Germany Day 1

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Welcome to Germany trip 2009! This trip was a Christmas present from Mom and Dad-got to go with Dad and his coworker George on a business trip through Southern Germany. I don't want to forget anything (though I'm afraid I already have!) so I'm starting this blog to keep track of and share my experiences. Hope you all enjoy it.

Day 1:
Plane flight over was so painless! We got to ride in business class, which was AMAZING!!!! As soon as we got on board, they offered us free drinks. The goody bag with little travel bits was so neat (I especially appreciated the eye shades) and there were lots of movie options, etc. We even got a gourmet dinner (with wine, I might add...). Talk about the celebrity treatment.

Anyway, we got into Frankfurt airport around 5:30 am, waited for the rental car place to open, and headed out. We grabbed a bite to eat in a small town bakery-no one spoke English, and we had a lot of fun with the lady behind the counter. One neat thing I've noticed about German culture-everybody wakes up in the morning and heads to the Bäckerie to pick up the bread/pastries for the day and maybe a bite of breakfast. No preservatives! Once it was light, we drove towards a different town with a castle that George wanted to see. After a wrong turn or two, we reached it. VERY cold, but such a pretty view!

After walking around for a little while, we decided to drive out to the famous "Romantic Rhine". We were there in January, so it was pretty darn cold and snowy, but everything was so beautiful and fairytale-like! We drove through the countryside for a while, and when we came out of the woods BAM! There was the infamous Rhine! It is so beautiful-there are so many castles everywhere!!!! We mainly drove around, got out and explored a couple of times, and ate lunch in Bacharach. Oh, and we got on a car ferry to take us over the Rhine river-that has got to be one of the top five experiences of the whole trip. Very neat, but quite an odd sensation actually.

After that, we were all crashing pretty hard, so we drove on to Heidelberg and checked in to the hotel (Marriot there). We didn't even unpack, just took a 'power nap' for an hour or so, then went exploring. We wandered down to the old part of town for dinner and found a local brewery that looked fun. Went in and ended up sitting with another guy from the US and his friend who lives in Germany. Turns out he's in the auto industry (I don't envy him at the moment!) and it turned into a friendly debate over cars that I didn't really follow but was fun nonetheless. I had my first German wurst and beer (which was EXCELLENT by the way), and then we called it a night. Hallo Deutschland!

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Photos

German town 1
This is the river running right below the castle through the town

neat bridge
This bridge connected the castle to the rest of the town

castle wall
would-be invaders: that wall would scare me too

far off view of the castle
Here you can see how the castle is positioned in relation to the town

me with the castle
I will conquer the castle!

view of the town from the castle
very picturesque, very typical town of this region.

different angle of the castle wall
We were into the castle wall apparently. :)

Hello Rhine!
This was our first full-on Rhine view! How much more gorgeous can you get?!

close up of first Rhine castle
I don't remember which one this is, but it's one of the most famous

ferry across the Rhine
here's the type of boat we took across

view from the ferry
another beautiful Rhine picture!

Christmas cheer in Bacharach
We thought this was a pretty funky Christmas tree!

Bacharach nativity scene
I'd never seen a nativity scene with a German shepherd and a yodeler before. :)