A trip to the Baltic Sea

When I last blogged, my mom and I had safely arrived in Berlin. After an overnight hotel stay and suffering from a nasty case of jetlag, it was time to pick up our rental car, get my aunt and all her luggage in, and find our way to the Autobahn:

With cars flying past me at 220km/hr, I tried to appreciate the countryside. With my car as heavily loaded as it was, going any faster than 140ish was out of the question. These windmills are an extremely common sight along parts of the Autobahn:

We stopped at a roadside cafe for a bite to eat:

Of course, a wurst and a brötchen was the best choice possible. With a great deal of senf (mustard):

As we left the restaurant, we noticed a pile of books (available for borrow) stashed in the corner. My aunt, my mom and I almost laughed ourselves to tears over this book. Have you ever wondered what the "Scent of Passion" smells like? Apparently this book wants to tell us all about it:

We hit the road again and from here on out we drove on a Landstrasse instead of the Autobahn. It was very pretty:

But, as pretty as the roads were, jetlag was rearing its ugly head, making me extremely drowsy and I was very happy to see this sign:

The hotel was kind enough to have my slippers waiting for me:

And they gave my rental car a lovely front row parking spot. My car is the third one from the left:

Kidding. Here's my rental car. It's a diesel VW Touran. I've not seen these in the states:

The hotel has been very accomodating so far. Every morning, an agenda for the day awaits me at the breakfast table:

Peppermints remind me to "Exhale. You're on vacation":

The toilet paper is extremely pretty:

The weather has been overcast - my first glimpse of the Baltic was very gray and chilly looking:

Hey, have you ever seen ducks swimming in the ocean? I hadn't:

The shells on the beach are very small:

Do any of these look like hearts to you?:

Ice cream is very popular here. I found a giant blackberry in my first cone. Yum:

This could easily become a habit. But hey, it's vacation!:

Assorted images from a very long day: Air travel, Frankfurt and Berlin

Why I was late getting to the Portland airport:

Emergency instructions courtesy of the headrest video screen in front of me:

Movie that I watched while flying over Greenland:

Mineral water with lemon. Nice touch, Lufthansa!:

Real cutlery, tasty food...feeling pretty happy right now:

I had to get up to use the bathroom at this point in the trip:

Making a ball of yarn:

Sunrise:

Brrr....it's really cold out there:

Critter Farm travelling truck gearing up for the landing:

Frankfurt: delight in being in the back seat of my uncle's car again:

"Fresh strawberries", "fresh asparagus from farmers":

German coffee...Mmm...:

Frankfurt train station, rebuilt after partial destruction during World War II:

Passing out from exhaustion on the train, but desperately still wanting to take photos:

Guess where I am now:

Street scene:

You don't see these old bugs very often in the big cities anymore:

I think this almost every day :-) :

And might I just say that there are some terribly nice cars here? I take pictures of these like some people collect matchboxes. Here's a beautiful Audi:

A flashy Mercedes outside the train station:

The BMW dealership:

An elegant Mercedes parked outside a nice hotel:

My first German wiener schnitzel in five years:

with this for the fries:

This, of course, to wash it all down:

The new release arriving next Friday:

"Die Dinosaurier sind los!":

...And now, for the first time in almost thirty-six hours, I will sleep in a bed. Jet lag is always so interesting. I'm not very sleepy now. It's only 4:15PM at Critter Farm after all, but it's 1:15AM here in Berlin.

Tomorrow, we drive to Heringsdorf on the Baltic Sea. Good night!

An adventure away from the farm

In just a few hours, my mom and I will be leaving on a two week adventure together.

The two of us are going to Germany to visit our family there. It's been a long time since I've travelled just with my mom. I'm nervous and excited at the same time.

Our flight to Frankfurt will be ten hours and ten minutes. It's an awfully long time to sit on a plane, but the blessing is that it's a direct flight and there will be no stops or layovers.

To hopefully make the 610 minutes of air travel time pass more quickly, I've asked my mom to teach me to knit. Fortunately, most airlines allow knitting needles aboard their flights. Roxy helped me gather my knitting stuff yesterday:

Once we arrive in Frankfurt, we'll take the train (a five hour trip) to Berlin to meet up with my mom's sister. The following morning, we will drive up to the Baltic Sea, about 3 1/2 hours northeast of Berlin, to a town called Heringsdorf to spend a week at the beach. This town is so far east, it's practically knocking on Poland's door. See the little red "A"? That's where we're going:

I'm conflicted about leaving my sweet farm. So much is going on around here....my goat boys are entertaining, the chickens are laying, my garden is growing before my eyes and it's a tough time to just disappear. My raspberry bushes even gifted me with a handful of ripe berries yesterday evening:

Ah, but...a once in a lifetime trip, just mother and daughter, lies before us. Nervous/excited, excited/nervous...

Assuming that Germany has the Internet (lol), my little Critter Farm travelling red truck and I will try to post a few updates from there.