Day 1. Exploring Germany

We were so exhausted from our trip to Frankfurt, that we really made it an early night.  The bonus for going to bed early means you get up early.  We never get up early.....unless we have to.  Getting up early also have us lots of time to go exploring.....and we only had Monday as our only full day to sightsee Germany.

First thing on our agenda was breakfast.  Our hotel plan included a free buffet breakfast and we were excited to experience a German breakfast.  We got down to the buffet at 6:30am (we NEVER are the first people to the breakfast buffet.  We are usually the last).  We never have seen a more beautiful and different assortment of breakfast items to choose from.

As you found your table, they also asked if you wanted scrambled eggs or an omelet and bacon.  They also brought you a little drink they called Fit Drink.  It was a yogurt like smoothie.  First day was Strawberry and second day was Peach.  Great way to start your day.

 There was a table of pasteries, a table of fruit, a table of Chinese soup.......

 A table of weird meats and/or fish we didn't know what it was, a table of juices and smoothies......

 A table of cold cuts and cheeses.  Seriously, there was so many tables of delicious food. 

I have to admit......this was the BEST breakfast buffet we have ever feasted on in all of our travels.

 

After breakfast, we headed across the street to the train station to get our tickets to adventure.  After much research, we decided to take the train to Bacharach and Koblenz.  We wanted to see old medieval towns and German castles.  We found a helpful customer service department that got us the tickets that we needed we were on our way!

 

Of course, you can't hop on a train without taking a few pictures to document the adventure!

Or those of you that know us know that you can't have a vacation with out a few picture screw ups either.  We'll have several of those for you along the way

And you always need to take a selfie.  The trains in Germany were very nice, clean, and reasonably priced.  It was a great way to travel.  We had about a 90 minute ride to Koblenz, and a lot of it was along the Rhein River and there was so many beautiful things to see along the way.

 

But before we can enjoy some of the pictures from the train ride.....

we gotta throw in another "what the heck happened here" picture

Here's you go.....some pictures from our train journey to Koblenz

 

There are just too many things for just one blog......so we'll continue this journey on the next one!

 

 

It's all about Wrigley

We really wouldn't want to go on so many trips if we had to worry about who was going to take care of our little dog.  Ever since our primary caretaker (Cris) moved farther away, other arrangements had to be made.

We are so glad to have found Vanessa.  Wrigley loves going to their house, is always good when she's there, gets spoiled, and doesn't poop or pee in their house.  We know that she loves going there and has so much fun and gets lots of love and attention.

Here's the latest pics that Vanessa sent us when we were traveling.

 How obvious is it that she doesn't like baths?

 Always nice to get a postcard from home

 Evidence that they spoil her.  She gets to sleep on the furniture and they even give her a pillow

 This is how you know she is totally happy and comfortable

 Playing with her favorite toy

 Seriously, how can you not love this sweet little face

I'm glad they love to watch her as much as she loves to be at their house.  We can sure travel easy not worrying about our little dog (well I don't actually think Paul worries about it like I do)

Oops....almost forgot one:

A "peek behind the curtain"

I will be glad when the day comes that I have full knowledge on how to operate my electronic devices.

Somehow I turned on the video recording button on my camera and you'll get a rare treat to see what it's like to go on vacation with us.  This was taken in Frankfurt on the morning of our last day there. 

Well, we certainly are a lively couple.......lol.

Here's another peek behind the scenes......the mess my husband made after cracking the coconut open.  The coconut was really good.....the mess -- not so much!

The most amazing adventure x10....Day 1

The vacation began on Saturday, May 21st at 6:30pm.....when our plane took off for it's 10 hour journey east to Frankfurt, Germany.

We got to the airport in plenty of time and snapped a few pictures (because we were so excited to get it started).

 Had to take a picture of our Euro's.  Got to make sure you have the right money to spend.

Trying to take a selfie with the plane we were going to fly on, but the light was not in our favor.  However.......can you see the excitement in our faces!

Here is the plane that we are going to eat, fly, and sleep in for the next 10 hours.

Our first picture taken in Germany.  This was the airport.  It actually was kind of a scary feeling not knowing where we needed to go, the signs were in German, and people weren't speaking our language.  After clearing customs, we found a taxi stand and were off to our hotel.  That is.....we picked a taxi driver who was Mario Andretti.  This little old guy shouldn't have been driving as fast as he was, but they sure do drive fast on those German highways!

We got to the hotel about 1pm German time and we were exhausted.  Hard to get a good night sleep and it was actually 6am Houston time, so we had been up for almost 24 hours with very little sleep.  We got our room and crashed for 2 hours.....we needed the sleep.

Here's the first picture I took from our hotel room.  It's the train station that was right across the street.  This train station is the biggest station in Europe.  You could take a train anywhere in Europe from this station.  Now it was time to explore: 
 

 

These were pictures that we took inside of the train station:

I have to admit it was a little overwhelming that first day, but once you got the hang of things.....it was very easy to figure things out.  Also, thank goodness that they had an EXCELLENT customer service area at this station that was very helpful in helping you figure things out and get the right train tracks and tickets.

We spent the rest of our first day just wandering around our hotel checking out what was nearby. 

This is the front of the train station. 

This was a picture of our hotel from the front of the train station.  We stayed at the Steigenberger Hotel.  You can see how amazingly close this was to the station. 

Another view out the window of our hotel.  I loved that we could open the windows and let in all the fresh air (and noise)

The other thing we loved about our recent trip was the fact that it got dark so late.  This picture was taken at about 9:30 at night......we had our first German meal on the patio of this restaurant:  Weinerschnitzel and sausages.   It was so delicious. 
Yay.....thankfully Coca Cola was universal.  Paul was much more adventurous and drank German beer.  We were tired.....so it was off to bed after this.

Not much time to spend in Germany and we had a big day planned for tomorrow.

The best vacation ever (so far)

This is going to be a hard vacation to beat, but then again, I think that everytime we come back from a trip.  But seriously.......this was an amazing dream vacation.  I'm so grateful that we were able to have everything fall into place so that we could take off and really enjoy ourselves.

I've been trying to find extra time to start unloading the pictures from the camera and looking at them.  I took a bajillion pictures.  The ones from our cell phones have downloaded to my computer automatically, so I'll give you a sneak peek at some of our amazing adventures. (I'm not even going to tell you what they are about.....just enjoy!)

What an adventure we had!

Winning the battle

I had to go to the doctor to get some prescriptions refilled before the trip, and random blood testing showed I was pre-diabetic.  Not bad yet, but in the range where they are going to keep watch of it.

That sucks.  Not the news I wanted to hear.  However, with the research I've done.....it can be beaten if you want to.

So, our new lifestyle will be not only more fruits and veggies (although we are pretty good about this anyways), doing at least 30 minutes of exercise at least 4 days per week.  It's got to be done.

So here is how I spent last evening.......fruit preparation:

 Assembling the fruits

 

 Cutting the pineapple.  Fresh pineapple is so delicious!

 

 Grapes and cherries are always delicious to munch on!

 

 

But here's our new delicious find.......COCONUTS!

 While we were at the French Open the other day (how amazingly awesome that I get to say that).....we grabbed some snacks to eat while we watched tennis.  They had cut up pieces of coconut.  Oh my word.....that was the most delicious snack ever!  In fact, a couple of hours later, we went back and bought another container of it.  It has so many wonderful health benefits and tastes delicious too!

 So we watched You Tube videos to figure out how the most efficient way to open a coconut is.

Obviously, I didn't watch the video very carefully, because this was a lot of hard work!

 All that work and we only got about a cup full of coconut

 And we got this much coconut water out of it.  We will also be drinking this healthy goodness.

So now as I battle the onset of old age and all the crap that goes along with it, this will be my new healthy snack every day. 

Stay tuned.....amazing, awesome vacation pictures will be coming soon.  We took so many pictures of the best vacation we've ever had!