R&R
Sean just headed back this week, and Aurora and I would be heading back to the states as well, but she’s got a bit of an ear infection which I’ve been told numerous times now is not a good thing to travel with when it comes to babies. So, luckily our friends here are willing to put up with us for a bit longer, and we’re looking at heading back to Virginia in about 2 weeks when Christine will have returned from her trip to Kansas.
As far as our trip went, it was a big adventure for sure! The day Sean arrived, he was greeted by two sick girls. Mind you, it was 5:20 am when he arrived at the Frankfurt airport and Aurora didn’t even try to sleep up until about 1 am which means I too did not sleep. At that point I decided I should just head for that airport, sleep at a reststop along the way by which time Aurora would have been lulled to sleep by the car. I drove for about 20 min. when I pulled over to sleep for a couple hours. Then I drove the rest of the 40 minutes, making it to the airport about an hour and a half before Sean’s arrival. I can’t tell you how glad I was to see him. Aurora did smile at him initially, although it still took a few days till she was comfortable enough to let him hold her. By the end though, they were having a great time together.
Sean ended up taking us both in to the Army Health Clinic here (it’s been downsized), where I got some fluids in me by IV, and about a dozen drugs for both me and Aurora. We were really glad at this point that we hadn’t made any plans to be somewhere in the next few days. So we took it easy for a few days, visited Speyer and just stayed in the area till Aurora and I were feeling good enough to travel again. We then began our journey through France. We started with Normandy, visiting the American Cemetary there by the beaches, and then we headed to Bayeux to see the famous Tapestry. While in the area, we also went to Mont Saint Michel where we had an awesome view of the sunset and had a very over priced, not so tasty meal at one of the touristy restaurants there.
Our next stop was Paris. We visited the EIffel Tower of course and Notre Dame, had a crepe with Nutella and banana, and enjoyed some time just walking around a little.
From there we headed south to a place called Mougins (near Cannes, Nice, etc). We had almost a week there at a time-share we were able to buy from a friend. We were able to go to church near Cannes in a town called Le Cannet, where I had the chance to bear my testimony in French. We also checked out Nice, Antibes, Cannes and Monte Carlo while down in the south. Sean’s friend Mike came to visit us for a few days as well (he lives in Ireland), and he brought a cute Irish Teddy Bear for Aurora which she adores.
On our trip back north to Germany, we decided to go through Northern Italy and Switzerland (which Sean hadn’t been to before). The drive along the Mediterranean was just beautiful and sunny and when we got to Switzerland, it was much colder, but the moutains were gorgeous as usual and with the cooler weather all the leaves were changing to their fall colors which just made it absolutely beautiful.
We then hung out in Heidelberg for Conference weekend before driving up to Koln to visit Sean’s friend Ben (who lives in Northern Germany). I managed to go visit the chocolate factory there while Sean and his friend Ben caught up with each other.
Our next and almost final stop was Garmisch where we stayed at the Edelweiss Resort for two nights. Sean and I both agreed we would’ve loved to have stayed longer if we had known how incredibly beautiful it was down there (and how nice the resort is). I’ve even been to Garmisch before, but I didn’t remember it like this. It really was breath-taking. We stopped by Neu Schwanstein to take a look from a distance because Sean hadn’t been there before. As we drove, I saw someone paragliding and I told Sean that I would love to do that if I had the chance. It turned out I did. They had this great deal through the hotel for paragliding, so I got to take the cable car up the mountain (the Alpenspitz I think it was called maybe, but it’s right next to the Zugspitze anyway) and then after getting hooked up in the harness to the instructor, we started running down the mountain side till the wind caught the canopy and we just gently glided down over the valley. I’ve now been skydiving (tandem) once, parachuting (static line) twice and paragliding once. I must say, the paragliding has been the best overall experience and the best $100 I can remember spending. It was comfortable sitting in the seat, it was a slow decent (lots of time to look around), it was a beautiful location, it was inexpensive compared to skydiving because I wasn’t paying for a plane ride as well), and I didn’t get motion sick at all (but we didn’t do any loopty-loops either).
After Garmisch, we headed back to Heidelberg for our last night before Sean had to return. Luckily, we’re far beyond the half-way mark. In fact, we only have about 3 and a half months to go before we are able to finally live in the same house again. I’m sure it’ll go by much faster than the first 10 months went. 
When I get back to the states I will update our gallery with all the photos from our trip.
Posted on October 12th, 2008 by Jenny
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
