Driving

A new step in our adventure this week was getting a rental car on Monday.  I wasn't really worried about the driving (same side of the road this time, and most of the signs are familiar from previous Europe experience) so much as I was about the navigation, lol.  You may know that I have a fairly terrible sense of direction, especially in new places.  Lucky for me, I have a husband with an excellent sense of direction, plus a Garmin and an iPhone! :-)

We ended up with a cute little European-model rental car which has 4 doors but is only slightly bigger than my Mini, so I'm pretty comfortable driving it.  It makes me laugh every time I turn it on, because it greets me in German!

It also says goodbye when I turn it off:

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit another base in Germany with a couple co-workers.  It was a long drive, but because of a traffic jam on the highway, we got to detour through some beautiful little German towns.  It was raining, so pictures would not have come out, but those little towns make me so happy I wanted to bounce up and down in my seat.  Maybe because they remind me of England and it feels like home?

We had lunch at a German restaurant on the base, which appeared to be very popular because the line went all the way from the counter to the entrance.  The menu was a list in German posted above the counter, with no descriptions or pictures.  I only recognized a word here and there, but as people walked past me from the counter, I noticed that about 75% of them were carrying the same thing.  I figured that meant it had to be good, so that is what I ordered!

That is a schnitzel with two eggs on top.  It was good, but I was reminded (hope this doesn't get me kicked out of Germany) that I'm actually not a big fan of schnitzel.  No offense meant to the Germans, they make plenty of other things I am very happy about! (Spatzle, pretzels, flammkuchen... did I mention spatzle?) ;-)

On the way back, we hit a lot more traffic but didn't have any good detour options.  I quickly found an excellent way to pass the time, though, when one of my co-workers pointed out some various country license plates.  Of course I turned it into a game and tried to count as many countries as possible!  They started adding up quickly, and I actually had to make a list on my phone to keep track.  I was amazed by the time we got home, I had counted 21 different country license plates!  Here is the list:

Germany

Netherlands 

Poland

France

England 

Romania

Hungary

Belgium

Slovenia

Cyprus

Czech Republic 

Italy

Macedonia

Austria

Lithuania 

Slovakia

Turkey

Albania 

Spain

Serbia

Switzerland 

Isn't that crazy?  It makes me feel like I have a lot of traveling to do! :-)

Neroberg

We had so much fun on Saturday!  Martin was happy that I let him sleep in, then we met Kaitlyn and Sean for lunch in downtown Wiesbaden.  I had another Flammkuchen, with bacon this time, and it was excellent.  I won't bore you with a picture of it because I have a lot of better pictures for this post, lol.

The adventure of the day was a trip up the Nerobergbahn, a funicular railway up a large hill on the edge of the city.  Since the official site is in German, I'll link you the Wikipedia page for more details on how it works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerobergbahn  Essentially, there are two cars, and the top one is filled with water to make it heavier.  It travels down the mountain and pulls the opposite car up.  Here is the car at the bottom before we boarded:

When we got off at the top, the view was incredible!  Photographer credit to Martin for this gorgeous panoramic:

My favorite part of the view was all of the beautiful old houses we could see.  This kind of architecture is one of my favorite things about Europe, and one of the things that makes me the most sad about being forced to live on base.  If by some miracle we get an exception to live in the community, I'd take any of these in front! ;-)

After checking out the view, we explored further along the hilltop.  I found a giant log, and of course had to climb on it (this should not surprise any of you who know me...)

Probably the most notable attraction on the hill is the Russian Orthodox church with huge golden towers.  It was built in the mid-1800s when a duke married a Russian princess and she died giving birth to their first child.  He built the church over her grave and named it after her.  For more details on the church, you can look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Elizabeth%27s_Church,_Wiesbaden

Someone had told me there was a pool on the hill, but when we stumbled upon it, it was much more impressive than your average pool!  The Opelbad (translates as "oil bath", but I'm fairly sure it is actually water) is a HUGE long rectangular pool overlooking the whole town of Wiesbaden.  It was a fairly warm day, and I wished I had brought my bathing suit to jump in!  This will definitely warrant a return trip to get in the water.

I love how green Germany is, especially all the beautiful trees that frame the roads and this railway.  Definitely didn't have scenes like this in Tucson!

Finally, here are a couple more pictures of the trip down the railway: one of us passing the second car on its way up, and then approaching the station at the bottom.  It was a really cool little system, will definitely have to take my dad on it when he visits!

 

Wiesbaden Tour

Earlier this week, Martin and I went on a base-sponsored walking tour of Wiesbaden, and learned a lot about the city and German culture.  The wine fest was still going, and even though we couldn't drink during duty hours, we got to enjoy some great food!  I decided to try my first German sausage, appropriately named the Wiesbadener Bratwurst.  It was really good!

We learned about the history of Wiesbaden as a spa town, and that there are hot springs you can visit and bathe in.  There are also fountains like the one below in a beautiful public gazebo with mineral water running from the springs for people to bring their own cups and drink.  I didn't have a cup, but I couldn't resist sticking my finger under the stream of water - it was REALLY hot!

In addition to its history as a spa town, Wiesbaden also has a casino!  It is called the Kurhaus and is one of the central buildings in downtown.  We walked along the long grassy mall and checked out the lobby (couldn't go in the gaming area, haha) and looked out at the huge gardens behind it.

It was really cloudy and a bit breezy the day of the tour, but it has only really rained one day since we've been here.  The temperature is definitely an adjustment from Tucson... Martin is loving it, but I'm thinking I should have packed more warm clothes!

The tour ended with a visit to the train station so we could get an idea of where we could go and how easy it was to use - we can't wait to get started!   Martin and I decided to stay downtown after the tour instead of going right back to base, and we had dinner on this pretty street.

I tried something I had seen advertised at the wine fest: a Flammkuchen.  It is like a very flat pizza on a thin, almost flaky base.  The most traditional toppings seem to be bacon and onions, but since I'm not an onion fan, I ordered one with spinach and balkan cheese.  It was great!  I will definitely add that to the "eat again" list. :-)

This weekend, we are planning to ride an old railway up a mountain with Kaitlyn and Sean - can't wait!

Wiesbaden Wine Fest

Yesterday was a lot of fun!  Martin and I went running in the morning and I found a really pretty neighborhood right across the way from our hotel.  It has nice shady tree-lined streets (SO different than Tucson!) with lots of houses and apartment buildings.  I didn't have my phone while running so no pictures, but maybe I'll take it on a stroll over there sometime.

Kaitlyn and Sean met us at the hotel and we walked to the bus stop so Martin and I could learn about the bus system.  It's really easy because you do it all through an app on your phone; you can buy tickets, see routes and times, even overlay the bus route on a Google map background.  We rode the bus to downtown Wiesbaden and walked around for a bit before eating brunch and going to the wine fest.  Wiesbaden is such a beautiful city!  Here's what we saw when we got off the bus:

It's SO exciting to be back in Europe!  There's so much that feels the same as England, but there's also a lot that is different.  I've definitely realized I need to up my German knowledge... I started learning with an app called Duolingo a few months ago, and I was good for a while about doing it every day, but with all of the packing and moving and traveling in the last month, I really let it go.  I'm re-dedicating myself to working on it daily, and I'm planning to sign up for a German course on base.

So back to the Wine Fest... it was basically a ton of tents and booths set up all around the main town square area and each one had a list of wines you could sample.  Here is a picture of the tents, and Martin and I sampling some wine. :-)

As I mentioned before, the soft pretzels here are amazing, and I discovered yesterday that they come in all different sizes!  No joke, I saw a woman walking around with a giant pretzel hanging from her arm like a purse.  It looked exactly like the sign on this store:

We took a break from wine sampling to visit a cuckoo clock store, which happens to boast the largest cuckoo clock in Germany.  The entire front outside wall is essentially a cuckoo clock.  It was a really great store with a lot of potential German Christmas gifts... so I'll leave out the details to maintain the element of surprise. ;-)

I'll end with a beautiful view of the church towers when the sun came out in the afternoon.  Love this place so far and can't wait to explore more!

 

We're in Germany!

So I'm just going to say it... I'm a bad US blogger.  Don't get me wrong, I love the US and I'm proud to be an American, but maybe being overseas just inspires me to write more?  Anyway, I decided to start Round 3 of Heidi's Big Adventure!  If you're just joining me, Round 1 was England in 2009-2012, and Round 2 was Kuwait in 2013-2014.  I can't promise how often I'll post, but the main idea is to share my overseas adventures with family and friends who want more detail than the occasional Facebook post.

So here we are in Germany!  Martin and I are both assigned to an Army post in Wiesbaden, just south of Frankfurt.  We arrived on Wednesday and checked into a hotel while we wait for housing to become available.  Unfortunately the post commander has a policy that everyone has to live on the base unless housing is full.  We were very disappointed to hear this, since we loved living in the British community so much in England, but being sad about it won't change anything so I am choosing to just be happy we are in Germany!  Our hotel is very European-style, with bright colors and two floors within the room (stairs lead to the bed on the second floor).

One of many things I love about Europe... funny signs!  Check out this one in our hotel...

We are lucky to have amazing sponsors, Sean and Kaitlyn, who have helped us with pretty much everything since arriving here.  They have fed us, driven us everywhere, and even let us do laundry at their apartment!  I am so thankful for them and look forward to spending more time with them exploring Germany and beyond.  Martin and I should both get our driver's licenses next week and then a rental car so we can be a little more mobile and independent.  We just shipped our vehicles from San Diego last week, so they likely won't arrive until October.

We sampled some German food today: cheese soft pretzels from a nearby bistro for breakfast, and dinner at our hotel restaurant tonight.  The cheese pretzels were incredible... it's no joke that Germans do pretzels right!  And then for dinner I got to have my favorite German food yet: spatzle!  If you're not familiar, these are soft, squiggly noodles that taste like heaven.  I discovered them on my first visit to Germany in 2009 and have been kind of obsessed with them since, haha.

After dinner, we walked out on the fire escape to watch the sunset and were surprised by a beautiful rainbow!

Tomorrow, Sean and Kaitlyn are going to teach us how to use the bus system and we are going out to brunch and the Wiesbaden Wine Fest, which is supposed to be one of the best in Germany.  We are excited and I'm sure I'll have pictures to post!

One final note... I don't plan on posting every entry to Facebook, mostly so I don't clutter people's news feeds who aren't interested, so subscribe to my email updates (top right side of the blog) or add me to your Google reading list if you want to keep up!