Traffic Lights

You have to love the traffic lights here in Germany. Not only do they go from Green, yellow to red. They also go from red, yellow to green. I always feel like I am at the Indy 500, or I am getting ready for a drag race. As I sit at the red light I start to rev my engine as the light turns yellow, ready to kick it into high gear and leave the Smart car beside me in my dust! The light is green, I giddy up and go...my little Volkswagen Golf is in high gear reaching such high speeds in a single bound! Only to finally get up to the 50 km speed limit and have to slow down again for the next light..but wait I can see that the red light is turning yellow, which means, it will be green in 2 seconds..keep the pedal to the metal and fly right through that light!

Girls Poland Shopping Trip

My first girls weekend here!! Ben was in the US so Jenn's husband Bob took care of my girls with his own for the night and then handed them off to a babysitter the next day. Whatever it takes to get out of the house!

So 5 in one car and 4 in another and we headed off to our first stop, Seiffen, Germany. (about 5 hours away) This little town was way up in the mountains, snow everywhere! And our faithful leaders drove their cars with summer tires all the way up with not one fatality! In Germany you do not have all weather tires. You have to have summer and winter, which means you have to store your tires that you are not using in a tire hotel. Nice! Wonder if there is room service.

Anyway this town sells Christmas items all year round and is the officia

l Christmas village in Germany. The locals make many wooden Christmas items and sell them in their shops. Like wooden candle pyramids, angels, nutcrackers, and toys. This is the main income of the village.

I just followed Natalie around the town, she was looking for a wooden pyramid with 3 different colors of wood. She said she had been looking for a year for this item. So when she found one that she loved and for a good price I asked "do you mind if I copy you? If you have been looking for a year at all the Christmas fairs and this is the best one, I will get the same one". I mean really why should I look around if she has already done it for me? Quality friend.

So after 1 1/2 hours we loaded our cars with all our goodies and got back into the

car for another 2 hour drive in the sleet, rain, cold, dark night.

We arrived in Poland around 9 and went straight to our Blue Beetroot Bed and Breakfast. Very cute place, highly recommend. We quickly order food since the kitchen closes at 10. Perogies for everyone! Yum!! Then we head upstairs where we see 3 other American ladies getting pedicures and mani's! We were like "they do this here"?! It was only 5 eruo for the pedi, come on! The exchange rate was ridiculous! If you spent a 100 Zloty it was 40 euro!

So the next morning we are up for breakfast at 7 and out the door. After a few hours we filled up our 7 passenger van and roof trunk, again very impressive shopping.

Then we had to get back into the van, with less room...and drive back for 6 hours in close comfort. What better way to find out about your friends, then to be trapped with them for 7 hours with no elbow room.

Now we just have to find our next destination.

A day of Day Tripping

Wake up this morning thinking "what a great day for a day trip to Burg Eltz Castle". Not a great day to trip down my stairs. These stairs turn at a 360˚ and every morning we all hang on to the railing for our lives. I have heard Ben fall down the stairs (he said he tripped on something..I don't think so). So as I come down the ( smaller than my foot) stairs and I trip, slip, fall, whatever you want to call it. Kayla caught me at the bottom after I slid down over 1/2 of the stairs. My poor kids are crying and thinking I have just died. I try and tell them I am fine just a few bruises, thats all. Stupid stairs!

So as we get ready for my big trip the kids get my cane. They think that I fell because of my one bad leg, I tell them no, not my leg was not the problem, just my big feet and slippery socks. But I take the cane with me anyway to make them feel better.

We drive our 2 hour drive and get to the Castle parking lot (that I found all by myself, understood 150 euro to park and where to park from the elderly parking attendant, thank you very much).

We walk to the path to the castle and I ask a man beside a van how far to the castle. He says it is a 800 meter walk, forgets to tell us that it is also straight down on wet pavement. Kids are holding onto me for dear life thinking that I am going to crash. But no, not me...Kayla is the first to go down sliding. She gets up brushes herself off and we keep going. Then Emilee goes face first down landing on her belly. At the same time the Van that we saw at the top of the mountain starts driving down and has to stop as I pick up Emilee to get her out of the way. He makes sure she is ok, then continues with passengers in the van. Kayla yells "we could have taken the VAN DOWN"! Like how would we know that. I tell Kayla, we will get him on the way up I promise.

So after a wonderful tour of the Burg Eltz Castle we took the van up for 5 euro and saved our shins!