Aloha all,
those of you on Facebook might already know that we enjoyed the extended time with our families and some of the pictures below might look familiar. But since there are plenty of good reasons to stay away from social media, we’d like to give those smart people a chance to catch up with our adventures, too. Compared to America, the pandemic still seemed a little more on people's mind and the rules were followed a little more, but overall it felt almost like a normal visit.
How lucky we are that we got to spend over two months with our families and friends in Germany after not being able to visit since the beginning of the pandemic. As you might or might not have noticed, I did not write any blog posts while we were out of the country. As much as we enjoyed it, probably boring to repeatedly read “beautiful walk with our family” or “nice to see old friends after such a long time” or “just ate another delicious pretzel” over and over again. But even if only for our own memory, we’d like remember some of the things we enjoyed on this year’s European tour. Don’t worry, it’s not a day by day commentary of every Schnitzel we ate and there will be plenty of colorful pictures:
I am not sure whether you know this, but we did NOT move so far away because we don’t get along with our families. So if we had to pick one best thing from our trip, it would be that we got to spend so much time with our blood ohana.
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| Photo bombed Family Portrait at the Bodensee |
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Mommy's home cooked dinners are the best....
...well except for that one place in France,
but more about that later. |
Family Time is also Game Time for us. Always has been and hopefully always will be. The games have changed over the years, but the enthusiasm hasn’t. And part of the tradition is for the winner to innocently ask the next morning who won the previous day.
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| "Azul" is currently our favorite |
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| "Colt Express" is a new discovery |
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| A friendly game of "Skyjo" |
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My dad and I played 31 games of chess,
at the end the score was 15 1/2 to 15 1/2 |
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| My nephew and I also ended up with a friendly tie |
Our favorite family retreat is "Les Alpages" in the French Jura region, a small family run Inn with the best food in the world...yes even better than mommy's cooking. My mom will understand, my parents are the ones who found this gem and are probably the most loyal repeat guests there. We already have ridiculous high expectations for every meal, but they are still exceeded every time. There is no menu to choose from, every course is a surprise, but if you are not a picky eater, there is no better place to dine. I bet this is the place where the German phrase "Essen wie Gott in Frankreich" originated. The Jura also happens to be a beautiful and surprisingly uncrowded area of France. We like this place so much that, when we could not find a date where all of the family could go together, we quickly offered to go there twice!
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| One of the many lakes in the area |
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| Usually the trails are not this crowded... |
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| Just one of the many delicious dishes at Les Alpages |
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Sandra even got to re-connect
with our French friends,
who we had not seen
since the last century! |
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| Timeless beauty |
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I love European mushrooms just as much
as American mushrooms |
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| Waterfalls galore! |
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| Group shot with our friendly hosts |
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When we still had regular year-round jobs, we were never
able to go to Europe in the summer, so I particularly enjoy
being there when it's warm enough to go swimming |
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| Here's to the Good Life!
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If you pay really good attention, you can see how our waistline usually expands a little bit during our time in Europe. Of course nothing beats Lionel's food at Les Alapges, or mommy's home cooking. But we enjoyed lots of great food & drinks:
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A Spanish Feast with our besties Susi & Ralf
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Surprisingly, the best burger we ever had
is no longer American, but Swiss! |
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| Turns out, we really like German food, too! |
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Sandra with her awesome aunt Rose making
the best Maultaschen, a schwäbische specialty |
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Well, you need something to
wash down all that good food. |
We also went to Switzerland for a few days to visit my brother & family. He gave us three options for hikes in the Alps. But only one of them started at a monastery with a brewery, so the choice was pretty simple.
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| Kloster Fischingen, which is also a brewery |
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| Beautiful hike in the Swiss Alps |
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| Of course there has to be disc golf |
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| Findus is not fat, just fuzzy |
The area where I grew up is actually more famous for wine than a beer. My favorite German wines come from the Kaiserstuhl. I took a lovely and educational trip with my parents into the vineyards:
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| The vineyards of the Kaiserstuhl |
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Badischer Wein -
Von der Sonne verwöhnt |
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When I grew up, we made a few extra Mark
by helping with the grape harvest.
We have learnt that nowadays about half of the grapes
are picked by these fancy machines |
Sandra and I have very fond memories of our college days. So Munich will always hold a special place in our hearts, not just because this is where we met. Many of our friends still live there and they have pretty decent beer, too.
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| My beloved Olympiapark in Munich, still my favorite job ever! |
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We did not have a camera with us 30 years ago
since neither one of us expected this spontaneous
proposal at the Olympic swimming arena.
So this re-enactment will have to do.
 | | That architecture is just awesome |
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| We love the Beer Gardens in Munich! |
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| Prost to our host! |
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Octoberfest was canceled,
but it was still a special time in Munich |
This is not how I remember them dressing in college!
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Christian Ude was the mayor of Munich when we lived there.
Now he's a comedian. We went to an alternative Octoberfest event
at a small brewery where he tapped the first keg of this year's Festbier. |
When our friend's daughter from Indiana could not do her semester abroad in China as planned, she found an alternative in Germany, which just happened to be a few miles from Sandra's hometown. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Ali and thus even got to experience the infamous and dramatic 'college drop off', despite not having kids ourselves:
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| With Ali in her new hometown |
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Visitors from America always help us
appreciate the old stuff in Germany. |
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| Affenberg in Salem |
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Baroque Basilica in Birnau. It's a very beautiful place,
if only they labeled the disinfectant and the holy water
in English so that foreign visitors don't mix them up;-) |
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This zeppelin flew by just as we dropped Ali off
for her semester at Zeppelin University! |
Since we've been gone from Germany so long and live so far away, a trip to my hometown always feels a little bit like time traveling. It's fun to see what has changed and what hasn't. I also got to see good old friends, one for the first time in over 30 years! But the nostalgic highlight was watching the full 3 hours unedited video of our double wedding with my brother and both of my "Petras in Law". You wouldn't know it just by watching the video, but our wedding day truly was one of the best days in our lives. It was also educational to watch the video, since we found out that you can't trust human memory. We all remembered things that were simply not true.
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Enjoying a new view of my hometown Breisach
on a walk with my parents. This picture is actually
taken from France. |
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| With my brother at our high school where we went for 9 years |
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Some of my fondest teenage memories are from the
time with my track & field team. we had such a fun
group of friends. However, we all get older, so instead
of competing in triple jumping, hurdles or pole vaulting,
we played a leisurely round of disc golf. |
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One of my two best childhood friends,
who I had not seen in over 30 years! |
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My mom in front of my grandparents home,
where she grew up in post-war Freiburg |
Another advantage of staying for so long is that we got to be in Germany for several special occasions without really planning it that way:
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On Petra's Birthday, we got to bring some Aloha
to Germany with a lei of freshly picked flowers. |
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We got to play our first round of golf in Europe
with Sandra's cousin in the Black Forest |
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| Birdie Schnaps! |
Needless to say, we had a fabulous time on our trip. Now we are on our stopover for two weeks in Colorado to see friends and join a wedding celebration. I bet you can't wait to find out whether we are enjoying ourselves here or not, but you'll just have to wait for the next post.
It would be sad that this trip is coming to an end next Friday, if it weren’t for the fact that we are heading home to our island paradise and after 6 months, we are feeling that tropical itch.
Aloha from Evergreen,
Chris & Sandra
