Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Statistics
We looked inside some of the posts by lizandgrantgotogermany and here's what we found interesting.
Average Info
Notes Per Post
0
Likes Per Post
0
Reblog Per Post
0
Reply Per Post
0
Time Between Posts
3 hours ago
Number of Posts By Type
Photo
12
Text
5
Last Seen Tumblr Blogs
Fun Fact
BuzzFeed published a report claiming that Tumblr was utilized as a distribution channel for Russian agents to influence American voting habits during the 2016 presidential election in Feb 2018.
Photo
Day 8: Cute jam and other spreads shop in Heidelberg
0 notes
Text
Day 8: Heidelberg!
Day 8 brought a new weirdness. I couldn’t believe our trip was almost over! Grant and I got ready for the day and headed to the bakery to buy the breakfast bread and other goodies–two delicious pastries and some German cheesecake. I felt proud that we got what we needed and that I used my German counting skills…but really, it was a point and nod type of situation. Oh well! It was fun. When we got home, breakfast was set. Linda fancied up the cheesecake for Kayla’s birthday. It was pretty adorable–once we all sat down, we sang Happy Birthday in English, and then Linda and Aylin sang a bunch of German birthday songs. So many! Kayla kindly shared her birthday cheesecake, and we all stuffed ourselves with breakfast food. Everyone finished getting ready, and a couple hours later, we left for Heidelberg.
Heidelberg was a pretty picturesque town, once we got in the town center. I admit that it is a bit touristy, but sometimes that’s okay. The buildings were all different colors and very old. As I understand it, Heidelberg was one of the few towns that wasn’t ruined in WWII. The town had not only old, nice buildings but also soooo many shops! Aylin played the good tour guide and told us that Heidelberg has the longest shopping street in Germany. I hope I got that fact right! We spent a few hours browsing a German Department store; THE German Christmas store, Käthe Wohlfahrt; and a few other small shops. It was a lot of fun!
We may have spent a little too much time browsing, because the sun was going down and it was getting colder by the time we trekked up to Schloß Heidelberg. http://www.schloss-heidelberg.de/start/ This castle was enormous compared to the other castles we’ve seen. It wasn’t as sentimental as say, Burg Linda, but it was really, really neat to see a place so large. We wandered through the castle and saw the biggest wine barrel. Pretty cool!!
After our walk through Schloß Heidelberg, we walked to dinner at Vetter’s Alt Heidelberger Brauhaus. Grant got a beer, and I got a wheat beer with sparkling champagne and strawberries. It was quite delicious! Grant ate schnitzel, because Germany. I thought I was getting crazy by getting German meatloaf with a pretzel…but I found out that meatloaf translates to the word for the food we had the other night! Fleishkäse! Major twist, when the food showed up. It tasted delicious! And I got to eat it with sweet mustard, which we didn’t have the other night when we ate it at Linda’s. So, it was all good. The best part of dinner was dessert, even though I could barely eat it: apfelstrudel. It was served hot with custard and whip cream. Luckily, I was able to fit a few delicious bites in my stomach. Delicious!
The end of dinner led us to a little last-minute shopping before it was time to head home. The town was even more beautiful at night with the Christmas lights glowing. Once everyone satisfied their shopping cravings, we headed for home.
Grant and I worked on packing up, and Linda’s family stopped by to say hello and goodbye. Or, maybe for other stuff, and we happened to be there, so we said hello and goodbye. Either way, it was bittersweet!! Once we were all packed, we tried to play some Looping Louie, but we were all pretty spent. So, one last movie. Then, bed. Tomorrow, home!
I can’t believe the trip is nearly over. And I can’t believe my friends became such incredible tour guides! This trip would’ve cost a few thousand dollars more if we would’ve bought it as a tour. Instead, it was free, and we got all sorts of friendship and love and conversation and home-cooked meals. This trip confirmed a couple things: Germans are awesome, we have great friends, and we can’t wait to travel again!
0 notes
Text
Day 7: France! Straßburg!
On Day 7, we all woke up nice and early so that we could get out the door and get to France! I knew that we would be traveling to Straßburg, but I didn’t know it was in France until a day or two before we went. Linda told us that Straßburg was German before the war, but became French after the war. Signs are in both French and German, and there seemed to be as many German food options as French.
Before we went into Straßburg itself, we traveled through it and into the mountains to visit the only Nazi-established concentration camp in France, Struthof. It wasn’t open when we went, but we still got to look around. Even though we didn’t get to walk on the grounds of the camp itself, it was still very eerie to look at. We were able to walk through and visit the memorial place of some of those who lost their lives there. Later that night, I looked up some information about the concentration camp, and like most facts associated with the Holocaust, its history was disturbing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natzweiler-Struthof
The most insane part of touring near Struthof was seeing the camp’s commander’s house. It was located maybe 1-minute walking from the camp. He lived there with his wife and children. I just couldn’t believe that a person lived in such a nice, cute little house next to such horrific events. I felt weird and silly because as we were walking around, my water bottle kept sloshing around in my backpack, and I had the urge to pour the water onto the ground, as if the prisoners could somehow get the water? I’m not sure. It was weird and crazy to see a location associated with everything I’d learned or read about in my lifetime about the Holocaust. The information outside of the house said that the commander admitted to what he did at his trial, and said he was only doing what he was told because that was how he was raised. There is a lot more to think about and digest about Stuthof than I can put in this blog today.
After that heavy stop, we headed back in to Straßburg. We got caught back up in everyday life, trying to find a place to park. Eventually, Linda spotted a place, and Aylin parked like a champion. Seriously! Then, it was time to wander around Straßburg. It was so beautiful. I liked being in Straßburg, because it presented new challenges. None of us speak French except Aylin, so we couldn’t ask “what does that mean?” “what does that sign say”? Aylin had to translate the French to German, and the German to English, so we all just dealt with not knowing what things mean.
Our first stop was for some lunch at Le Pfifferbraider. We had regional traditions, including Frammkuche (a sort-of flatbread pizza with onions, a meat, and some cheese if you order it with cheese) and Quiche. Both were good, but the Quiche was my favorite. I had a regular Pepsi, which came in a glass bottle, and whew, it was certainly made with real sugar!
We stumbled upon the Straßburg Cathedral, and waited in line to walk through it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_Cathedral The wait was short, only a few minutes, and it was worth it. The cathedral had hidden speakers in it, so angelic music was playing, and it made for quite the experience. More incredible architecture and stained glass. The best part of visiting the cathedral happened after we walked out of it—there is a replica with some information outside of the cathedral, and a blind man went over to “see” the cathedral. It was so cool to watch.
After the cathedral, we wandered around Strassbourg. We ate some French crepes, which we so delicious! An interesting part of our visit to Strassbourg was that soldiers were walking around with guns. Aylin and Linda were pretty shocked to see the soldiers, especially with such heavy artillery. It didn’t seem that odd to me, since I saw soldiers like that in Israel, but it was a little weird to brush shoulders with the soldiers. After we ate our crepes, since Aylin’s parking was going to expire, we decided to head back to the car and go home. We got slightly lost on the way back, since Linda and Aylin couldn’t use GPS on their phones. Even though France and Germany are physically close together, Linda and Aylin still couldn’t use phone data in France. Linda and Aylin were resourceful and used at Atlas. Soon enough, they figured out where we were, and we were back at Linda’s place in about an hour and forty-five minutes.
Linda’s mom had kindly dropped off bratwurst, homemade kraut and potatoes. Linda cooked it all up, and it was sooooo good. Grant and I had a little too much kraut. Our stomachs had some things to say after dinner. Luckily, everyone was kind to us—we had plans to go out for Kayla’s birthday—and let us have a few drinks at home before going out. It was way too dangerous to leave right after dinner!
Around 10:30 or 11:00, we were safe to leave. We headed to Darmstadt to an Irish Bar for trivia. We celebrated Kayla’s birthday with some delicious shots and drinks. We got back around 1 AM, and I fell into my bed and into a very easy sleep. Yeah!
0 notes
Text
Day 6: Frankfurt
On the fifth day, neither Grant nor I was hung over! Success! If that’s what it means to drink beer—no hangovers—then sign me up for life. Since I wasn’t hung over, I was able to get up early and get going easily. I got ready in enough time to travel to the bakery for bread with Linda. Yes, every day she went to the local bakery and bought us bread for breakfast. It is so good! And the walk was nice. When we got back, we set up breakfast, and all sat down to eat together, per the usual. I love the usual breakfast in Germany!
After breakfast, we packed up and set off for Frankfurt. We met up with Aylin’s good friend from home named Lisa, who currently works in the fashion industry in Frankfurt. Lisa was our wonderful tour guide for the day. We took the train from her place, where we met. She made me feel like a city gal, since she took us on the train into the center of town.
Our first stop was Main (rhymes with Rhine, not sane) Tower, which has an observation deck on the top of the building. It was odd to be in a place where there were other tourists! This building reminded me of the Sky Deck in Chicago, as in it is a place where tourists want to travel to just to see over the city. We could see for kilometers! Lisa pointed out lots of cool stuff, my favorite being the area that wasn’t bombed during WWII. After we got our fill of pictures and views, we walked through the shopping district. All the stores were cool to look at, but whether they are in Germany or the U.S., I can’t afford them! We’re talking Michael Kors and other famous designer stores. We wandered into D.M., which seems to me like the Germany version of Walgreens.
After our pit stop at D.M., we walked to the old part of town. The buildings are so beautiful! My favorite part was seeing big photographs of what the buildings looked like before WWI or WWII in comparison to what the buildings look like now. As we walked, we started walking with a purpose—dinner! Lisa graciously made reservations for us at Lokalbahnhof. http://www.lokalbahnhof.info/ I was very excited to order my first ever beer in a restaurant. My Schoefferhofer Grapefruit beer was so good! Grant got a Whiskey Smash; when I asked Grant to describe it, he said “it was a really good whiskey sour.” Nice.
Both Grant and I opted for schnitzel. He got it with some special green herb sauce, and I got mine with a mushroom sauce. The green herb sauce tasted a bit like veggie dip. It worked well with the schnitzel, as well as with our fries and fried potatoes. Yum. So yum.
After dinner, we walked to a train station and went back to where Lisa lives. We thanked Lisa, said tschues, and started for the drive back to a grocery store near Linda’s place. I was very happy when we could roll ourselves out of the car. Grocery shopping was fun! Grant and I bought an industrial-sized amount of Nutella, since it’s less expensive here than in the states.
I think we were all finally feeling the effects of traveling for so many days in a row. It was a fairly quiet night when we got back. We ate some snacks, drank some drinks, and headed to bed by 10:30 PM or so. All of us agreed that it was hard to fall asleep. I guess that taught us to have a few more drinks to secure a good night’s sleep. Ha!
0 notes
Photo
Day 4: Linda’s “backyard”, basically. This is where we went for a walk before lunch. Unreal! So beautiful!
0 notes
Photo
Day 5: Beer tasting beers! Minus the one or two other types that we found later
0 notes
Text
Day 5: Roller Coasters & Castles
We got some great sleep between day 4 and day 5. We woke up, had a delicious breakfast (again! We are so lucky to have such great hosts!) and left Linda’s place for Sommerrodelbahn Wald-Michelbach. Sommerrodelbahn is a little amusement park. All that was open on the day we went was the personal roller coaster. Everyone and their German brother was there, because most things are closed on Sundays, and many places that might usually be open were closed because of the holidays. We stood in line for a while, but it was worth it! You go on the dollar coaster by yourself, and you control the breaks. So, you go as fast or slow as you want. Pretty cool!! We went through twice, and that was enough for all of us, given the wait to get back on the ride.
After the roller coaster, we traveled to Burg Lindfels. This castle was pretty well preserved, and it had amazing views. Great for pictures!! It also had a church next to it, so we stopped in and viewed that.
Our last stop before dinner was at Felsenmeer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockfield It’s a hiking place. The legend is that two or three giants fought, and the knocked boulders together, which created all of the big rocks for us to climb on. It was great to hike and get the blood pumping, after the millions of pounds of German food that we ate! By the time we got back to the car, we were ready for a yummy dinner.
Linda and Aylin made us a traditional Bavarian meal for dinner. They needed eggs, and most stores were closed, so we stopped at an "automat," which was basically a soda machine that had food instead of soda inside. Liverwurst, eggs...whatever you need! The dinner was sooo good! Here's what we had: Fleischkäse, Weißwurst, Leberwurst, Kochkäse, obatzter, spundelkäse, Brezeln, Kartoffeln and Quark.
After our big meal, we cleaned up and prepared ourselves for a German beer tasting. We had them from lightest to darkest. I took really diligent notes, including smart things like "tastes like dirty water" and "tastes like smooth dirty water." I am practically a pro beer taster now. I actually found one that I love: a wheat beer with grapefruit flavor. So good! The least German beer, probably, but hey, I like it! The beer tasting turned into continuous beer drinking, and we played games, chatted, and drank for way too long. But, it was very, very fun, so it was worth it!
0 notes
Text
Day 4: Much Food, Much Relaxation
And on the fourth day, I was extremely hung. My first night of drinking more than one glass of wine left me feeling like death. I was so thankful for Aylin’s parents hosting us and giving us an amazing dinner and delicious wine, so I made myself get up and act like a normal human for breakfast. When there is a sit-down breakfast, our experience has been that everyone waits for everyone to get to the table before eating. Aylin’s parents set out a really yummy breakfast, and we all ate. Afterwards, we packed up to travel back to Linda’s parents’ place in Hambach.
My hangover was not helped by the winding German roads on the way there. However, a nice walk around Linda’s parents’ neighborhood definitely did help. That is one of our favorite things about Germany—walking is a past-time. After our fun walk in the German countryside, we arrived and prepared ourselves for a Christmas lunch with Linda’s family. It was an exciting arrival at Linda’s parents’ house, because Kayla’s luggage had arrived. Definitely like Christmas for her!
At this point, it was December 26th. We learned that Germans may celebrate Christmas on the 24th, 25th and 26th. The holidays last into the New Year. No shops are open during this time.
Each dinner was as good as or better than the last. At this one, we had Schweinelende mit Pilzrahmsoße, Putenschnitzel mit Zwiebelsoße, Spätzle, Reis, Hackfleischbällchen mit Tomatensoße
Afterwards, it was time to relax. We rolled ourselves into our sweat pants and onto the couches. Linda and her family bought her mom a projector and a projection screen for their living room, which made it pretty cool to watch movies. We watched a couple movies–Sherlock Holmes, Serena, and the Company You Keep. At the end of the night, we drove back to Linda’s place in Hähnlein, which was about 15 minutes away. Then, we slept.
0 notes