A Holiday!!!

Since the doctor said I couldn't work, we decided to take a vacation. We hadn't been anywhere outside of Luxembourg except to the Ikea in Metz, France. So we did a typically American thing -- lots of driving. We rented a car and went to nine countries in six days.

My notes are below:


22 March 2006

Darin and I woke up about 8:00 this morning, a little bit later than usual for the both of us. There had been a dusting of snow overnight. Getting out of town and going south seems like a good idea.

Darin had wanted to leave by 9:00, but I knew that couldn't be done. I had to send some emails and some files to the office, finishing about 9:45. Darin worked on getting the car packed.

We didn't leave until 10:30, and we had to stop at the bank for some money. We got out on the autobahn (A3) and were at the French border when Darin remembered that we didn't have the camera. We turned around. We left Kehlen for the second time at noon, with 7.5 hours of driving ahead of us for the day. Darin was not happy. It was 3 degrees Celcius when we left at noon.

We drove south to France, and in Nancy got on the toll roads and started making even better time. (Toll roads from Nancy to Nimes cost us 42.80 euro today.)

We ate lunch at a covered picnic table at a rest area off the toll road. It was raining. I stayed in the car. I had gone to the restroom, and it zapped all my energy.

We arrived at Nimes at 20:30 and found the Ibis hotel easily. They gave us the last two rooms on the first floor closest to the parking lot. There were still four steps that I had to get up, and I was so tired.

We ate supper in our room. The girls slept in the room across the hall.

Darin asked the front desk for some ice, and they gave him some from the bar. It made a world of difference. My foot was so swollen after going to the doctor on Tuesday, and it hadn't recovered. I kept it elevated in the car, sitting in the back seat with it between Darin and Rachel in the front seat. With just an hour with the ice, I could see the difference in the swelling.


23 March 2006

After a late night, we decided to sleep in a bit. We ate breakfast in the room, and we left about 10:15 for Spain.

I hadn't taken any photos yesterday, so I started taking pictures out the car window. It has changed from winter to spring in just 1 day. The trees are blooming, and there are flowers everywhere. We're all wearing t-shirts and shorts today.

We took the toll road toward Spain. We ate lunch at a rest area near Rivesaltes, France, close to a castle/fort. While Darin went to explore, I took the long journey to the toilets, only to find they were all stand-up toilets. Darin got back in time to help me while the girls went exploring. We ate a picnic lunch at one of the tables. Darin meant to take a picture of me being out of the car, but he missed his chance.

We crossed the border into Spain about 13:30, and we got off the toll road at the second exit, before 14:00. We drove to Roses, and then to Cadaque, through a national park of some kind with lots of winding roads. Cadaque was right on the Mediterranean, and we drove around some, but we made Darin go back. We took some pictures at the top of the mountain down towards Roses and Port Selva. By the time we arrived in Port Selva, N and I were not feeling well. We took another winding road up to St. Pere Rodes -- we were there from 16:00 to 17:50. Darin and the girls explored the monestary. I sat in the car and watched boats come into the bay at Port Selva. It was a bad pasttime for someone who had to go to the bathroom like I did.

Next we drove up the coast, still on very winding roads, and found the last (open) gas station in Spain and paid only 0.977 euro/liter, full service.

We ate supper in Perpignan, France, at a Chinese restaurant, from about 19:45 to 21:00. We got back to the hotel at 22:45. I asked for a little bit of ice, and he still have me a lot. Darin put some out in the car (with the cheese), so I had some of the night and even more for the car in the morning (after we ate the cheese).


24 March 2006

Darin and I woke up at 7:30. We left at 9:55 from the parking lot. We ate chips and cheese for breakfast in the car. We headed east toward Italy, starting out again on the toll road.

There were cherry orchards in bloom along the south coast of France.

We arrived in Monaco about noon. I think we drove on every road in the country.

We arrived in Italy about 13:45. (I took a picture of the border crossing, but no one was there.) We stopped at McD's for plain hamburgers and chicken nuggets and finished the cheese (eating again in the car, this time in the McD's parking lot). We drove up the Via Aurelia to San Remo, and then I couldn't tke the slowness, bumps, & bad drivers, so I asked Darin to go back to the A10 toll road. The toll road was filled with viaducts and tunnels for a nice smooth ride for N and me.

We got to the hotel about 16:30. They gave us 2 rooms for the price of one since a mistake was made and they thought we had only 2 kids instead of 3. We worked it out and got me settled. On my way in, I slipped and almost put my foot down. I managed to catch myself, but I tensed every muscle in my leg and it hurt. But now, after some ice, it looks and feels good.

Darin and the kids went to the beach for wading by 17:30. I laid on the bed with ice on my foot. They all came back by 18:25 -- soaking wet, partly from the rain but mostly from the sea. They washed up and we went to supper at the hotel. Dinner was from 19:30 to 21:30, four courses, the fanciest meal the kids have ever had. I took pictures.

After supper, Darin helped me take a shower in the girls' room because they had easier access to the shower, but I was tired and I felt like I was falling all the time. Maybe partly because of the earlier sliding. I need to remember to take showers earlier in the day.


25 March 2006

Breakfast was included with the room, so we went down to a very nice breakfast about 8:30 this morning. Then D and the kids went to the beach again. This time they wore their swimsuits. Darin said that everyone else out on the beach was wearing their winter coats. They came back about 10:00, and we left the hotel about 11:00.

We got back on the toll road and headed toward Milano. There was a 4 km traffic jam at a work zone at one of the tunnels. Other than that, we made pretty good time -- until we got to Milano and the end of the toll road. We paid our toll, but we couldn't find what we needed on the signs. We ended up driving through Milan. The signs all through Italy were not good, so it was difficult all the way through the town. We were there from 13:30 to 14:15, but finally found our way to the toll road to Switzerland. I realized at the border that one of the problems was that I was looking for signs to Lugano, Switzerland. But all the signs said "Chiasso" instead, and that wasn't on my map.

In Switzerland, they give you a sticker for your windowshield that covers all the tolls for the day, so we had to stop at the border and pay the toll lady.

Switzerland had some amazing tunnels, but also had some winding spots. We stopped at one of the parking areas, and the girls got out and played in the snow. It was so cool that earlier in the same day they had been in their swimsuits in the Mediterranean.

We crossed into Leichtenstein about 17:00, and Austria about 17:30. The Austrian border crossing was the only the second border we had to cross, to get back into the European Union. The police man told the girls to put their seat belts on correctly because they were all wearing their shoulder straps under their arms.

We found the Ibis hotel in Bregenz without much trouble, and we ordered in pizza/calzones to eat in the room. The girls and and I are watching the Ice Stating 2006 world championships in one room. Darin is watching news in the girls' room. The hotel gave us two rooms at the end of one hall, with the girls at the very end, and both keys opened both rooms, which Darin loves. Darin would always confiscate the girls' room key before bed so he could go in their room in the morning to wake them up.


26 March 2006

We checked out about 10:45. We crossed over to Germany about 11:00. We took route 12 to Isny, and the snow on the ground was making it foggy.

We stopped for lunch in Fussen, from what we thought was 12:30 to 14:00, but it turned out that it was really 13:30 to 15:00. (At first we thought we'd gone into a new time zone, which didn't seem right to me. We realized back in Luxembourg that it had switched to Daylight Savings time (or summer time) in Europe early Sunday morning. We get to do this all again when we get to the States.) Darin picked the place -- the Brauhaus, and the food was excellent.

We went to Hohenschawngau and Neuschawnstein, but the ticket offices were closed for the inside tours. I suggested that they could take the horse carriages up the mountain, but Darin was grumpy that it was so touristy. I had warned him that it was touristy there, and it's not **that** bad (not like Gatlinburg). But Darin was grumpy. He was just trying to ruin my favorite castle.

We spent the night at an Ibis hotel in Augsburg, west of Munich.


27 March 2006

Darin woke up at 6:00 (our time, we didn't change our watches), took a shower, and woke the girls up afterwards. He and the girls went out to the car at the parking garage at 8:30 while I waited in the lobby. Darin didn't come to get me until 9:15. Because of the one-way streets, Darin couldn't figure out how to get from the parking garage back to the hotel. Finally, they stopped at another Ibis hotel and asked directions.

Darin got up to 187 kph on the autobahn outside of Stuttgart. I didn't get a picture of that, but got one at a slightly lower speed.

We ate lunch at McD's at noon in Neustadt. I told Darin he would have to order, and he started to order, and then the manager came over, and he and Darin had a nice conversation.

After lunch I had us take a short-cut over to (Karlsruhe), and we drove through Frankenstein, Germany, which was neat.

We made the Lux border at 15:30, and back to Kehlen at 16:15.