August - where did it go?

It's almost the middle of September! I know, it's been almost a month since I posted. Somehow, I just keep forgetting to post.....

August/September was busy with three weeks of vacation.....My dad and brother came to visit! They arrived on the 20th and we took off running. We went directly from the airport in Frankfurt to Heidelberg, which is a really nice city with a castle. The next day was off to Strasbourg, France, where we saw the cathedral and ate Flammkuchen (yum, if you have the chance, try it!). Wednesday we visited Ludwigsburg. Ludwigsburg has one of the best palace tours I have been on. And the palace is surrounded by amazing gardens. The city center is also really nice and that's where we had a late lunch. That night, I dragged them along to a birthday party for one of my friends. It was really interesting, some of my friends got to test out their English skills and Dad and Andy had to test their German, because not all of my friends can speak English. (I think) A good evening was had by all! On Thursday, we checked out Stuttgart. The TV tower, which provides a good 360 view of the region from waaaay to high up, the city center (yes, they had to wait for me while I bought shoes). That evening when Marc got off of work we got in the car and drove to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Along the way, we stopped in Munich for dinner (the Hofbraeuhaus is a tourist must!) I had reserved the pension for that night online (Hotel Bavaria booked through Hostelbookers.com for 18 Euro per person!!) and we were very pleasantly suprised. As we arrived, the man who received us determined that the beds in the room we had reserved (yes, all four of us in one room!) would be too small for Andy. So, he gave us (for free, can you believe it?) a second room. The room was very clean. And the breakfast the next morning was outstanding!
Friday morning, we drove to Zugspitze and took the tram ride to the top (we went up from the Austrian side...it's less expensive). I'm afraid of heights (yes, even despite the hot air balloon ride) and this ride was quite the test....the tram was pretty swingy. But the view from up there was amazing! (I am working on uploading pictures, the upload tool is really slow.) I highly recommend the trip up there. And on the top of this mountain, you're standing on the border of Austria and Germany, which is also pretty cool.
From there, we took off for Fuessen. Along the way, we saw a fortress ruin at the top of a hill (or was it a mountain?) and thought it would be fun to go up and check it out. I think this was probably the part of the trip that my honored visitors enjoyed the least. The way was steep. The way was long. The way was not easy. But everyone powered through and we made it to the top. (Confession? The ruin wasn't that interesting. And then we found a much easier way down. Oops.) We made it to Fuessen in time to have some coffee and look around the city a little. Dinner was at a Croatian restaurant (do you know how hard it is to find an authentic German restaurant?). A little too much meat for me, but okay. We headed for the hostel. This was interesting. Not so lucky this time, but still not bad. A real backpacker hostel. Hey it was clean, there were towels and it was cheap. We all slept in bunk beds. Apparently, I was breathing too deeply, because I woke up to being hit with a T-Shirt from above....
The next day was off to Neuschwanstein, which is the castle that Disney modeled Cinderella's after. Having been there before, I recommended we not take the (unimpressive) tour. But we did walk to the top (gotta love Germany - lots and lots of walking!).
Then we headed to the Bodensee or Lake Constance. I had never been there before. It's quite lovely. We went swimming (hurray!) and then went to our hotel. Marc did good on this one...it was lovely. We went for dinner (walked there, too) at a lakeside restaurant. It was, in the words of Marc, very romantic. I have to agree that it was quite lovely. On the way back, we stopped for a while at a concert on a street corner. They were a pretty good cover band. Then it was off to bed. Marc and I got up really, really early and went for a really, really cold swim in the lake. We wanted to go to the Island Mainau, but it was so expensive, we decided not to. So we headed off for home. On the way, we stopped at the castle Hohenzollern. This was another hard trek up a mountain. Man, did we get our exercise! The tour is brief, but beautiful. Later on our way, overcome with the desire to go swimming, we stopped at another lake for a quick dip. We were so fortunate to have good weather, it didn't last too much longer. I, for one, was very tired by the time we got home on Sunday night. Monday, we went to Esslingen, which I think is such a beautiful city. (They have a really cool Middle Ages Christmas Market.) Then the boys went to the zoo and I went shopping for a few last minute things for Italy. It was home for a while, then off to one last dinner in Stuttgart. The next morning, we were on our way to the airport in Frankfurt at 6:30. I got back to Stuttgart at about 10. I packed pretty fast and it was time for Vacation part 2.
Marc and I drove about 7 hours to Lago de Garda in Italy, where his parents were camping. I slept in a tent for the second time in my life! We got in pretty late and pretty much went right to bed. We were there from Tuesday night until Friday morning. The first activity each morning? Yep, swimming! Then breakfast. On Wednesday, we were able to take the boat out twice. It was gorgeous (check the pictures on Flickr, if it ever finishes loading!) On Thursday, it rained. I played a game with Marc's dad, read and was just generally lazy until afternoon, when we headed to Verona. Yes, the Verona where Romeo and Juliet takes place. I even saw the balcony from the story. And in the alley which goes through to the walkway, there are tons and tons of love notes stuck all over the walls. It was quite romantic! We stopped in Sirmione for dinner on the way back. It's a really beautiful city. And the food was sooooo delicious! Friday, it rained again (but after our morning swim) and then the sun came out about the time we had to leave. For vacation part 3.
We headed to the Allgaeu, Allmannsreid to be exact (good luck finding it on a map - I think it only consists of five houses). A group from church had rented a house. It was a very nice house. Unfortunately, we had incorrectly thought that it was closer to Italy than it was....we ended up driving 9 hours to get there and didn't get in until almost midnight, which meant that our friends had to wait up for us (sorry guys!). On Saturday, we decided to go ride a Sommerrodelbahn (this is translated as toboggan run, it's like a sled which runs on tracks, so it can run year round). To get up there, we had to ride a ski lift. I've never ridden a ski lift before. Marc had a pretty good laugh, because the whole way up, I was rationalizing to myself that no one falls out of a ski lift, that the cables of ski lifts don't break (often), that 100s of people ride ski lifts and live to tell about it. The toboggan run was a blast! Marc and I rode together (he manned the breaks, I held on tight). I think I only screamed once. It was so much fun, we went back on Sunday. I should have enjoyed the ski lift more, this time we hiked to the top. It was far. But it was worth it to ride down again! Unfortunately, when we got to the top, there was about an hour wait. Marc was supposed to fly to Berlin that evening. Let's just cut to the chase and say that he missed his flight. He rebooked for the next morning, which saw us getting up at 4:30 to get him to the airport. I headed back to the house (about an hour's drive from the airport) and was supposed to write him an SMS that I found it. My phone woke me up at 8 - Marc had landed in Berlin and was worried, because I hadn't texted him....I had fallen asleep writing the SMS. We didn't have good weather for the time in Allgaeu, but it was fun nonetheless. We played games every evening, sang, ate (really well!), visited a cheese factory, went for a long hike. On Wednesday, we headed out at about lunchtime. On the way home, I was supposed to pick up Marc from the airport. As I was almost to the exit for the airport, my phone rang - Marc was calling, not a good sign, he should have been unable to call because he was on a plane! Yep, he had missed his flight again. I started laughing. He didn't find it so funny to be paying another change fee. He ended up flying into Stuttgart and I made it there just in time to pick him up. We went for Thai in the city and then stopped by his parents before heading home.
Vacation wasn't completely over yet. Thursday we went to an indoor water park. Unfortunately, I injured my toe. I had injured it two years ago when I was working in Anderson. Then in Italy, I hurt it again and it bled pretty good. In the pool, it just almost fell off, but didn't bleed, a pretty clear sign I had killed it. I got a bandaid from first aid and we went to the movies. We saw the Bourne Ultimatum, which was pretty good.
Friday morning, I visited a surgeon for the first time in my life. He was sooooooo nice. And yes, he did have to remove my toenail. The worst parts were the shots he had to give me. They were painful. But then nothing else hurt after that. I had to wear a slipper until today, because none of my shoes fit/it hurt too much to wear shoes. I was supposed to keep my foot up, so we didn't do much that day. Well, we did go to the outdoor store and I bought hiking pants. Marc bought hiking boots. We are well-outfitted and now that my toe has healed pretty well, I hope we'll manage to get in some good fall hikes.
Monday it was back to work. I forgot how tiring it is to work - or maybe it's the lack of naps that I'm noticing.....
It was a very wonderful amazing vacation. Dad and Andy, thanks for visiting, I'm so glad you came! I would recommend Italy to everyone - I would like to see more of it myself! And Allgaeu is always nice - even in the cold and rain.
Next vacation? December 17th -> Stateside!