My Very Own Town

From Rothenberg, Germany

On our way to Munich, we made a small detour to visit Behlingen. My family actually has ancestral roots in Germany in the town of Behlingen, however, it's not this Behlingen. There is a Behlingen in northern Germany above Frankfurt where we have an ancestor buried in a church. Sadly, this was about a 4 hour detour and not feasible to fit into the schedule. I still wanted to stop in a town that shared in my last name. And what do you know, it was on my birthday too!

Winnweiler & Arrival in Rothenberg

We said goodbye to the delightful Rhine Valley and hit the road for the world tour of Mike's old town. We passed his old bus stop and toured the neighborhood. I will skip over the turtle graveyard because I think the wounds are still too fresh. (The turtles had been.... relocated). We spent the morning around town and wandering through some parks. While out walking we spotted this headstone in the most up kept cemetery I have ever seen. We had no idea the Diehl's had relatives in Winnweiler.

After that quick stop, we were on our way to Rothenberg! The only city that still has its medieval wall still in tact. We weren't allowed to drive into the city upon arrival, so we went in search of parking outside the city. Apparently that is pretty normal. We snagged a great spot thanks to Amanda's watchful eye and parked. They were hosting a festival that weekend and parking was absolutely nuts. We decided it would be best to just leave our stuff in the car and meander around the city unburdened while we located our hotel. Probably one of our better ideas. We found the hotel, went back to the car and got our stuff, and then back to the hotel. From there we went to the Christmas Shop which is Rothenberg's famous store.

From Rothenberg, Germany

The picture is a little blury, but I think you can get the idea. It was an amazing store. :) After that we puttering through some other stores and then set out to try and find dinner. This was probably our least successful night with dinner. Because the aforementioned festival was going on, we had a hard time just getting hotel reservations and didn't think what that would mean for dinner. We found out however that it basically meant that every place we went to was booked. Of course it was rainy and getting cold as well, so combined with hunger, we were in really cheerful moods. We ended up at an imbiss outside a church who had not anticipated the crowd they got because many other people were in our same boat. Good to know we weren't alone. Anywho, we had some chow and then wandered around town a little more and went back to the hotel.

Even though dinner was not too impressive, our hotel had a very awesome vending machine. This vending machine would give you beer if you put a 2 Euro coin in it. :) It was actually decent beer too! Notice the bottle opener conveniently attached to said machine.

From Rothenberg, Germany

Back at our room we watched some really terrible German movie with a gas tanker explosion that was over dramatized and then we heard fireworks. We were able to watch them from our room out of the cold and in our PJs. They went all out for this fireworks display, nothing pansy about it.

The next morning we went downstairs for breakfast and found tables with names all over them. I thought once again we had run into the "you didn't make a reservation" issue again. Thankfully, everyone else knew better.


We dropped our stuff back at the car and toured the Criminal Museum and walked the wall around the town. It turned out the be a beautiful day with bright sunshine and warmer weather.

From Rothenberg, Germany

We also took a stroll through the gardens which occupy the place the castle once stood.

From Rothenberg, Germany

We said goodbye to Rothenburg and headed onward to Munich!

Burg Eltz & Rheinfels Castle

Our adventure in the Rhine Valley continues with our second day in Germany. We had kind of a rough start after our first night because Mike hit the snooze on his alarm a few times and/or turned it off. :P Rob and I of course were no better off as we didn't realize a travel alarm clock would be so crucial (none of the hotels had one except our last hotel). We were relied on the Pennock's to knock on our door to wake us up. The church bell going off in town reminded us we should be at breakfast and not in bed. We threw on clothes and tried to look conscious as we went to the restaurant.

We grabbed a table and got some delicious coffee (nectar of the gods) and experience our first German breakfast. Fresh baked rolls, ham, salami, other pork meats, cheese, medium boiled eggs, and spreads (honey, jam, nutella). It was definitely different that cereal and a banana, but it was so good!

After we finally got ready for the day, we were off to our first castle viewings. First on the list; Burg Eltz. This castle is still family owned some 33 generations later, although the family only comes for a few nights during the summer (according to our tour guide). This castle was constructed to house different branches of family in separate parts of the castle because none of them could afford to build one on their own. Apparently only the very rich could do this. We grabbed a quick lunch here and continued onward to our next stop.

From Burg Eltz & Rheinfels Castle

When we left Burg Eltz, it was overcast and trying hard to rain. We we arrived at Rheinfels Castle, it was of course raining pretty good. It figures that Murphy's law would apply in Europe just as well as it did here. Burg Eltz is still completely in tact. Rheinfels Castle is in ruins.

From Burg Eltz & Rheinfels Castle

We climbed around the caslte with Mike and Rob both narrating at different points around the castle. Even though the castle is in ruins, it's in huge ruins and only taking up a fifth of the land it used to cover. With it's prime location on the Rhine River, they taxed the ships that brought goods on it. This river appears to have been a very heavily taxed river with castles all along it. Of course, this always sparks confrontation and war. This castle had been rebuilt at least once in it's time. After the French won it over in 1797, they destoryed it to prevent furutre battles/wars over it.

After climbing around in the rain, we headed back to the hotel/town to grab some souvenirs, wine, and food. With the crappy weather we created our own wine garden at our hotel. :)

From Burg Eltz & Rheinfels Castle

Guten Tag!

Rob and I recently got back from a 10 day trip to Germany & Austria. This marks the first overseas travel either of us has ever done. It was truly a trip of a lifetime and it was awesome. It was so awesome in fact that I will have to break up the tale as to not overwhelm anyone with all that awesomeness. :)

Day 1:

We begin our journey with a long plane ride. Theoretically we were supposed to sleep on the "overnight" flight over, but well, that just did not happen. I think they served us dinner around 11pm and there were movies playing and just a lot of commotion. I also think I was too excited to sleep. We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at 10:30am German time which is 4:30am EST. After we deplaned, I waited in line for the smallest woman's bathroom in history and then we made out way to baggage claim, passport check, and customs. Rob and I proudly got our passports stamped for the first time. We were so excited. We then went to the airport meeting area to await the arrival of our travel companions, the Pennock's.

From Bacharach, Germany

While waiting, I decided to test out the ATM and get Euros which worked out great. They arrived about an hour later without trouble and we proceed to pick up our rental car. After getting our paperwork straightened out and getting Rob signed up to be a driver, we went in search of our car; a Mercedes C220. Not to bad! Rob was up first to drive to our first hotel. After figuring out where reverse was and avoiding hitting the wall we were parking within inches of, we were good to go!

We arrived in Bacharach, Germany for our first 2 nights. Mike had made reservations for us at this bed & breakfast, Hotel Am Markt.

From Bacharach, Germany

After we figured out where to pick up our hotel keys, we were shown our rooms and then went to get the rest of our luggage. The only trouble was, none of us could reopen the door to the hotel. After all four of us had a go at it, we went back in and asked to be shown how to open the door. Rob learned what the magic trick was and proved why we brought him along on this trip. We were located on the top floor on the hotel, which was beautiful for views, but not so kind to bring up luggage. :P

From Bacharach, Germany

After we got settled, we decided to set off on a walking tour of the town. With the help of the Rick Steve's book, we were able to get a fairly decent detailed tour of the small town and enjoy great views from the hill top.

From Bacharach, Germany

We had the best dinner later that night and even hit up a wine garden. I don't know how we had energy for it all with not sleep the night before, but we made it! Rob sort of dozed off in the wine garden, but hey, it's all good. :) It was a great start to vacation!

Proof

This is proof of my sun battle that continues to this very day. :P I would also like to point out the extremely useful bowling ball behind me under the other desk. I assume it's to prevent splitting. Hardy Har Har. Laugh, it was funny. :)

Hilarious Ads Reaching Out to Women

This is part of my new favorite internet clips. Please enjoy. :)

Target Women is a recurring segment on Current TV's weekly television show, infoMania. In each episode of Target Women, Sarah Haskins takes a look at the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women.

New Office Pet Peeves

The joy of a new office is getting to know the people you now share common space with for about 40 + hours a week. This is always an interesting mix of finding fun people and the people who are cut from the Christmas card list before they were ever on it.

The fun people this time around includes a guy that was on my LDC I Conference team from last August. It's nice to see a familiar face and to have something in common. Today we looked were looking up pictures of people wearing mullet wigs. It's good fun.

Another guy in my office has really come around and chit chatting is getting a bit easier with him. Super nice guy (older, like dad older), but I think he sometimes gets a little freaked out with talking to me because I am the first female in quite a while to work in them there parts. He is more worried about saying something to offend me. :P I think that's funny.

There are two people who are off my Christmas card list already. One of them sits directly behind me and who in conversation in a fairly nice guy. He knows my family that owns the orchard and is pleasant. However. He is a nail clipper. And I am not talking about the weekly nail clipper. I am talking about the OCD kind that is clipping their nails just about every day at work. It seriously makes me want to throw up.

The second guy is one I will refer to as the LOUD TALKER. This is the guy who has a commanding voice to begin with and is just a solid talker in general. But of course it doesn't stop there. No, of course it doesn't. This guy uses speaker phone for EVERYTHING! He called his wife the other day to walk her through how to check the battery power on a cell phone which the whole office got to listen in. I am sure she would be really proud to know that her husband shared the fact that she didn't know how to check that with the entire office. His latest gig is complaining about the help the managers are hiring and how big the fish are that he is catching. I could care less about both and it takes everything I have some days to not jump up onto of my desk and yell, "SHUT UP". I feel this would not make the best impression, but seriously, I mean it.

Of course the last wonderful thing in my new office is the fact that at about 4:15pm, the sun starts to come through the window in the office directly into my eyes which makes it impossible to look at my screen without some serious squinting. To combat this, I wear sunglasses at my desk. Do I look ridiculous? Absolutely! But it turns out the person sitting there before tried to get some blinds and was unsuccessful. I would go out and buy them myself and install them too if I didn't think I would get a number of grievances.

So hooray new office and all of it's quirks. I am looking forward to my vacation from these guys already. :P