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| Noah helped me write a white-board message to welcome my parents to Germany. |
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| This was the sign greeting them from our front door - Josiah and Noah drew pictures of some of the things we enjoy in Göttingen - ice-cream, soccer (yes, we have converts!), picking apples and chocolate. |
Oh what a treat it was for us to have Grandpa and Grandma Bastian with us over Herbstferien - fall break! They flew into Frankfurt on Monday, October 22nd, where I met their plane and maneuvered our way on the ICE (high speed rail) back to Göttingen. It can still be a little intimidating for me to travel the trains so it was an adventure for the three of us. Tracy and the boys met us at the platform, which was a fun surprise for Grandpa and Grandma.
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| Grandpa seeing the boys coming toward us as we get off the train. |
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| Grandma greeting Noah |
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| Everyone was all smiles - it was soooo good to have family visit. |
Grandpa's 74th birthday was on the 21st so after our first dinner together, we celebrated with a homemade Angel Food cake, Grandpa's favorite. Germany doesn't sell cream of tartar or none that I could find, so I had to be a bit creative with thickening the 7-minute frosting....and my method didn't work. The "frosting" ended up being a drizzle sauce but still tasted good. We called it an early night for them due to jet lag and warned the boys to not wake them in the morning.
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| Another Josiah and Noah sign |
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| Singing 'Happy Birthday' |
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| According to the blow-out-the-candles tradition, he only had one girlfriend - thankfully! ;) |
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| Getting the last of the "drizzle" |
For the first full day in Germany, we didn't plan too much. We knew they would be jet lagged. Tracy had class that Tuesday morning so we hung out at home and enjoyed visiting. After lunch, all eight of us ventured to the City Center to show Grandpa and Grandma a couple of our favorite spots, i.e. Claudio's Ice-cream Shop.
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| Check this out! My parents willingly rode bikes with us through the city! To be completely honest, it took me several days of owning a bike before I could get up the nerve to ride my bike around town....and they tackled this less than 24 hours in country! We were able to borrow two bikes from friends for the time that they were here. |
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| So as to not have a train of eight bikes trying to stay together, we sent the boys ahead of us to meet at a place we often park our bikes. We are entering the pedestrian only zone here - lots of bike racks in this area. |
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| Walking through the Wochenmarkt - an outdoor market held every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday |
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| The center vegetable is celery root - it's not often that you find the stalks still attached. The root makes a great addition to vegetable soups. On the left is kohlrabi - on the list of 'yet to try.' |
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| After walking around the Wochenmarkt for a while, we went to the supermarket where I often shop. Josiah is demonstrating how we return bottles for money. |
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| In every grocery store there are places to return bottles for money - plastic and glass. The boys have made quite a few Euros by collecting bottles that they find laying around outside. |
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| A trip to the City Center wouldn't be complete without introducing Grandpa and Grandma to Claudio's - our favorite ice-cream spot. Favorite because it is only 90 Euro cents a scoop and is the closest shop in proximity to our house. |
On Wednesday afternoon, we all packed our swimsuits and biked to Badeparadies - a nearby indoor swimming complex. We didn't take a camera that day, but we wish we would have! Grandpa went down the super fast slide. I kid you not, it is by far the fastest slide I've ever been on in my life! I went once and don't care to go again. It wasn't a hard call for me - I prefer the hot-tub to the slides.
Thursday found us exploring the Wochenmarkt again because the fresh pasta lady is only there on Thursdays and Saturdays. We purchased three kinds of fresh pasta - two stuffed raviolis, pumpkin and spinach with feta, and a spiral pasta - along with two loaves of freshly baked bread, and some salami and cheese for hors d'
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| When dining in the restaurant, you place your order at the counter and then find a table where your waitress delivers your order to you. It was hard to choose just one! |
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| This is the counter to order little chocolates. Next time we will need to sample from this side of the store as well! |
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| Everyone ordered a different slice so that we could sample from each other. They were all so very tasty.....it will be hard to not frequent that place now that we really know what it is like. |
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| Many of the torte slices are served with a little edible chocolate on top. |
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| Don't these just look so yummy?? We also had hot chocolate and coffee - each person's order was served in miniature teapots on a silver tray....so special. |
On Friday, we took our rental van out of town for a long weekend....more to come soon about our trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Lindau.
Well, I just got tears in my eyes when I saw the photos of them getting off the train! So glad they got to visit you - especially for the birthday celebrationS!! Both of them!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. I think it was done before my email. But now I can go to sleep dreaming of Germany. :)
~Sabrina