Poop and Trier

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Monday, June 7th:

You’ll never believe what we (well actually, it was my aunt) woke up to this morning? The sewer system had backed up and flooded the basement in the main house! When we woke up, we had no idea that it had happened…like I said before, my aunt is an AMAZING hostess…she never said a word and started cleaning up the terrible mess herself! Apparently, a couple of years previously, the city had come out and worked on the system, on the street, and may have caused the flow to drain at a trickle. Little did my aunt and uncle know this, because they lived in the home with just the two of them, they didn’t use the great quantities of toilet paper that us Americans are used to (probably use the bidet quite a bit, but we won’t go there…)…so with the large amount of guests over the past weekend the system finally had too much!!! When the basement was done, both my aunt and my uncle headed outside to where the sewer is supposed to drain, and dug up the hole and lifted the cover…it was a sight to see (and smell)! Warning, the description next may cause you to become nauseous! My uncle reached into the pipes to see if he could see what was blocking, and out came gobs and gobs of toilet paper and human waste…ick!!! I tell you what…I felt really bad that they had hosted us so nicely over the past week, and then this happens to them! My mom and I were horrified that we could have contributed to what happened! But after a while, it was apparent that it truly wasn’t us…a tree root had made its way down there and caused some of the blocking too! Whew!!!!

It took all morning and early afternoon to get the system working well enough that we didn’t have to worry about another flood or flushing the toilet…but boy, did we count our toilet paper squares for the rest of our time there! Hee hee…

Around mid-afternoon, my aunt decided that it would be fun to go into Trier and go sightseeing. Trier was a Roman fortress back in the day, and it is approximately 30 minutes away from Bitburg. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC. I had gone there several times as a child, and loved it! There is a beautiful Roman gate, called the “Porta Nigra” and it is still fully intact after standing for over 2000 years! We drove down a long and windy hill into the main part of town and parked in a central garage. We were all hungry for lunch by then, so we headed towards my aunt’s favorite Italian restaurant. While we were walking, we saw a SMART car…but it was not your average SMART car…it was a SMART sports car!!!! It looked like a miniature Corvette!! Of course I had to take pictures!

At the restaurant, Kenya was super excited to order her Diavolo (pepperoni) pizza! I had Spaghetti Carbonara that was to die for!!! My Dad also had a pizza and my Mom and aunt had a special pasta dish (they ordered the same one).

Lunch definitely gave us a good start to exploring Trier! The main part of town is pedestrian only and it is surrounded with beautiful buildings that are all painted in pastel colors! We made a deal with my Dad that we would go exploring and would meet up at the fountain in the center of town (he wanted to just relax and people watch). So my Mom, aunt, Kenya and I headed over to the Palace of Trier which is a gorgeous two story pink and white building in Rococo architecture (everything is very ornate on it). I loved this place, as a child, because it looked like a fairy tale! Today, on the balcony, we got a surprise! There was a man and woman dressed in Marie Antoinette era costumes and they gave a violin concerto! It was the perfect setting for that! There were also these two elderly Dutch gentlemen with their wives and they (the gents of course) flirted with the four of us shamelessly!  Of course we had to take our pictures with them! 

After taking in the beautiful gardens at the palace, we walked through town again and met up with my Dad. We walked over to the cathedral where it is reported that a piece of the garment that Jesus had on when He died is housed. Outside of the cathedral is a humongous piece of rock that legend has it that when the cathedral was built, the devil was so mad that he dropped this huge slab of rock down to try and destroy the cathedral. I had Kenya sit on it so I could take a picture…it looked like part of a massive broken stone column sitting on its side! We then walked to the other side of town to where the Porta Nigra was and took lots of pictures! My Mom, aunt and I left Kenya and my Dad to explore the square, while we went shopping at Villeroy and Boch…my favorite fine china store! I didn’t get any china, but I did get two gorgeous oven mitts!  My aunt has two china sets from their collections, so she bought a few pieces…sooo jealous!

About that time, we felt the need for an afternoon sweet and espresso! On the way to the café, we stopped at a public restroom, and I can’t remember what we were talking about, but there was a lady who overheard us in there and when we came out, she was waiting for us to ask where we were from. Whenever anyone asks that, anywhere, we usually just answer “Seattle” because everyone knows ‘Seattle’. She asked where specifically, and I said “Federal Way, near Tacoma”. She told us she was from Auburn! Auburn, Alabama!!!! LOL!! She knew about our Auburn, so she thought she would shock us! LOL That was hilarious!

So, getting back to the café…we had to wait a little bit for an outside table, but when we got it, it was right in front, where we could relax and people watch!! Kenya had an enormous sundae, and I had a Cappuccino with whipped cream…yum…it gave us enough energy to shop a bit more…we found Kenya a really cool World Cup t-shirt that she loved!

Finally, it was time to go back home, eat dinner, and head to bed early because we had a super early wake-up call the next morning…to go to Paris!!!!!!!!! 

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