Germany (Day 1 -3)...

Day 1:

I arrived in Germany…
You would not believe the giddy feeling I felt looking out my window at the forest landscape and tiny villages littering the countryside… to my utter surprise, the Frankfurt Airport was almost completely empty. I didn’t see a single person aside from my fellow airline passengers and the passport check guard until I reached the main part and met Sylvia. I couldn’t help but have the biggest smile when the guards stamped my passport with the little black stamp… and my smile grew even bigger when I saw Sylvia and Elijah waiting for me!!! I have been wanting to visit Matt and Sylvia since I heard they were gonna be stationed in Germany for 3 years… it didn’t end up coming true until 5 weeks before they left the country to move back to the states… but I made it non-the-less. I also had the honor of being the first person to visit them from the states since they’d been there.
After my long journey and the hour drive from the airport, I was ready for an easy evening. I spent the hour-long drive catching up with Sylvia and trying to win over Elijah yet again… I had spent the day with him in London not 2 months ago, but of course we had to start from scratch this time. I did make him smile against his will with the song “down in the meadow…” (which is also Emolyn’s favorite, so I knew it was a crowd pleaser). I have a way with 2 years olds and Elijah and I were good friends by days end. Mat met us when we pulled up to the house on base (they live on Vogelweh Air Base near Ramstein Air Force Base… so I had to get a special pass to get on base). I settled into my room and then Matt, Sylvia, Elijah and I went out for a proper German dinner at the Schnitzelhaus for delicious Weinerschnitzel!! It was really good and really filling. The place was packed so we had to wait an inappropriately long time, but that made us extra hungry when the food came… and it was worth the wait.
We headed back home and I headed for bed soon after Elijah went down.

Day 2:

I feel like the first few days of my time here in Germany was actually a little vacation from Europe and Great Britain in general… being on the air force base, it was like a little piece of America. This was unexpected, but you have no idea how awesome it was to walk about the commissary and pick up good American food like Lucky Charms, Velveeta Shells & cheese, Graham Crackers, rotel salsa, ego waffles… etc. And the milk – it was so wonderful to be able to drink milk again as a beverage – the fridges at RoHo are never cold enough for me to keep milk, and their milk just isn’t good… so needless to say I took advantage of the delicious milk.
So Saturday was just laying low around the house, running errands around base and taking it easy. It was also raining out (straight down from the sky rain as opposed to strange English rain), and it was still 73 degrees – heavenly, just my kind of weather!!!
I also started watching the TV show Firefly, which is really cool and I need to find it online somewhere.

Day 3:

It was Sunday and so everything was closed, so we took advantage of the amazing weather and went for a walk to the “neighborhood Castle Ruins.” I cannot believe that castle ruins are so common place here that almost every little village has their own castle ruins to hang out at. The ruins were awesome!! But first, on the way up to the ruins there was a church with a memorial to the locals who fell in WWII… who happened to be Nazis. It was at this point that it hit me that I was in Germany! Not only Grimm Fairytale Germany, but also the Germany of WWII… it was so weird.
Also on the way up Elijah had a battle with a branch. He kept saying “hi-ya!” and then swatting it with his stick/sword.
The castle was called Burgruine Hohenecken and was built in the early 13th century. The French destroyed it in 1688/89. It’s not very large by any means, but pretty cool. And the stone is still crumbling, so I was able to take a piece of the castle with me.
We climbed all over it, looked for lizards and took tons of pictures.














Elijah was just the cutest and he kept saying “Hi Wanda!” “Doing Wanda?” (which means – Hi Miranda! What are you doing Miranda?)” His little voice is hilariously adorable. After the castle ruins Elijah decided we should watch Disney’s Robin Hood because I told him it was my favorite. Him and I were the best of friends by the end of the day. He was however confused that I was sleeping in his room instead of him… he would walk in to the room and look around and say “This room is nice…” “well thanks Eli, it’s yours so I’m glad you like it.”