And we will chuckle about how even though we thought we'd done a
practice run for our early morning plan of me dropping J, kids, and
luggage off at the check in counter, then me returning the rental car
and meeting them at ticketing, Gina fouled that up for us and I ended
up on a 15 km wild goose chase.
And I am sure I'll be able to laugh about running through the
Frankfurt airport trying to find my family having flashbacks about
losing my mom and missing my flight in the Honolulu airport 15 years
ago. (Mom- red crocs are easier to run in than gold flip flops, FYI)
Someday it might be funny that an 11 hour flight feels like slow
torture.
It will be a while, but I just know we will laugh about C spilling an
ENTIRE cup of very sticky orange juice on himself, J, and I about 3
hours into the 11 hour flight. I of course had extra clothes...for C!
In reality though, we will probably laugh about a lot of this stuff
once we are home, in clean clothes! The car got returned, we made our
flight, the kids have been awesome on the plane, and we are pleasantly
surprised how quickly orange juice dries. It could be worse...
Sent from my iPhone
Today was dedicated to repeating our previous luging experience.
We've been stalking the local luge course for the past three days,
eagerly waiting for a chance to ride once again. Our first attempt
was spoiled by rain, the second by the European stereotype for
'flexable timeframes'. Thankfully, our third and last attempt was
succesful.
The day intentionally started off rather slow. We woke up late, swam
at the pool, spent some time at the nearby plaground (while incurring
some bumps and bruises - previous pics) and ate lunch at our favorite
german cafe - 'Hatie's Schnell'. Lunch consisted of fried chicken,
fries, and glass bottled coke.
After lunch we headed for the luge, which luckily was in the direction
of our rouge wifi hotspot. (You may have noticed a slight delay in
email correspondence over the last few days as wifi as not been
readily availabe in our current accomodations. Its embarissing to
admit that we have spent a few hours driving around german
neighborhoods to discover open wifi connections and now have two
locations which we occasionally visit in order to post blogs and
respond to emails. We found two hotspots so we wouldn't be attracting
to much attention, but S is convinced that the mail man is on to us.
Here's to hoping there's no police report when we turn in our car
tomorrow!)
At the luge we purchased ten rides for the adults and ten rides for
the bigs to share. Carter was free, but it didn't really matter
because after S took him down the hill and crashed into the 'tire
stop' on the initial run we couldn't convince him to go again. The
bigs, S and I alternated runs that zigzaged through the trees and
brush as we flew down the hill. This luge course was not quite as
smooth as our previous experience, but it was just as enjoyable and a
treat after we thought we'd left them behind in the alps. Towards the
end of our riding we began letting the bigs handle the stick as we sat
back and held on for dear life. G was fearless as he'd hold the stick
to the floor. S and I had to battle him to slow the cart around the
corners. I swear I'd never raced down the track as fast as I did with
G at the helm. The icing on the cake was on her last run M was ready
to brave the course on her own (previous pic). She handled the course
fabulous and thanks to the operator we each received an extra ride,
which M used on her own again!
After the luge we made our way back home (complete with a stop by our
handy hotspots) and made dinner for the last time in Germany.
Cheers! (as the Germans would say thinking we were British)
We are very happy to be headed home. We miss our family and friends a
lot, and we are also really looking forward to mundane things like
grocery shopping, doing laundry, and taking showers on our own turf. I
will say that we were all a little meloncholy packing up this morning.
We have had SUCH a great trip. We have built so many memories- big
ones of exploring castles and ancient ruins, and smaller ones- of
dancing in our train cabin on the way to Innsbruck, of sounding out
interesting German words, and all the little cafes we ate at. It is
hard to believe it's all over. Thankfully J doesn't have to go back
to work for 3 more weeks, so it will be a while before we are 100%
back to real life!
Time to get everyone snuggled in for the night. You should see this
set up. We have a double bed and a single bed. For 5 of us. M and G
are sleeping on the single, with heads at opposite ends, like the
grandparents on Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Should be an
interesting night.
Ciao, Cheers, and Auf Weidersehen
