kahunaburger

Ages ago we had planned a 3 week trip to Europe to see my parents, family, friends and do some travelling in Switzerland. Beginning of September we left via Albuquerque, Dallas for Frankfurt and finally on to Munich. Here are a few photos from the trip and a short write-up to give you an impression of Pia’s first time in Europe.

The first and most important issue Candice and I faced was the selection of clothing for the little bean. The weather in Bavaria and Switzerland can be unpredictable at this time of the year. It’s possible that you still have Summer-like temperatures, but it’s also possible that you get temperatures around the freezing point. We attacked the dilemma with brute force and packed more than necessary for Pia (keep in mind you’re only seeing a small section of the things we had to put into our suitcases):

The flights Albuquerque -> Dallas -> Frankfurt -> Munich were uneventfull and we arrived at Munich airport on time. However, one of our bags decided to get delayed on the way over and we had to spend the first half hour in Munich to file the baggage tracking forms. Picked up a small BMW 318 touring from a car rental place at the airport and soon we were on the way to my parents place about an hour North on Munich (and thanks to George, I have to correct this statement: Aichach happens to be more to the West than to the North of Munich. As George said - it’s been a long time since geography class with Mr. Rachel [see StD Rachel Richard]. Thanks again George and say hi to Nicole.). It was frightening to see that our luggage almost did not fit into the BMW although we did not have any problems getting the things into the Volvo when we drove from Santa Fe to Albuquerque (also remember that there was also one bag missing in Munich).

We had really nice weather and the temperatures were comparable to those here in Santa Fe before we had left. My parents had prepared for our arrival much longer than we had for the trip. We were greeted with a perfect baby-proof household: toys, high chair, changing table - the whole enchilada. Looked like a baby was living there. Pia especially enjoyed the “real grass” in the back of the house:

Surprisingly, the baby (and parents) quickly adjusted to the new timezone. It was probably all those activities during the day that made us and Pia forget about the jetlag. We saw the city of Aichach from every angle and travelled with my parents around southern Bavaria.

    

One of those days we went to see my brother Marcus and his girlfriend Elke at their appartment. We had planned to go to the Alps for some hiking, but unfortunately the traffic situation did not allow us to get there in a reasonable amount of time. After spending more than two hours in the car, we decided to cancel the hike and go to one of the lakes south of Munich instead (town of Utting at the Ammersee lake). After some lunch and a few beers we walk around the lake for a while to get rid of some of the calories.
On the way back to my parents we stop by Corrinna’s and Uli’s place. They bought an old,old farm house close to Munich and spent quite some time to get it back into shape. In fact it looks really great and we can’t believe that they even had to lower the hardwood floor on the base level.

 

 

 

 

Next on the list was a visit to my aunt Monika and her partner Gisela in Noerdlingen. They retired there a few years ago after living in Munich for ages. What a cute little town they chose! The old downtown part is surrounded by an intact wall and we were able to circle half of the city on this wall. After that they brought us to a secret backyard beergarden where we had lunch. A fatal mistake was to show Candice the Strenesse factory outlet in Noerdlingen: she freaked out and worked feverishly on filling up a non-existant suitcase with stuff she bought there …

 

The next few days were spent with visits all over the place. One brought us to the Fuggerei in Augsburg which happens to be one of the oldest “social” institutions in the world, where people still can live for a few dollars (I’m not kidding) yearly rent. The waiting list is about 2 million people long … We took this picture of grandma and the pea at the Fuggerei (by the way: the little one LOVES fountains - whenever she sees water, she has to put her hands into it):

In our minds we had set some ambitious goals to travel for a week in Switzerland. While still in the U.S. we had made arrangements for a number of hotels (plus a third bed for the kid) all over Switzerland. “No problem - Pia can handle it” we said, when we left my parents place. We drove down to the Bodensee, had some lunch:

Continued on to Switzerland, where we stayed in the middle of Zurich. Keep in mind that we are talking about 6 hours in the car for little baby.

First night was just fine (besides the fact that baby wanted to go to bed at 7pm, we shared the room, ergo, we had to go to bed at 7pm as well) and we were like: “Wow - she is damned good traveller!!”. So the next day (it’s raining) we decide to go on and leave for Lake Lugano. It’s again a long, long trip in the car, but we don’t seem to have too many problems with Pia. On a stop way up in the mountains we go to a little restaurant and look mighty surprised as the owner shows up and happens to be Chinese.
We stay at the Bella Vista in Vico Morcote high up above the lake. The view is incredible and we consider ourselves more than lucky that we can stay in a place like this (looks like others liked the Bella Vista as well: http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/15786/a8c30/4/ - scroll down). We have an incredible dinner at the place and only wished we could have spent more time there.

 

 

(there always has to be a favorite picture in a batch; if I had to chose one from this trip, it would be the one below)

During the night, we have this sound machine incident - it involves: Pia, the baby; SoundMachine, the natural sound making device (which the baby, Pia, requires for a sound sleep); Candice, a mother; Tobias, a father and an unknown number of guests at said Bella Vista hotel. The time: 2am. Baby, mother and father are sleeping in the hotel room. Sound machine decides to fade from comfortable volume level to a volume level of zero, which makes noise produced by sound machine inaudible. Seconds later, the mother awakes. “The sound machine stopped working!” she hisses in the dark, which in turn wakes up father (to the right). “Damned!” he says. Trembling hands try to fix the sound machine in the dark. Unplug it - plug it back in. Nothing seems to work. “She’s gonna wake up!” hisses the familiar voice on the left. Like a prophet the voice predicted the future and baby starts rolling around in her crib (whether Pia was actually woken up by the abundance of quiet in the room or the noises produced by the parents … we will never know). To make a long story short: Pia wakes up and screams for the next two hours on and off. I’m sure guests in the hotel did not appreciate it too much. Sound machine plays dead for the rest of the night.

Candice and I determine that with the sound machine gone, we lost one of the most important sleep-supporting devices and that there is no way to go on with the little one. We also think that it would be more than difficult to get a replacement device in the neighbourhood. That all in mind (and the fact that my parents would love to spend more time with Pia), we decide to leave the hotel the next day and return back to Aichach.
The same morning we check out and leave back home for Germany.

This allows me to talk a few seconds about Pia’s first German culinary experience: This kid loves them tomatoes!!! My parents had those sweet, ripe cherry tomatoes in the back yard and Pia just ripped them off the bush and ate them. Constantly!!! She would down 20-30 tomatoes at a time. Grandpa would also get her pretzels (Brezn) every morning and sometimes he would even take her along. The last picture in this row shows her sitting in the container where my parents usually keep their bread - she was obviously looking for some more supplies here …

 

 

 

 

The rest of the time we hang out with my parents:

 

 

We do a few days trips, like the one to my relatives in Gilching, where Pia sees more animals in one day than she has seen in her whole life:

 

 

 

 

And we take this gorgeous trip to the Ammersee lake, to the town where my dad was raised.

 

 

 

(and if I had to pick a second favorite photo from this trip, it would be this one of my dad and Pia)

And just before we leave, the three of us meet Corinna and Uli at the Oktoberfest in Munich. Pia loves the music in the beer tents (and the foam from mummy’s and daddy’s beer). However she gets ten times more excited when we show her the animals at the farmers exhibition right next door.

On the way back, there is a small incident that makes Candice/Pia and I go on separate planes: My green card expired the day before (I knew about this before the trip) and I have a copy of my renewal papers with me. However the copy is not good enough. At the checkin for the Frankfurt -> Dallas leg I’m asked to show the original renewal papers. Without those the people at the gate won’t let me on the plane. I’m told that I have to go to the American Consulate in Frankfurt and sort things out there. After some discussion we make the wise decision to have Candice/Pia go back as originally planned.
I spend some time at the Consulate and get some temporary travel papers, while Candice has one of the worst plane trips ever. 24 hrs after my scheduled departure I’m on a plane back to the US (I spent the night at the airport hotel in Frankfurt)

Besides the last 24 hrs we really, really enjoyed the trip and can’t wait until we go there the next time (and it looks like this is going to be next year)!