On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

...their luggage never came! Can you believe it? I've just got to put a plug in for every airline except British Airways. While each individual person has been nice, the airline as a whole is not functioning. Now their luggage is with an independent delivery company who they don't have a phone number for. How ridiculous!
We went to the KMCC yesterday to meet Jer for lunch and buy some clothing essentials. Jer got off work early, so he was able to come on our day trip with us to Weisbaden.
Before writing about our trip, first I want to write about a little history on my family. My Dad joined the Air Force shortly after my parents were married. He graduated from BYU, went off to boot camp and training, then his first assignment was in Weisbaden, Germany. My mom had studied German in college, even choosing it as her major, so this was a wonderful opportunity for her. After a year of marriage, they added Julie to their family. Julie was born in Weisbaden. This is the reason for our family's interest in Germany and the German language in school.
My parents and Julie moved back to the States when Julie was still very young. This trip to Germany is her first time to see where she was born, the house she lived in, the city they lived in, etc. It is very exciting!
Weisbaden is about an hour's drive away from here. If we lived in the States, it would take longer, but we have the high speed autobahn! Driving a steady 90-100 mph feels quite normal now.
Our first destination was the address to the house where Mom, Dad and Julie used to live. It was upstairs, and the owners lived downstairs. That is still very common here. We parked the car and got some pictures of the street sign, then walked down to the house. I took an email I'd printed out from my mom with contact information.
We found the house. There was a lot of construction. A man walked out the door and I asked him about the house. He didn't live there, but went back in to get the owner. She came out to talk to me. She was so nice!
I explained why we were there. I told her the contact name my mom had given me. She knew the name. She said the previous tenants moved and that she had lived across the street for 20 years and finally bought the place. They tore down the old building and rebuilt. Even the address number changed from 19 to 11. She said it apologetically as she knew it would be a little sad for us. I asked her about the hospital where Julie was born. At the time, it was an American military hospital, but later it became a German hospital. She said that hospital was also torn down and no longer existed. She was so patient and kind. She had a lot of good information for us.
It is a little sad these things aren't still around. After about 35 years, we can't expect everything to be the same. But, we took pictures of the neighborhood, watched people walking their babies in buggies down the sidewalk and imagined our cute, young Mom doing the same thing. We really missed our parents and wished they could have been there with us.
When we left the neighborhood, we went into the city. We know Mom and Dad will recognize the big church! We also tried to take various pictures from the car of the city so they could try to recognize other parts.
This is the biggest Christmas market we have attended yet! Over 100 booths. Each booth had a number. I think the highest number I saw (I wasn't really paying attention) was in the 130's. It was beautifully decorated too. Maybe it was because it was the magical land of Weisbaden, and maybe add also that my sisters were there with us, but it was definitely the best Christmas Market in Germany!
Oh, so many booths! So many things I didn't even know existed! Such cool things! We found these weird hand-only gloves, so we manipulated the hand to say, "I love you," in ASL.
We ate there. The girls got baguette bread with garlic and cheese and tomatoes (only on mine and Emily's). Jer got a platter with different things: jo jos (fat fries), french fries, chicken nuggets, and some other stuff. They put 3 or 4 different dipping sauces on there. One of them was a fruity sauce. We all tried it and agreed we would have never thought to do it, but it went perfectly with the dish and tasted really good!
Then we got dessert. YUM! Deciding to stick with a daily serving of fruit, we went to the fruit stand. Jer got a white chocolate covered pear with a candy elephant, Julie ate the candy elephant, I had milk chocolate covered grapes and Emily got milk chocolate covered pineapple. So delicious!
We enjoyed the market. It was so fun to be with my sisters and say, "Look at this!" and, "Come, look how cute!" It was cool to be excited with them. I just really love my sisters and loved the entire evening.
As we were on our last stretch of booths heading back to the car, there was a boy choir singing on the stage. They were really good and it really added to the festive atmosphere. The church bells also chimed loudly and beautifully, making the perfect ending to a wonderful evening.