How do I begin a post about our summer vacation?
How about this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Oh my, was our vacation amazing, adventurous, joyous, great family, fun, loving and filled with many splendored wonders!
When David and Lieve announced they were getting married in Belgium in July, the wheels in our brains started turning and burning to figure out how to get there, who to take and how long. It occurred to us at one point in our planning that South Africa, where Grandma and Grandpa Wheeler are serving a mission is actually in the same time zone and maybe we could zip on down there after the celebration in Belgium. It turned out that plan was the best decision financially, efficiently and jet-lagg-y, i.e. saves us some jet lag (and having been through the jet lag, combining the trips was a very wise choice). So a travel agent helped us book flights to Frankfurt, Germany (since there is a direct flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg) and we reserved a car to travel from Germany to Belgium.
Before I begin writing about our first day in Germany, I should tell you that I have not been as intimately acquainted with my children's bowel habits since they were toddlers, as I became on this trip. And that's where this posts begins. Our first day has been coined as "pre-poop" and "post-poop" by Mark. As we disembarked the plane in Frankfurt we all went to the bathroom, of course. We rented our car, Marked played Tetris with fitting our luggage into a station wagon, we plugged in our destination to two GPS systems and we were off. Five minutes into our trip, Spencer said he really needed to go to the bathroom, no. 2 style. When asked why he didn't do so at the airport, he replied that the toilets were not clean. It occurs to me, as I type this, that we had nearly the same experience when Spencer needed to use the bathroom 5 minutes into our trip to go to Stephen and Jenny's wedding. What a coincidence. So, we get out of the city and decide we can stop at a gas station for a bathroom at a Burger King. When we do, we find out that you have to pay 70 euro cents to use the bathroom. We have no euros so we head to a bank. We have $100 bills, which are too large for a small bank, so we had to head back to the city to a bigger bank. Through all of this there is fairly constant moaning and reminding that we need to find a bathroom. When we get to the bigger bank, I try the door and it is locked. We try another entrance and I think it is locked again until another patron enters by PUSHING the door and not just pulling. Finally, we get to the bank and through hand signals and broken English, we get some Euros. By this time we are hungry and noted that we passed a McDonald's along the way (we are too desperate to find a German food place to begin our immersion in German culture). We get to McDonald's and guess what, THE BATHROOMS ARE FREE!!! People say that teenagers are moody. Perhaps it is based on the state of their colon. Spencer went from a miserable, cranky, moaner to a smiley, excited, bring-on-the-world type of guy. Thank goodness. We muddled through ordering McDonald's food (it's no better than in America), and were reminded of what small drinks really did look like at one time - a true 8 ounces.
In addition to our adventures with bowels, we encountered this sign at every exit in Germany, which triggered all sorts of potty humor:
To add to the potty humor, Ausfahrt means "exit" in German. Just when we all (except Mark) were falling asleep, Mark would yell AUSFAHRT!!!! and we would all start giggling.
We finally got on our way to Dachau with a few stops, paying for bathrooms and running in the rain to try to stay awake.
Dachau Concentration Camp was a very sobering visit. The sadness there was palpable, but there was also a feeling of sacredness that came with the thought of many innocent lives lost.
The entrance gate at the guard house with the above words that mean "work makes you free." We had a good discussion about how that statement is true, but can be twisted by the motivator, as it was at this concentration camp.
This large area was for roll call held every day, sometime more than once. All were required to be there, even those who recently died or were close to death. If there was a misstep or disobedience, roll call lasted hours as a punishment.
The first building we went through was a row of rooms for solitary confinement, both used for punishment or for religious leaders who were prevented from helping other people or spreading doctrine.
The boys listened to the stories of some of the inmates. The boys were not looking forward to coming here, but when we arrived, they were interested enough in learning and listening and I think the feeling there (along with the jet lag) quieted them. While we were going through the solitary confinement bunkhouse, Spencer was comparing what the prisoners had to go through to some of the things in his life. I told him what he experiences isn't even comparable to what was experienced here. Hearing our conversation, DJ, in his ever thoughtful way, said "we can compare something Mom, we are all human." We came to Europe for a wonderful wedding, and for that, the cost was worth it. But if we didn't have the wedding, that moment with DJ would've made the cost worth it.
This is the statue that was emblazoned in my mind when I visited Dachau over 20 years ago. To the left of this state is a stone monument that says "Never Again," in five languages.
The bunkhouses were supposed to house 200 people, but by the end of the camp 2,000 people were in each bunkhouse. Strict living conditions existed where they prisoners had to keep their rooms clean at daily inspection and even a straw on the floor would mean punishment.
Behind the bunkhouse we toured were rows of bunkhouse foundations, three of the bunkhouses were used as an infirmary, which were always full.
Headless James is standing in front of Catholic Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel. Nearby is a Jewish memorial, Protestant Memorial, Russian Othodox Memorial, and Carmelite Convent.
This is one of my favorite picture Mark took while at Dachau, while we were walking to the crematoriums.
There were other crematoriums that were built, but not used (as well as a gas shower), but the one in the above picture is the original that was used almost 24/7 to dispose of the many dead at the camp.
After visiting the concentration camp, we were very hungry, so we looked up a place to eat on our GPS and found ourselves in downtown Munich. It was so downtown that there was no place to park, so we decided to leave the city center and eat somewhere on the outskirts. We tried a few places that were closed, and desperation was sinking in as visions of Chuck-a-rama were spewing from the boys mouth. After we assured them we would find no such thing we finally followed the fork and knife sign on our GPS to a little town called Wielenbach, where in fact they were having a buffet that night!!
Spencer volunteered to help James walk back to the car.
The restaurant sported German and Brazil flags in celebration of the match up in preparation for the Soccor World Cup. After choppy conversation with the owner, she assured me they were serving food (Mark's requirement) and that it was German food (Lisa's requirement) and that it was in fact a buffet (Spencer's hope). I just about cried and hugged her.
The hot buffet table was set up on the right (with three different kinds of sausages, ribs, pork and some sort of wonderful Spam-ish delight), and there were at least 20 salads on the table on the left and 10 more inside, all of them vinegary German delights.
See? My mouth is watering.
The boys were in heaven except for the orange soda, which Spencer insisted was carbonated orange juice.
To make our first day in Germany complete, as we were leaving a group of people wearing actual lederhosen struck up the band and serenaded our departure. I'm sure they were for some other celebration, but it felt like it was for us!
That night after trying to keep each other awake in the car with riddles, jokes and pokes, we made it safely to our hotel in Schwangau, Germany, which did not have an elevator, so we lugged our luggage to the third floor, took Nyquil, and slept for 10 hours.
