About a month ago, I left the precious American soil for the Fatherland.
It was awesome, stressful, and very worthwhile.
We went with Dan's parents, which I was initially a little apprehensive about.
I mean, traveling with anyone other than your spouse (and even them sometimes) can be emotionally taxing.
However, it ended up being a good thing...thank goodness!
This trip has been probably 4 months in the making.
We had talked about it so much that I honestly thought it wouldn't happen.
Jami and I talked about it to death.
It was like beating a dead horse.
So many flight options, and figure out dates to leave...I honestly had decided I didn't want to go.
It was way too much of a headache, and it's a lot of cash money to fly across the pond.
At one point, I told Dan he could just go and I would stay home.
He did not like that option one bit.
Then one day, his parents called and told us they bought the tickets and we were leaving this date at this time from this airport.
Well okay then...I guess this is actually happening.
Getting packed and ready for the trip was a nightmare.
Making sure we had the right converter for our appliances (which ended up singing my hair...more on that later), getting travel size shampoo, all the toiletries, etc.
This was significantly more stressful because it's not like I could just run to the corner Walgreens if we forgot something.
Talk about stress.
The day finally came that we were loading up and driving to Arizona.
We were flying out of Sky Harbor, plus leaving Ruby with my parents while we were gone.
When my Dad dropped us of at the airport, I may have started completely panicking.
It took a lot out of me to not run after the car as my Dad drove away.
And I may or may not have teared up in the airport before we even checked in with the airlines.
We got through security and all that fun stuff and got on the plane.
I still wasn't super stressed because this flight was going to Georgia.
And here's a happy selfie for you...because I really was pretty excited to leap across the pond.
On the flight to Georgia, I started reading a book which definitely helped pass the time.
I also watched the sunlight slowly disappear.
Jami had told us to bring our own water bottles because water is not free in Europe.
So we packed our good Contigo bottles.
Dan wanted a drink after take off, and I had completely forgotten about the pressure change.
So when he opened his bottle, water shot across the plane two rows up and hit some people.
It was the funniest/most embarrassing thing.
Thankfully, the people weren't mad, but it was hilarious!
We landed in Atlanta, and had to quickly make our way across the airport, take the right shuttle and make our connecting flight to Amsterdam.
Getting on that flight proved a little more difficult.
At this point, I decided I would rather pay the extra $30 for an international plan for Dan's phone than be caught without it in an foreign country.
Thank goodness for that!
We quickly added that on, and then off we flew to Amsterdam.
The KLM flight was pretty good, as far as long flights are concerned.
I had an endless selection of movies to watch, and they had a map where you could look and see where we were during the flight.
That was actually pretty cool to watch us fly up the Atlantic coast and then cross the ocean over to Ireland.
All the instructions were given in Dutch and then English.
That was a little...interesting.
And let's just go right into the food.
If I never see airplane food again, it will be too soon.
It was not bad at all.
Actually as far as airplane food goes, it was pretty good.
But man does that stuff just make you feel sick to your stomach!
Thankfully, we were hungry enough that we just ate it, but it was rough a few hours later.
When we finally hit daylight again, we were flying over Ireland and then England.
I was so excited just to see land, but it was also beautiful to see the countryside from the air.
Next we saw England from the air.
It's all very exciting, but really seeing land after only seeing vast expanse of ocean is quite exciting.
And please excuse the dirty airplane windows.
This is the closest I've ever been to Europe, and I was pretty excited.
Then we flew into Amsterdam.
Side note: the original flight plans we looked at included an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam.
I had great plans to go to the Van Gogh museum (he's seriously my favorite), and the Anne Frank house.
Sadly, for this trip we only had a 4 hour layover, which was not worth the hassle to try to venture out and come back through customs.
So here is Amsterdam from the air, and that will have to be enough for now.
As I mentioned above, we had a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam.
We had to go through customs at the airport.
That was a little different.
The customs agent had the most scrutinizing look on his face.
It was a little intimidating to say the least.
But I got a stamp on my passport!!
We got to our gate and waited the long four hours, fighting sleep in the middle of the airport.
Well, some of us were fighting sleep.
We finally got on our plane to Nuremberg, which was thankfully only an hour flight.
On that flight, the snacks were HORRIBLE.
Seriously horrible.
But I did get to sit in the emergency exit row, next to Dan.
So that was nice.
And we also saw a road (it seemed like a small highway) that went under the river!
When we arrived in Nuremberg, we got all our luggage and went outside to get on the U-bahn U2 train to connect with the Haupfbahnhof (which is the main train system in Germany).
That was a struggle.
We could not figure out the silly machine to buy the tickets.
Thankfully, a super nice man and his wife helped us get the tickets, and stayed with us until we got into Nuremberg.
Then they helped us get our tickets to get from Nuremberg to Vilseck.
We sat at the Nuremberg train station for an hour because we had barely missed the first train that goes to Vilseck.
So naturally we took a selfie.
This is the "I'm so bloody tired and desperately want to sleep and go home to America" face.
Pretty convincing, yes?
So we waited for the second train to come.
And we almost missed it.
Jami had told me that the trains run on time, to the minute.
Well, there was 2 trains in the station at the same time, only we didn't realize that.
Thankfully, the conductor must have seen our confused faces and helped us out.
That would have seriously sucked to miss that train.
By the end of the week, I was an expert at the train! (As long as I had the schedule.)
I was so stressed at this point.
Everyone was speaking German around me, and German is not pretty.
It sounds horrible actually, and super threatening.
Not to mention being in a foreign country, but add the language on top of it.
I also started to get sick on the train.
I usually do pretty well not getting motion sickness, but it was dark so I couldn't focus on anything except the swaying of the train.
It was all I could do to not throw up.
After an hour train ride, we made it to Vilseck.
Jami was waiting for us.
I've never been so excited to see a familiar face!
She drove us to our hotel, and I seriously thought I was going to get lost trying to find anything in the town.
Thankfully, we would come to find out that Vilseck is pretty small and fairly easy to walk around and find your way.
The hotel was so cute, and the staff was incredibly nice!
We ate some goulash and a dinner roll, and it might have been the best meal I had ever had.
We hauled all our luggage up three flights of stairs to our room.
Jami gave us a few tips (like the doors automatically lock, so always have your key; and the windows can swing open or tip open from the top, which is a brilliant idea!) and then said goodbye.
She would pick Dan and I up in the morning to take us to the train station to go to Rothenburg.
We unpacked, and I totally freaked out.
I was balling in the bathroom for a good five minutes.
I instantly missed America, my home, and my family.
I just wanted to go back.
Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who was patient with me during my minor panic from culture shock.
I just needed sleep.
It was only a week.
6 short days and I would be heading back home, probably wishing we could stay longer.
I could do it.
Plus, with this cute guy by my side, I can do anything.
Day 2: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
I mean, traveling with anyone other than your spouse (and even them sometimes) can be emotionally taxing.
However, it ended up being a good thing...thank goodness!
This trip has been probably 4 months in the making.
We had talked about it so much that I honestly thought it wouldn't happen.
Jami and I talked about it to death.
It was like beating a dead horse.
So many flight options, and figure out dates to leave...I honestly had decided I didn't want to go.
It was way too much of a headache, and it's a lot of cash money to fly across the pond.
At one point, I told Dan he could just go and I would stay home.
He did not like that option one bit.
Then one day, his parents called and told us they bought the tickets and we were leaving this date at this time from this airport.
Well okay then...I guess this is actually happening.
Getting packed and ready for the trip was a nightmare.
Making sure we had the right converter for our appliances (which ended up singing my hair...more on that later), getting travel size shampoo, all the toiletries, etc.
This was significantly more stressful because it's not like I could just run to the corner Walgreens if we forgot something.
Talk about stress.
The day finally came that we were loading up and driving to Arizona.
We were flying out of Sky Harbor, plus leaving Ruby with my parents while we were gone.
When my Dad dropped us of at the airport, I may have started completely panicking.
It took a lot out of me to not run after the car as my Dad drove away.
And I may or may not have teared up in the airport before we even checked in with the airlines.
We got through security and all that fun stuff and got on the plane.
I still wasn't super stressed because this flight was going to Georgia.
And here's a happy selfie for you...because I really was pretty excited to leap across the pond.
On the flight to Georgia, I started reading a book which definitely helped pass the time.
I also watched the sunlight slowly disappear.
Jami had told us to bring our own water bottles because water is not free in Europe.
So we packed our good Contigo bottles.
Dan wanted a drink after take off, and I had completely forgotten about the pressure change.
So when he opened his bottle, water shot across the plane two rows up and hit some people.
It was the funniest/most embarrassing thing.
Thankfully, the people weren't mad, but it was hilarious!
We landed in Atlanta, and had to quickly make our way across the airport, take the right shuttle and make our connecting flight to Amsterdam.
Getting on that flight proved a little more difficult.
At this point, I decided I would rather pay the extra $30 for an international plan for Dan's phone than be caught without it in an foreign country.
Thank goodness for that!
We quickly added that on, and then off we flew to Amsterdam.
The KLM flight was pretty good, as far as long flights are concerned.
I had an endless selection of movies to watch, and they had a map where you could look and see where we were during the flight.
That was actually pretty cool to watch us fly up the Atlantic coast and then cross the ocean over to Ireland.
All the instructions were given in Dutch and then English.
That was a little...interesting.
And let's just go right into the food.
If I never see airplane food again, it will be too soon.
It was not bad at all.
Actually as far as airplane food goes, it was pretty good.
But man does that stuff just make you feel sick to your stomach!
Thankfully, we were hungry enough that we just ate it, but it was rough a few hours later.
When we finally hit daylight again, we were flying over Ireland and then England.
I was so excited just to see land, but it was also beautiful to see the countryside from the air.
Next we saw England from the air.
It's all very exciting, but really seeing land after only seeing vast expanse of ocean is quite exciting.
And please excuse the dirty airplane windows.
This is the closest I've ever been to Europe, and I was pretty excited.
Side note: the original flight plans we looked at included an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam.
I had great plans to go to the Van Gogh museum (he's seriously my favorite), and the Anne Frank house.
Sadly, for this trip we only had a 4 hour layover, which was not worth the hassle to try to venture out and come back through customs.
So here is Amsterdam from the air, and that will have to be enough for now.
As I mentioned above, we had a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam.
We had to go through customs at the airport.
That was a little different.
The customs agent had the most scrutinizing look on his face.
It was a little intimidating to say the least.
But I got a stamp on my passport!!
We got to our gate and waited the long four hours, fighting sleep in the middle of the airport.
Well, some of us were fighting sleep.
We finally got on our plane to Nuremberg, which was thankfully only an hour flight.
On that flight, the snacks were HORRIBLE.
Seriously horrible.
But I did get to sit in the emergency exit row, next to Dan.
So that was nice.
And we also saw a road (it seemed like a small highway) that went under the river!
When we arrived in Nuremberg, we got all our luggage and went outside to get on the U-bahn U2 train to connect with the Haupfbahnhof (which is the main train system in Germany).
That was a struggle.
We could not figure out the silly machine to buy the tickets.
Thankfully, a super nice man and his wife helped us get the tickets, and stayed with us until we got into Nuremberg.
Then they helped us get our tickets to get from Nuremberg to Vilseck.
We sat at the Nuremberg train station for an hour because we had barely missed the first train that goes to Vilseck.
So naturally we took a selfie.
This is the "I'm so bloody tired and desperately want to sleep and go home to America" face.
Pretty convincing, yes?
So we waited for the second train to come.
And we almost missed it.
Jami had told me that the trains run on time, to the minute.
Well, there was 2 trains in the station at the same time, only we didn't realize that.
Thankfully, the conductor must have seen our confused faces and helped us out.
That would have seriously sucked to miss that train.
By the end of the week, I was an expert at the train! (As long as I had the schedule.)
I was so stressed at this point.
Everyone was speaking German around me, and German is not pretty.
It sounds horrible actually, and super threatening.
Not to mention being in a foreign country, but add the language on top of it.
I also started to get sick on the train.
I usually do pretty well not getting motion sickness, but it was dark so I couldn't focus on anything except the swaying of the train.
It was all I could do to not throw up.
After an hour train ride, we made it to Vilseck.
Jami was waiting for us.
I've never been so excited to see a familiar face!
She drove us to our hotel, and I seriously thought I was going to get lost trying to find anything in the town.
Thankfully, we would come to find out that Vilseck is pretty small and fairly easy to walk around and find your way.
The hotel was so cute, and the staff was incredibly nice!
We ate some goulash and a dinner roll, and it might have been the best meal I had ever had.
We hauled all our luggage up three flights of stairs to our room.
Jami gave us a few tips (like the doors automatically lock, so always have your key; and the windows can swing open or tip open from the top, which is a brilliant idea!) and then said goodbye.
She would pick Dan and I up in the morning to take us to the train station to go to Rothenburg.
We unpacked, and I totally freaked out.
I was balling in the bathroom for a good five minutes.
I instantly missed America, my home, and my family.
I just wanted to go back.
Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who was patient with me during my minor panic from culture shock.
I just needed sleep.
It was only a week.
6 short days and I would be heading back home, probably wishing we could stay longer.
I could do it.
Plus, with this cute guy by my side, I can do anything.
Day 2: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
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