1/4 of the normal price. When Josh and I travel we try to do things as cheap as possible. We don't always choose the cheapest possible option, but we have definitely stayed in some crappy hotels for the sake of the price. We usually walk or use public transportation to avoid costs. So to travel on Christmas and stay somewhere which is suppose to be not only nice but fancy is a little out of the ordinary for us. We planned to arrive in Rotterdam on Christmas Eve day and then leave on the 26th. When we arrived I was not disappointed with our hotel. It was everything I had hoped it would be. When we checked in, we were offered an upgraded room which would include breakfast and access to the "executive lounge" which would have free wi-fi and free drinks. Um, yes. Sign us up please. The upgrade was at a "cost" - and the cost made the great deal I found not as great (still a good deal, but not as good). We didn't care. Merry Christmas to us.
When I was planning our trip I figured we would arrive on Christmas Eve afternoon, wander around the city, and then have dinner. But... it was pouring down rain. As in - can hardly see outside because of the rain- raining. We spent most of the afternoon enjoying our "Executive Lounge" privileges (read: drinking free wine at 3 in the afternoon). We did venture outside for a bit - and we were surprised to see how many people were out and about shopping! It was a busy shopping afternoon! It might have been fun to shop, but I was drenched, soaked to the bone... so we got ourselves dried off, enjoyed free drinks, and waited for dinner.
I had wanted to find something fun, unique, or memorable to do for Christmas Eve dinner. I looked on the Rotterdam city website, and they suggested three different restaurants which offered special Christmas dinners. One of the restaurants suggested was the SS Rotterdam, which is a retired cruise ship turned restaurant/hotel. It was mentioned on many different Rotterdam websites, so I figured it must be good. I had made reservations for us for Christmas Eve dinner. When I looked online it appeared the restaurant wasn't too far of a walk away from our hotel. I must have read the map wrong, because the map we got from the hotel showed it to be much farther away than I originally thought. With the nasty weather, walking was out of the question, and the restaurant wasn't easily reached by the metro. So, we took a taxi - something we never do. The SS Rotterdam was interesting to walk around - a cruise ship from many years ago. We noticed the ceilings were much lower, and in many areas there were exposed pipes. Dinner, however, was horrible. Disgusting. This review is exceptionally harsh coming from Josh, because he pretty much will eat anything. I ordered roast, and it was a bad cut of meat with huge veins of fat running through it. Josh had ribs which he said tasted freezer burnt. I had thought picking a restaurant which had been listed or sponsored on city websites would have been worthwhile. It wasn't. We were both starving when we went for dinner, and I knew right away dinner was not going to be enough. We quickly decided to got back to the hotel and order some room service. Basically we spent 40 Euros on two cab rides to eat a shitty dinner only to order room service. But the room service was delicious! Ha ha.
The next morning we got up and opened presents. There were some friends and family who were kind enough to send us some gifts (my parents brought our gifts with them and my mom wrapped them). I packed them with us, so Christmas morning I sorted out our presents into two piles and we opened them. We were quite spoiled by everyone and by each other.
After the circus we went back to our hotel to relax. We enjoyed some free drinks, and then Skyped with my family. For dinner we decided to stay at the hotel instead of venturing out since our dinner the night before had gone so horribly. As it was, our dinner at the hotel was good. We relaxed for the rest of the evening. In the morning it was back to pouring down rain, which made it easy to be ready to go home. We got home in the early afternoon and got unpacked and ready to go back to work (sadly).
It was kind of weird to travel on Christmas, as I've never actually not been at home or with family for the holidays. But we enjoyed ourselves and had a lot of fun. I was worried about having nothing to do or having nothing open, but we didn't have any troubles. In fact, I am game to travel for Christmas next year. I would even be happy to go back to Rotterdam for the Christmas Circus.
Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad... and then some
I will confess, I was quite excited to write about my parent's trip and share it with everyone. Their visit went well, we saw a lot, learned new things, and had an all around good time. At the same time I've been putting off writing about their trip because I've been sad since they left and I just haven't felt up to it. Add in a six day work week, Christmas, traveling for Christmas, and then more work... well, it's a bit delayed. Oh well, better late than never.
Mom and Dad arrived the day before Thanksgiving. They were tired, but no worse for wear, and excited to be here. The first day (as is usually for our guests) was focused only on keeping them awake. After dropping things off at the house and giving them a tour of our new house (since they have only seen it in pictures), we went to base to kill some time. We went shopping, which I have to say is a pretty silly thing. We were about to go to some bigger cities with huge Christmas markets, and our BX is small. While the BX does have stuff, it doesn't have a ton of stuff, certainly nothing that exciting. They have better selection in the states. We were shopping to kill time. We also had lunch, and then went around base - our base (like a lot of Air Force bases) has "decorative" airplanes on the base... so we wandered around those. The reason we spent so much time on base was I had made surprise appointments for my parents to get massages. I thought it would be nice after a long flight (and sleeping/sitting in weird positions/angles). I think they were surprised - delightfully so. After our time on base we met Josh at home after he got off work and went out to dinner. Then it was back home to prepare to leave in the morning.
In the morning everyone got up and moving early. From our house it is suppose to be a six hour drive to Berlin, but I figured with traffic, weather, and stops it would be closer to eight hours. I was right - it took us closer to nine hours. My car is a VW Jetta - not small by European standards, and certainly big enough for the two of us. My poor car was stuffed to the gills with luggage and people. I didn't think we could fit anything more in the car (but I proved myself wrong after a week of Christmas shopping). Josh drove and my dad sat up front with him. I was content to sit in the backseat and read a book (an entire book at that), while my mom alternated reading and napping. For me it was a great nine hour drive. When we got to Berlin I was glad Josh was driving, because we drove through a majority of the city to get to our hotel. We drove past the Brandenburg Gate, which was lit up for the evening. It was beautiful to see as a passenger in the car, but since we were in a part of town which was busy and had heavy traffic I'm sure it was stressful for Josh.
I had made dinner reservations for us at the Berlin TV Tower for 6:45, and I thought us leaving the house at 8:30 would give us plenty of time to get to Berlin, get checked into the hotel, change clothes, and then make our way to the TV Tower. As it was, to get from one side of Berlin to the other took about an hour and a half. We checked into our hotel and had about five minutes to quickly change. Josh changed and went down to the front desk to figure out how to get to the TV Tower via tram (there was a tram stop right in front of the hotel). I had envisioned I would have a touch more time to get ready... We rushed to the tram stop, got on the wrong tram going in the wrong way... then finally got on the right tram, but then couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket out of the machine. There are ticket machines on the trams, but they only take coins. We didn't have enough coins for all of us. I stressed about us not having tickets for the whole ride to the TV Tower, thinking we would certainly get caught. After our dinner, I'd had enough wine I didn't care about tram tickets. As it turned out, we never actually bought tram tickets. I know, we are horrible people. But. No one else seemed to be purchasing tickets... and no one ever checked or asked for tickets. Eh well.
Dinner was fabulous. After all the stress to get there, we made it only a few minutes late and still had our reservation. The TV Tower was a neat experience. It was dark out, the city was lit up, and it was a clear night. We had a great view of the city while we ate. Berlin is suppose to have around 35 Christmas markets. From our table we could easily see about 8 of them, and they were beautiful from our viewpoint. The food was delicious, and the wine flowed freely. I read plenty of bad reviews of the TV Tower restaurant, mainly complaining about the price of the food. It was more expensive than some restaurants, but you are paying for the novelty/ambiance. I thought it made for a great Thanksgiving dinner.
The next morning we got up and got ready for the day. I had booked a walking tour for us that morning. I purposely booked the longest of the possible tours, but didn't realize it would take our whole day. Not that this was a bad thing, quite the opposite. Our walking tour was wonderful. We met our guide, Jonathan, and fellow tourists. We were a group of seven people, so it was an intimate setting. Jonathan was Jewish, and throughout the day it was interesting to hear his interpretation or slant on things. Our tour took us around the great majority of the city - the Berlin Dom, Checkpoint Charlie, the remainder of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, the Jewish Memorial, and a lot of East Berlin. To say we learned a lot is an understatement. I had a wonderful history teacher in high school who taught me well, but I feel as if I learned more on this tour than I did in all of high school. When I think about the time of the tour and how much we learned, the price per person was a bargain.
The only downfall of the day was it was COLD, and it was raining. We were able to take breaks during the tour, so we would stop to warm up and get coffee, but it was still bone-chilling. We walked (or in my case, marched. I was cold and hungry) to the Hofbrau Haus for dinner. The food was amazing, as was the beer, and we even had a polka band in lederhosen to entertain us as we ate. How German. After dinner we wandered through a Christmas market and did some shopping. Mom and I both found some special things for ourselves and as presents for others.
I had purposely left Saturday open for us to do what we wanted. We decided to go back to different areas we had seen on our walking tour to have a chance to spend more time or see things in better detail. Along the way we found multiple Christmas markets and did plenty of wandering/shopping. It was another cold day, so we also had multiple stops to have coffee and warm up. Although we'd had no plans, it was a lot of fun despite the cold.
For Sunday I had booked a tour for Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I am glad I chose to see this with a tour, because we had a tour guide who met us in Berlin, took us to the train station, got us on the right train to the right town, then led us from the train station to the camp. It was another cold, rainy, windy day - probably the coldest day on our whole trip. We had all bundled up for this tour, but it was still cold. Then again, it's really hard to complain that you are cold when you're visiting a concentration camp where the prisoners had little to no clothes, were starving, and most likely were much colder than I was. It was interesting to compare this camp to Dachau - although you can't really compare it - it's like comparing apples to oranges. They are both concentration camps, but beyond that there is no real comparison. What I found most interesting about the camp was when it was preserved (or when preservation began) it was a part of East Germany and under Soviet control. I guess it was just interesting to see what they chose to save, and what was destroyed. For example, at Dachau the crematoria was preserved. At Sachsenhausen the crematoria was destroyed, but the foundation of the building was saved and a half roof/structure thing was build over the foundation. I was a bit confused by this design/logic. There was a mortuary at Sachsenhausen, which wasn't present at Dachau, which was where "mandatory" autopsies were conducted as well as medical experimentation. This was one area where I absolutely had the creeps and didn't want to spend any more time than necessary in there. Another interesting thing our tour guide pointed out was the memorials in the camp. Instead of memorials honoring victims or showing remembrance, ti was memorials which showed the Communists rising up to defeat the Nazis. Granted, there was an entire area of Sachsenhausen which was a Soviet camp for prisoners of war... but. I still found it interesting. Haunting, sick, horrible, humbling... and interesting.
On Monday we packed up our goodies and headed to Dresden. We left early in the morning as we were not sure if we would encounter traffic or weather problems. We made it to Dresden faster than I thought we would. In fact, we were ridiculously early to check in at our hotel, but we were able to get checked in early. We dumped off our stuff, and then made our way down to the Old Town. I wanted to visit Dresden after I saw some pictures online of it. Rick Steves recommends it as a place to visit - he has some recommendations of things to do, but he mainly stresses wandering around and enjoying the sites. We spend much of our day walking through the Old Town. Dresden is beautiful! The architecture is like nothing I have seen in Germany. Dresden has many Christmas markets, which we walked through and did some shopping. I had made a reservation for us to go see the old Green Vault, which was something Rick Steves recommended. It holds some of the old "crown jewels" of Saxony. After visiting the richness of Neuschwanstein Castle and Linderhof Palace, I didn't necessarily feel the Green Vault was anything spectacular. Interesting, and lots to look at, but I guess I've seen a lot of sparkly treasures in the last few years. My mom really enjoyed her visit though, so take my opinion with a giant grain of salt. After our time in the Green Vault we found some dinner - more beer and schnitzel, the theme of the trip (a delicious theme).
The next morning we went back to the Old Town to do some more walking and shopping. We had a later morning snack of cake and coffee at a beautiful cafe next to the opera house. After our snack we joined a walking tour we had seen advertised the night before. Like the other tours we took on this trip, we learned a lot from our guide. Prior to our trip the only thing I knew about Dresden was it had been bombed heavily at the end of World War II. I benefited from the tour and learned about the beautiful architecture we'd been admiring. There is a VW factory in Dresden which provides tours, and we were planning to take a tour of the factory, but we couldn't get straight answers if the factory would be open or would have a tour that day. Instead we had an early night at the hotel preparing for our departure.
We left in the morning to head to Edelweiss in Garmish. The drive was suppose to take about five hours, and we were covering a large distance. I thought it would be a nice idea to pick a place to stop for a bit - a halfway point to get out of the car, tour around. I looked on Google maps and presented my idea and some possible stops to my parents. They picked Regensberg. Regensberg is a town which is a stop on many German river cruises, and the pictures I had seen online looked pretty. It made a good half-way stop for us. We got to Regensberg around 11 and found a parking spot. We found a city map, and then did our own abridged tour of the town. There is a beautiful cathedral and an old gated stone bridge. Regensberg reminded me of many of the medieval towns in Germany (though we've seen more of the pretty ones). We had lunch at the Christmas market - Mom and I had a bratwurst which came on a roll with horseradish, mustard, and a sweet pickle. It may sound gross to some, but believe me, it was delicious. Josh and dad had wild boar bratwursts - ugh, no thank you. I tried a bite and wasn't impressed. Regensberg made for a nice two hour break on our drive. We made it to Edelweiss at the end of what was a beautiful sunny day in Garmish. We got settled in, enjoyed some dinner, and then relaxed in the hot tub.
The next morning we woke up to beautiful, sunny skies. The snowy German alps made an amazing background. We decided to go to Oberammergau to do some shopping. I was hoping there was going to be a Christmas market in Oberammergau - I had this vision in my head of a cute, quaint little market to find some treasures. Instead, there was no market. But that didn't matter, we had a great afternoon shopping. After two and a half years in Germany, Josh and I broke down and bought a cuckoo clock. We have talked about getting one for a long time, but haven't pulled the trigger, so to speak. I don't have a reason why we waited... however, we found one we love.
That evening we took a horse-drawn carriage ride through the town of Garmish. It was dark out when we left Edelweiss, and many areas were lit up for the evening with Christmas lights. Our carriage driver told us about this history of Garmish. I never realized the town, which is small, is bigger than I thought. It was a fun experience.
The next day Josh and my dad decided to give skiing a try. Unfortunately, the entire area was socked in with fog. We could hardly see out the windows. I wasn't sure if they would be able to ski, or if the hill would even be open. It turns out the ski hill was open, but they had a difficult time skiing with the fog - they could hardly see in front of them and frequently got lost. Mom and I spent the day walking around Garmish and shopping. We went back to the hotel and spent our afternoon enjoying the view (or lack thereof with the fog) and reading in rocking chairs. We enjoyed our day, and despite the fog, I believe the boys enjoyed theirs. At least my dad can check skiing the Zugspitz off of his bucket list.
The next morning we left Garmish. We broke up our drive home by stopping at an airplane museum which we've driven past many times before. We thought it would be something my dad would enjoy. I think he enjoyed it... and it gave us some time to walk around and stretch during our drive. After we got home we had a lot of unpacking and sorting to do. The last few days of my parents' trip were spent at our house relaxing, spending time together, and organizing/packing up all of my parents' treasures. My mom wanted to spend time with her grand-kitties. It was such a wonderful time to have them here. We were able to do and see so much while still having a chance to relax and spend some quality time together. I think our trip was a huge success.
Mom and Dad arrived the day before Thanksgiving. They were tired, but no worse for wear, and excited to be here. The first day (as is usually for our guests) was focused only on keeping them awake. After dropping things off at the house and giving them a tour of our new house (since they have only seen it in pictures), we went to base to kill some time. We went shopping, which I have to say is a pretty silly thing. We were about to go to some bigger cities with huge Christmas markets, and our BX is small. While the BX does have stuff, it doesn't have a ton of stuff, certainly nothing that exciting. They have better selection in the states. We were shopping to kill time. We also had lunch, and then went around base - our base (like a lot of Air Force bases) has "decorative" airplanes on the base... so we wandered around those. The reason we spent so much time on base was I had made surprise appointments for my parents to get massages. I thought it would be nice after a long flight (and sleeping/sitting in weird positions/angles). I think they were surprised - delightfully so. After our time on base we met Josh at home after he got off work and went out to dinner. Then it was back home to prepare to leave in the morning.
In the morning everyone got up and moving early. From our house it is suppose to be a six hour drive to Berlin, but I figured with traffic, weather, and stops it would be closer to eight hours. I was right - it took us closer to nine hours. My car is a VW Jetta - not small by European standards, and certainly big enough for the two of us. My poor car was stuffed to the gills with luggage and people. I didn't think we could fit anything more in the car (but I proved myself wrong after a week of Christmas shopping). Josh drove and my dad sat up front with him. I was content to sit in the backseat and read a book (an entire book at that), while my mom alternated reading and napping. For me it was a great nine hour drive. When we got to Berlin I was glad Josh was driving, because we drove through a majority of the city to get to our hotel. We drove past the Brandenburg Gate, which was lit up for the evening. It was beautiful to see as a passenger in the car, but since we were in a part of town which was busy and had heavy traffic I'm sure it was stressful for Josh.
I had made dinner reservations for us at the Berlin TV Tower for 6:45, and I thought us leaving the house at 8:30 would give us plenty of time to get to Berlin, get checked into the hotel, change clothes, and then make our way to the TV Tower. As it was, to get from one side of Berlin to the other took about an hour and a half. We checked into our hotel and had about five minutes to quickly change. Josh changed and went down to the front desk to figure out how to get to the TV Tower via tram (there was a tram stop right in front of the hotel). I had envisioned I would have a touch more time to get ready... We rushed to the tram stop, got on the wrong tram going in the wrong way... then finally got on the right tram, but then couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket out of the machine. There are ticket machines on the trams, but they only take coins. We didn't have enough coins for all of us. I stressed about us not having tickets for the whole ride to the TV Tower, thinking we would certainly get caught. After our dinner, I'd had enough wine I didn't care about tram tickets. As it turned out, we never actually bought tram tickets. I know, we are horrible people. But. No one else seemed to be purchasing tickets... and no one ever checked or asked for tickets. Eh well.
Dinner was fabulous. After all the stress to get there, we made it only a few minutes late and still had our reservation. The TV Tower was a neat experience. It was dark out, the city was lit up, and it was a clear night. We had a great view of the city while we ate. Berlin is suppose to have around 35 Christmas markets. From our table we could easily see about 8 of them, and they were beautiful from our viewpoint. The food was delicious, and the wine flowed freely. I read plenty of bad reviews of the TV Tower restaurant, mainly complaining about the price of the food. It was more expensive than some restaurants, but you are paying for the novelty/ambiance. I thought it made for a great Thanksgiving dinner.
The next morning we got up and got ready for the day. I had booked a walking tour for us that morning. I purposely booked the longest of the possible tours, but didn't realize it would take our whole day. Not that this was a bad thing, quite the opposite. Our walking tour was wonderful. We met our guide, Jonathan, and fellow tourists. We were a group of seven people, so it was an intimate setting. Jonathan was Jewish, and throughout the day it was interesting to hear his interpretation or slant on things. Our tour took us around the great majority of the city - the Berlin Dom, Checkpoint Charlie, the remainder of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, the Jewish Memorial, and a lot of East Berlin. To say we learned a lot is an understatement. I had a wonderful history teacher in high school who taught me well, but I feel as if I learned more on this tour than I did in all of high school. When I think about the time of the tour and how much we learned, the price per person was a bargain.
I had purposely left Saturday open for us to do what we wanted. We decided to go back to different areas we had seen on our walking tour to have a chance to spend more time or see things in better detail. Along the way we found multiple Christmas markets and did plenty of wandering/shopping. It was another cold day, so we also had multiple stops to have coffee and warm up. Although we'd had no plans, it was a lot of fun despite the cold.
For Sunday I had booked a tour for Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I am glad I chose to see this with a tour, because we had a tour guide who met us in Berlin, took us to the train station, got us on the right train to the right town, then led us from the train station to the camp. It was another cold, rainy, windy day - probably the coldest day on our whole trip. We had all bundled up for this tour, but it was still cold. Then again, it's really hard to complain that you are cold when you're visiting a concentration camp where the prisoners had little to no clothes, were starving, and most likely were much colder than I was. It was interesting to compare this camp to Dachau - although you can't really compare it - it's like comparing apples to oranges. They are both concentration camps, but beyond that there is no real comparison. What I found most interesting about the camp was when it was preserved (or when preservation began) it was a part of East Germany and under Soviet control. I guess it was just interesting to see what they chose to save, and what was destroyed. For example, at Dachau the crematoria was preserved. At Sachsenhausen the crematoria was destroyed, but the foundation of the building was saved and a half roof/structure thing was build over the foundation. I was a bit confused by this design/logic. There was a mortuary at Sachsenhausen, which wasn't present at Dachau, which was where "mandatory" autopsies were conducted as well as medical experimentation. This was one area where I absolutely had the creeps and didn't want to spend any more time than necessary in there. Another interesting thing our tour guide pointed out was the memorials in the camp. Instead of memorials honoring victims or showing remembrance, ti was memorials which showed the Communists rising up to defeat the Nazis. Granted, there was an entire area of Sachsenhausen which was a Soviet camp for prisoners of war... but. I still found it interesting. Haunting, sick, horrible, humbling... and interesting.
On Monday we packed up our goodies and headed to Dresden. We left early in the morning as we were not sure if we would encounter traffic or weather problems. We made it to Dresden faster than I thought we would. In fact, we were ridiculously early to check in at our hotel, but we were able to get checked in early. We dumped off our stuff, and then made our way down to the Old Town. I wanted to visit Dresden after I saw some pictures online of it. Rick Steves recommends it as a place to visit - he has some recommendations of things to do, but he mainly stresses wandering around and enjoying the sites. We spend much of our day walking through the Old Town. Dresden is beautiful! The architecture is like nothing I have seen in Germany. Dresden has many Christmas markets, which we walked through and did some shopping. I had made a reservation for us to go see the old Green Vault, which was something Rick Steves recommended. It holds some of the old "crown jewels" of Saxony. After visiting the richness of Neuschwanstein Castle and Linderhof Palace, I didn't necessarily feel the Green Vault was anything spectacular. Interesting, and lots to look at, but I guess I've seen a lot of sparkly treasures in the last few years. My mom really enjoyed her visit though, so take my opinion with a giant grain of salt. After our time in the Green Vault we found some dinner - more beer and schnitzel, the theme of the trip (a delicious theme).
The next morning we went back to the Old Town to do some more walking and shopping. We had a later morning snack of cake and coffee at a beautiful cafe next to the opera house. After our snack we joined a walking tour we had seen advertised the night before. Like the other tours we took on this trip, we learned a lot from our guide. Prior to our trip the only thing I knew about Dresden was it had been bombed heavily at the end of World War II. I benefited from the tour and learned about the beautiful architecture we'd been admiring. There is a VW factory in Dresden which provides tours, and we were planning to take a tour of the factory, but we couldn't get straight answers if the factory would be open or would have a tour that day. Instead we had an early night at the hotel preparing for our departure.
We left in the morning to head to Edelweiss in Garmish. The drive was suppose to take about five hours, and we were covering a large distance. I thought it would be a nice idea to pick a place to stop for a bit - a halfway point to get out of the car, tour around. I looked on Google maps and presented my idea and some possible stops to my parents. They picked Regensberg. Regensberg is a town which is a stop on many German river cruises, and the pictures I had seen online looked pretty. It made a good half-way stop for us. We got to Regensberg around 11 and found a parking spot. We found a city map, and then did our own abridged tour of the town. There is a beautiful cathedral and an old gated stone bridge. Regensberg reminded me of many of the medieval towns in Germany (though we've seen more of the pretty ones). We had lunch at the Christmas market - Mom and I had a bratwurst which came on a roll with horseradish, mustard, and a sweet pickle. It may sound gross to some, but believe me, it was delicious. Josh and dad had wild boar bratwursts - ugh, no thank you. I tried a bite and wasn't impressed. Regensberg made for a nice two hour break on our drive. We made it to Edelweiss at the end of what was a beautiful sunny day in Garmish. We got settled in, enjoyed some dinner, and then relaxed in the hot tub.
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