G&H Germany Adventure: Day 2, Friday, May 2, 2014

Today was a lot of fun. We had breakfast here at the hotel, which was pretty good. Thankful for some of my American selection on their buffet :) We then left at 8:45. We rode with another couple that rented a Volvo SUV. SUVs are actually pretty rare to see here. Mostly smaller cars. It is interesting to see the roads full of Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, etc. I think I've seen one Ford so far and no Chevy or Chrysler. Of course it all makes sense, it is just interesting to see.

The drive was nice. It is neat to see the signs in other languages and see the pretty countryside. There are a ton of fields here of grapes for wine. And many neat houses. I love the look of the architecture. Not really being a world traveler, the closest I've seen of this type of these kinds of villages is Leavenworth, Washington which was up in the Cascades and designed to look live a Bavarian village, and Harry Potter's Wizarding World Hogsmeade at Universal...LOL. Anyway, I could just look at the sites all day here really. Lots of castles, too. It'd be neat to have more time to tour some of them.

Now the food on the other hand, we know I could do without. It is funny, though, believe it or not there are 2 other male friends of the bride and groom that eat picky like me. One of them even has 4 kids like us, so the wife/mom can sit and relate with Heidi about what it is to live with someone like us. And not that I'm really trying to win the prize for this, but I guess I'm still pickier because today I didn't even attempt to order anything when we ate and they at least found something. It is funny though to see other people trying to explain slowly in English how they don't want any vegetables, etc. All of the wives are not really happy we've met, because it somewhat validates our existence...lol.

So we drove to the town of Rudesheim and walked around some of the stores. We then went on a ring tour. It was a great thing to do. First we rode a cable car up into the hills over a bunch of grape fields into a wooded area. We then took a fairly long hike around to the other side and took a chairlift back down to the town of Assmannshausen. We looked around a bit there, and then caught a boat back to Rudesheim. I'm very happy we were able to do that little excursion. It was a nice fun walk with a variety of things to see and do and it was a pretty good day weather wise. Kind of like Seattle, not too hot or cold and a little overcast and always the slight threat of rain. Lots of good pictures on that trip.

The cable car and chair lift would've freaked many people out. It was very steep in places and creaked at times. One of the people in the party I'm pretty sure was whimpering at times, and was not a fan. A man we passed on the chairlift had brought his dog on the lift and it was whimpering continually as it rode by us. Of course I had to grab some selfies of me and Heidi and was just hoping I didn't drop the camera.

There was a huge statue on the trip. You can see in the picture how big it is by how little the people look next to it. Sadly, I have no idea what its story is because everything is written in German and I know nothing of it. In fact, I don't even attempt to say the words, because I sound a bit like the Muppets Swedish chef when I read any of the signs and Heidi laughs at me or corrects me. I feel bad, because I want to be polite and make an attempt at basic words, but I've just resolved not to do it and stumble my way through the week.

When we got back to our hotel area we walked around a lot looking for a McDonald's for me of course :) In China, I ate nuggets the whole time because I had no idea how to explain cheese only "plain" burger and knew it'd go bad. Heidi was kind enough to use her rusty German and explain it to the cashier here for me. It was hilarious, because she went to the trouble of saying just cheese and nothing else in German, and the lady looked at her like she was crazy and spoke back to Heidi in English and said something to the effect of, "You mean plain?" LOL. The burger was good but had a more grilled taste than home which I liked. Everyone tells me how people drink everything warm here, and ice is something you don't find a lot of. They're right, my soda had little to no ice in it. I'm fascinated by the silliest things, and then like a dorky American tourist I have to take pictures of it.

It is 1:30 in the morning here. We just wrapped up a Skype video call with the kiddos and Tori. She is amazing and hanging in there with our crazy lot. We're missing everyone though. Big wedding tomorrow! Hope anyone following along enjoys the pics. Good night!

Euros. Different colors and size like the Chinese Yuan, but sadly don't go near as far. The US dollar conversion rate here is like $1.58 US for $1 Euro.