Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 8 (27 April, 2007)

We got to the airport early and spent up the rest of our money (except for 30 cents) on croissants, pretzels and snicker bars. The wait for the flight from Frankfurt was very easy and we were told we had bulkhead seating which promised a much less claustrophobic trip. We had to check a bag due to the two bottles of wine we had bought in Witzenhausen, but we managed to shuffle our carryons in order to accomodate the discards from the checked bag.

We had several conversations with a German woman who was flying with her 1-year old and after discussing Laura being pregnant for several minutes, she asked Laura 'Where is your final destination today?' Laura answered 'August'. That woman didn't seem to want to talk to us after that.

Overall this was a much better flight for us than the one flying over, and customs in Philadelphia was a breeze. What wasn't a breeze was trasferring from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal...it felt like a 3-mile hike and we weren't ready for it.

Upon landing in Chicago we were some of the first off the plane and we made it all the way to the luggage claim, and guess what...they lost our bag. Not only our bag, but roughly 10 other people from our flight from Philadelphia were miffed for the same reason.

They promised us that our luggage would either be on the next flight (scheduled to land in 20 minutes) or they would deliver it to our house the next day.

It did eventually show up on the next flight, and we were able to get home by 10:00pm. It was a great trip and definitely worth re-visiting years from now when Junior is able to enjoy parts of it.

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 7 (26 April, 2007)

^ Statue of the Lorelei - St. Goarshausen, Germany ^

Another late-ish morning and we left the hotel by 10:30.

Today we had to drive down to Frankfurt and we were going to take the Rhine road. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was very little traffic to deal with along the river.

We stopped off in St. Goarshausen to walk out to the statue of the Lorelei - the legendary siren who would sing songs and lure sailors on the Rhine to wreck their boats on the rocks...probably Germany's most famous tease.

We stopped in Lorch and had a relatively edible meal at a pretty restaurant/hotel with huge wisteria growing on the patio. A quick icecream for Laura the second time around the main drag (I couldn't make the hard right turn the first time...those who have been there know what I'm talking about) in Rudesheim and we were on the autobahn headed to Susan and Scott's.

We hit a traffic jam at the airport at approximately 3:30pm and we didn't get to Langen (9 km south of the airport) until just after 5:00pm.

We did want to go the the stroller supercenter known as Segmüller and Susan wanted to show us that store so we all loaded up and took off.

Segmüller is like Ikea and Sears and Best Buy wrapped into one and then jacked up on steroids. Saying it's a huge store is like saying Mother Teresa was just 'a good person'. And like Mother Teresa, they only take cash.

We didn't find anything to buy, but we did discover that we would have been grabbing our ankles (metaphorically) if we had bought a stroller there and shipped it home. We'll buy it from some unsuspecting yokel in Canada (no offense to anyone north of the border, eh).

Dinner was very quick as Lena was in no mood, and we were back at Susan's apartment by 9:15 or so.

Re-packing and readying everything for Friday was the only thing left on the agenda for the night.

^ Wisteria covered restaurant - Lorch, Germany ^

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 6 (25 April, 2007)

^ Front of the Dom (Cathedral) in Köln at night ^

Slept until we could sleep no more and walked over to the Dom to see what was inside - the closest either of us had been before was the train station.

Although it was beautiful, there was almost nothing ornate inside. Nice stained glass, but nothing else really worth mentioning. Oh yeah - this is one BIG church!

After the Dom we dropped our cameras off at the hotel and continued walking up Hohe Strasse through the shopping district. We (Mark) wanted to visit a store called Globetrotter - the largest camping/outdoor store in Europe.

This store is awesome - it has everything you could possibly need. Unusual things in this store include a large indoor scuba diving tank and an on-site master dive instructor so you can bring your expedition to Cologne and work out any non-verbal signals and test all your equipment before you get it out in the ocean.

Globetrotter also has a rain room (for testing raingear) and a cold room for testing cold-weather gear. Laura and I were warm so we went into the cold room to see what it's like. It was just like -8 degrees celsius (roughly 13 degrees Farenheit). It also has a heat sensing camera which you can use to see which of your parts are getting cold first.

We found a couple of small things to pick up there, but ultimately left less than satisfied by any unusual trinkets and went off in search of a little snack and a store that sells strollers.

We found a stoller place after no small amount of searching (apparently department stores don't deal in strollers...you have to find a specialist) and spent roughly an hour asking every question we could think of in broken German, but we got the job done. The thing is, Europeans seem to put a lot more thought into the design of their strollers and we hadn't seen anything like them in the states.

We went back to the hotel to have a nap and then go track down a bar to watch the Liverpool game later that night.

We went walking down towards the river and just off the square called Heumarkt, we found a little pub called Taverna Flamenca which is run by an old Spanish gentleman. Dark, close, smoky and everything you'd think it would be, Flamenca was wonderful and at halftime one of the regular customers got out his guitar and played some renditions of songs by the Gipsy Kings and others. Liverpool lost, but it was still worth the effort for a wonderful atmosphere with what seemed to be nice, friendly people.

When we left the bar it was nearly 11:00 and we were hungry for a little something and that something ended up being the Brauerei Sion which was founded in 1310. We spent a little more time walking around the Dom and got a couple of night-time pictures before they turned the lights out.

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 5 (24 April, 2007)

^ Sea of Bicycles - Centraal Station - Den Haag ^

We woke up at 6:30 - unassisted - and loaded up the car to head off on our big day of driving and whatnot. We left the hotel at 7:30 without having to battle the Chinese for decent breakfast selections, which was quite nice - instead we did battle with the entire population of Den Haag for primo parking spots in the city.

We left the car at 8:30 or so and walked to a bakery we had scouted the day before and did some window shopping. We thought about taking a train over to Delft to save any potential parking headaches we might find there so we headed over to the station to check schedules.

We decided not to take the train, but it was a useful time waster until the Mauritshuis museum opened at 10:00.

The Mauritshuis (pronounced Mao-reets-house) is a 2-story, 18-room collection of paintings that takes less than an hour to get through, but it has quite a collection of famous paintings. Of the 36 known works by Vermeer, 3 are here ('Girl with a Pearl Earring', 'View of Delft' and 'Diana and Her Companions'). Also here are some famous Rembrandts - 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp' and a famous self portrait (as an old man). Some nice Van Dycks as well.

^ The Old Church - Delft ^

After the museum, we headed out to Delft and got there in no time at all as it's only 5 km down the road.

We parked within a couple hundred yards of the main downtown square and found a delicious street-vendor/fish market that was selling fish parts (suitably fried of course) and we took them and ate them on the square where Vermeer was born.

Vermeer's birth house is now a tacky porcelain vendor (delftware made in China) and it's one street in front of the reputed inspiration for Vermeer's 'The Little Street' painting.

We strolled around the quiet little streets of Delft and found a grocer that sold delcious fresh fruit and another that was an actual supermarket type of store where we loaded up on Stroopwaffelen (for a friend) and other snack-type foods for later in the day.

Next up: Kinderdijk.

^ Windmills at Kinderdijk ^

We piled back in the car after a couple of hours in Delft and started on the road to Köln by way of Kinderdijk - a UNESCO World Heritage site that contains 19 working windmills that were all built between 1738 and 1740 in order to help abate flooding. They're all built with water lifting augers and they're inhabited and kept functional in the event they're ever needed again. The last major flood of the area was in 1953...that flood was the reason the Delta Works project was begun - and, interestingly, the Delta Works crew studied the levee system of New Orleans when in the design phases.

After Kinderdijk we wobbled on down the road back to the highway and got going back to Köln.

We arrived in Köln at about 8:00 and the drive in was considerably less trouble than we had anticipated. We parked at the Hohe Strasse parking garage and had to walk approximately 300 yards to our hotel through the pedestrian zone. A little scary at first, but it was quite tame except for the 'novelty' store a few paces up the the street from the hotel.

The Callas am Dom hotel is upstairs from a store that sells Haagen Dazs ice cream and was quite nice, even without air conditioning.

The first night we strolled around and ended up sitting down rather late (9:00) for dinner at Früh - the most famous biergarten in Köln where they keep bringing you .2 liter beers until you tell them to stop (or fall off your chair).

Long day, but a good day.

^ Reflected Windmill ^

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 4 (23 April, 2007)

^ The windmill behind the Hotel Orion at sunrise ^

After rollng out of bed a little later than we wanted, we battled with the Chinese for breakfast and afterwards we headed out to the Keukenhof at about 8:30. A couple of u-turns later and we were in the parking lot where we had no trouble at all getting in with the e-tickets Laura printed off before we arrived.

^ Variegated tulips at The Keukenhof ^

Although the Keukenhof was very beautiful, it was overshadowed a bit by how crowded it was - but crowds are to be expected at a world famous garden that's only open for 10 weeks a year.

^ Central section of The Keukenhof ^

We left the Keukenhof at approximately 1:00 and went for a drive north to Haarlem and then south back towards the hotel. The drive was supposed to be a 'best of' in regards to tulip fields, but almost all of the fields were past their peak and we saw very few flowers. So the drive went by very fast and we decided to continue on down to Den Haag and scout locations for tomorrow and possibly visit the Mauritshuis museum to allow ourselves a more relaxing Tuesday.

We drove into town with no trouble at all along the A44 road which goes straight into the downtown area. A left turn towards the Centraal Station, a right turn to cross Konigskade canal and a left turn for the parking garage marked 'Plein' and poof we were done!

We came up out of the garage and headed towards the station because we thought there'd be an ATM there and we were realizing that the Euro doesn't go as far as it does when someone else is paying the bills...we needed money.

We walked all over the pedestrian zone and found a great department store with delicious pastries and a nice cafeteria with a good vegetable buffet. Some light strolling took us around the rest of the downtown area and as we were heading back to the parking garage to find a more substantial something to eat, we walked through the Binnenhof - where the upper branch of the Dutch Parliament does their job.

Just north of the Binnenhof (and literally a spit watermelon seed from our parking garage) was the Mauritshuis. We had missed their closing time by roughly 15 minutes, but we didn't beat ourselves up over it too much because of the fact that they're closed on Mondays. Even so, it was frustrating to walk around for four hours following signs to a museum only to have it directly behind where you first saw light of day.

We had a nice light dinner at a cafe on the main square and drove back to Kaag to get some sleep.

^ Bench at The Keukenhof overlooking tulip fields ^

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 3 (22 April, 2007)

^ View from the back of the Hotel Orion in Kaag, Holland ^

After breakfast, we hit the road at about 10:30 to drive to Kaag, Holland. We split off from Scott, Susan and Lena at Kassel and it was a shame to see them go - we had a great time with them and we were very glad they were able to join us at Marions.

On the way to Kaag, we stopped at the Kröller-Müller museum very near Arnhem which cost 34 euros all told (entry and parking). It was pricey, but the Van Gogh paintings they had were amazing - they have 278 works by him - and a lot of them were very pleasant and happy...unlike the Van Gogh we mostly know of.

We also got on a couple of free bycicles and went for a short ride. It was a very nice way to break up the monotony of a long haul highway drive.

We got to Kaag at about 6:00pm and put our stuff in the room then walked around to find a restaurant.

We ate at a small marina pub called Eymerhof. I had a 'frikandel' which is defined by the folks at Lonely Planet as 'a deep-fried meat snack'. Essentially it's a bratwurst, with more serious after effects. Laura had a much safer ham and cheese sandwich with fries. A water and two baby beers (both for me...to drown the frikandel) rounded out the meal and it was a tasty, light dinner which only cost us 15 euros.

We took our time walking back to the hotel and Laura was out like a light by 10:00pm.

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 2 (21 April, 2007)

^ Bad Sooden's quaint central park area ^

I woke up at about 6:00 - Laura at about 8:00. I used that time to go for a little walk. I hiked to the highest hill in the fields behind the Zur Warte and was able to look out over the hills that surround Witzenhausen before turning back.

With everyone awake, we ate a big breakfast and piled into Susan and Scott's car and drove to Witzenhausen (6km), spent an hour milling around and picking up some shampoo and baby clothes. Then we went about 30 km north to Göttingen. The rape (colza) fields were at their peak and the huge expanses of vibrant yellow flowers were everywhere we turned.

It was market day in Göttingen and Laura and I bought some fruit. We then ambled up to the main square and got a table at the rathskeller for a coffee or two.

After strolling up and down the main shopping street for a couple of hours, we wandered back to the car and left for Bad Sooden. We spent a few hours in Bad Sooden with Lena stealing the show with her squeaky shoes.

^ Lena indicating she wants more cheesecake ^

We ended the day back at Marion's for another wonderful dinner and a show - Marion lit the baker's equivalent to a road flare and stuck it in a traditional Zur Warte sized piece of cheesecake (one quarter of a 14" cheesecake) for Laura's birthday. It was split between Laura, Susan and Scott and they couldn't finish it.

I went to bed at 10:15...Laura stayed up until after 1:00am playing cards with Christina.

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 1 (20 April, 2007)

^ Fields of rapes to the north of Dohrenbach ^

Arrived in Frankfurt at approximately 6:30am and had no trouble with customs...we hadn't checked anything so we also didn't have to wade through the luggage collection business.

Picking up the car was also no problem, but the Mietwagen center was in Terminal A and we went through customs in Terminal B - there was no walking path between them due to construction so we had to walk outside.

The Opel Corsa is a 1.4 liter, 3-door economy car (read: darta buggy), but in spite of lacking the sometimes necessary frijoles to do the business on the highway, it was actually quite a decent little car.

Susan and Scott's apartment was roughly 9 km door to door from the Frankfurt airport. Out of practice with maps and signage, we put 45 km on the car by our route via Kelsterbach and a full circuit around Langen.

After a bowl of cheerios at Susan and Scott's, we loaded up and headed north to Kassel/Dohrenbach. We left at approximately 12:15pm and completed the 2 hour and 30 minute trip to Dohrenbach just before 5:00pm. We dutifully delivered items we'd been saving for at least 18 months (including a bobble-head frog, Navajo bracelet and picture) to Marion and because we arrived so late Laura and I didn't take a nap. We went for a walk to get some fresh air, splashed some water on our faces and went downstairs to eat some dinner and visit with Marion.

^ Fields above Dohrenbach - Rapes and Cherries ^

We had had enough of everything by 10:00 or so and, because we had at that point been up for roughly 33 hours, we wobbled upstairs and slept like the dead.

Good news for visitors to the Zur Warte: Marion still attempts to initiate people into the Brotherhood of the Cherry by making them drink a shot of Kirschwasser (less like schnapps and more like a cherry scented industrial solvent). Scott didn't drink either of the shots Marion gave him...I drank them both because I knew better than to smell them first.

Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 0 (19 April, 2007)

This is called day zero because we didn't do much except drive to the airport to get on a plane.

Laura and I had been planning a trip to Holland to visit the Keukenhof gardens for over a year and because she's pregnant we decided that we'd either go in 2007 or we'd have to wait a little while to see how well junior travels. We also wanted to include a visit with Laura's cousin Susan and her husband and daughter.

With Mom and Dad Hart taking care of Dog, we loaded up the car and headed off on our way.

At the time of our departure, the US Airways counter (they were the cheapest airfare) looked as though it was being run out of someone's garage...and that garage was in serious disarray. They had roughly 20 self-check in consoles and only 5 or 6 of those were functional. And those that were functional were very slow which caused no small amount of groans from the long line of those waiting.

We asked the guy for an aisle seat so Laura could get up and move around on the plane like the doctor suggested. I had assumed he would've made some attempt to seat us together...I was mistaken. Our ticket guy managed to get us the worst aisle seats on the plane - the very last row and the row in front of that. Neither of us were very happy.

A short 8 hours and 20 minutes after we boarded the plane in Philadelphia (I forgot to mention that US Airways departed from Philadelphia for our flight) and like magic we were in Frankfurt...and not a moment too soon - we needed to get the heck off that plane.