Easter Monday, April 1, 2013
What an April Fool's Day! I was the one to get fooled but not by Joel this year. Because of traveling in Italy prior to the Bastians' arrival, we missed a couple of Sundays at church. This tends to be where I gain insight and information pertaining to how Germans celebrate holidays. So I thought I was doing good to have enough food in the house to make it to Monday when the stores would re-open. I didn't know that Easter Monday is a bigger holiday here than Easter Sunday. Hence, nothing was open on Monday. Well, almost nothing. Thankfully, there was one restaurant open that evening so we only had to scrounge up enough food for breakfast and lunch.
Thankful for sunshine, we set off on our bikes after breakfast for a ride up through the hills outside of Göttingen. The initial climb is just that - a climb. The views of the city and countryside are neat though.
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| The boys were thrilled to pose for this photo op for Aunt Jill and me! This is where we met up before heading to the hills for a ride. I had gone into the city center to see about having dinner at our favorite Schnitzel place when I realized my big mistake with the Easter Monday holiday. It was so very quiet there! Thankfully, Kreuzgang was open for the evening so we got a 7pm reservation and knew we would have a very nice meal. Kreuzgang is listed as one of the top restaurants to visit in Göttingen. |
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| This is a view from one spot where we were riding...not sure which village it was that we were seeing. We love in Germany how you are either in a city, a village or the country. There are regulations about building any dwellings in the country so you don't look across a hillside dotted with houses. It makes for very pretty countryside sights. |
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| Though the streets in Göttingen didn't have any snow on them, the paths up in the woods were still covered. |
After a lunch of whatever we could find - tortilla chips with melted cheese, Pizzabällchen and a few leftovers - we hopped on Bus 14 for a trip out to Bovenden. In the few days that they were with us, the Bastians traveled by plane, car, bike, foot, train and bus! (And some by piggy-back) Quite a feat!
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| Thankfully, the 14 has a stop right across the street from our house. I mis- read the sign and had us all standing there for about 20 minutes (or more) before the bus arrived. In order to pass time, the boys threw little metal bottle caps into the road to see if they could get cars to flatten them. They also took to waving and saying "Hello" to all passers-by - some kindly responded, others gave the more typical response of ignoring their presence! |
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| Plesseburg, located near Bovenden, is medieval castle ruins dating back to the 12th century. Our bus driver directed us to the path leading up to Plesse Castle. It looked like a long hike so took some convincing that it would be worth it in the end...ended up taking just over an hour and a half. |
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| ~ a view from the castle turm ~ |
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| ~ Cousins at Plesseburg near Bovenden, Germany ~ |
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| This is James racing back down the turm's staircase - his orange hat made him easy to spot! |
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| A view of the castle as we hiked back down into Bovenden. |
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| Rosy cheeks after the race back to the bus stop! We had to hustle it back down from the castle as we wanted to catch the earlier bus back home. |
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| Three peas in a pod! |
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| ~ Kreuzgang ~ |
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The above photo is from their website; however, the gentleman on the left was actually our waiter for the evening! The menu for Easter Monday was a short list of options. All of the boys ordered Schnitzel mit Pommes while the adults tried four different dishes and shared with each other. Though we really wanted to introduce them to zum Szültenbürger's Schnitzel, Kreuzgang ended up being a very neat experience.
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