The Most Wonderful Time of the Year....to catch up on blog worthy material

So much has happened since our return from Italy. It took me almost a month just to get those posts done and now it is another two weeks later. Upon returning from Tuscany we had the remainder of the week to recover before the family arrived back in Munich from Paris. To recap Robert and Lisa were in the middle of their whirlwind tour of almost a month and Hutch was being passed back and forth between them and us. He was nearing the end of his trip when he arrived back in Munich that Friday.
Saturday Robert, Lisa, Hutch, and Cindy drove to Salzburg to see the city and take the Sound of Music Tour. They got up early to make the two hour drive and catch the earlier tour that is over before it is dark. They also had to be back to pick up Bradley and Conrad flying in from Berlin Saturday evening. There was a drivers' strike (again) for the German trains that changed everyone's plans around but they got it all figured out, it just takes more money, right? The trip to Salzburg was a success and so was the airport pick up. Now it was the nine of us for one night in our little house in Germany.
Sunday arrived, it was the day that Hutch started his journey home. We got him to the airport that morning. There was a lot of resting and hanging out with the Reid crew all there for only one more day.
Bradley visited us with Lisa right before we moved away to Germany. Every since then my kids have been fascinated by everything that is Bradley. He likes Minecraft and My Little Pony, and automatically is loved by both kids. He did not get much space or time on his own while visiting us.

That evening we walked to the Forest Restaurant Bergl for an early dinner with Madelon and Bernhard joining us. They are now the official welcome committee for any friends or family that visit us. As usual they were a big hit with the group and we have a fun time. Sunday evening as we were all winding down we got a call from Hutch saying that he did not make his flight from Philadelphia to Dallas. He will have to give you all of the details but it gave us all a scare. He did make it home the next day and everything turned out to be okay in the end.

On Monday the kids went to school and Cindy had to go to work still not knowing the status of Hutch at that point. She was not into work that day with everything going on and came home early. I don't really remember much happening that day. Once the kids made it back from school they hung out with Bradley and Conrad. Katherine convinced Bradley to watch some My Little Pony with her. It looks very intense. Rainbow Dash must have been in trouble!!

That evening was when the "fun" started. Again, close to bed time, there is a loud crash. Cindy has slipped on the stairs and landed on the ribs in her back. Not to be outdone by her father, she has to have her own emergency. She is immediately in a lot of pain on the ground. After a few seconds she gets up and we manage to get her down the other stairs to the bedroom to lay down, not knowing yet how serious this was. Within another few seconds she is telling me that it is very bad, she can't breath, and to get some help. This was our first "112" call in Germany. No 911 here.

So this was a terrible situation. The kids were getting into bed and they were sleeping on air mattresses in our room. They are already freaking out seeing their mommy in so much pain and they have sitting in their beds as the first set of medical people arrive. I was so glad that Lisa and her family were there. While I was trying to attend to Cindy and communicate with the medical folks, Lisa took the kids out of the situation upstairs to play with Bradley and Conrad. She was taking good care and assuring them that mommy was going to be okay. Soon enough they were playing with the boys and not worrying so much. Cindy on the other hand was not happy. It took the first two people only a few minutes to arrive but they really could not do much for her. She was in pain, having trouble breathing and they were taking vitals and getting am IV going. She kept asking for something for the pain and they did nothing. We finally figured out that they were kind of a first response that were only to evaluate if a doctor was needed. She had to wait another 20 minutes before they second group arrived before they gave her some stuff that immediately gave her some relief. Yet a third set of people arrived sometime later to get her on a backboard and hauled up the stairs into the ambulance. It took well over an hour but she was on the way to the hospital. The kids got to bed and Lisa and her family stayed behind to make sure they were okay while I drove to the hospital. Long story shorter, she ended up with a fractured rib and had to stay overnight in the hospital. I will spare the details of all of the stuff at the hospital and the room where she stayed for the night with an old lady as a roommate. There was not a chair or anywhere for me to stay with her and she just wanted to sleep. I made it back home but was back at it again a short time later and the Reid boys were headed to the airport early that morning. They set up a plan B to get a taxi, but we were all up so it was better to avoid that expense. We got them to the airport and now the kids were about to have to get up for school. I was willing to maybe let them stay home if they were exhausted or otherwise out of sorts, but they woke up fine. David and I had some teacher conferences scheduled for that morning too, so I was glad the kids were fine. After school drop off and the conferences I had time to run home for a few minutes before going back to the hospital to get Cindy. That night we ordered in Italian food. Madelon and Bernhard made a visit to check on Cindy before we called it a night. 

Cindy was under orders to stay home from work for the rest of the week, at least. For some reason the hospital cannot prescribe long term pain medication. We ended up having to go to the local doctor's office to get the medicine she needed for the next few days. The worst part of that was her having to ride in a car. For whatever reason the turning and motion of the car made the rib hurt more than anything else. In fact for several days after she said riding in the car was the worse part of the recovery.  Wednesday morning Robert and Lisa got on a train to Vienna. They were making a quick trip and coming back on Thursday night. Friday they spent the day in Munich before Madelon and Bernhard came over for one more visit. Saturday they packed up and headed home. The Ferguson Four have traveled up to about ten days once or twice, I cannot imagine how exhausted Robert and Lisa were after three and a half weeks of it. They were busy and made the most of every day. It was good to see Hutch and the Reid's. We are glad for the visit even though a couple of us ended up needing medical attention before it was all over. Now it is a couple of weeks later and they have mostly recovered. I don't imagine that we will see Hutch again in Europe. We might have to wait until we get back home for that reunion. He is always welcome, I just don't think he is going to be itching to jump on another transatlantic flight anytime soon. 

I had to find a place to throw in these pictures. This year with David starting middle school at BIS I have attended a couple of parent information meetings. I had no idea that the Schloss at the school had this chapel still intact. These meetings have been held inside this chapel. I snapped a couple of pictures to show how elaborate this room is. Fun place to meet. 

Cindy was back to work the Monday after her sister returned home. She is doing fine with the recovery, just watch out for the sneaky sneeze or cough. Those appear to be a little rough on the ailing ribs. We did have a rather uneventful couple of weeks from what I remember.

Saturday November 29th - Day Trip to Nuremberg
We are confident this is our last Christmas in Germany for a long while. A few weeks prior we put it on the calendar to make a trip to Nuremberg to check out the world famous Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt. We have talked about going to visit this city several times but for various reasons we had not made it there yet. Opening weekend of the Christmas Market seemed to be as good a time as any. In addition to the market this city has a long history as the former capital of the Holy Roman Empire and a central location for the Nazi troops. The drive that morning was pretty short. The A9 autobahn takes you all the way there. No speed limit combined with very little traffic put us at our first stop in less than 90 minutes from home.
We stopped outside of the central part of town at a museum that used to be the Nazi rally grounds. Below was from an overlook in the museum area viewing the congress hall area. The museum had pictures of this area full of troops listening to Hitler.

 Below is the observation deck from the above picture. We walked outside and took a look from ground level.

From what we could tell the stage and podium where Hitler stood had been taken out. Nearby this location was also the Zeppelin Field grounds that are even larger. We headed out from here to the center of the old town.

We had time to take a look around but ended up also having time to grab some lunch before an English walking tour started. Several places were already really busy. We sat down at some outdoor tables under blankets at one restaurant and waited. Nobody ever came out to serve us and we really didn't want to sit outside in the cold. Our next stop was a few steps away from the middle of town where we found a great tapas restaurant. We had tapas in Barcelona and loved them. Once again we were not disappointed. We warmed up inside with some yummy food before meeting our tour.

As this was opening weekend for the markets we were not the only English speaking people that were trying to tour the city and see the markets on the same day. This daily tour by the city tourist office usually has less than ten people, today they had over 30. It was not the best tour guide ever, but we still enjoyed getting to hear some history behind all of the sites.

While 80% of the city was destroyed by allied bombing in WWII this bridge actually survived. She had a picture of this area destroyed, but the bridge remained.

This city is really what you see in all of the pictures when you think about a German old town. The churches, the half timbered houses, and the charm of the town was great.

The above picture and the two below were all taken in the same area. The old city wall and the tower in front of us with half timbered houses on the side and behind us.

This was the home of Albrecht Dürer, who our guide described as the most important and famous German renaissance artist of all time. She commented that he is not as famous as Leonardo or Michaelangelo because he was not Italian. I was skeptical when she said that, but even Wiki backs up her statement of his importance. Personally I had never heard of him before.

We made our way up the hill to the massive grounds of the  Imperial Castle of Nuremberg. Above I was trying to capture the many layers of barrier walls they had in place.

She had an interesting story about the above area of the palace complex and how the people of the time managed to drive away the former ruler. There was a nice view from on top of the palace grounds over the city.

Below is from the main courtyard area looking back at several buildings of the complex. The tour ended here. We walked inside to the ticket area where we sat down to watch a video illustrating how the Imperial Palace had changed over its 1000 year history. It was cool to see the evolution of the structures and how each new ruler wanted things bigger and taller. We also got to warm up a little.

Above on the left side is the town hall building. This is on the road down the hill looking back towards the center market area. The people have now arrived!

We made a slight detour to see this half timbered building and this old bridge. From what I read the city executioner used to live in this tower across the bridge away from everyone else. Nobody wanted to love close to, or have anything to do with this guy. He got his own space. Now these buildings are student housing.

Our day was winding down to this time of the early evening. We had avoided shopping to do the city tour waiting until the darkness set in for the proper Christmas market experience.

One last picture of this other church before it gets too dark. We also found a nice table at a coffee shop and warmed up one last time before hitting the market.  

Oh my gosh what have we done? Opening weekend at the most famous Christmas market in the middle of Germany, that is what we did.

They did have an area set up for kids and we walked through there for a while. Back in the main square it was crazy. It was all okay until you factored in that we had been at it all day already, Cindy was getting bumped repeatedly, which was not great on the rib that is still healing. After you busted through the ends of each aisle and got into the middle aisle sections you could actually get to the booths and see stuff. We did find one ornament that we wanted to take home. The problem was that we could not find anyone in the booth. There were several people waiting for this person to show up and help them. Several minutes later this guy shows up. He was drunk or stoned, probably both. It took a lot of patience but we eventually completed the transaction to land the ornament. All of the other people got tired of his act and left. We came close several times, but stuck it out. I hope that guy was okay after we left. I wonder how much stuff ended up getting stolen from that booth that night?

We were cold and tired at this point. We came, we saw, we chopped. Time to hit the road. It was a nice trip back home with no traffic on the autobahn again.

The next morning we were ready for some more, kind of. Last year in Munich we came across this hand carved wooden nativity set. The guy was sold out so we did not get one. We decided to take the train into Munich to see if he was there this year. We visited a couple of the central Christmas markets. 

We did find the guy and he had the nativity set again. This time we did not like it as much as we remembered so we passed on it. At least we know, right? We still had some street food and gluhwein before heading back to the house. 

Wednesday evening I picked up Madelon from her home and we got the kids from school. Next we drove to Freising to meet up with Cindy and Bernhard and some other TI folks at the smaller Freising Christmas market. We got some food, drank some warm beverages and did a little shopping. This was a lot smaller and much less busy than our other excursions so far. It was a nice relaxed evening, but still a little chilly. As we were saying our goodbyes for the evening Katherine busted out a song that she has been working on at school. Our German speaking friends approved of her song choice.

"Laßt uns froh und munter sein" or Let us be happy and cheerful is a song about Sankt Nikolaus coming to visit the German kids on December 6th. The night before you leave your shined shoes out and St. Nicholas visits on his horse. If you have been good he leaves candy and gifts. If not you get a potato or tree branch, depending on who you talk to about this tradition. Apparently Santa Clause was derived in part from this Sankt Nikolaus. I loved the video and watching Bernhard listen to Katherine singing.

Well there we go. All caught up. This weekend the kids are spending time with some friends and Cindy and I are headed south a a small village in the Alps to spend the day. Pictures and descriptions to follow soon after.