Strasbourg, France and Other Forgotten Local Trips

When we first moved to Germany, I thought I would document every single thing we did and every single trip we took. Then, after visiting a lot of places, I've gotten pretty lazy.

We've decided to try to visit a new place at least every other weekend. We hope to continue that trend through summer as it will probably be our last full summer in Europe. So far, we have done a lot of traveling both near and far since May!

Several weekends ago, we took a trip to Strasbourg, France. Strasbourg is the home of the United Nations headquarters and is located in the Alsace region of France which has traded hands multiple times through history between France and Germany. The inhabitants of Alsace now speak both French and German with a very distinctive accent... or so I'm told.

Strasbourg was a beautiful city which is only 2 hours from our house. It's actually how I imagined most German cities would look before we moved here. The buildings seem to mimic the Bavarian architecture with their own extremely intricate markings which made them look much more artistic and, well, French. I actually told Greg that I think the most beautiful building I've ever seen was in Strasbourg. He didn't completely agree with that sentiment, but did comment that the architecture was more unique than in Germany.

We didn't do a whole lot in Strasbourg other than walk around and eat. The food was great and the town was beautiful, which was good enough for a day trip. It's also fun to be able to say that we can drive to France for a day from our house.

I love this picture of Greg.
(Obviously, this is not the day that it rained)

Twice in the past few months, we've driven up to Bozerwolf off-road park a little over an hour from our house to take the Jeep off-roading. Once, we camped out overnight for Jeep Topless day, which was unfortunately far too cold and rainy to actually take the top off of the Jeep. This was our first European camping experience. It is mostly illegal to go backpack camping here in Germany, so we have to plan out a campsite in advance.

Each weekend we've been in town, we've attending at least one festival in our local area. Wine festivals are just beginning in the Rhine-Main region and we are more than happy to attend. Our own local wine festival won't start until next month, so we have several more weekends to enjoy the festivities in our area. Germans definitely love to party outdoors in the summer!

Finally, we've also taken two bigger trips, one to hike in Bavaria at Konigsee, and another to Rome, Italy with a minor detour to the Naples area to visit the ruins of Pompeii. I'm already working on those posts, so bare with me as I slowly catch up on our adventures!

Weekend Trip: Prague, Czech Republic

This weekend, we decided to take our first true road trip since we've moved to Germany. We've talked about going to Prague for the past year. In order to take a train to Prague, it would take about 9 hours rather than the 5 it takes to drive. After much debate, we decided to have our first road trip since May 2013.

Day Trip: Idar-Oberstein & Gemstone Mines

Last Saturday was a beautiful day to go Jeep-ing, so Greg planned for us to take a trip out to Idar-Oberstein. Greg frequently makes trips to another military base further west of us that requires him to drive through several small towns. That's how he discovered Idar-Oberstein, the capital of gemstone mining in Germany. It also happens to have the only gemstone mines in Europe open to the public. When we were dating, it became somewhat of a tradition of ours to collect gemstones from different places we visited, so it was fitting that we visit the Steinkaulenberg gemstone mine while living in Germany.

Did I mention there is a church built directly into the side of the mountain?

Thinking Happy Thoughts

Some days, living in Germany just really, really sucks. I'd like to think of a more eloquent way to put it, but there just isn't one.

Greg was assigned today to a month long duty in January that requires him to be within 3 hours of post at all times. It wouldn't be so bad if, you know, I hadn't already booked and paid for a 4 day snowboarding vacation in Garmisch for MLKJ weekend. I get it, the unexpected is part of "army life", but that doesn't make it any less irritating. Plus, from the second you step off the plane in Germany, everyone is telling you how you need to go travel. Then, the second you do attempt to travel, the Army makes other plans. We almost didn't get to go to Switzerland because of his school and now we probably won't be going snowboarding again this winter between his extra duties and my new job.


Instead of being frustrated, I'm going to attempt to be positive and think of all the good things we have going on right now. Today, we custom ordered a 2014 Jeep Rubicon X from ENCS. While Greg was still in Afghanistan, he expressed a desire to trade his car in for a Jeep again. Most of you know, when we met, Greg had recently bought a Rubicon and managed to win his first date with me by offering to take me for a ride in it. I know, it sounds incredibly cheesy looking back, but I'm sure girls have fallen for worse things than that. After moving to Colorado, Greg traded his Rubicon in for his GTI which he's loved, but also outgrew. We were planning on trading his GTI for another Jeep when he returned from deployment last year, but changed our minds when Greg received orders to Germany. Having a VW in Germany seemed like a much better idea than a huge Jeep. For that reason, we left my Jeep Sport with my Dad in Georgia and only shipped his GTI.
After spending a few months here, we started to rethink our decision. Sure, the GTI is great for small parking garages, but it's also quickly depreciating in value and our financial situation is not permanent. Right now, we both have good paying jobs with benefits, very few bills and disposable income. That very well may not be the case when we return to America, and we know it. We have always talked about eventually getting a larger sized Jeep as a "family" car and realized that we're better off taking on a car payment while we can still afford it. Will the Jeep possibly be a little inconvenient here in Germany? Probably, but we know our situation here is not permanent and we still have the "beater" BMW we bought when we got here. Ultimately, we decided to buy the Jeep because we want it for the future and would like to be able to pay it off before we leave Germany.
Because it was ordered from the factory, we won't get to pick it up for a few more months when it comes to port in northern Germany. Once we get it, I'll have plenty of pictures to post!

Today, I also got a letter in the mail from the 4 year old Nepalese girl I sponsor through a charitable organization. I've sent her a few letters and gotten some updates from her caregivers, but this was the first letter I received from her. It was just a very simple page allowing her to circle pictures that showed things she like to do and eat. Even so, it helped to put a smile on my face this afternoon.

She drew me a flower.

Greg completed his GoPro compilation from Zermatt which you can view here. I tried in vain to link it directly into the blog entry, but it wouldn't work properly. Fair warning, it gets really loud after the first song.


We may be taking a day trip close by this weekend to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. Since Greg can't leave the 3 hour radius, we'll probably visit Trier, a city in western Germany known for his Roman history. Others around here have told us that it's a cute city to visit with a lot of interesting things to see, so we're hoping it will be worth the drive!