Mommy Goes to Germany

On Sunday March 17th, I flew from Boston to Frankfurt, Germany for work. As I was crossing from Central Parking to Terminal E, I got to watch Air Force One being escorted on the runway! That was probably the closest I'll ever be to President Obama so that was pretty cool. Until I realized that his arrival delayed my departure. The nerve.

With the time change, I arrived in Germany at midnight here, but had to drive straight to work. My coworker Gene had flown in on Saturday (smart move...I chose a weekend with my boys over a good nights sleep), so she picked me up. We drove 2 hours Ramstein and the rest of our crew. Monday was a prep day but since I was the sole presenter on Tuesday, that meant that I had to walk through the whole presentation on Monday. I was pretty out of it by lunch time, but between Gene and I we got through it! I managed to stay up for over 30 hours and ended up doing a pretty good job with the presentation on Tuesday...if I do say so myself!

Tuesday night afforded the first opportunity to see where the heck we were. We were traveling with 2 guys from John's Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, John and Andy...more on them later, and we met them for dinner in Landsthul where they were staying. Before dinner we went to the local schloss (castle) and wandered around in the dark a bit.



We couldn't figure out exactly which came first, this rock or the castle, and if it was the rock, what the heck does the inside look like?



It doesn't get much more literal than this.



Wednesday morning, Gene and I checked out of the Hotel Ramsteiner Hof and Gene headed home. John and Andy picked me up and we all drove to Stuttgart.






We had Wednesday off from work and the whole day to drive so we stopped off in Heidelberg for some site seeing. This is the courtyard we popped up in from the parking garage.



This picture is for Ethan's appreciation someday...Hard Rock Heidelberg!

The town is on both sides of this river and here is the look from the bridge back towards town and the local schloss. Did I mention yet that it was FREEZING! It was cold and windy and we had to keep popping into shops to stay warm.

We decided to walk up this path to the schloss instead of taking the tram. We were dying by the time we got to the top! The fact that they had a hard time too made me feel better since they're about 6-8 years younger than my out of shape self.

This castle was an interesting blend of old and older. You can see the ruins of the initial structure though this newer structure.

Doh!

This is a fairly common site in Europe but I love the little door/big door thing.

Got wine?

We arrived in Stuttgart around 5 and were to meet the rest of the crew at 7 for our passes for the next day. We'd been reading guide books all day and were hell bent on going to a weinstube for dinner and wine tasting. The guide book said that Munich is known for its beer, Frankfurt for its cider and Stuttgart for its wine so it was kind of a no-brainer. However, this turned out to one of the longest series of unfortunate events ever.

I'd written down the names and addresses of a few weinstubes from the book and after we met our colleagues, we went to the concierge to get directions. He'd never heard of any of them and told us that a taxi into downtown would cost something ridiculous like 50 euro each way so we decided to drive. We were staying at the Millenium Stuttgart which is a big resort with 2 towers of rooms. We wrongfully assumed that it was one big parking garage underneath and went down to find the car. It took us a full half an hour of fruitless searching before we finally made our way back up to the hotel, figured out where we originally came in and then went back down and found the car. We were almost all the way out of the garage with John driving before we realized that it was pretty stupid to drive into a city in Germany we've never been, at night, to a place where we were hoping to drink local wine. We drove out of the garage and turned right around to park the car again. Over 40 minutes had past at this point.

From there we decided to take the metro because there was a station right at the hotel. Of course we had no idea where the metro stations were relative to any kind of restaurant let alone a weinstube so we picked the stop where the most lines converged and got off there. We ended up in a major shopping district but still no idea which way to head. John had google maps on his blackberry and when he searched, there were hits all around us! The cold weather persisted but we started walking and watching how close we were getting. For those of you familiar with google maps, they are incredibly accurate but you have to pay close attention to the scale. Yes, there were weinstubes all around us, but some were miles away. We were walking and walking and walking some more. John kept getting excited, Andy started getting angry, and I started shutting down and not caring whether we just headed back to the hotel or continued our quest.

Finally, we were getting close to 2. The only thing that stood in our way was a multi lane highway. We had to walk about half mile out of our way to cross but cross we did and low and behold...weinstubbes!!! We passed the first because the 2nd was one of the ones we're read about. It was after 9 when we walked in giddy with excitement only to be asked if we had a reservation. Well of course we didn't and were summarily turned back out on the street. Back to the first weinstubbe we went and we were not disappointed. This was a crowded local bistro and we were happy to be presented with a lovely wine list and menu we had no chance of reading. Our patient waiter helped us decipher a few choices and we all ended up with delicious filet with spaitzle...our favorite German fare of the trip.

Here we are, happy at last. You'll notice the chef coming out of the kitchen just in time.

A photo by John. He loved this votive holder so much it made its way home with him.

Mmmm....wine. Too much wine. Boy were we thirsty!

On our way home from our crazy night out. We were best friends at this point.

The night didn't end there. We got back to the hotel and met up with 2 more colleagues and some sketchy Irish/Italian guy who was paying for everything for...you guessed it...more wine. This was completely unnecessary and I paid dearly for all of this drinking the next morning. Luckily our meeting wasn't until 1, and even then I had trouble getting there on time.

Andy left Thursday morning and a still hungover John and I went back into Stuttgart for some shopping and dinner. I was trying out different settings on my camera to get these pictures of the palace.

I love the old intermingled with the new. Up scale shopping mixed in with historical sites.

Friday I took the long journey home. I flew from Stuttgart to Frankfurt and man are they serious about security in Frankfurt. I had to show my ticket/passport twice before I went through customs and 2 more after that. When you go through the security check point they hand inspect every, single, bag. This was beyond infuriating to watch but what can an impatient American do!? It was a good trip for me both professionally and personally! I can't ask for more than that.