It has been a crazy month in the Bunda house, as we have had family coming in and out for 4 weeks straight. First my grandma came and spent two weeks with us while we went to different places in Germany and spent a long weekend in Paris. Dylan really loved having her around! It's always nice to be able to show family where you are living and what you are doing (in a sense anyway, seeing as how we weren't really on our normal routine or schedule). The weather was awful the entire time she was here, rain and cold every single day. But we made the most of it.
In Paris we saw all the main sights, and she went up the Eiffel Tower. Dylan and I didn't go with her, because it was too cold for him up there. We tried but turned around on the second floor. He was happy once we got back on the ground though. We took a bus tour and got to see the whole city, and walked some of the Champs-Élysées, the longest avenue in the world. During her trip we also went to Heidelberg and saw the castle, did some shopping and had a nice lunch. We went to Worms and saw the cathedral, and Rudeshiem, a huge tourist area for shopping.
The very next morning after she left, my sister in law arrived, followed by my mother in law and her husband. They brought the Arizona sun with them, and things stayed nice and sunny the rest of the trip. Getting them from the airport was chaos all on its own. There were riots going on at the airport and they weren't letting anyone in at all, leaving everyone flying in to visit family walking through the gate to no one waiting for them, and not knowing where to go. We spent a good 45 minutes trying to squint between all the police officers to see if we could see them. FINALLY I caught glimpse of them through a small crack in between two of the uniformed men, and shouted for them as loud as I could followed by jumping. It worked.
But the crazy of the airport was only the beginning of chaos, as the next two weeks would be much more fast paced than the previous two. We spent the first day in Frankfurt taking in some local sights, and catching up. The next day included everyone going to Trier, with me staying behind to get things ready for the trip the next day. We woke up early and headed to Paris. It was my 3rd time being in the city, so it was easy to navigate where to go via the metro system, and we got to see pretty much everything we wanted to. We even saw the Eiffel Tower at night, and on the hour for the sparkling, which I hadn't gotten a chance to do yet. We also took the lift to the top and took advantage of the champagne bar, the view was absolutely beautiful at sunset. Driving through Paris caused extreme
stress in all of us, so we were actually relieved to get to our next destination, the champagne region of France. Here we stopped for a tour of the Moèt and Chandon champagne cellar. This is where all Dom Perignon comes from as well.
Brugge, Belgium was our next stop, and it was BEAUTIFUL. The weather was perfect, the atmosphere was relaxing and it was much more peaceful than Paris was. We walked through the market square, had drinks with the cultural sights in view, and climbed to the top of the famous Belfry where we got to watch the bells ring first hand, and get a view of Brugge from up top. There are canals the run all over the city, which adds to the atmosphere. We took a canal ride, shopped for Belgian lace and chocolate, and had dinner at a local restaurant to try finnish stew, a famous specialty in Belgium. Unfortunately we only had one full day here, since we arrived so late the day before. But we managed to squeeze in a tour of the brewery before our next stop, Amsterdam.
I think Amsterdam was most of our favorite place. It was amazing. Just as beautiful as Brugge with all the canals running through, especially when they became lit up at night. It was a huge city, with almost NO vehicles, only bicycles. Hundreds of bikes everywhere, things are so close together you don't need a car. We walked pretty much everywhere, and got to take in a lot of the city. We saw the Anne Frank house that has now been turned into a museum, which was really cool to see. We took another canal ride, walked through all the crazy shops that accentuate what Amsterdam is most famous for, sex and marijuana, and took a guided tour of the Red Light District. Dylan of course had to come with, but he stayed in the stroller with a jacket draped over it and a movie so he couldn't see, because there is a whole lot of naked in this area. On the tour we learned exactly how it works, saw all the windows, (and the women working them), and also got to talk to a previous prostitute and ask questions. It sounds like a ton of crazy, but that's not all Amsterdam is about. It really is a beautiful city with a lot to see and do. On the way to our next stop, we spent some time at the beach, which connects to the North Sea.
On our way back to Germany we made one more stop in Cologne, and saw the gothic cathedral, or Kòlner Dom. We walked around, did some shopping, and pretty much took it easy for the day. I think we were all pretty relieved to make it home after our 10 day excursion. We took a day to rest up before waking up at 4:30am to get on a tour bus that took us to a nice castle on the Rhine River. Here we got to tour the castle, have a brandy tasting, take a 2 hour cruise down the Rhine, have lunch at a local German restaurant, have another wine tasting, take a cable car ride through the vineyards and do some shopping.
We only had one more day with everyone, so we spent it getting things together at home and doing some shopping for final souvenirs. It was a very busy two weeks but we had such a great time!! We loved getting to share all these awesome places with our families and will miss them all. Luckily we only said goodbye for a few months this time, as our tour here is coming to an end, and we now have less than 3 months left. Our leaving here is going to be bitter sweet, maybe even a little more bitter than sweet, but for now we are enjoying it while we can. We want to thank our family members who came and spent this time with us, we created so many memories.
