European Vacation - Blogged by N8 and JME




Recently, at the end of April, JME was able to fly 13 hours to see N8 in Germany. It was right after the volcano in Iceland erupted, and we both were worried that this trip to see each other would not happen. However we were really blessed and JME's flight was one of the first flights that made it over to Europe after they closed everything down for a few days.

For the first four days while JME was adjusting to the time change, she was able to be involved in what N8 has been doing for almost the last year. She was able to volunteer in the Chaplain's Closet at the hospital. This included stocking shelves, sorting mail and donated items, and helping the wounded warriors find things they needed in the closet. It was a really neat experience for JME to be involved in something that has been so important to N8 and to share in some of his experiences there serving the patients coming in from Iraq and Afghanistan.





Thursday, the last day that JME volunteered, N8 told her he needed her help with something and brought her into the conference room where the chaplain's department was about to start their morning meeting. Before starting their meeting, Chaplain M presented JME with a certificate for the volunteer hours she put in at the Chaplain's Closet and also for her sacrificing her husband so that he could do so much there. He also gave her a coin for her service. Watching JME get recognized for all she has done made N8 get a little choked up. It was a very special experience for the two of us.



We were very lucky because we stayed in hotels for only about half of the time we were there. The rest of the time we were house sitting for a buddy of N8's (Staff Sergeant B). That ended up saving us quite a bit of money. The first couple nights we stayed in the Pfaelzer Stuben, a quaint little restaurant/hotel. We ate there the first night and had some very delicious spargel (white asparagus). Right now, the spargel in Germany is in season. Then we stayed at N8's buddy's house while he and his family were out of town. The only problem was that there wasn't any hot water for the first few days we stayed there. We had to take a couple of cold showers and even had to sneak over to the hospital during after hours so we could shower there.

Wednesday evening, one of the first evenings after volunteering, we went to the combat stress dinner where the wounded warriors talk about healthy ways to deal with their combat stress. Afterwards, we went over to the USO where there were some visitors. A bunch of cartoonists were there drawing cartoons for the wounded warriors. We were able to meet a few of them and have cartoons drawn for us. Some of the cartoonists that we met were the artists from B.C., Tundra, the creator of Kim Possible, MAD Magazine, and a couple of political cartoonists. The following pictures are with the cartoonist that created Kim Possible.







We also had a neat experience with the B.C. artist. Finding out where we are from, the cartoonist asked if we are Mormons. We told him we are and he said that he lived in New York and had Mormons coming to his property all of the time because he has a river that runs through his property that is important in the history of the LDS church. He knew a lot about church history. He knew that Joseph Smith had help from a neighbor with translating. He knew the neighbor was Martin Harris. We asked him questions about the Book of Mormon, but he didn't know much about it. JME explained to him why we have the nickname 'Mormon' and that it really isn't the name of our church, but a nickname that comes from an ancient prophet who abridged the records kept by many of the ancient prophets on the American continent. After he was finished with our cartoons, N8 went and grabbed a Book of Mormon from the chaplain's office. JME brought it to the cartoonist and thanked him for his kindness and for the cartoons. He accepted JME's offer of the Book of Mormon. He is in the picture below on the right wearing the hat. It was amazing to be able to share something that is so special to us with someone else.



On JME's last night of volunteering, Thursday night, N8 took her to see a castle that was close by. It was the Nanstein Castle. It overlooked Landstuhl. The statue you see at the top of the castle is a statue of the king that used to live there and it is to scale, so that is how big the king was.



The Landstuhl Hospital is located behind the trees on the hill just behind us. You can't see it because there are so many trees.





The trouble with taking a trip by yourselves is there is no one around to take pictures of you so you have to resort to the one arm click. You'll notice that in a lot of our pictures.

That Friday, we went to Mainz where there was a farmer's market. We bought some blood oranges and some vanilla bean honey that had a real vanilla bean in it. Then we walked around and went into a couple of cathedrals. One cathedral had been damaged during WWII and you could tell where it was rebuilt because the color of the stone didn't match the rest of the building.





We also went to the Gutenburg Museum where we were able to see three of the original bibles that had been printed on the Gutenburg printing press. Of course, we couldn't read anything in them. It was all in Old Latin. Before we left Mainz, we stopped at a little cafe and enjoyed some heisse shokolade (hot chocolate) and some pastries. N8 has been picking German back up a little after living in Germany for so long and ordered the food in German. It was pretty impressive and JME thought N8 was hot.

On Saturday, we got to join the Wounded Warriors on the Rhein River Cruise. First we started out in St. Goar where we had a breakfast of hot chocolate and cheese bread with ham pieces in the cheese. Then we boarded the cruise ship. Before doing so, however, we had to get a picture by the Ausfahrt sign. We just couldn't help ourselves.



There was a lot to see on the cruise. We passed the Loreley Rock and the Seven Virgin's (seven large rocks in the river). Both of these places have legends that go with them.

The Loreley legend is about a beautiful woman who was at the top of this steep rock and she was brushing her locks of golden curls and sang as she did so. Some sailors close by heard her sing and it was so mesmerizing that they crashed into the steep rock and they all died. Because of their death, mighty armies came to take the woman and put her to death, but before they could reach her, a giant wave came up and swept her away. (There are many versions of this story, but that is the one they told us on the tour.)



Along the banks of the river were many beautiful castles and cathedrals. The architecture was charming, even in the little houses and shops. The following are a few of the pictures we took while we went along.









We even had the opportunity of steering the ship for awhile! They have really short sailors in Germany.





After we were done on the cruise, we had lunch at a little restaurant in Rudesheim. We had schnitzel, soup, salad, and dessert. We took a little detour after that to see the German's equivalent of our Statue of Liberty.



Their 'Statue of Liberty' sits up on a mountain side. This is the view from the memorial there.



After visiting that monument, we went back to Rudesheim for some time to shop. There were a bunch of shops lining the river. We went into a chocolate shop and we were offered a sample of chocolate. JME started to grab one, but N8, being the quick thinker that he is, stopped JME and asked if the chocolate had liquor in it. It did and would have burned pretty good going down. It's a good thing JME keeps N8 around.

We went down an alley way that looked like it could be Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books. It was really narrow with shops on both sides. We stopped at a shop and had some very good desert. N8 had the spaghetti ice cream and JME had the slice of cake. The dessert there is so good. JME might be in trouble if she had to be in Germany for more than two weeks.





While sitting on a bench and waiting for our bus to pick us up, a nice older lady came by and started talking to both of us in German. We could tell by her body language that she wanted us to scoot to the end of the bench so that she could sit down also, but we couldn't understand most of the rest. After we scooted and she sat down, she continued to speak to us in German for a couple more minutes. It is common for the German people to mistake people that have light complexions and blue eyes to be German also. A lot of people mistook us for locals.

Sunday was spent in town. It was a simple day and we just enjoyed our time together. We did go to the Canada House in the evening where the Canadian chaplains live. They invited us to a get together there. We had a great time. There was an English patient from the hospital who had a bilateral leg amputation. He joined in their game of croquet and won second place. He was such a happy person and had the best attitude, even though he had just lost both of his legs.

Monday morning we decided to sleep in, but we were awakened by Staff Sargent B's landlord. He was there to fix the water. Yay! No more cold showers. Then, off we went to see the country. We stopped and ate lunch at a place close to the hospital called Salvatore's. It is an authentic Italian restaurant and it is really good. We were both stuffed silly by the time we left. That was okay, though, because we had plenty of time to digest. We had a bit of a drive ahead of us as we headed to Metz, France. The drive was beautiful and the scenery was amazing. This is a lot of what we saw in France on the way to Metz.





The yellow fields that are in the pictures above were everywhere. Sometimes it looked as though God took a quilt of yellow, green, and brown squares and just laid it over the hillsides. The yellow fields are fields of flowers called Rep. Rep is used for their vegatable oil and also to feed their livestock during the winter to keep them warm.

This is a cathedral that we saw in Metz, France.



The next two pictures are of the inside of the cathedral.





This cathedral was JME's favorite cathedral that we visited the entire time in Europe. We could not go in but we were able to walk around the grounds, which had a lot of trees and grass. There were pigeons and ducks and a swan that we saw. We enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and the chance to be with one another. While we were there, it dawned on us that we were together . . . in France. It was the weirdest feeling. Who would have thought we would ever have the chance to visit France?









On Tuesday, we drove two hours from Landstuhl to Belgium.



This was an amazing experience for JME. Her dad served a two-year LDS mission in Belgium and it was such a special experience for her to visit a country that she has heard about since she was a child and that is so special to her because her dad served there.

We went to a city called Bastogne. It was a city that was attacked by the Germans during WWII, just after being liberated in 1944. On December 16, taking advantage of the cold and the fog, the German artillery started the so-called Battle of the Bulge by attacking the sparsely deployed American troops around Bastogne. A few days later, Brigadier General McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne Division along with elements of the 10th Armored Division (United States) arrived to counter-attack but, after heavy fighting, became encircled within the city. On December 22, German emissaries asked for the American surrender, to which the General answered quite briefly, “Nuts!” The next day, the weather cleared up, allowing air retaliation and the parachuting of much needed food, medicine, and weaponry. On December 26, the troops of General Patton broke the deadlock. The official end of the Battle of Bastogne only occurred three weeks later, when all fighting finally stopped. There is a lot of merchandise in Bastogne in tourist shops that say "Nuts, Blood, and Guts."





JME wore her capris to Bastogne since it was the first part of May, and although her time in Germany was a little cold and rainy, it wasn't that bad. However, getting out of the car in Bastogne was a hard thing for her. It felt like the middle of winter. It was freezing!!! After walking a little ways, we went into a little shop and got some hot chocolate and a Belgium waffle to warm up.



Then N8 took JME on the very first part of the Battle of the Buldge march that he had gone on back in December. It was just a very small part, but the walk warmed JME up a bit. We passed an old train station and JME got to see the werewolf that N8 got his picture taken by back in December. It was fun for her to see the same places and see some of the things that N8's been able to see.





We even made a new friend along the trail. I wonder where he was off to? (What does a slug say when he is riding on the back of a turtle? "Weeeeeeeee!!!!!!")



On the way back to Landstuhl we passed through Luxembourg. N8 was going to try to find where Gen. Patton was buried. The traffic there was so awful, however, that we decided to bag it and go home.



This is N8 after we left Luxembourg and got back on the autobahn.



Wednesday was an incredibly sobering day. We went to a little town called Dachau.




In May 1913, a man called Adolf Hitler arrived in the Bavarian capital, Munich. He came from Vienna with all his belongings in a single suitcase. In the following months, he made a living selling self-painted postcards to tourists. After he had served as a volunteer in the German army during WWI from 1914-1918, he joined the German Workers' Party, a small right wing group, in September 1919.



A short time later, he took over the leadership of the Party and the name was changed to The National Socialist German Workers Party. After a violent failed attempt to seize power in November 1923, he finally became Chancellor of the German Reich in January 1933, and subsequently one of the most powerful dictators in history.


(This sign on the gate says 'Arbeit Macht Frei' - Work Will Make You Free or Freedom through Work)

Less than 2 months later, the concentration camp near Dachau was opened. This turned out to be the beginning of a system that spread out into many other parts of Europe over the next 12 years; a system used by the Nazis through the tyrannical methods of the SS to torture and murder millions of innocent people. Dachau became the model for other camps. It was also the training center for the SS, where recruits were indoctrinated into a system which encouraged the torture, humiliation, and killing of prisoners.











We visited this camp only a few days after its 65th anniversary of being liberated. Because of this, there were flowers and wreaths everywhere.



There were also monuments made for those who had died or suffered here.



There were some places at this camp that we were not able to take pictures of, not because it was not allowed, but just because of the strong feelings we felt there. One of those places was in the showers where so many had been murdered. We first walked into the instruction room where the prisoners were notified they were going to be given a shower. Next, we went into a room where they had to take off all of their clothes and leave them on the floor. The next room was the shower room. Although we were the only ones in the room, it felt crowded. It was such a sad, strange feeling. That room held such a real feeling that evil had happened there and that so many spirits had been torn from this earth before their time. It was not a room that we were able to stay in for very long. The next room was where they piled up the bodies to await cremation. The last room was the crematorium. This is where they burned the bodies of those who died in the showers or in the camp. Sometimes, they would even take a person and hang that person right in front of the oven, and when they were dead, they would just put them in. Many medical experiments were done at this camp on the prisoners. The experiments were torturous as well and ended in death.



We traveled to Munich after visiting the camp. We stayed right in the city and after dropping off our bags in our room, we walked through the town square to the Hard Rock Cafe (N8's favorite place to eat). We enjoyed good food, good music, and some fun shopping.



While walking to the Hard Rock Cafe and on the way back we stopped in a little square that had the world's largest glockenspiel at the New Town Hall in Munich. We didn't get to hear it chime but it was still quite a sight to see.





Earlier we had seen a picture of Munich while we were at the Dachau Concentration Camp. It was a picture of the town square with Hitler standing in a crowd. It was so weird to be standing in that very spot, knowing that we had seen a picture of this place in the musuem at Dachau. It was like looking through a history book and picking out a picture and then jumping in, kind of like on Mary Poppins.

Thursday morning, we got up, had breakfast at our hotel, and drove just about an hour to where the famous Fairy Tale Castles are. The first one we visited was called Hauenschwangau. It was a very rainy day and so we dressed warm. It was a bit of a hike to get up to the Hauenschwangau castle, and by the time we got up to the top, it was too warm and we had to take off our hats and unzip our coats. The grounds were very beautiful with fountains and gardens everywhere.





This is the view of the Neuschwanstein Castle from Hauenschwangau. The Neuschwanstein Castle is the inspiration that Walt Disney had for the Cinderella castle at Disneyland.



We hiked down from the Hauenschwangau castle the back way. As you can tell, all of our climbing up and down that hill has left us pretty warmed up. JME is not as bundled up as she was before.





The hike to Neuschwanstein was even tougher than the one to Hauenschwangau. There were horse-drawn carriages that would bring people up to the top of the hill for 6 euro a person, but we were tough and walked up all by ourselves. We were glad we did because it was quite a beautiful hike, even in the rain.



The mountains and the valley reminded us of home.



The castle was really cool. We didn't go inside but stayed outside and explored the area. It was pretty cool and the rain made the day even more gorgeous.









There were also many trails that you could climb. One of the trails we went on led up to a bridge that crossed over a waterfall. On our way there, we had a good veiw of the Hauenschwangau Castle.



We finally got to the bridge, and made a few feeble attempts at trying to get us both in a picture with the castle in the background.





Finally, we had some nice people from Hong Kong take our picture for us. They sure know how to work a camera.




The bridge was a little wobbly and made both of us nervous. Not that we are scared of heights or anything. This is the view looking straight down.



On our way back down the mountain, we smelled an amazing aroma coming from a little stand on the side of the trail. We went to investigate and found that they were selling these amazing cream cheese balls. I don't know how they were made but they were like a donut hole that was about as big as a tennis ball. They were fried up and the inside of them were super moist and light. It was heaven in Germany. Then, back on the trail, N8 saw this really cool squirrel and decided to take its picture. We named him 'Hammy the Squirrel.'



After leaving the Fairy Tale Castles, we headed for our hotel. We stayed in Garmisch at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. It is a hotel for military members and was the least expensive hotel we had the whole time, but was the nicest hotel either of us had ever stayed in. It was so beautiful and comfortable and nice and made us both very happy.

The beds in Germany were so hard. Even the pillows were hard. The showers were so teeny tiny that a single person could hardly take a proper shower. So after a week and a half of this (it was harder on JME than N8 because he was used to it already), we felt like we were in a castle of our own. The beds were soft, the showers were huge, and they had an enormous hot tub with fountains and lights that we could swim in. We sat in it while it rained and it was so much fun. We also had dinner at a really nice restaurant inside the lodge. It had a live piano player and we felt pampered. The rest of the night we just relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.

The next morning (Friday), we got up early and got on a tour bus to take a three-country tour. On this tour we visited Austria, Switzerland, and Leichtenstein.

First, we stopped in Austria and had breakfast and a bathroom break at a guest house there. Then we rode up into the Swiss Alps. There was a lot of snow and some avalanche danger areas. We were 2389 meters above sea level, which is roughly 7,838feet above sea level.





We ended up stopping in a little town called Davos in Switzerland to have lunch. The Swiss frank is pretty much equal to the US dollar, but the cost of living is so much higher. We spent about 40 Swiss franks on our meal. For that N8 got two hotdogs without buns and some fries, and JME got a salad and soup, nothing too special, but that was the cheapest thing on the menu. We had fun taking pictures around Davos, though.







The homes were charming and the country side was beautiful. There weren't a lot of big cities around. Mostly, there were tiny towns set up on the hillsides. We saw a lot of sheep and goats all over.





After lunch we headed for Leichtenstein. It was a very nice, clean country. The flag was hung outside of the castle, meaning the royal family was home. The crime rate in Leichtenstein is incredibly low. We were able to get our passports stamped there, also.



The prince of Leichtenstein works at the parliament building (below).



Behind the parliament building is a beautiful church. We walked around the grounds for a while and N8 found a new friend. He must have fallen from off of the chapel.





There were also some very beautiful gardens in Leichtenstein.





The bathrooms there weren't so great.



They had a fun little model of the castle there so people could see what it looks like close up.





On our way back to Garmisch, we stopped at the same guest house so people could get some dinner. We weren't very hungry, so we got an ice cream cone (one scoop vanilla and one scoop pistachio) and walked around. There was a little petting zoo on the grounds, so we walked around and looked at all the animals.









We're almost done now, but first we have to get our picture by the Austrian flag.



And we have to stop for one more castle. Then back to Garmisch.



We spent most of Saturday driving back to Landstuhl. It took us about 5-6 hours to drive back. N8 drove the whole way, and by the time we got back he was pretty done with the driving thing. We had a nice dinner at the Pfeffermuhle. We both had spargel soup with fresh white asparagus chunks in it. JME had venison with a mushroom gravy and pear w/ cranberry sauce on top. It was to die for. N8 had pork tips and potatoes w/ spargel and hollandase sauce. It was delicious! We paid about the same for this feast as we did for our meal in Davos, Switzerland.



We spent the rest of our trip at N8's friend's house, again saving us a lot of money (Thanks Sargeant B!!!). On Sunday we called our moms and wished them a Happy Mother's Day and just hung out. JME's flight was scheduled for Monday morning but she didn't want to leave. She was hoping that, due to the volcano, she would be able to be stuck there a little longer. However, she wasn't very specific in how much longer and was only delayed about 6 hours. That was just enough for her to miss her connecting flight in Detroit and she had to sleep at the airport. That was an experience she never wants to have again.

Now, over 5,000 miles away again, we're back to counting down the days, hoping to be together again soon.