G&H Germany Adventure: Day 3, Wedding Day, Saturday, May 3

Before talking about yesterday, it is neat to mention we are on a 4 hour high speed rail train ride with free wifi right now as I post this blog entry. :)

Anyway, yesterday was another long but neat day. We have to Skype/call back home with the kids at like midnight and then we are off schedule and not able to sleep the best. We only got about 3-4 hours of sleep Friday night. We wanted to find the Lego store in Wiesbaden, though, and knew we wouldn't have time after the wedding so we got up early, did hotel breakfast, and then walked about 5 blocks to the store. They had live Star Wars characters at the entrance which was pretty cool. It was two stories. We only bought a couple of small things there, but it was fun to make it. We stopped at the McD's for another iceless soda...lol...and Heidi had hot chocolate while we killed time waiting for the shops to open.

It has been like 40 in the morning, and warms up mid 50s to mid 60s at the hottest part of the day. When the sun is out it is quite nice, otherwise pretty chilly. Heidi was very concerned about her dress being too cold for the wedding, and contemplated buying something else but we held out hope that the sun and being indoors most of the day anyway would help her through. She had bought a pretty blue dress for the occasion, and thought she needed to buy a shawl for it. She even borrowed one from her sister. She then remembered she had a blue/silver shawl her mother made her years ago for a prom she didn't go to. It matched perfectly, and it would've just seemed wrong not to wear it after having had another chance to finally use it after all of these years. It warmed up just enough and she looked beautiful in it of course.

We got back from shopping and got cleaned up and dressed for the wedding. The ceremony was about 45 minutes and was very nice. We took some pictures with the bride and groom and then had a couple of hours to kill before the reception. We and one of the other couples with a picky husband then hit the KFC drive-thru! KFC here tasted just like home and not awful like it was in China. It was funny, though, because none of us really spoke German and by the time we were done ordering at the drive thru we had no idea what we were actually going to end up with. Thankfully the order was quite close to what we all wanted, and I was just thrilled to have a decent late lunch because I know most wedding receptions I don't eat at dinner.

Then we made it to the reception. It was at a gorgeous venue that was a castle basically turned into a hotel/banquet place. It was surrounded by vineyards and pretty scenery, and it was a beautiful sunny day. The place was so classy, everyone was so dressed up, and the waiters were coming around outside serving while everyone hung out and took more pictures. It felt like something you'd see in a movie. We are sooo not the people who end up at places like that, especially me. Of course it couldn't compare to my Central IL wedding and reception...lol. :)

The actual reception dinner, cake and dancing took place in the basement of the hotel in the old castle wine cellar. All brick and well decorated. An amazing room for such an event. Her brother and new sister-in-law have many very nice friends/coworkers and it was fun visiting with so many of them and hearing their stories. The meal courses just kept on coming and I just kept waving my hand and saying no thank you. Poor Heidi has put up with almost 16 years of that. I really wish food weren't the thing that always made everything, especially travel and special occasions awkward, but oh well. The cake was beautiful and 3 different kinds that I wouldn't eat either, but normal people seemed to like it. They did have a whole dessert bar that had some really good chocolate mousse.

We left the reception around 10, and hung out with Heidi's parents in their hotel room there until about 11:30. We grabbed a cab and got back to the room around midnight. The ride was pretty short, but it cost about $50 USD equivalent. Things in general are a bit pricier here, and our dollar being worth less then the Euro doesn't help. A great night, though, and the expense is just part of the deal. This is the first "destination wedding" we've ever been to, and it is quite an experience thus far. And Heidi and I actually got some nice pictures of us together and dressed up which rarely happens, so I told her it was worth every penny just to have those :) Thanks to Heidi's dad and some of the groom's friends for taking some nice pics for us.