Nee on the Road

Freinsheim, September 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:48:00 +0000

(Wow, it has been almost a year since my last post. So much traveling, so little documentation. *sigh*)

Every year, the club my husband belongs to arranges an outing to taste the wares of one of the vintners in our region. This wine-tasting evening has never really appealed to me because 1. I don't drink, and 2. it doesn't seem very child-friendly (= ready-made excuse to skip out). Hannah gets dragged to enough club-related events throughout the year that I feel she (& I) can safely give this one a miss.

This year, though, someone in the club suggested a Weinwanderung, which is sort of like a pub crawl, only walking along dirt roads in the vineyards from wine tent to wine tent.

John promised that there would be food and cake and other kids there, so once I agreed to go, Hannah was pretty much forced into going. I bribed her with a Happy Meal before we even got in the van to ensure her good behavior, but that only stopped her from complaining aloud. The waves of surliness rolling off her made me glad when she found another seat, away from me. But in just under an hour, we were in Freinsheim, which is near the more famous town of Bad Dürkheim on the Weinstrasse, or German Wine Route, which traverses the second largest wine-producing region in Germany.

As we were to learn, Freinsheim is relatively well-known among the Germans for this wine festival, but I was still shocked at the crowds we found on arrival.

When we go on a regular Wanderung up in the woods where we live, it is usually on a holiday, and so we expect to see lots of people, but it was even more crowded than that on the Weinwanderung, on a regular Saturday. People like their wine, I guess.

Another draw was the absolutely gorgeous weather that day. Stupid me, I neglected to use my moisturizer with suncreen that morning, so I ended up with a pink forehead. But I have to admit, having enough sunshine here in late September to get a touch of sunburn is like finding 50 bucks in an old pair of jeans--serendipity!

Moving on, it was nice to mosey through the vineyards, stopping to snap a few photos of the scenery,

or eat some grapes,

or get some food (cake and coffee in this photo),

or have a drink or 3,

or in this other group's case, have a picnic.

There was even a self-powered ride that Hannah decided she was too big for.

More likely, she didn't want to fling herself out of it. Yikes!

Funny story: this is where I briefly lost Hannah. We had already lost another member of our group--who actually ditched us, as it turned out, but we didn't know that at the time--so I was panicking when I couldn't find her. We were waiting for the other children to finish the ride, and suddenly I didn't see Hannah anywhere, not behind the ride or around the tents or across the road nomming on the grapes. I whipped out my cell phone and hoped she hadn't turned her phone off. Turns out she was sitting at her father's feet on the grass, *who I had been standing next to while scanning the crowds for my precious baby*. D'oh!

We also spotted a couple of items we couldn't quite explain, not being natives. Maybe they didn't know either, though.

Mutant duck advertising...?

Giant head representing...?(If I had known that John would need 10 minutes to buy a glass of wine, I would have gone up and read the inscription on this thing.)

Thankfully, I was able to enlarge the photo to read the name of this thing, because my google-fu had been powerless against my misspelled note, jotted in my Palm on Saturday. The location is called the Oschelskopf ("Oschel Head" or "Head of the Oschel", and I have no idea who, what, or where Oschel is), so the statue is named after that, but the locals apparently sometimes call it the "Elvis of Oschelskopf."

After we had done all of the above out in the fields, one of the club members led us on a tour of the town. The old city wall is still intact, so we followed it all the way around, which I think is about a kilometer long. It didn't take too terribly long, and the town was so charming. The path took us through narrow alleys,

covered walkways,

and once through a house.

Every turn brought a new, interesting sight:

Hannah really enjoyed the Wanderung, but when it came time for the tour of the town, she had had all she could take. Too bad for her that there was nowhere else for her to go, because the van wasn't scheduled to return for another hour at that point.

But as you can see from this photo of John, most of us had a great time.

For the rest of our pictures, see our photo set at Flickr.

Another Day, Another Tip

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:00:00 +0000

I am too busy to post, and will be for about another month, so I decided to leave you with a tip for driving in Italy:

GASOLIO, despite its name, does NOT mean gasoline. It means DIESEL. If you put gasolio in your gasoline engine, your car will not go, and it will cost you 200 Euros for a tow and to siphon out the diesel, plus 50 Euros to refill the tank with gasoline. *If* you are lucky and the diesel has not seriously damaged your engine.

You will thank me for this tip.

Stockholm 2008: Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:21:00 +0000

After a good night’s sleep and a not-too early start, we bought 3-day transit passes and headed into the center of Stockholm on the subway. We got off at Kungsträdgården and walked around a bit in that area and along the waterfront.

Hannah tried out being a Viking.

It was a bit windy, so Hannah took the opportunity to “parachute” by catching some wind with her jacket.

Then we headed over to the Historiska Museet (historical museum), just in time for it to start raining.

We didn’t make it there the other time we were in Stockholm, and John wanted to see their exhibit on Vikings. He wasn’t disappointed.

Hannah was surprisingly patient, I guess because she knew that we’d be heading to Gröna Lund (amusement park) next and that they don’t even open until noon. I left John and Hannah with the Vikings and looked around upstairs in the Medieval and Baroque areas, but I wasn’t that impressed. I guess I have lost the taste for looted churches; it felt like a crypt in there.

Hannah came and found me and we tried the Gold Room next. As the name implies, it was a room full of golden artifacts. Hannah really liked it and even read some of the signs on the displays. There was a video running in a side room, but she declared that bo-ring, so she mostly stuck by me. By the time John made it to the Gold Room, we had looked at every coin and read every sign and were ready to try something else.

Something else was the temporary exhibit for children on bread.

There were a ton of bread-items made out of felt on display, the most delectable of which was this “cake”.

After buying a few things in the gift shop, we were finally ready to be amused. We hopped on the historical tram over to the island of Djurgården for an afternoon of fun at Gröna Lund.

Gröna Lund is basically split into two parts, or as Hannah put it, the baby side and the fun side. We—or more accurately, John and Hannah—bypassed the baby side and went right for the rides, starting with a roller coaster and moving on to this swing carousel.

Then they hit the swinging Viking ship.

Here’s the one that would be more my speed:

And here is the after-effect of the Viking ship:

I like to call this photo “Gonna vom”. I think I neglected to mention that after bypassing the baby side, we ate a greasy amusement park lunch—“Mexican” food for John, “pizza” for Hannah, and a hot dog for me, and yes, the quotation marks are there for a reason—so the mad dash for the rides was poor judgment, in hindsight.

While we waited for the gorge to subside, we amused ourselves by deciding which balloon at the top of this heap it would be most difficult for the vendor to reach, and therefore which balloon we should demand from her.

Despite her queasy stomach, Hannah ran off to the indoor ride behind us rather than face the possibility of being accosted by these costumed freaks.

When asked why she was so afraid of them, she declared that she wasn’t afraid, she just hated them. Oh, ok. She insisted they were mice, while I found them more monkey-like. I think this sign backs me up:

Then John and Hannah climbed the moving stairs to go into the fun house.

They rode the bumper cars, then we headed back over to the bigger rides. Here, we prepare ourselves for the ride that goes through a witch’s house:

They rode a less-vom-inducing version of the Viking ride, the magic carpet ride.

I entertained myself while they were being flung about by watching the ships pass by.

Then while they were on the “blue train” ride, which is sort of a mini-haunted house ride, I checked out the decor visible from the queue:

Wow! That pteradactyl’s enormous breasts sure are scary! If I were her, I would sue my plastic surgeon.

Ah, this is more like it—the toothpick of the damnnnned!

Hannah managed to avoid being accosted by these fluorescent gorillas by being on a ride while they danced by to the annoying tunes of the ghetto-blaster being pushed by the magician? genie? accompanying them.

Here John and Hannah are in the midst of being hoisted up for a spinning, twirling, and generally puke-inducing ride that they had previously dismissed as being too much.

John had to take another time-out after that one.

I finally convinced them to move over to the baby side since the fun side was making them so sick. I coughed up for a single ticket for my all-time favorite ride: teacups!

Then I sent John and Hannah into Pettson and Findus’s house.

They are popular characters in a series of Swedish children’s books.

We wrapped up with a couple of slow, gentle rides, like old-timey cars:

and flying elephants:

This was a common sight in the park:

People were able to trade in their toddlers for chocolate! Ha ha, just kidding. These 2-kilo bars were prizes at the various games of chance. We didn’t bother with them because 1. we’re cheap, 2. we couldn’t carry it on the plane, and 3. we couldn’t eat it in 3 days before getting on the plane.

Then we hopped back on the old-timey tram, where I snuck a photo of this cute little change purse thingy the conductor was wearing. So old-fashioned, so cute!

Then we bought some groceries and went back to the hotel for dinner. The end.

Stockholm 2008: Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:53:00 +0000

This is the day we traveled to Stockholm.

We let Hannah sleep in a bit, trying to head off any travel barfing since that’s what tends to happen if she doesn’t get enough sleep first. Since we decided not to take the airport shuttle bus after all, we had a little more time for finishing up our packing and pet-care. Unfortunately, our coffee maker decided to give up the ghost that morning, so I had to start our international trip uncaffeinated. The horror!

We drove to Karlsruhe-Baden airport, located a little south of Karlsruhe and just a hop over the Rhine away from France. It took about an hour and a half to get there from here, just a little longer than expected, but still faster than traveling with the shuttle. We parked in the farthest, cheapest lot and dragged our stuff over to the terminal. Hannah said that the clack-clack of her suitcase rolling over the bricked sidewalk sounded like a pony.

We ate some lunch in the terminal, and let me tell you, the options are very, very limited. As in one rather expensive mini-cafeteria. Hannah had pizza, her first slice of the trip, but not the last slice she didn’t like. The child is very picky about her pizza.

When it was time to check in, I could have strangled my darling husband. Since we got the super-cheap airfare—0 Euros + 50 each in fees—he didn’t want to pony up for checked luggage—10 Euros per bag each way. Ok, that is a bit steep if we wanted to check all our bags, but for just one? Since we were forced to only have carry-ons, we couldn’t have anything like shampoo or shower gel, which are liquids. Only, it doesn’t say that ANYWHERE on the Ryanair web site, because I checked multiple times. I only found that out at the airport, after I had packed a new bottle of shampoo and a new bottle of shower gel, which I then had to throw away. John didn’t pack soap because he had planned to just use whatever was at the hotel. Anyhow, I was finally able to laugh about it, but only after imagining the feel of my hands around his neck a couple of times.

One nice-ish feature at the airport was an outdoor waiting area. Of course, you are only about 100 yards from the planes at that point, so when one takes off, it is rather loud, but the sun was out and the snack bar had coffee and ice cream, so we were happy enough to sit outside by the planes.

There is no assigned seating on Ryanair, meaning it is each man for himself when it is time to board. Hannah wanted us to get in line early, but once we actually get to the airport, I tend to not want to be stressed out anymore, so I dragged my heels about getting in line. It’s not like they were going to leave without us. Of course, then we couldn’t sit together. Hannah and I found seats across the aisle from each other, and John sat about 10 rows in front of us. But we all got there in one piece.

Then we took a shuttle bus into Stockholm proper from Skavsta Airport. It got full, and Hannah wanted me to sit with her, so John sat across the aisle from us. Hannah pointed out how sad it was that John had to sit with a stranger on his birthday. That’s when it hit me that I hadn’t wished him a happy birthday yet. At like 5 pm. Worst. wife. ever.

The bus is not without its amusements, though, even when one is racked with guilt. John and I giggled over a passing truck: Fluckinger Transport. That’ll catch your attention when you see it out of the corner of your eye. There was a girl a few seats up with a tattoo in beautiful script across the back of her neck: “Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost.” The logic was lost on me.

Hannah declared she was hungry—not surprising, considering that our plane landed at 5—but she wanted something American, say, spare ribs. Yes, because Stockholm is just teeming with American barbecue joints.

Hannah teased John that she could see blueberry bushes in the woods along the road, from the bus window, which I doubt, but we all definitely saw a beautiful rainbow—sometimes doubled—for about two-thirds of the drive into Stockholm.

Driving into Stockholm was kind of weird, because we spotted several German businesses along the way: Bauhaus and Hornbach, sort of German Home Depots; Media Markt; and Lidl, a discounter supermarket. It’s not too uneven a trade, because Germany is awash in IKEAs and H&Ms.

The bus terminal is located at the Central Station, which intersects with the subway system, so once we arrived we were able to quickly take care of getting some Swedish money (Kronor, not Euros) and tickets to take the subway into the right part of Stockholm.

After riding this escalator about 2 or 3 stories up to ground level, we realized we didn’t have explicit directions to our hotel.

*sigh* The joys of traveling. Finally we found a map for that neighborhood and realized we had gotten off the subway one stop too early. So we trooped back down the escalator—and it felt very creepy, what with the dark red walls and all—and checked out the station while we waited for the next subway train.

Here’s what Solna must have looked like when it was still just a village.

Here’s a stuffed moose, because nothing says downtown Stockholm like taxidermy.

Finally, we made it to Näckrosen station and their much more soothing decor.

From there, it was a 5-minute walk to our hotel. We had simple directions for getting in after hours, and there was a (terribly overpriced) Chinese restaurant nearby for our first dinner. Hannah wanted to sit near the fish tank with koi, but she totally did not like the way they would swarm in one corner occasionally and make the water sploosh. Creepy!

Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Edited to add: Before we went to bed, John told Hannah, "If we take you to Gröna Lund [an amusement park] tomorrow, you can't whine the rest of the trip while we do other stuff."
Answered Hannah: "Let's do it on the last day, then."

On the road again soon

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:26:00 +0000

I know, I know--long time, no nothing. But now that the high travel season is upon us again, we are gearing up for not one, but two trips this summer. After spending our long-awaited summer vacations the last two years in cool, wet northern climes, Hannah and I put our collective feet down and demanded a hot, southern vacation. So later this month we will be spending about 2 weeks driving around Italy. I'll put up more about that after we get back from our first trip: Stockholm!

John loves Sweden like a second child, and he just could not resist Ryainair's $0 tickets. That's right--that's a zero. Of course they weren't free--there are still fees to pay--but they are nonetheless very cheap. We spent our last Sweden trip out in the countryside, so this time we are hitting the big city.

And in preparation for the trip, here's a widget I got from the Weather Channel. I just hope it works.

Stockholm Weather Forecast, Sweden

Rats, for all that code, all I got was a link I could have put up myself. Maybe I will try it again later in the sidebar.

Schmap

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:56:00 +0000

I've put up a widget for Schmap on the right because they used one of my Flickr photos from our Edinburgh trip in their latest edition.

Here's the page with my photo.

Here is what they have to say about their Schmap Guides:

Schmap’s series of digital travel guides integrates dynamic maps with useful background reading, suggested tours, photos from the traveling public and reviews by local correspondents (for sights and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theaters, galleries, museums and more) to profile 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Ode to the Scottish Public Toilet

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:24:00 +0000

Ok, I know this is way late, considering that we were in Scotland over the summer, but every time I use the bathrooms at the university here, I think with longing and affection of the public toilets in Scotland. You see, they had hot water. Every public toilet I was in. Hot water. In August. The level of cleanliness was generally good, if not equal in every place, but the availability of hot water for scouring my hands was like manna from heaven.

If only German public toilets were so accommodating. Here, there is only a cold tap, hence, no chance in hell of hot water. It makes me weep, this lack.

Day 9: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:42:00 +0000

Between John harassing me to finish blogging our vacation, the rising pressure of classes starting back tomorrow, and two more trips waiting in the queue, it is time for me to finish up the Scotland trip. I’m also going back and adding a few overlooked details to days 1-8, so feel free to flip back through for some new stuff.

The ferry off of Skye only goes every 2 hours, and we didn’t want to spend half of our last day in Scotland stuck on Skye, so John reserved a spot for 8:20 AM, and we had to be there a half-hour early. Since we were sleeping on the other end of the island, we were aiming to leave by 6:30 at the latest. Driving across the island was slow-going, even though the traffic was light that time of morning. First there was the haar on the north end of the island, then the single-track roads and sheep on the road.

Our hostess at the B&B was kind enough to get up with us and make coffee and toast to go with our fast cold cereal. We didn’t make Hannah eat, trying to avoid another car-sick incident. Anyhoo, you would think after Edinburgh, we would have learned our lesson, but staying out late and getting up early seem to be the main ingredients in a Hannah barf-fest. She was hungry by the time we reached the ferry about 1 minute before loading, but she didn’t want any of the snacks we had, and the ferry only had chocolate muffins and cookies, which she would have gladly eaten, queasy or no. So she was angry and hungry for the whole ferry ride.

Once back on the mainland of Scotland, we headed east, well, after getting turned in the port where we got off the ferry. First stop, scenic barf clean-up on the side of the A830.

Second stop, Glenfinnan, site of the Glenfinnan Viaduct that was featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry and Ron drove their flying car over the Hogwarts Express. Unfortunately, we were on a tight schedule, so we couldn’t walk closer for a better view.

John really, really wanted to drive down to the tiny island of Iona, but we kept driving and driving and not getting any closer, and Hannah was sick again. We finally ended up skipping Iona and taking another ferry across Loch Linnhe.

We took a little driving break at Loch Leven and enjoyed the sunny day and the scenery.

The Scots really seem to know what a treasure their scenery is. They’ve made lots and lots of parking areas along the roads, particularly where the scenery is especially impressive.

Then we headed for Glen Coe, but of course we got lost and ended up making a biggish detour to Kinlochleven, where we had a nice lunch and wandered around near the river. John and Hannah amused themselves stacking the smooth river rocks, and I stole a couple of smaller ones as souvenirs.

We finally made it to Glen Coe, a beautiful valley that was the site of a massacre in 1692.

By the time we got to Bridge of Orchy, it was time again to stretch our legs. For Hannah and John, of course, that meant wading in the nearest body of water, the River Orchy.

We had to stop to check out Loch Lomand and use the bathroom (desperately!). (While waiting for me, John helpfully picked up a brochure, only it was in Italian. *g*) John found a sign that indicated the direction and distance of several points of interest, and he insisted that we try to find Rob Roy’s cave. We followed what we thought was a path, but it was a dead end. We realized that the sign wasn’t saying how to get to the points of interest, just in what direction they were. On second thought, we would have had to have crossed the loch to find the cave. Oops!

On our way into Glasgow, we stopped at Dunbarton to see the castle, but we got there about 5 minutes before closing, so we didn’t get to go in.

It was just as well that we didn’t go in, because we were already starting to cut it a little close. We were supposed to turn the rental car in around 6, but our flight didn’t leave until 9 pm. We figured the rental car people wouldn’t mind if we were a bit late, but the airline wouldn’t let us check in if we were there later than 45 minutes early.

When we left Dunbarton, it was after 5, and we still had to get all the way across Glasgow to Prestwick, whose slogan “Pure dead brilliant” set John’s teeth on edge for some reason. Driving in Glasgow was a nightmare. We got stuck in traffic, we got lost trying to find the freeway, we had to find our way through a hellish detour that resembled nothing more than a rat maze, and we almost ran out of gas. Since we had the car 5 days, we had to pay in advance for the rental agency to refill it and could turn it in empty.

I talked John into checking in right away, even though there was a longish line and we hadn’t eaten yet, which turned out to be good, because the line got twice as long by the time we got through, and then we could go eat before going through security. I wanted to buy some more souvenirs, but we ran out of time. One thing I found unusual about Prestwick was the availability of an outdoor smoking area inside the security zone. It was completely enclosed in chain-link fencing, so there was no possibility of sneaking in or out without bolt-cutters, which probably would have been noticed in the x-ray machine.

The flight home was uneventful, as far as I remember, and the drive home was loooooong. It was after 2 am before we got there, so our last day of vacation lasted a good 20 hours.

Day 8: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:35:00 +0000

We started pretty early so we could cover as much of the Isle of Skye as possible that day, but the north end, where we were staying, was almost completely obscured by thick fog, or haar, as the locals call it. We went to the Museum of Island Life first, and John got to try out his Gaelic on the man at the desk. While John and I wandered around the cottages, looking at the displays and reading signs, Hannah befriended a stray cat and drank some cocoa.

The thatched cottages were very interesting, but it was easy to see that the farmers and fishermen didn’t have an easy life. Just the wind and cold would have sent me packing after one day, but I’m a wuss that way.

The Museum was within walking (and viewing) distance of the graveyard where Flora MacDonald, the young lady who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape after the disaster at Culloden, is buried, but we didn’t go that far. We were ready to get back in the car. Then we drove around the north end of the island and up over the Quiraing. John wanted to get out and explore, and he kept extorting Hannah and I “just a little farther”. We ended up wading across a soggy expanse of sheep-poop covered marsh, thanks to John’s supernatural ability to take us into inhospitable environments.

See that big rocky thing on the right in the photo below? That’s where we had just been swimming in sheep excrement.

From there we traveled back down the east coast to Lealt Falls (still too foggy to see) and on to Portree for a quick and delicious Chinese take-away lunch.

Then we hopped back in the car to cross to the west side of the island to tour the Talisker Distillery. Despite the tour being held in English, we weren’t able to learn much thanks to the deafeningly loud machines we were inspecting. John enjoyed his complementary drink, though. He also picked up a tip in the shop that it would be cheaper to buy a bottle of Talisker in Germany than there, thanks to the difference in local taxes.

Skye is really not that big of an island, but it has lots of mountainous regions, so there are only so many places they could put roads in. Also, there are many places where the roads are what they call “single-track”, which means what it says: one lane. But there are lots of little passing places on the single-track roads, so if you meet another car, one of you should pull in and let the other one by. Most people we encountered were pretty courteous drivers, so it wasn’t a big deal, except you don’t make such good time as you might have imagined, given the size of the island.

Here is where we edged the Cuillins going back to the east side of the island and the main road heading south. Magnificent!

The main reason we headed south on this day was so John could visit the Gaelic College there and maybe get some more books and materials for his self-study of Gaelic. We turned in at the new campus, which is right on the shore, and let Hannah poke around near the water.

It turns out that the bookstore was at the old campus, though, so John ran over there while we hung out at the beach, and later in the parking lot (John had the keys, so we couldn’t wait in the car). From there we headed back north, stopping at the Old Bridge at Sligachan.

John let Hannah play down near the water while he took some photos, which I thought was a bad idea, but I was overruled. And just as I foresaw, sploosh!

Fortunately, I had taken to packing extra clothes for Hannah after the initial barf-fest in Edinburgh, but she had to change out in the open next to the car. We made it back to Portree in plenty of time to eat a hot dinner before going to a ceilidh. According to the guide we bought at the Museum of Island Life, “the word ceilidh in Gaelic means a small homely [sic] gathering of friends. In the days before the arrival of radio and television, it was customary for neighbours to meet together in the long winter evenings and to make their own entertainment.” John and I enjoyed the performances, although we agreed with Hannah that maybe the venue was a little small for the bagpipes. Imagine putting your head inside a steel barrel and allowing someone to beat on it; that’s how loud it was. But the singer, the fiddlers, the accordionist, and especially the clarsach (harp) player were just wonderful. Unfortunately, we were dumb and neglected to put an extra pair of batteries in our camera bag, so we ran out of juice after about 2 minutes. D’oh! John ran out to the car during the intermission, so we managed to get a few photos (still dim, darn it!) and a couple of video clips after the break.

This lady was amazing.

As evidenced here. (I loved how the accordionist looked completely bored while she was playing. Oh, the ennui of playing a complicated song on a complicated instrument. *sigh!*)

There was even a dancer (plus brain-damagingly loud bagpipes). The fiddler was the emcee, and she kept teasing the bagpiper about his dreadlocks. How cool is that--a bagpiper wearing traditional kilt and dreadlocks!

We were scheduled to catch an early ferry off the island the next morning, and to get to the ferry we’d have to drive alllll the way back down to the southern tip, so we left before the end in order to get a little sleep before our very long last day in Scotland. The haar had rolled in again, and it took us about an hour to get back to the B&B, which was actually run out of someone’s home, but she assured us that they never locked the door. So of course it was locked when we got there, late, and we had to tap on a window to get in. Such is the life of the world traveler.

Day 7: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:16:00 +0000

While John finished his last enormous Scottish breakfast at the Torguish house, Hannah and I roamed around the grounds a bit. We admired their peacock:

And goose:

And the rest of the front garden:

My photos of the other side of the house didn’t turn out so well, but Hannah found a swing to amuse herself on, then one of the proprietors of the B&B (it was run by a small family consisting of a son, his girlfriend, and his parents) showed me and Hannah their hens, complete with chicks. They serve their own free-range eggs as part of the &B.

Then we were back in the rental car and heading across the Highlands towards the Isle of Skye.

We followed Loch Ness from Inverness west. We joked about looking for Nessie, the monster, but the only incarnations we saw were the various signs and statues along the Loch as we traveled. I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the Loch itself, but it turned out to be a long, narrow lake, basically.

We visited the ruins of Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. This castle managed to stay standing and in use from the 13th century until the end of the 17th century, when the Grant Highlanders blew part of it up so it couldn’t be used by their enemies. Bummer.

Then we looped back around to find the national park at Glen Affric, “the most beautiful glen in Scotland”. Maybe we are not used to mentally calculating miles instead of kilometers, but we ended up driving probably 7/8 of the way there before deciding we must have passed it and turning around. Then we drove most of the way back to the turn-off at Drumnadrochit before realizing we hadn’t gone far enough. As I said many times on this trip, it’s not a family vacation if we’re not lost.

Part of the problem is that John refused to by a real road map before we left or once we arrived, so we were relying on a map of the entire UK from the rental agency and the maps in some tour guides from the library. Even after the first few times we were lost, it seemed silly (to John) to buy a map we'd only need for a few more days. I say it would have been money well spent, but I don't think I'll leave it in John's hands when the next vacation rolls around.

Once we got there, we tried following the signs to Pony (I think) Falls, but of course we ended up driving in a big circle and coming out on the other side of the forest, 5 miles from where we started. By this time, we were damned sure going to find a place to park our car, eat our lunch, and then find something interesting to see *in the forest*.

We finally did manage to hike a couple of miles (thrilling John) over to Dog Falls, which was more impressive than this photo lets on.

Unfortunately, it was also overrun with midges, so we turned around and hiked back to the car. Hannah got down in the water and played —we were smart enough to pack galoshes.

She managed to find a friend in that pool (she put it back after its photo-op).

What with all the driving back and forth, we needed gas. Imagine our surprise when we opened the outer tank cover to find NO CAP. Yes, we were rented a car with no cap for keeping the gas inside the car. I don’t imagine any sloshed out, but it might have evaporated. It did seem that even with the extra faffing about, we went through that first tank kind of fast. Fortunately, the gas station—a very small, old-fashioned kind of service station—had a plastic cap we could buy for about 5 bucks.

From there we drove along Glen Shiel to Eilean Donan Castle, alleged to be the most-photographed castle in Scotland.

As you can see, Hannah loves to be photographed. We managed to get there early enough to go through the castle. You can take a virtual tour here. (Click on the picture right away, or you’ll be woozy in 5 seconds.) The kitchen was really cool. There were wax (or maybe plaster) dummies set up to look like the kitchen staff, and lots of fake food and stuff. Hannah went around putting her fingers in noses and pretending to pet plastic cats and stuff. She didn’t care for the fake animals (rabbits and chickens) hanging in the pantry, waiting to be plucked and cooked. There were also lots of neat signs to read explaining how things were done back when that kitchen was still in use in 1932.

That was the last bit of mainland Scotland we visited that day. We drove over the bridge from Kyle to Kyleakin, and then we had to drive 2/3 of the length of Skye to get to our B&B in Staffin. We turned onto a dirt lane that we thought led to the B&B (see propensity to get lost, above), but alas, all we found was a couple of kids who informed us we weren’t allowed to turn around in one of the driveways. We would have if they weren’t standing there watching us, but we ended up backing the whole length of the lane, which passed through window-high weeds.

We finally found the B&B, about a block further down, and got our stuff stowed, then we jaunted off for a quick dinner in a teeny cafe. Hannah wanted to check out the “beach” we had seen a sign for, so we turned off the road. Holy mackerel! It was freezing by the water! I didn’t even make it all the way to the shore, just turned around and went to the car. Crazy John and Hannah stayed down for a good 15 or 20 minutes, collecting shells and taking photos. At least John got some good pictures out of it.

Day 6: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 07:53:00 +0000

We got up and were able to have a proper look at the B & B.

It was formerly the home of Alastair MacLean, who wrote the novel The Guns of Navarone, which was also made into a movie with Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn.

In addition to renting out rooms, they raise poultry. They even have a goose, of the non-edible variety (ie, a pet).

After we downed another giant, hot breakfast, we hopped in the rental car and headed out into the Highlands. First stop: Culloden Battlefield. This is the location of the last major battle on British soil. Ever heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie? He and a few supporters thought he should be the kind of Scotland and England, but the English and quite a few other Scots thought otherwise (he was Catholic), and this is where they fought it out. It was actually over in about 45 minutes, with most of Charlie’s forces slaughtered and Charlie himself on the run.

Here Hannah reenacts the command to charge.

At the next stop, we were dumb and left our camera in the car, which in turn means that I am dumb and forgot to mention in the earlier draft of this post our visit to Cawdor Castle, which was totally wonderful. We couldn't have taken photos inside anyway, but the grounds were beautiful, and I am glad I picked up the full guide with photos since I wasn't able to take any of my own. The house itself is the actual home of the Earl of Cawdor during the off-season; it felt weird walking through rooms that real people live in. Of course, I wouldn't mind being one of those people--the rooms looked comfortable and interesting, not just opulent like some of the places we've visited. The signs for the rooms were often hilarious, and I found out in the gift shop that they were actually written by the 6th Earl of Cawdor himself. An excerpt from "The Modern Kitchen": "This was once a dark and dreary place known as the School Room and may have been responsible for turning some of the Campbell ladies into confirmed spinsters and professional invalids." *hee!*

While planning the trip, John promised to find something that Hannah would find fun. So after the battlefield (what kid doesn’t like a battlefield?), we headed to Carrbridge and the Landmark Forest Theme Park. (I don’t know the purpose of all the extra dots on the letters on their written materials, but it is very annoying.) We had a nice time, but Hannah was in a bit of a snit because it turned out that the two things she wanted to do—the Ropeworx and the Skydive—required you to be 1.5 meters tall to do them. I don’t really blame her, since she had been looking forward to them. But we rode the water slide with her, all three slides.

And then she was made queen of the forest (at least in her mind).

The park is set in a forest, and John spent his time grazing the blueberries and cowberries there. It didn’t seem to worry him that people brought their dogs there, and that dogs occasionally need to pee, and that they seem to prefer bushes... It was kind of a game, harassing him about it.

Hannah didn’t want to try sawing wood, and she was too unhappy about not being able to climb on the rope things, so we spent a lot of time on the Tree Top Trail, a wooden, elevated trail through one corner of the woods. We only saw one squirrel up there, but then when we got to the feeding area, we saw several. Look at the red eye—evil, I tell you!

On the way out of town, John stopped to take some photos of the Old Bridge of Carr (hence the town’s name, Carrbridge).

To round out the day, we drove into Inverness. John was the trip researcher, and he hadn’t found out anything that made him want to invest a lot of our time in Inverness, so we bought a few groceries and ate a quick picnic dinner next to the River Ness. Hannah entertained herself flinging crumbs to some enormous seagulls until we were ready to take a stroll along the River.

John thinks that a day of vacation in which we aren't on the move from 8 am to 10 pm is a day wasted. Hannah and I are firm believers in relaxation being a part, however small, of the vacation experience, so when it gets dark, we retire to the safety and comfort of our hotel room. On this evening, John decided to find the River Nairn. In the dark. Alone. When he got back about an hour later, we found 2 ticks on him. Hannah named them Andy and Susan. We didn't have any alcohol or tweezers, so John pulled them out as best he could, then we daubed some of Hannah's purple nail polish on the spots. It works for chiggers... As far as I have been able to find out, Scottish ticks don't seem to carry any really nasty diseases, but that doesn't mean I wasn't a tad pissed at him for wading through shoulder-high weeds in the dark in a strange place near a river. grrr...

Day 5: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:33:00 +0000

John had reserved a rental car and wanted to pick it up as early as possible, so we hustled Hannah out of bed early early and down to breakfast. John got the hot breakfast every morning we were in Edinburgh (actually, every morning but the last one of our vacation), but I often couldn’t stomach so much food first thing in the morning, so I would have cold cereal. Now, I know that in the UK, they have a slightly different way of putting things, but I was totally cracked up by the packaging for Crunchy Nut cereal: “...it’s ludicrously tasty!”

We finished breakfast, drug our stuff downstairs, checked out, and hopped on the bus. There we sat in the back row amid a big pile of suitcases and wet umbrellas (it was raining), and Hannah started to look decidedly green around the gills. I was just able to grab a plastic bag out of a side pocket on my suitcase when she started blowing chunks. Fortunately, it all went in the bag and on her hand, but I also had water and tissues, so we got her calmed down and cleaned up before we ever hit Edinburgh proper.

We hadn’t been on the bus we needed to take to the rental agency before, so we weren’t sure how far to go, but super-Mom to the rescue again—I saw the name of the street we needed and we were able to hop off and backtrack a little. We found the rental agency, and it was full of unhappy campers. One guy was supposed to get a van delivered to him the night before, to use while his work van was in the shop, and he was fairly pissed to have to put all his tools back in the malfunctioning van and drive down to their office that morning. But I think part of the office’s problem was that not everyone had a reservation like us (we went through the paperwork pretty quickly), and in addition, some of them didn’t speak English well enough to handle such a transaction.

Anyhoo, badmouthing of the agency aside, John learned to drive from the right side of the car on the left side of the road via the sink or swim method, and he did great! The car was the English version of our very own Roswitha (an Opel Astra), so the controls were familiar, but the windshield wipers went backwards (right to left instead of left to right), which made sense, because the driver is on the right. Other small things freaked me out at first, like the No U-Turn sign that was “backwards”:

John wanted to name our temporary wheels "Senior Car", but Hannah wanted "Jerry", so they compromised with "Senior Jerry." He was a good little car.

John had insisted that there was a weird dog-food smell in Edinburgh, and he especially noticed it in the car while we were still in Edinburgh. Just the other day, after feeding the cats, he commented, "Smells like Edinburgh." So if you ever find yourself thinking of Edinburgh and cat food in the same breath, know you are not alone.

It continued to rain as we headed north into the Highlands, so it was hard to see the scenery that a guy waiting for a van at the rental agency had promised was beautiful. When we got to Perth, we turned off to visit Scone Palace, where Scottish kings were once crowned.

John had a (wet) seat on the Stone of Destiny, but he says he didn’t feel any different afterward (except wetter).

We ate inside the Palace itself, in a cozy little bistro that made a mean tomato soup, and then we let Hannah play on the Adventure Playground to work off some excess energy.

But we wouldn’t let her chase the peacock.

Nor the white one in the parking lot that she called "Turkey!".

We didn’t go into the Palace itself, but we went all through the lovely grounds. We even tried out the hedge maze.

After that we headed to our B & B outside of Inverness, the Torguish House. I think we were in the Graham Room. They had it decorated in “Farm Chic”, but their web site doesn’t show the last little detail, the “farm” toilet seat.

Day 4: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 10:24:00 +0000

We started the day on the east end of the Royal Mile at Holyrood Palace, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland. We didn’t actually go into the palace, because it was muy expensive and we were saving up our castle viewing for that day for the Edinburgh Castle.

Holyrood is right across the road from the Scottish Parliament, and that is one weird-looking government building. This side is funky enough, but the other side is covered in bamboo (from the cover of which a pigeon crapped on John, poor baby).

Our main reason for being down that way, though, was to go to the Our Dynamic Earth museum, which we didn’t get photos of because it was raining when we got there. It was really cool, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids or without. The beginning was a little cheesy, with a trip through time to show how the earth was formed and different geological processes, like volcanic eruptions and glaciation, but the exhibits you go through at your own pace were very interesting. There were lots of hands-on exhibits and video clips, so Hannah wasn’t overly bored. My favorite was a clip that showed how mammals differentiated into different species (albeit in a very, VERY simplified way). A group of rat-like mammals split up into smaller groups. One group climbed a tree and tried, one at a time, to reach some fruit at the end of a branch; the first two fell to a gruesome, splatty death, but the third sprouted wings and became a bat. The second group tried to catch some fish, but the first rat drowned (glug!), the second developed into something a little bigger and seal-like, but drowned anyway, and the third developed into a dolphin and happily snagged the fish. The third group went to some grasslands. The first rat ate some grass, barfed, and croaked; the second developed into a bigger animal, ate some grass, barfed, and croaked; the third developed into a horse and munched away at the grass. I found it highly entertaining, but then again, rats that go splat!, gurgle!, and barf! are funny, right?

If you go across a road on the east side of Holyrood and Our Dynamic Earth, you are at the Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat. This is how it looks as you drive into Edinburgh from the south:

The Crags are on the left, and Arthur’s Seat on the right. From Holyrood, you see the top of Arthur’s Seat over the Crags, so we didn’t realize at first that it wasn’t one formation. We headed up the west side of the Crags, along with quite a few other visitors. Hannah wanted to climb right over the top, and even John, the intrepid explorer, was starting to get nervous on that account. Here she is taking a break about 10 feet above the path we were on:

Here she’s planning to have a picnic lunch:

Before we made it around to the south side of the Crags, we got a glimpse of the Firth of Forth (the mouth of the river Forth) in the distance:

When we got to the east side of the Crags, we were still a grueling climb away from the top of Arthur’s Seat, a climb we decided to pass on.

After that we headed back up the Royal Mile, with a quick stop in the tiny Museum of Edinburgh.

I believe a large part of the center of Edinburgh is Georgian. Here’s a pretty example from the corner of Cockburn and the Royal Mile (whatever it is called at that point):

The Royal Mile stretches between Holyrood on the east end and the Castle on the west end, so we managed to walk the entire stretch of it on day 4. We spent about an hour-and-a-half looking around the castle; we saw the Scottish crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny, and some other interesting exhibits about Scotland’s royal history. I really have to recommend the audio tour if you have a kid with you; it kept Hannah from getting too bored while I read the same info at each display.

I really liked this plaque; those golden unicorns seem to be thinking, “Hey! What you lookin’ at?!”

Afterwards we went a ways back down the Royal Mile looking for entertainment and food.

After chowing down some Indian food (John thought it would be our last chance before we got to the Highlands, but every other restaurant in Inverness was a curry take-away *g*), we wandered among the Fringe Festival street shows. We saw one act of a couple in chicken suits, and another contortionist, this one better than the last: he stuffed himself through a squash racket, a tennis racket, and a toilet seat, all at the same time. Here he’s getting ready to juggle some knives while balancing on a pole.

At some point we went into St. Gile’s, but maybe it was on day 3. It’s a gorgeous church, and I kind of wish we had had more time to look around there.

As we walked around Edinburgh (and my pedometer said we had walked 6.85 miles in two days), I noticed that there weren’t really any pigeons, but seagulls everywhere. You could see them swooping overhead and hear them calling. Edinburgh is right on the east coast, so that shouldn’t be surprising, but it made Edinburgh stand out for me.

Also, if you are planning on going there, take a warm jacket. I had my winter coat with the lining zipped out of it, and I wished on a couple of occasions that I had brought the lining, too. “August” does not necessarily equal “warm” in Northern Europe, although we tend to forget that.

And now on to the highlight of the day, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the grounds of the castle. Several different military bands performed. We heard lots of bagpipes and drums from the Scottish regiments, but there were performers from all over the place:
The Taipei First Girls’ Senior High School Honour Guard and Drum Corps was an all-girl marching band, with flags and rifles.
Middlesex County Volunteer Fifes and Drums was an American group from Massachusetts who wore uniforms like from the American Revolution, complete with tri-cornered hat and powdered wigs.
The band of the Moscow Military Conservatoire had the crowd eating out of their hands. Scots are known for their humor, and that was true of everyone we met, but these Russians took the cake.
The Mounted Band of the Blues and Royals played from horseback. I don’t think I could manage to play clarinet and steer a horse; marching and playing was hard enough!
There was a big group of Highland dancers from Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, and a team of mini-BMX stunt riders from about 10-16 years old.
My favorite was the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force Steel Orchestra, a military steel drum band. I know that military bands play at special occasions, but I thought that certain instruments (like bagpipes and trumpets and drums) were formerly used in battle for announcing charges and such. It’s hard to imagine attacking the enemy to the sound of steel drums. I guess you could lull them into limbo-ing and then give them the chop when they least expect it...

Our photos all came out blurry, but here is the finale, only semi-blurry:

Day 3: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:47:00 +0000

Even though we were staying in Penicuik, we didn’t spend much time exploring it because we were focused on Edinburgh. But on the morning of day 3, we missed the bus we had been planning to catch—n.b. the times on the bus schedule are “guides”, which came as a bit of a shock since we are used to the clockwork German bus system—so we walked a little farther into Penicuik until the next bus was scheduled to come.

On the way into Edinburgh, we made a little detour to get to Roslin, the home of Rosslyn Chapel. It was small but amazing. Unfortunately, our pictures didn’t come out too well, but here’s one of the better ones.

When we finally got to Edinburgh, we made our way through the Old Town a bit, where we spotted our first “This Belongs to Lionel Richie” sticker on the ground. We saw several more, including on the back of someone’s sweater, before we left Edinburgh.

We went to the National Museum to hear some music at lunch time: Sarah Naylor on the fiddle and Douglas Millar on the keyboard. They played traditional reels from Scotland and other English-speaking countries. A reel is a dance, and it struck me as kind of odd for people to be sitting fairly still to listen, as if it were a classical concert. A few songs in, a man with a cane standing on the edge of the seating starting tapping his cane to the beat, quite loudly. It didn’t seem out of place. After that, I noticed more people keeping beat with their thumbs and their toes. None of us were willing to commit a head or a whole foot to the rhythm of the music.

We walked around in the museum a little after that. John wanted to see the Lewis chess set, which he did, but his photos came out horribly blurry. Hannah spotted what she thought was a giant purple bouncy castle at the end of the street, but it turned out to be a giant inflatable cow on its back, complete with udders; it was at one of the Festival events near the university, and not at all for jumping on. After that we went to Greyfriars.

We weren’t able to go into the church because there was a concert, but we walked around the churchyard (aka kirkyard), which is really the draw to the church. It wasn’t crowded while we were there because it had been raining; we found it lovely and peaceful.

Then we headed for the Royal Mile and the freaks (a relative term for someone from Austin) at the Fringe Festival.

We watched a contortionist who squeezed himself through a tennis racket and had a pretty good comedy routine going, if a little risqué. I call it a learning moment: now Hannah knows about Jews and circumcision.

We saw a house that allegedly belonged to the family of John Knox, the Scottish religious reformer,

and peeked into alleyways called “closes”.

I remembered to wear my pedometer that day, and we walked about 3.5 miles before catching the bus back out to Penicuik for the night.

Day 2: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:19:00 +0000

This was our first full day in Scotland. We left Ayr after breakfast, which was our first try at the traditional Scottish breakfast like this one, and took a train to Glasgow. I have to say, the train was very convenient. If you get on at a small stop without a ticket counter, you just get on the train and wait for a conductor to come around, and you can pay on board. At Glasgow we got on a train for Edinburgh; we shared a seat with a woman from Iowa who was showing around her visiting family. Funny how we ran into so many Americans on the first part of our trip.

When we got to Edinburgh, we wanted to store our luggage and look around before heading to our bed and breakfast, but they wanted 5 bucks a bag(!!) at the “left luggage” office in the train station. (It took a little convincing to prove to John that “left luggage” doesn’t mean “lost luggage.” That crazy British English!) There was a mall at the end of the station, so we went into the food court, where we could each get what we wanted. Hannah had her standard McD Happy Meal, but John gave fish n chips a try.

Then we fought our way up and down the sidewalk outside the Waverly Station, looking for the Visitor Centre. The Edinburgh Festival was in full swing, and a tent had been set up outside the Visitor Centre to sell tickets to the Festival events, so it wasn’t quite so easy to see, even though it was located right on the roof of the mall where we’d eaten. We found out which bus we needed to get to the B&B, and headed out to unload our luggage.

(Ours was the top room in this picture.)

The buses are also pretty easy in Edinburgh. You have to have exact change, but it is quite cheap compared to here (2.50 pounds to ride all day, or 1 pound for a one-way trip). Unfortunately, Edinburgh was already pretty booked up when John was looking for accommodations 3 months in advance (!), so our B&B was in nearby Penicuik. I think it was only about 10 miles away, but by bus that could be as long as 50 minutes when the traffic was heavy. Fortunately, we got to Edinburgh early-ish, so even after going out to Penicuik and back, we had some time to walk around Edinburgh that afternoon.

We started out in Princes Street and walked through the gardens.

John had done his homework and could tell us most of what we were seeing, like the monument to Sir Walter Scott

and the floral clock celebrating the Scottish boy scouts’ anniversary

and the castle.

Along the way, we passed some Fringe Festival performances at the museums midway through the gardens. We missed our turn to the New Town and had to make a bit of a detour, but as I said probably every single day of our trip, it’s not our family vacation if we’re not lost. We finally found George Street, which was a bit posh for my taste, but at least we found a bookstore. In our family, books are souvenirs. Unfortunately, they are very heavy souvenirs.

After this ode to the British phone booth and letter box,

we looped around to the other side of the museum, where we were able to see their advertisement for their Andy Warhol exhibit. I would kind of like this on a poster.

After that, we were too footsore and tired to do much else, so we ate some Chinese buffet and went back to our room to rest up for another day of trooping around Edinburgh.

Day 1: Scotland vacation 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:40:00 +0000

Day 1 was actually quite short. The drive to the airport actually took longer than the flight itself (Frankfurt-Hahn airport is a bit of a misnomer, since it is as close to Frankfurt as Austin is to San Antonio). We ended up eating some crappy pizza from a stand in front of the airport because the weenie cart was unmanned; John had been to this airport once before and didn’t remember there being any places to eat inside, but there was a small cafe inside security, so that could have been an option if we had known about it.

Anyhoo, we flew on a small, cheap airline, so our boarding passes didn’t even have our names printed on them; they wrote them in by hand at the check-in desk. There also wasn’t any assigned seating, so Hannah ran out ahead of us onto the tarmac and managed to find us a row of seats before the plane filled up. We sat behind an American family from our town, and Hannah spent part of the trip chatting up the little girl, who was close to her age, in the seat in front of her.

I was made a bit nervous by the emergency instructions glued to the back of the seat—was the airline trying to tell us something? Constant vigilance! John pointed out that since it is an economy airline, gluing them down would be cheaper than replacing loose ones that go missing out of the seat pocket.

John spent part of the trip speculating on the proper pronunciations of our future destinations, Edinburgh and Penicuik: Pen-Quick? Pen-Kook? Wigglesworth?

Our flight arrived at 8:40 pm (and since Scotland is only an hour behind us, no jet lag!), and we were in our room at the Beechwood Guest House in Ayr by 9:35. See?

After a good night’s sleep, we were able to get up early, eat a hot breakfast, and get on the road to Edinburgh via Glasgow.

Speyer 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:50:00 +0000

Last weekend, we had some nice, sunny weather (for a change), so we took Hannah to Speyer to go to the Sea Life aquarium. It’s a nice little indoor aquarium, nothing like Sea World (which I would love to visit with this guy), but interesting and educational all the same. Unfortunately, flash photography was not allowed, so almost none of our photos came out. Here are Hannah and John checking out some fish.

As soon as we were done, before we even made it to the front doors, Hannah started whining and carrying on. She was tired. She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to walk around in Speyer. And so on, and so forth. I asked her if she was going to act like that in Scotland (our next destination), and she said yes. At least she is honest.

The last time we were in Speyer, we didn’t have a car or a digital camera, so the experience was a little different this time. We didn’t stray too far from the main attraction, the cathedral, mostly because it was so hot and our child was so unaccommodating, but we got plenty of nice photos of the few things we saw.

The cathedral and the Stadthaus:

The history museum for the Pfalz, where we saw a Playmobil exhibit the last time we were in Speyer, but this time they have something on Attila the Hun:

And finally, we got ourselves lost on the way home—a different route from when we were lost on the way there—so instead of crossing the Rhine via bridge, we went via ferry:

We'll be in Scotland August 14-22, so check back after that for an update.

Part three: Darmstadt

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:03:00 +0000

Normally, the most interesting part of a German town is the center, so that is where we headed first. Unfortunately, most of downtown Darmstadt is a big shopping complex, but there are still some historical buildings there. Many were damaged during WWII, but most have been renovated or rebuilt, depending on the level of damage.

I wish we had known about this site before we went. Instead of just wandering aimlessly around, we would have had some idea of how to get where we wanted to go. Oh well.

I didn’t actually recognize anything from when we lived there when I was a kid. We lived in a neighborhood out on the edge of town, and even that didn’t look like I remembered it. My mom said that they used to take my sister into town with them while I was at kindergarten, so maybe I didn’t even see that much of Darmstadt proper when I was young.

Anyhoo, on our recent tour, we saw the Residenzschloss:

And the Rathaus:

And the Hessisches Landesmuseum:

So we had our fair share of nice buildings to admire. And there was ice cream, so we could keep Hannah in line with a timely bribe.

Unfortunately, we missed the famous Hundertwasser building, the Waldspirale, and the Mathildenhöhe, because they weren’t right in the city center. If we have to drive anywhere, we have a fight, so it is better to park and go on foot.

Then we were off to Burg Frankenstein and the Felsenmeer (see below). See links to the right for the full photo set.

Part two: Burg Frankenstein

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:12:00 +0000

After taking a turn around Darmstadt (back in March), we found Burg Frankenstein (Frankenstein Castle) and walked around in it and took tons of photos.

Mary Shelley is supposed to have visited there before writing Frankenstein, according to the castle’s website; her stepmother was the English translator for the Grimms, and through this connection she probably heard a story about the alchemist and doctor Johann Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein, who was reputed to have created a monster that escaped into the surrounding woods and abducted children and virgins. Or not, according to Wikipedia.

There’s just a ruin there now, but at Halloween they set up a haunted house. They’ve been doing it since we lived in Darmstadt when I was a kid; we went one year, and I still remember some of it (I couldn’t have been older than 5, so it would have made a big impression on me).

Fling! A trebuchet. Or mangonel. I don’t know the difference.

The tower. Nice view, eh?

Full album on the right.

Part one: Felsenmeer, March 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:27:00 +0000

I was born in Frankfurt am Main, because my father was a serviceman stationed in Germany at the time. We lived in Darmstadt, not too far from Frankfurt, twice during his military career, leaving when I was 6. I have now lived for almost 4 years less than an hour away from Darmstadt, and my family and I finally made it there to look around in March of this year. Darmstadt is really not that big, and my husband is an ambitious trip-planner, so we visited Darmstadt, Burg Frankenstein, and the Felsenmeer, all in one day.

Since I am slow, I’ll tackle this trip in parts, starting with the last destination. Part one: the Felsenmeer.

It is a very cool rock formation, also known as the "sea of boulders", that was created during an ice age. I had actually been there as a child, but nothing looked the same as I remembered it. It is set in the woods and is very quiet and peaceful. If you look closely, the tiny hot-pink dot is Hannah on a boulder. That is how huge they are.

Here she is again, a little closer up.

It actually goes a long ways down the side of a mountain, but a zigzag path has been built between levels so you can get to the bottom of it without having to climb down hundreds of boulders. If you have a unicycle or bicycle, you could hop down it, like these lunatics.

Up until we had to hike back up the hill to get to our car, Hannah declared it was the Best. Outing. Ever. She got to climb over boulders. She used her walking stick to christen all the more interesting ones, like Big Rock and Whale. She ran out of steam at the end, though. Her last attempt? “I dub thee ‘stupid-I-have-no-name-for-you’.”

Unfortunately, the Felsenmeer is somewhat hard to get to, so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a car and a good map.

I've put links to the full albums on the right. Enjoy!

Inaugural Post

noreply@blogger.com (Nee S.) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:50:00 +0000

I heard through the grapevine that yahoo photos was closing up shop, and sure enough, it is going bye-bye this fall so yahoo can concentrate on its new baby, Flickr. I like Flickr, but it is already almost photo-blogging, and I use my account primarily for pictures of my kid. My husband set up our yahoo account so we could point people to our travel albums there, rather than email the million-and-two photos per trip.

While wrestling with the thought of what to do with the 2300+ (!) photos currently in our yahoo account (transfer them to Photobucket—duh!), it occurred to me that rather than let them languish in an online photo album, I should blog them. I have been kicking around the idea of a travel scrapbook for ages and ages, even scoring a CD from my scrapbooking-guru friend for making one digitally (thanks, WesTexGirl!); I even thought about building my own website. But I finally realized that a travel blog is the best solution for me. I can include photos, journaling, links, whatever catches my fancy. And I can finally find a home for the jillions of photos moldering in my closets and on my hard drive.

Caveat: I am not a professional photographer or travel writer, so you will be getting the ultimate first-hand tourist experience. I also thought friends and family might like to see what we’ve been up to in the 4 years we’ve been overseas. I will probably go back and steal stuff from my other blog, which is not primarily a travel blog, so you may see a few repeats, but probably not too many. I will also try not to overdo it with the photos—I know not everyone has a fast Internet connection—so I will still be organizing the bulk of the photos in photo albums, only on Photobucket instead of yahoo. I guess I should think about upgrading my account...

And to show that one doesn’t absolutely *have* to go far to find someplace interesting and beautiful, here is the view from our sunroom.