Bavaria IV

Here it is, the end of our vacation blog.

There are just a couple of basic themes here: the first Easter in Feldafing and the second our trip home, which included a much-needed overnight in the gorgeous city of Goslar.

The Easter pictures include preparations as well as “execution” of the holiday, the journey pictures cover everything from the moment we pulled out of Morfar’s driveway until I gave up taking pictures somewhere in northern Germany.

There are a lot of pictures but there’s really not much call for comment, since it’s all pretty self-evident once you’ve had these themes explained to you. And in many cases you’ll see a long series of similar pictures: the problem is, we don’t have so many good pics of the girls together, and we got so many on this trip, especially in this batch, that I can’t bring myself to delete any of them. You’ll see. So I’ll only speak up where I feel some context is required, or where I just feel like saying something.

I do want to add for the record, however, that today I passed the written part of my Danish driver’s license exam and I find that pretty damn exciting.

I should also be sure and make explicit our gratitude to Morfar and Maria for making it such a wonderful Easter for all of us, especially the girls! (Maria wasn’t there, but her presence was manifest all over in the treats and gifts she had prepared for the girls beforehand.)

And as long as I’m at it, Nana and Pop-Pop surely ought to know that Molli Malou entertained herself with the Princess and the Frog FIVE TIMES during the trip (1½ viewings on the way down, two full viewings on the way home, plus a couple of viewings at the house). What a wonderful gift for her… and even better for her parents! (How did you oldsters take our generation on long road trips without DVD players?)

Both girls are back on their normal schedules today and doing fine.

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Outfits from Maria — the first matching set they’ve had! (The Lee hand-me downs include many matching sets, but the different age difference means they can never wear the same outfits at the same time.)

End part one! Easter behind us, we’re on the road. First day: from Feldafing to Goslar. We stop at an Autobahn rest stop for a full hour to let the girls burn off some steam… and they get their first ever sibling see-saw ride!

We arrive in Goslar while there’s still just enough light in the sky to take a few shots of the area right around the hotel:

We wander down to the hotel restaurant — actually they had about eight eateries, but only one proper sit-down restaurant, and it was the first fine dining experience we’ve had as a family of four. This restaurant was amazing: the decor was the same as it had been in 1886. It was gorgeous: dark wooden beams and tables, beautiful linens and flatware, candles everywhere (our table was a fire hazard), and portraits of German legends, real and fictional, in the form of paintings, busts, sketches, you name it, on every wall. We dined at a table in the Bismarck Niche and Trine and I shared a game platter for two that included venison and wild boar, and even enjoyed a bottle of wine while Molli Malou took down a bowl of tomato consomme the size of her trunk and Maddie ate the usual jar of pasta.

I swear I haven’t had such a tasty dinner of game since my last meal at that weird game place near the old Paulina apartment in Chicago (where theys served game on your plate, but also “game” in the form of sports on individual televisions at every table).

Molli Malou and I went for a swim in the hotel pool while Trine put Maddie to sleep. Molli Malou is now capable of holding her breath under water so long that I freak out and pull her up before she has a chance to show me how long she can really go. Not an exaggeration.

I woke up first the next morning. It was the first time we’d all four slept in the same room for a long, long time… maybe ever?… and I was struck by how beautifully innocent our girls look in their sleep, and how the sweetness of their sleeping is something I never take pictures of. So… blam!

For Molli Malou, yet another outfit from Maria!

And now, our daylight tour of Goslar, an old mining town dating back to… well, infinity. The town had some hard years from the end of the war to the fall of the wall, because it was butt-up against the East German border, but it’s thriving now, as you can see.

Molli Malou still thinks any gathering of pigeons means she’s back in St. Mark’s Square, Venice. Here she is, once again tasting the bitter fruits of disappointment.