End of Germany Pics

Looking back, it looks like we only spent 4 days in Germany. It felt like more. I got a photo of Rothenburg ob der Tauber above the Tauber river by a very cool bridge. It was probably one of the last good photos I got (and it is not that great there was a fog).

As I mentioned we traveled the "Romantic Road" that went through a bunch of little medieval towns, but none were as cute as Rothenburg ob der Tauber. They all looked tired and just old. I didn't take many photos. I did take this one of a memorial to soldiers beside a tired looking church (looks like WW1):

We hit the autobahn and were just toodling along at 120kph (hey, when in Rome ... speed up or get out of the way) and drove past a huge building covered in blue and white signs. Ryan turned to me and said "Dude, did we just pass a Wal-Mart?" We immediately exited and drove around for awhile until we found it. We didn't know Wal-Marts existed in Europe. If we had driven by the Space Shuttle sitting on a launch pad - we would not have been more surprised.

We spoke with a manager and he said they were all over Germany and most of Europe. We told him that we were from Norway and he said that Norway had banned them from their country (good for them!) thus the reason we had not seen one. Norway had probably banned them since the state had strict control on what products came into the country to be sold. One thing we noticed about Norway (and spoiled us rotten) was that everything was top quality - the best of the best. It was expensive but that was all that was available so people made do with less, just very good 'stuff'.

My family would come over and buy weird things like potato peelers, kitchen utensils, etc since they were top quality and not the stuff the silver would peel off of in a few weeks. I am sure they could find it at home, they just seemed to buy the stuff in Norway since it was where I was shopping for groceries.

So ... no Wal-Mart. We went in and had a blast - we photographed toys and tried to read what they were telling us. Then Ryan modeled for me in their costume department. This was February, mind you - not October. We noticed this in Norway also. The stuff we would think of as Halloween costumes they had out all year. Don't know why. Norway did not have a Halloween but the teenage youth had started celebrating the U.S. holiday. I guess they were for dress up.

Well, like it or not, that was our trip to Germany. It was always fun to take Ryan some where just me and him. We always had a good time. There was always something that we were laughing about.

One thing I remember was after getting off the plane in Frankfurt, Germany we rented a car and started the long trip down to the Austrian border. Ryan was hungry and being a picky eater did not eat on the plane and was hungry. I told him the next city I came to I would stop and find him some food. As we were driving along in the dark with no civilization to be found anywhere he said "Look Mom, there is Ausgang" (a small sign on the road at the offramp) and I just passed it going "Uh, Huh". Later he said "There it is again". I said "Okaaaaaay...". Finally he said in frustration "Mom, take this one - Ausgang has to be a big city and I am hungry!". I turned to him and said "Ryan, 'Ausgang' is German for 'exit'.