those wacky germans . . .

. . . its like they have a different word for everything.

jeff, his mom and i arrived in frankfurt last friday (two fridays ago? i can't remember) and proceeded to haul ass on the autobahn (where there is mostly no speed limit) for 3 hours to get to where jake (jeff's nephew who is stationed on an army base there in germany), nicole and their two incredibly cute kids, dylan and hayley, live. they're in a small town/large army base called grafenwohr about halfway between frankfurt and prague. the drive there was scary cause jeff was driving and scenic - rolling hills, cute little bavarian towns dotting the countryside - you get the idea.

after a long flight and 3 hours of being a white-knuckled passenger on the autobahn, we dropped susie off at jake's house and drove 30 more miles to check in at our wee little german hotel in koenigstein.

koenigstein:

saturday the lot of us let jake drive us to nurnberg for a castle tour, the easter market and the toy museum. the tour of the nurnberg castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Castle - is not actually a complete tour; they only let you see the museum part - which is filled with suits of armor and weapons of singular destruction. off to the easter market which was mostly like a street fair, except with way more barbecued pig smells. while the fam went off to visit the toy museum, jeff and i opted to drink (yes, i know this is totally unbelievable).

castle:

nurnberg streets:

after a full day in nurnberg, we headed back to grafenwohr (kids and adults a tiny bit grumpy).

sunday, we opted to hang at jake and nicole's house and barbecue some pork (germans LOVE their swine, unlike the middle-eastern set). first we had to visit the 'px' for supplies (i have no idea what 'px' stands for, but i believe there is one of these on each army base). this place had everything (except starbucks) and was quite fascinating; such an interesting mix of people. it was kind of like being at the state fair. i believe we were in there for hours (at least that's what the knee-biters said - 'can we GO now????').

monday, jeff and i continued east to prague to drink for two days - and that's another blog.

in doha now until the 19th; its only 85 degrees here!

xoxoxo

tricia