Berlin

This apartment is super fun and quirky. Exhibit A - a bathroom right off the kitchen and main area of the house, with glass doors. 😂 there are curtains of course, but it’s still pretty odd. And also Matt was the only one who would be my toilet model. 

As we were prepping to head out for the day, the kids checked out the rooftop garden. I took this from one of the windows across the room from the glass bathroom. And that’s our white Mitsubishi rental facing us. You drive in from the busy road through the archway in the white building if you can believe it. Our building was an old farm stable, and our unit is called the Horse Stable Loft. 

We got to walking and fairly quickly came on pretty and interesting buildings. Like this no name cutie. 

We walked and enjoyed the sights of the city. We’re hoping to tour the dome of the Reichstag Building behind us. It’s a museum also and it’s free, so that’s even better. 

We found a street vendor with warm pretzels and bought a few to share. 

Our first official stop was the Brandenburg Gate. This is a famous one from pictures, but they’re setting up for a NYE concert, so lots of stuff in the way of a nice shot. 

We walked up the pedestrian mall in the middle of the road and came upon a curry wurst stand and just had to. I remember being a little girl in east Berlin and eating a hamburger smothered in curry ketchup that I thought was one of the best things ever! And this was pretty good too. 

I was pretty impressed. Also, Berlin has these bears all over the city and they’re all painted and decorated differently. 

We also came upon this memorial/show of support for Ukraine that is located riiight in front of the Russian embassy.  Love that and all the love for Ukraine that we’ve seen. 

We did some souvenir shopping and we can never pass these up. 



Next we went to another Christmas market. This was by far all of our favorite! I love this wreath of ornaments! they use it for displaying their wares, but I think it would be an adorable decoration too. 

Most people got bratwurst for lunch. Adi picked a mini pizza. 

Oh these 2. 

Then we shared some piping hot  poffertjes with powdered sugar. 

We made a quick $1/person bathroom stop and then continued our food tour. 

Next we shared some Berlin style donuts. I love traveling in a big group because we can taste test so many treats. 

We found so many beautiful Christmas treasures. Amy and I are gonna try to make this sweet tree. 

We continued our walk to Checkpoint Charlie. I have vague memories of coming here as a kid with my family, so it was neat to see it through adult eyes.  

Slava Ukraini!

Checkpoint Charlie brought up so many questions that we came home and watched the Oversimplified about the Cold War. And that was helpful to me and Sandy too. 😂

We found a section of the wall. We read they have these throughout the city, but this is the only one we noticed. 

By this point we had walked around 14,000 steps and we were 3 miles from our apartment, so we muddled our way through buying subway tickets, which usually feels confusing no matter the city. These were some tired babies!

Adi said we don’t know what kind of germs subways have, so she opted for a mask. 

I caught him mid stumble and it was too good not to use. 

We found a hole in the wall as we walked home and ordered way too much food for dinner. We brought home several doner kabob sandwich halves and 2 1/2 pizzas. 🤷‍♀️

Matt did not get fries and did eat all of his sandwich. Smart man. 

We got back, huddled around our laptop to learn about the Cold War, took showers, and did laundry. The kids entertained themselves with a fun kicking game, so they were all pretty dirty. Also, no dryers here, so we’re washing clothes very minimally. 

Matt found a shoe horn, and I spent a fun day searching for a place to buy a shoe horn with my dad, so we sent this to him. 

I liked our big farmhouse better than this little apartment, but there’s so much more to do here! So Amy picked 2 great places and we’re loving every minute. The kids have had a few minor brushes, but for the most part it’s going swimmingly. 

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!

Boxing Day

Matt saw a rainbow on his walk this morning. Also, we asked a local that was outside one day while the whole crew was walking what they grow here, and it’s hops. This region is the largest provider of hops in Europe. 

I went for a run, showered, then Amy and I made French toast and latkes. Then we headed out for more rainy day adventures. Our first stop was a Neanderthal cave Matt found. It’s right on the river with beautiful views. 

That’s the cave entrance behind us. Frankie wouldn’t go near the cave, and we unfortunately had some drama. 

There were hikes continuing up the mountain and Matt and Laney and Max were all in, but it was wet and slippery and muddy and the rest of us weren’t game. So he took these two up for a little scamper and then brought them back down. 

They’d have loved to keep going and check out all the caves. 

Next we walked .8th of a mile to this worm bridge. 

There’s a picture of this in our room and we were excited to find it close by!

It was, of course, raining. Which I don’t want to complain about, but yesterday was a day we stayed mostly indoors and it was gorgeous and it’s just lame. 

We were happy to find the bridge wasn’t slick. 





Amy likes the hand holding shots. 😂

So of course she made us. 

And we decided we had to jump too. We’re a bunch of crazy kids. 

*all thankful we landed on our feet and not our bums*

We meandered into the nearest village to stroll and see what we could see. 

We didn’t really have a plan today, other than exploring the towns close to us. 

The pictures don’t show how very pretty everything is. 

Christmas lights and Christmas trees in front of every shop. Everywhere you look there is cuteness. 

Unfortunately everywhere you look there were also closed stores and restaurants. Literally nothing was open, which felt very strange since it’s a Monday and Christmas is over. 

The cutest little troll!

We drove to another little village to stroll, which the kids were very excited about. 

We asked someone to take this so we’d have at least a few non-selfie shots. 



We stumbled upon some circa 100ad Celtic ruins. 

We came upon a little hole in the wall bar and restaurant that looked like it had a light on. Sandy checked the door and we were surprised and excited to find it open! The only one in all of Bavaria it feels like!

I finally got my schnitzel and it was SO good! Matt ordered cordon bleu which was also delicious, but Frankie and Max ordered what we thought were bratwurst, but actually was just wieners like the menu said. They weren’t great, so Matt traded Frankie and ate her plate instead. Max wasn’t a fan either. 

Delaney ordered ham and cheese toast (I don’t know why) and wasn’t super thrilled with her choice either, but as far as I’m concerned this place was amazing. 

We were the only ones not at the bar and the only people eating. It was obviously a place where locals come and our server spoke only German. I took a picture of the menu, then cut and pasted all the words into Google translate and read it to everyone so we could order. Then when we muddled through our order she’d say “all is good! All is good!” Pretty sure she went into the back and cooked all our food too. The meals came out piping hot one at a time, and we didn’t see her back at the bar until we all got our food, which took about 15 minutes from the first plate to the last. Busy lady, but all is good, all is good!

Aaaand this place was cheaper than McDonalds. All of our 9 plates, plus 2 beers and glass of wine was only $100 euros! I just know this meal will go down in the folklore of favorite  meals. 

We had to get pictures outside to remember it. 

The lights were lit up and it was dark and gah. Just so pretty. Also, why were all the kids moving? 

We tried a few times. 

Pictures with groups are fun. 

We came home and packed and cleaned. Frankie got her cute room all done and had time to chill on her couch. 

I tried some local schwip schwap soda and the cola and orange was no guten. But the cool name makes up for it. 

We played Skull King where Amy won with a score of 480, holy smokes. I have yet to win, but max wants me to teach him to keep score tomorrow, so that will be nice. Them Amy and I talked for a few hours again and called it an early night, only midnight instead of 3am like we’ve been doing. We’ve basically been back to EST the last few nights. 

Tomorrow we’ll leave this cute house where we spent a Christmas and a fun German vacation with family. Our trip is more than halfway over and we’re savoring every last second.