GERMANY: Headed to Munich

Saturday, October 22, 2011

First time taking a road trip with three kiddos. We opted for two vehicles as it was much cheaper than a big enough vehicle to put all of us and JB’s parents and all our luggage and JB’s parents luggage. We were lucky enough to find one automatic as I haven’t driven a stick in years. The cars were even smaller than we thought they might be, but we have made it work. (I understand cars being small especially considering gas prices ... but what is it with Europeans and their showers!? They are so small and unfriendly. Do people in Europe not enjoy a relaxing, hot shower as much as we do in the U.S.?)

As far as road trips go, this wasn’t one of our best ones. In the end we peed on the side of the road four times and dealt with a total poop blow out by Abigail while realizing that we forgot to bring the adaptor for the DVD player which would allow us to plug it in in the car. We are very strict about TV watching at all times ... except on road trips. Then, bring it on! At least until they are old enough to self-entertain. In addition, the boys were pretty crabby from no naps the day before, and Abigail was just not a fan of being in her car seat for a four hour (turned six hour due to all the stops we had to make) trip.

JB did however bring our walky talkies which made it much easier (and more fun!) We could talk to each other from our separate cars. Loved this!

I had one request of JB on this trip. No Burger King. It’s one of our only fast food places on Base so I have plenty of it. And wouldn’t you know that an emergency bathroom stoppage would occur a few hours in, at, of all places, a Burger King!

Oh and don't take two boys into a "German rest-stop" -- hand in hand on each side of you -- and wind all the way to the back of the little store and the restaurant and then go downstairs and not bring euroes with you to get into the restrooms. This is not a fun thing to do. We walked back out and I told JB to find a good tree. I wasn't going to do that again for a little bit of pee pee.

We got to our hotel in Munich at about 3pm and managed to get the boys down for naps – although we had to cut them short so they wouldn’t run into bed time. We opted to eat dinner in the room. Fruit and uncrustables and cheese sticks sounded much better than trying to sit in a restaurant with three little tykes.

Oh and the lady at the hotel, when she saw we had three "babies" told us we were either very brave or very crazy. We concur and are not sure which it is.

Tomorrow morning we will pick up JB’s parents from the airport in Munich. We can’t WAIT to see Grampa and Grama K. The boys keep asking where they are. We told them they’d be here in Germany so we are anxious to get them here to prove us true to our word.

As I write this, they are probably just boarding their plane in Atlanta to head to Germany. Yipeee!