Germany & Amsterdam

Andrew and I were planning on celebrating our 4th anniversary in Europe and my dad also had a work conference in Germany so for my mom's birthday we got her a flight out to Germany because she has really wanted to go and do some family history there and we thought it'd be fun to be with them in parts of Europe!

My dad's conference was originally scheduled to be a week later, so just my mom and I were going to go to Germany so she could try to find records on her great grandfather and then we were going to meet up with Andrew and my dad a week later in Switzerland. My dad's conference ended up being moved to earlier so he was able to be in Germany with us too, which is a good thing because pretty much all the rental cars are manual, so I would have for sure killed us!

 

On our way to Germany!

 

My mom and I were seriously dying when my dad picked us up from the airport in this big ol' van!!! He wasn't very happy about it because he had prepaid for a different car, but he was a little late to pick it up because of traffic so they had already given it away to someone else! There was a train strike going on for 3 days, so everyone was trying to rent cars hahah. Luckily the next day we went and switched it out for a car.

 

We spent the majority of our time in Germany (Bochum & Essen) shopping, visiting old churches, family history, and eating reeeealllly good food!!

Haha, took this picture for Andrew (while at a cemetery trying to find my mom's great grandfather's grave) so I didn't breathe in any "evil spirits" as he says--inside joke!

^Still dying over that pizza. One of the best I've ever had! And from the cutest little restaurant too.^

Yep, more delicious food! There was a festival they do for tradition going on downtown by our hotel in Bochum, so they had a concert and so many different food options.

We actually enjoyed it because they would speak to the crowd in German, but luckily sing popular songs in English.

 

On Friday we took a day trip to Amsterdam because it was only about a 2 1/2 hour drive away. We went to the Anne Frank house and walked around the downtown area to look at all the shops.

 

After the day spent in Amsterdam, we drove back to Germany so we could catch a train to meet Andrew in Switzerland!! I was in charge of booking the train and made the mistake of booking 2nd class seats. It was a 9 hour train ride during the middle of the night, so I was reeaaallly regretting not booking us 1st class seats. Lesson learned.

 

When we got on the train, there were 2 old guys in our seats and they smelled so so so bad. I could hardly breathe because it was so gross! I was pretty dramatic and used Lysol wipes all over the seats but even those didn't really help the smell go away so I wrapped my head and face in a blanket so I couldn't smell it and wouldn't reek. haha I know, pretty ridiculous. Not to mention how ridiculous I looked but I didn't even care.

 

Next stop, Switzerland!