Monday June 15

We drove into the town of Gelnhausen last night around 10. It was raining... and in the dark this looked like the Bates Motel! CREEPY! There was only 2 other cars in the parking lot and he put us on the 3rd floor... we assumed close to his mother's room! Karen laughed when I put the chair in front of the door. But alas, when we woke up still alive, we realized he really was a nice young man. He even cooked our eggs whatever way we wanted them! 

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN is all it has done last night and today! We began our journey through the famous Fairy Tale road this morning. We walked all around the town of Hanau searching for the Brothers Grimm statue! When I say all around the town... I mean it literally! Ugh! We happened upon a fairy tale operetta for children! That was a bonus! We visited a museum...but it was all in GERMAN (imagine that), so we looked at the pictures and traveled to the next little town (Fulda). Since it has been raining so hard, we decided to check in to the hotel and then walk "just around the corner" to the laundry saloon to do some much needed washing. OH MY... it was pouring, we were "confused" and soaking wet. We finally found the "laundry saloon" and then we couldn't tell what wash cycles we were pushing. EVERYTHING is in German! Thank goodness for a young girl who helped us out after a bit. I sure hope Candid Camera isn't in town! What an experience this has been. As you can tell from all the posts today... we finally have a hotel with internet access! and I bought a new electrical adapter that allows us to fully charge the computer!  

Sunday June 14

After visiting the castles on Saturday, we drove several hours to the town of Dachau (just outside of Munich). We spent the night here and got up Sunday morning to go to the Dachau Concentration Camp. I don't think I can put into words the emotions I felt as we toured the camp. We had a remarkable tour guide (Ricky) who helped us see past the surface level of the camp. The tour lasted almost 3 hours. The lasting impression will not be forgotten. We both bought books from the memorial site to bring home. If any of you are interested in learning more about it, just let us know!

Saturday June 13

Here we are at the Neuschwanstein Castle (Disney's inspiration castle). We also visited another castle that King Ludwig's father built.  Very pretty... and touristy! It was HOT and the mountains are really tall that you have to hike up. Whew! Thank goodness we found some DR. PEPPER in a gas station! We bought every bottle they had (which was only 4). It was a fabulous day!

Friday, June 12

Today we took a slight detour off the fairy tale path to Hitler's Eagles Nest on the Germany/Austrian border. It was a long drive... but very interesting! The countryside is amazing to drive through. The tall pines and the Bavarian Alps make a beautiful backdrop. While we were coming down from the Eagles Nest (on a tour bus) we started talking to a group of Boy Scouts from Colorado. It was fun to talk and visit with other Americans! One of the best finds of the day was a gas station that sold ICE! We were like 2 kids in a candy store! ha ha! Finally, I got a Coke Zero with ice, but poor Karen still hasn't found a Dr. Pepper! :(

June 11th

Greetings!

We have been busily driving across Germany over the past several days. Here is a recap of our adventure thus far:

Thurs., June 11th: 

Today we spent the majority of the day driving. We drove east across half of Germany along the Swiss and Austrian border. The lakes are this beautiful aquamarine blue. It is very different from the tropical blue waters you see around Mexico. One military person we visited with said it was because it is all mountain water run off. I haven't ever seen anything like that in Colorado! After we arrived in Fussen, we both took a long nap!!! It was very nice to relax and take a deep breath~

Oh, yeah... there is more road construction in Germany than in Oklahoma! AND... the little GPS lady that has been leading us around Germany doesn't always know the detours~ VERY nerve wracking at times!

Black Forest

Karen has finally found her knight and shining armour! (I didn´t realize Rick was so tall)
The only bad part of touring castles...is they are always at the top of a mountain!!! We hiked about 45 minutes to get to this point. This castle is still used today by the family Eltz.

Open air museum representing past farm life.

Oh, the fun we have been having!!! These pictures are from several different places in the Black Forest. We spent Saturday and Sunday with a lovely family we became acquainted with through another Fund for Teachers fellow. We drove to their house on Saturday afternoon. The day was very rainy and made travel on the autobahn a little tense. They took us on a tour of Wertzler (close to where they live) and then to dinner. We stayed the night with them. On Sunday they took us to visit a castle ruin and then fixed us a wonderful lunch before we left. Karen and I can´t wait to get home and fix a similar meal for our families. It was very scrumptious! Manfred and Jutta were very gracious hosts and we are eternally grateful for their hospitality and for helping us figure out some technical difficulties.

Over the Weekend

Hello all!

 Well, we have been experiencing technical difficulties over the past several days! Like I said before, internet access is not always easy to come by... in fact, it is actually pretty difficult! Not only is finding internet access difficult, but charging electronics is also not as easy as it should be! I am REALLY frustrated with the electrical system!!! You should be able to tell by my HAIR! I'm fairly certain that I fried my hot iron...ugh! The battery on the computer is about to go... I don't know if I will ever get it charged again... due to difficulties... so e-mail me if you don't hear from us again...

debbiemcclellan12366@yahoo.com

love and miss you all

Debbie 

More Pics from June 5th

Inside our room at the Rhein Hotel
Outside the Rhein Hotel
 Inside the watch tower overlooking the village of Bacharach.
Entering the village. Notice the cobblestone streets

Bacharach and St. Goar

Today was our first day on the Autobahn driving a Mercedes~ Oh yeah baby! I was going 140 km/h! Yes, everyone was passing me! This is day 2 that we are very thankful for the GPS. Other things we are most thankful for are FREE... toilets, internet, water and parking! They are very hard to come by in Germany! 

Our first stop along the Rhine River was Bacharach. This is a quaint little village with the oldest half timber house in town (built in 1368). One of the most amazing sights was the wine vineyards along the mountainside. We hiked "Cardiac Mountain" to visit the Stahleck Castle. It was very impressive from the outside, but it was made into a youth hostel in 1926... so we couldn't go inside. :( 

A little further up the Rhine we stopped in St. Goar. We found the deal of the century... a hotel with free wi-fi!!!! Well, almost free... Karen has to run over to the wall to turn the lights on out here in the hallway where we can get reception. Oh, yes, we are learning a LOT! So, don't believe everything you read in a tour guide book~

Tomorrow we off to see the Rheinfels Castle and the Burgermeister... Guten tag from Germany. Don't know when we will have internet access again... so stay tuned!

Love and miss you all~

Debbie and Karen

WE MADE IT

Finally, we have made it to Frankfurt! Our flight from Houston to London was delayed 2 hours, which caused us to miss our connecting flight once we got to London. Anyway, I'm sure we were quite a sight to see as we made our way through the Frankfurt airport and customs. "Those crazy American tourists!" We have found out that there is no such thing as "free internet access" in Europe! I really miss Panera right about now. We really haven't seen much since we have arrived. We did get slightly lost leaving the airport and trying to find our way to the hotel. Thank goodness we opted to splurge and purchase the GPS system in the car!!!!!!! Tomorrow we are going over to the Rhine River and hope to tour several castles! We will start posting pictures once we have some pretty ones and not just ones of us looking REALLY tired and in the same clothes we had on 2 days ago! Chat with you all later... after I have had some much needed sleep!

Debbie

At the Airport...

Well, all has gone well until...we get to Houston! Our flight to London has been delayed a couple of hours so we are just hanging out watching very amusing people go by! The very "nice" customer service lady "who doesn't know our names" said it would be a tight connection once were arrive in London! Oh boy...  Anyway, we are training for our run through the London airport by walking laps through Bush International to pass the time. We have been entertaining ourselves with the photobooth shop on the computer! We are having a blast already!!! Talk with you later~

Debbie and Karen

Last Minute Prep

We are feverishly working to get it all done!!!!! Our next post will be once we are actually at the airport waiting for our flight to leave! Don't forget to check back in a couple of days!