I finally made it back home after three years. I booked my flight so that I would arrive on my birthday, May 9 in Munich, which also happened to be the city of my birth. I was in Salzburg, Austria at my mom's for a week and then rented a car to go to grandma's in Albstadt Ebingen, Germany. I was with my mom for mother's day and with my grandma's for her 91st birthday. I thought that was a perfectly planned trip. I did not fight much with jet leg this time at all. May is a wonderful time to visit! I loved the rolling hills and summer smell of the nearby farms in Salzburg. I ate a lot of wonderful Quark/Topfen ice cream and went shopping for shoes downtown.
This is the Getreidegasse. I love this picture of a post card, because this is how the street often looked like when I went home from Ballet.
It was especially wonderful to see my grandma because you never know if it was not the last time. Despite her difficult impact on her health last summer, she recovered somewhat and looked awesome! Go grandma! This picture shows three generations: Oma, Mutti, and me. Please not the wonderful traditional "Kaffee und Kuchen Tisch" (Cake and Koffee table). This is a tradition I will have to continue in my family one day.
This is a picture of my cousin Marc and me at a light "Abendbrot" snack after Oma's Birthday Kaffee.We of course ate all the time! This is the trademark of my family. It was good for me since I did not have great German food for about three years. It goes like this: Breakfast, then lunch, then tee/coffee and cake, then dinner. When you go out for dinner on sucgh a day you are in trouble. You are full constantly. But that makes you disciplined when you eat. For sure you have to eat European portions and not American portions! Below are: Mutti, Oma, me, and my aunt (my mother's sister) Uschi at the restaurant "In der Breite."
My cousin Joerg and his companion Patrizia. Please note Joerg's "Muss dass denn wieder sein!" (Does that have to be again)-face referring to the picture taking. Tja, mein lieber Joerg so habe ich nun entlich mal ein Foto von Dir und Deiner Lieben auf meinem Blog! :-)
This is my uncle Bob at the wonderful Parkhotel St. Leonard in Ueberlingen, a restaurant that overlooks Ueberlingen am Bodensee.
The Bodensee is a lake (I would call it great, but I was told by my friend Kelly that in comparison to the lakes in the U.S. it is more something like a pond!) Well, the Bodensee is a wonderful "pond"! :-) It spans over three countries (this is probably why I think it is big: Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
My aund and uncle Uschi and Bob took me with them on a little two day trip to the Bodensee where they have an appartment for vacations. It was so beautiful there. We ate out at a very competitive restaurant called "Buergerbreau" (see below) where I had entrecote with white aspargus and for dessert a decorative plate of small samples of Lavender ice cream, Basil ice cream, Rhubarb mousse and chocolate mousse.
The city of Ueberlingen where we stayed is very old. The earliest recording in which the City is mentioned is 750 A.D. One can often find paintings on the walls of the houses which tell the story of a family or a house.
The "New Look."
My aunt Uschi and I out "shopping."Uschi, Bob, and I went on a tour through the city in which the tour guide let us into the old city hall, which was built ard. 1490-1494, as the lady recounted, when Columbus discovered America. It was an awesome room built wholly from Linden wood. It contained wood carvings which also told the story of the king and several land lords and clergy at that time.
City Hall building from outside.
The city had beautiful old streets and towers left over from the old city wall.
This tower apparently had the number 17 as it's address. It's hard to see, but it is written on the blue tag. We also took a ferry boat and went on the bodensee to get a view of the city from afar. You could see the old monastery and castle Spetzgart, whcih today is a boarding school for very rich people. One of the boys of the British royal family went to school there.
