Saturday, July 16, 2011

And the Germany Trip Story Begins...

After leaving Zurich, we headed to Warstein, Germany, to visit with my host family.  Warstein is well-known for Warsteiner beer, the brewery is the largest in Germany, and was established in 1753.  It's a great beer for Oktoberfest!  My host family lives outside of Warstein in Suttrop, which is a suburb of Warstein.

We arrived much later than we had originally planned due to loads of construction and traffic on the Autobahn .  And though I had lots of swelling in my throat, and was still feeling ill, it was still exciting when we got to the point in the trip where we were only about 15 minutes away from their home, and I recognized the streets and sights.  I got so excited turning onto their street Lange Hecke.  And then, we were there, and it didn't feel like it had been 10 years since I had seen them.  They were very sweet to Little Man, and made us feel at home.  We talked and caught up a bit, sat outside, enjoyed the garden, and Little Man played on the playground and ran off the energy that had built up after a long day in the car.

The next morning, after a very German breakfast, we headed out for some time in a "wild" park.  There were animals for Little Man to feed (he befriended a deer right away), and, further in, after the wild hogs, there's a park area with a zipline, and playground.  Hubby, Little Man and I all tried out the zipline, and Little Man had a blast on the slide.  It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed the weather.  Hubby and Little Man even braved a steep incline for a beautiful view of the park.  After walking past the cave, seeing some other animals and having some refreshments, we headed back to the cars to head back.

Lunch is traditionally the large meal of the day, and dinner celebrated the beautiful white asparagus that was in season.  I love the steamed asparagus, boiled potatoes, and fresh smoked ham meal that we had several times during my time with them, and it was a delicious meal to enjoy again.  The white asparagus made an impact on Little Man...when I asked him the differences he noticed between where we live in the U.S. and Germany, he mentioned that we have green asparagus and their asparagus is white!  I was relieved (and a little proud) that Little Man was willing to try some different types of food.

He also went the week without watching television and did remarkably well.  He played outside a lot, and we tried to have one outing a day to keep him from getting stir-crazy.

Later on Sunday, while Little Man played with some games and puzzles, and Hubby sat with Ludger and visited, my host mother and I visited the hospital where her mother was.  Then later, we had a small meal and then sat and talked for the evening.  I was happy my German came back quickly enough that conversation didn't suffer too much.


                                       



Monday, we headed back to the park so Little Man could finish the last box of feed we had gotten the day before.  Then we headed into the city and did a little shopping and went to an ice cream parlor.  Little Man loved his pinocchio sundae!



Hubby had a walnut sundae.


And me?  I had eine schockolade becher (a chocolate sundae) the first thing I ever ordered by myself in Germany so many years ago...and it was YUM-MY!!!

Next post: Finishing up the Germany recap, and sharing some other big news!  No fair spilling the beans in comments if you already know!

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