Trains and cars

We woke up at 7 to get on the road by 8. We managed an 8:30 departure, and I think that’s pretty good. We killed some random food - I made up 2 pans od pizza pockets and Matt ate shrimp - but that’s how traveling goes. And our car was packed full of ours and Seagrove luggage. 

We spent the morning at Dachau. We’ve all read many books about WW2 and the Holocaust and the kids were eager to see it and learn. They suggest kids being 12 and older but we felt like our younger 3 could handle it. They were all so respectful, we never had to shush them or tell them to calm down. They asked a lot of thoughtful questions and we had some great discussion I’m so grateful we were able to bear witness to this awful part of history. Otto Frank said “To build up a future, you have to know the past.”

We drove from Dachau to downtown Munich to drop off Any and Sandy’s rental and send them on their train. They generously offered to take our girls if we would take all the luggage, and that seemed like a fair trade to me. 😂 For some reason when we went Christmas Eve shopping we bought 4 individual prepared salads, plus one Matt and I had grabbed for a lunch. So when we packed up the food we had a million salads and we laughed and laughed. I sent my pic of me doing my part. We’ve gotten through 2/5. 

They got to the train station by 2to find the next available train wasn’t till 5:00. We didn’t want to buy in advance because we didn’t know how long we would spend at Dachau. They grabbed Bahnhof sandwiches and settled in. 

This guy and I got quiet time to talk and listen to podcasts. We wanted to go to the Freiberg temple that was kind of on our way, but their last anything was at 2:30 and we wouldn’t make it there till 6, so our timing didn’t work. 2 new temples this trip is pretty good though. 

Matt wanted to take one of us both looking different directions to show how we always agree and never get lost. Haha. Navigating new countries is fun and never stressful. 

We were attempting a pic of him driving through what was obviously Germany but it didn’t quite pan out. 

Meanwhile the kids train station food tour continued with donuts. Lucky ducks. Amy said they were all really good.

Unfortunately by the time they left it was fairly dark and the train ride ended up being boring. Whomp whomp. Adi loved it anyway, she kept talking about how cool it was. And it was an experience for sure. 

They assigned seats and while the 3 girls were together, everyone else was separated until they got going and were able to move around. 

Then after they left they also had announced to them that everyone needed a mask, and since Delaney didn’t take her backpack she didn’t have one, and Amy’s crew was short one as well. The train cafe didn’t have any either and the conductor came through twice and gave Frankie a talking to. Finally sandy was able to finagle 2 out of grumpy conductor and all was well again. 

We wanted to stop and hike or eat a nice dinner, but instead we ate salads and Christmas candy. We did stop at Aldi for water and a restroom and ended up at a cute drugstore where we got some fun Christmas stuff at 50% off. 

This guy has gotten pretty good at driving the autobahn. And he and Amy pulled off a fantastic feat today sticking together while we navigated downtown Munich to return their rental car. I’m v impressed with their German driving skills. I will drive at some point just to say I’ve driven in Europe, but I can’t say I’m super excited about it. 

We sat in traffic for an hour (traffic here is weird) and then the outside of our Airbnb doesn’t look anything like the pictures, so we circled the block once before we decided to get out and see what was what. We are downtown urban Berlin and the outside of our place opens up 2 not that big doors that you drive through and into a courtyard and that’s what the outside of the house pictures look like. After we figured out a parking a lot (the courtyard is little!) and unloaded everything, they had arrived in Berlin and we’re getting dinner. We walked to meet them and really just had time to settle in and get to bed. Tomorrow we’ll hit Berlin and we’re all excited!