Munich and Kaiserslautern

Wednesday July 23rd:
The schedule indicated a day trip via regional train to Nuremberg. Reality, X-Games Vacationing, and any hope of completing future travel plans required a day of rest, at least a little bit. A two hour train ride to Nuremberg and back today, plus five hours on a train the next day, plus three hours the next, then another two plus hours the next day was too much travel. After our rainy day in Munich we adjusted plans and took it a little easy visiting some more local sites on a bright sunny day.

After a more relaxed morning we made our way to the Olympia Park area in Munich. The train stop let us out next to the BMW World Museum.

We did not spend too much time inside, just looked at some of the shiny cars and tried one on for size. Meme thought this one fit just right. 

Josh did too.

We walked across the foot bridge to get into the actual Olympic Park. We wanted to have a little entertainment for the kids and let them take a break from sightseeing. A little mini golf was in order. 

It was a fun little mini golf place and it was not too busy. 

Some of the girls did a little walking around to see the sites of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Meme and the grand kids. 

This really did turn out for the best. The Nuremberg trip was an early morning train returning late in the afternoon and we had to be ready to leave town the next day. The change in plans allowed for a relaxed time in Munich and plenty of time to prepare for the rest of the trip. We also got the added bonus of visiting the Ratskeller Restaurant below the Munich Town Hall. The name has nothing to do with vermin. The City Hall in German is the Rathaus. This is a restaurant in the cellar or basement of the City Hall known in German as the "keller". So roughly translated Ratskeller is the City Hall Basement Restaurant. This was the restaurant that we skipped two night ago because of the exhausting rained out bike ride. The room that we were previously booked in was not as nice as the table we sat at for lunch on this day. It was a beautiful part of the restaurant, the food was great, and the service was even better. One of the best meals we had for the entire trip.   

After the kids had been entertained for a while and we had a great lunch it was time to walk around central Munich and do a little shopping.

Meme did a really good job taking pictures of individuals in out group and got some good shots. I really like both of these of the kids in front of the Rathaus.

It was fun to just stand around a little and not be on a tight schedule for the day. We had been in this area before once late at night and another time in the rain. This was by far the most enjoyable time.

Pictured in the middle above is the Old Town Hall. It is very confusing for visitors because it looks newer than the New Town Hall. The fact is that both of them were re-built after the war. The new town hall just looks older because of the Gothic style architecture. 

This is the inside of the church Heiliggeistkirche around the corner from the Old Town Hall. 

These are good examples of the buildings in the area. Walking west from Marienplatz is a great pedestrian shopping area.

The two domes of the Fraurenkircke are in just about every picture or souvenir representing Munich.

I think everyone was happy for the plan changes and for the day that we spent. We made it back to the house in time to get packed up for the rest of the trip. 

Thursday July 24th:

Getting the ten of us to the train station for day trips was enough of a challenge. Now all of us were going along with all of the luggage. Meme and the Henry clan were not returning to Germany this trip so they had to pack up everything. To get it done we had to load up a few people and most of the luggage in both cars, drop them off, and return for another load of people and cars. After that I drove the car back and rode my bicycle to the train station to meet up with the rest of the group.All told it took 45 minutes to get all of us there with all of our stuff and a means of transportation for us to get back home when the Ferguson Four return. 

You might be thinking we are making this too complicated. The fact is that the local train stations do have parking lots, but overnight parking is not allowed. There is parking along the street but we were going to be gone for over a week. We thought it better to keep the cars at the house safe and sound instead of parked along the street. Here is part of the group hanging out at the train stop.

Thinking back this turned out about as good as you could expect. We did have to get on a local S1 train to get to the main station, all ten of us with ten large suitcases, carry on stuff, backpacks, and food sack. At the main station we had to get up the stairs to the main level and find our train to Kaiserslautern. The first train only took us most of the way to Mannheim where we had to catch another train to get to Kaiserslautern. There was only 11 minutes to make the change. This became a bigger issue when our first train was ten minutes behind schedule at one point in the journey. They eventually made up a little time and we all ran from one track to the other, down the stairs to go under the tracks, and back up to catch the train. By the time we all arrived the train was not even there yet. I saw that, but by the time we got to the spot on the platform to board our assigned car it was there and we were piling on as fast as possible. For this leg of the journey the group was split into two cars. Both groups had challenges to get our luggage and our seats settled. This was the biggest cluster of madness that we experienced for the entire trip. This train to get us forty minutes down the tracks was also the train going to Paris. It was packed and Mannheim was a major transition point for a lot of these people. It was a stale mate of people wanting to go down the center aisle is both directions with luggage and other people in the way. There were people sitting in our assigned seats that could not move due to the mess around them. It literally took twenty minutes to get everyone settled and into our seats. We made it, almost there. Once we arrived at the Kaiserslautern Hbf we had one step left. We still had to drag our luggage down the road to the hotel close by the train station. Twenty minutes later we were there and ready to check in. One problem, I had screwed up the reservation.

With all of the planning and effort put in to this whole trip I could not believe my ears when the lady at the hotel told me I did not have any reservations for that evening. Keep in mind these hotels usually only have double occupancy, they normally do not have rooms for families. We had ten people and I though I had four room reserved. It turns out I had the dates wrong on the reservation. I was melting at the prospect of telling everyone we had to find other arrangements. After dragging our luggage around from train to train now what? Luckily it was a Thursday night in Kaiserslautern Germany. The hotel was fully booked on Friday night, but tonight was good and that was all we needed. Disaster averted. By the way this lady at the front desk was one of the nicest people I have encountered in all of Germany. She got us our rooms at the pre-booking rate that I thought I had reserved, gave us restaurant suggestions, and arranged for a late check out for one of our rooms the next morning. This may not sound like much, but after being in Germany for a year this is very much out of the ordinary to receive this kind of happy customer service. I think we bothered her about a few other things too and she always helped with a smile. I think she was just a nice person, bu as we found out Americans in K-Town were very welcome and appreciated. Kaiserslautern, or K-Town, is one of the largest military bases outside of the United States. There are over 60,000 Americans in this military community in this area. It has a long history after WWII and is a major contributor to the local economy.

We quickly got rid of the luggage and decided to go explore the town. We had not had lunch yet and it was getting close to dinner time. This is one of those places where most of the restaurants close at 2pm and open again for dinner at 6pm. We were in the dead zone. Thank goodness the kids found a Burger King to tide them over. 

We actually did a lot of walking that afternoon. It is a cute little-big town.

Soon we found ourselves at the Japanese Garden to restore some zen. Yeah, this lasted for about 20 seconds, long enough to get the picture. 

It really was a beautiful garden area. We spent a good amount of time here walking around and getting some great family pictures.

We made our way back towards the hotel and found an Italian Restaurant that the hotel desk clerk had recommended. It was a good meal. When we last left her she had sent us to another restaurant close to the Burger King. It was closed so we did the Japanese Garden first then had dinner at the other place on the way back. She was very surprised to hear that we had walked all the way to the Japanese Garden and back. That is what happens when you are traveling with the X-Games Europe 2014 group. 

Friday July 25th:

So some of you may be wondering why we chose to spend a night in K-Town. When we first started planning the trip this destination was a place we anted to work in if possible. After the trip I can say I am so glad that we did it. My Mom spent some time living in the military base at Kaiserslautern when she was a young girl. This was the first time she has been back since then. It was really cool to be with her for that experience. 

Friday morning we left Josh and Chris in charge of the other kids in the hotel room while the adults took a short (5 minute) train ride to meet some local military public relations people. They were so nice to arrange for us to get on to the base to see where my mom's father worked when he was stationed here as a Captain in the US Army in the 1950's. We also saw the area where they might have lived and even a building that looked similar to pictures that my mom had from that time period. 

The Rhine Ordinance Barracks is where he worked. It is still there although it has changed over the past 50+ years. The security was pretty tight and it was great having Rick and Ina there to take care of us.

He drove us around the base and gave us some of the history of the area. We stopped at a local coffee shop where English was the first language and they took US currency and credit cards. Sometimes it is the little things that mean the most. To Cindy and I this was a nice change.

I could not be more happy or more grateful for the time these people took out of their busy schedules to cart us around for a couple of hours. None of us knew what we were going to get out of this day as we all made the effort to get here. For me it meant a lot to hear some of the stories and to share in the memories and family history.

We made it back to the hotel to get the kids and to get some lunch. The hotel once again was so nice to let us store our luggage while we went out to lunch in the city. That afternoon we started another journey with all of our bags packed again. This time it was a bullet train direct to Paris. 

This time we had seats all together and we had little issue getting settled. The German ICE train exceeded 320km/hour (about 200mph) at times on our short two and a half hour ride to Paris. It was still quite the effort by everyone to get from the Paris Est station to the stop closer to our apartment. We had to walk to the property manager building to get the keys, then walk to the apartment, then take several trips up the elevator to get everyone and everything in.

So after a week of X-Games travel we were now in Paris. Time to sit back and enjoy the city. Well, not quite yet. We were only here to rest for the evening. Get some rest everyone, tomorrow we are on an early train again.