Monday, December 20, 2010

Vorteile und Ende

Odds and ends.

Megan and Will left last Monday, back to the States. Here's some of the bits and pieces of the things we did with them after our Bavaria trip.

I drove Megan and Will up to Bernkastle on Thursday where they spent the night and had a great time walking around the town and visiting the Christkindlmarkt, especially after it started to snow. Jeff and I picked them up the next day and we stopped in the birthplace of communism, Trier, on our way home. Trier happens to be the hometown of Karl Marx. We did the Christkindlmarkt there too.

Porta Nigra, the ancient Roman gate in Trier.

Trier Christkindlmarkt.

Yep, even more Trier Christkindlmarkt.

On Friday we drove up to Kirchheimbolanden, the town we lived in 22 years ago. Showed Megan and Will our old house and walked around the city center.

The obligatory Jeff-with-wild-boar (Warthog substitute) picture. He can't walk by this statue without getting his picture with it. This is in the city square in Kirchheimbolanden.

Saturday we drove to Rüdesheim. Ferried across the Rhine, took the cable car up to the Niederwald Denkmal again, had a very nice light lunch and then, yes, you guessed it . . . their Christkindlmarkt. Their winter market turned out to be one of the very best we've visited this year. Rüdesheim is already such a pretty town and the market just made it a wonderful winter experience.

On our cable car trip up to the Niederwald Denkmal we passed this car going down. You can see the vineyards in the back and a little bit of the Rhine River.

Another Christkindlmarkt.

Some of the vendors at the Rüdesheim Christkindmarkt. You can see the way the Germans trim these Maple trees each fall all the way back to a knobby knub.

Ever the Vikings fan, Jeff had to get some horns.

Man, did this vendor see us coming. Jeff the bull, Megan the moose and Will the ram.

Here are Megan, still with her moose antlers, and I on another ferry, further north up the Rhine, crossing back over. The building in the background is Burg Pfalzgrafenstein a toll castle that sits on a small island in the middle of the river. The Rhine was very high this day and the island was completed flooded over.

We all celebrated Christmas together on Sunday. We opened our gifts, ate a big Christmas ham dinner, did a little drive around Weilerbach and the surrounding area (Megan wanted to sit on the BAB) and watched some football. The following morning, regretfully, we drove them to the Frankfurt airport for their flight home.

Megan with the new GPS we got her and Will for Christmas. Just like a little girl with a new ballerina outfit, she had to wear her moose antlers all day.

We got these signs for Megan's and Will's dogs so they know where they can and can't go.

Megan and Will on the BAB.

The time went by so fast and I can't wait to see Megan again. Hopefully it'll be some time soon. Thank you Megan and Will for the wonderful visit.

2 comments:

  1. Cool hats. Any other horn selections?? Merry Christmas Guys!!

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  2. We both just read the blog. It reminds us of how much fun we had together.

    I love the Santa on the Rudesheim cable car. Plus, the picture of our hats...priceless! Gosh, we had so much fun!

    I love the Christmas pictures too. Mom's caption about me wearing my antlers all day like a little girl was really cute.

    I love my Garmin...I mean our Garmin haha. Also, the poop signs are great. The dogs really appreciate the directions.

    We had such a wonderful trip with you guys. We miss and love you!

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