Ski School US-Style...

A big advantage of going to Edelweiss is that they have their own American ski school. Not only do the instructors all speak English, but they charge in the new American peso which saves a considerable amount. The girls both loved their four days of ski school. Veronica was up the mountain on intermediate slopes most of the time. Ashlynn began at the bottom of the mountain, but spent the final two days up the mountain on the beginner and even some intermediate runs. I wimped out with the excuse that the conditions weren’t perfect. Jimmy attempted snowboarding, but found that his good sense of balance did nothing to stop him from landing repeatedly on his knees and wrists, body parts he needs for running and his job, respectively. If he’d only fallen on his head, he may have stuck it out. Instead he switched to snowblades for a day then hung out with me for two days. On Saturday, he took Veronica by cog train to ski the glacier at the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain at 9,700 feet (sorry, he didn’t bring the camera).

A Fairy Tale Castle...

We took the train to Garmisch- Partenkirchen, home of the 1936 Olympics. We stayed for a week at the Edelweiss Resort, a US Armed Forces lodge that reminded us of the Disney Wilderness Lodge in Orlando but set in the Bavarian Alps. We had an extra day before ski school started, so we went on a bus tour to the Neuschwanstein Castle. While I normally avoid bus tours because they put me to sleep, I really wanted the girls to see the castle that helped inspire Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland. As you can see, there was no snow around, which would have been beautiful to see, but the skies were a wonderful clear blue and it wasn’t too cold. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside of this magical palace. King Ludwig II’s obsession with building castles nearly bankrupted Bavaria. He only lived in this incomplete castle for 6 months in 1886 before mysteriously drowning two days after being declared unfit to be king.

Back to Germany...

After only one week back at the office, it was time for Jimmy to take a week off so we could go on his company ski trip. We flew into Munich for a quick overnight stay. We found yummy all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch, then headed to the Deutsches Museum, the world’s largest science and technology museum that Jimmy had visited as a teen with his parents. We were bummed that the brick making factory was out of order, but thoroughly enjoyed the mines underground, the room of bridges and tunnels, and the high voltage show. We’ll definitely plan on a longer visit next time. The next morning we spent in the wellness center at our hotel, which was amazingly sophisticated (we’ve had great luck staying at Novotels in many cities--we highly recommend them for families). Jimmy found a discounted bakery on the way to the train station; the name was a bit discouraging, but the giant pretzels were great.

Welcome Home, Daddy!

The girls were very excited that we were traveling home by plane instead of train since they thought it would be more dramatic to greet us at the airport than the train station. They had a fun week staying at David and Andrew’s, where they all helped to make this great sign. When we got home, the girls played a PowerPoint presentation that they made him. The four months that Jimmy was away really did seem to fly by quickly. It definitely helped that he emailed almost daily and called at least once a week--thank goodness for the Internet and speaker phones!

A Morning in Switzerland...

After a near panic when we thought we’d locked ourselves in the historic chapel at the hotel, we managed to be on our way back to Switzerland for our final morning of sightseeing before heading to the airport. Our first stop was at Augusta Raurica to see some Roman ruins. We met up with some very aggressive geese and I was happy to have my red umbrella along to defend myself. Next we ventured into Basel where we were carried along by the wind in the above motorless boat across the Rhine into the historic center. We met Bill’s wife Nina for lunch near her office and then were dropped off at the airport for our return flight to reality.

The Rhine Falls...

The Rhine River definitely was a big part of our travels with Bill. First we saw one of its lakes, then we headed to its falls, which just happened to be in Switzerland. The Rhine Falls is the largest falls in Europe, obviously because of its width not height. We’re hoping to come back this summer when the Swiss Hash hosts a special weekend at the youth hostel in the castle at the top of the falls. Our route to our hotel on the bank of the Rhine took us back and forth across the river and jumping between the two countries several times along the way. It was interesting to see how some of the borders were quite official where we were made to show passports and others were literally two guys sitting in a truck waving us through.

Road Tripping in Germany...

Bill was a very enthusiastic tour guide. After a night in Freiburg, we hit the road to see the Black Forest. We ended up in the historic town of Meersburg along the eastern coast of Lake Constance (which is actually a lake on the Rhine River) where we found a restaurant with this beautiful view of the Alps in the distance.
We toured this medieval castle, Germany’s oldest remaining fortress, then took a car ferry across the lake to the quaint city of Konstanz, where additional Fastnacht events were taking place.