Day Trip to Ramstein

We took a trip down to Ramstein on Friday. We've been wanting to go down there for a while now to get some household stuff, some clothes, and a few other things. At least, that's what we told ourselves. Actually, we really just wanted to see the Mall! =)

We got up really early because we thought we would have to spend 4 hours driving down there and 4 more coming back, and we wanted to have some time to actually do something as well. As usual, the kids weren't too happy about waking up early, but that was ok. They had a long car ride in front of them that they could spend sleeping.

To get to Ramstein, we had to drive right past Bitburg and Spangdahlem. We've been there before. The German country side is gorgeous, so the ride was pleasant and familiar this time. Since Spang was about the halfway point to where we were going, we decided to hop off the motorway for a quick break. Adam is sooo glad we did!!!

Back in Salt Lake City, Adam and I would go to this cute little Austrian restaurant called the Vienna Bistro. It was way too expensive, but the spaetzle was to die for! Adam is not a huge beer drinker, but we had tried earlier the wheat beer Budweiser was touting for a while. He decided that particular beer wasn't too bad. So, at the Bistro, he saw on their beer list an imported wheat beer and ordered it. It came out in a dark brown bottle with gold foil on the top and a picture of a monk on the label and a glass to pour it in with the same monk on it. He loved it!

Well, what do you know? At the Shoppette on Spangdahlem AFB in Germany, while Rachael and I were taking a potty break, Adam found a whole case of his Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, and one even had taped to it the same tall glass at no extra charge. You bet he snatched that right up!

We got back in the car and continued our journey. We made it to Ramstein in just over 3 hours total, instead of the 4 we had expected. That was a nice surprise. More time for shopping!!! Anyways, I don't know if it's because we've been seeing so many small installations or what, but Ramstein just seemed huge! And, oh my goodness, there were cars everywhere. The whole place was busy, busy, busy.  We found our way to the mall (which, by the way, wasn't hard at all because it's so huge!). I've talked about BX's and PX's before, the base and post exchanges for the Air Force and Army. They are part of AAFES - the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. When we got to the mall, it only said, in BIG, HUGE letters: EXCHANGE. No 'B,' no 'P.' It is just the 'Exchange.' And it's big! Like any other mall, it had a food court (with many AAFES restaurants, like Burger King, Anthony's, Baskin Robbins, Taco Bell). I think the Romano's Macaroni Grill was even in there (I don't know, we didn't even get to see the whole place!). It even had a few local German eateries, too. There were vendors down the aisles. Lots of vendors! And little stores. Then, the biggest part of the mall was the actual Exchange, which rivaled many large Wal-Marts in the amount of space it held.

We spent quite a bit of time in the Exchange. We found some clothes for the kids and for me. We bought some towels and kitchen accessories. Of course we had to get some electronic stuff (I like clothes and home stuff; Adam likes his electronics =). Before we left the states, we had been looking into getting some of those expensive foam pillows for ourselves, the Tempurpedics. Well, they had some Serta ones for about half the price that we really liked, so we got two of those. Oh, we had so much fun spending money!!

The mall had 4 theaters showing first run movies. We ate some ice cream at the Johnny Rockets and headed upstairs to catch Kung Fu Panda 2. And, guess what?!?! The movie was spoken in English, aaaaaand there were no subtitles!!!! The movie itself was really great (I even think it was better than the first one, but that's just my opinion =).

These are 'Kissing Bears' because there are two flavors of bears stuck together in each set =)

We headed back downstairs and walked around some more. There were several German shops sporting their wares. Adam and I ogled at the beautiful, intricate cuckoo clocks, promising ourselves that we would get one as a souvenir when we actually did some sight-seeing in Germany. The candle-powered windmills were so fascinating. One shop was like a Christmas market the whole year round. That one was hard to leave!! A vendor in the aisle had so many wooden wall-hangings, plaques, etc. that he was personally engraving right there with a branding iron. It was so fun to watch him! A lady selling gummi bears offered to let us try a few. I agreed (oops!) and ended up buying a bag for too much money. But, I don't regret it, because those fruit juice flavored German gummi bears are the best gummi bears I have ever had!! I also bought a beautiful statue of Mary from another vendor. What a wonderful day!

We drove around the base some more and eventually ended up at the Chili's restaurant. What a treat! We hadn't eaten at a sit-down American restaurant since a week before we left. Of course, it was delicious.

After dinner, we let Rachael and Zach play in the park we found on base just to burn some energy off before the long ride. It was fun and they enjoyed it. But finally, the time came that we had to leave.

The drive back was nice. The sun doesn't go down around here until about 10:30 at night, so we had daylight the whole trip back home. As we were driving, we saw these fields on rather steep slopes, and we just couldn't figure out what they were. As farmers of wheat and barley, who understand that combines can work on slopes that are only so steep, we were rather confused. Eventually, we got close enough to some and found that they were rows of vines. Vineyards!

We enjoyed the rest of our trip home, with the kiddos crashed in the back. Adam had picked up a brochure for Octoberfest running the last week of October somewhere in the Kaiserslautern Military Community. Heck, we might back sooner than we planned. Yay!!! Ta ta!

Blotevoetenpad

What a wonderful adventure! The International Ladies Club has so many fun activities. The feast of the Ascension was last Thursday, and it is a Belgian holiday, a day off from work (most Catholic diocese in America celebrate the Ascension the Sunday after for better attendance at church). We spent the day in Lieteberg at the Bezoekercentrum (visitor's center) in Zutendaal. This area is part of the Hoge Kempen national park. We were supposed to see the butterflies center and the insect museum, but Rachael got sick and we had to leave. However, we were able to have a great deal of fun before leaving when we went on the Blotevoetenpad, the Barefoot Walk, through the forest. It was about 2k long, and it was amazing. Check out the link to the website: http://lieteberg.be/navigatieframeset.htm  In the orange column on the left side, click on 'blotevoetenpad.' It will take you to a page with a short video showing all that we experienced on our walk. It was fantastic! Adam went out of his comfort zone and took his shoes off, rolled up his pants, and joined us. I was so happy he did! Rachael had a bunch of fun with one of the ILC lady's two girls, except for the water and mud parts. She didn't like those, though they were my favorites =) Here are some pictures of us getting closer to nature in our bare feet!

Neat rope bridge. Rachael was kind of scared. Thankfully Dad was there to help her out =)

Our favorite substance to walk on was the sand. It was the softest and easiest on the feet. The pine needles, not so much. Nor the wood chips. But we braved those, too!

This is one of the many obstacles were could choose to encounter.

Someone in our group spotted this teeny tiny little frog. Do you see him? He's black and sitting on the stick in the middle of the picture.

Tiny black frog

How's that for comparison?! He was smaller than a fingernail! And perfectly formed. He looked like any other frog, hopped like a frog. He was just so tiny!!

The water hole

Rachael wasn't a fan. I didn't blamer her. That water was COLD!!!!

There were so many people there. It was a beautiful day. We all were having so much fun enjoying nature together!

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I loved walking up these steps in bare feet. They were made of smooth round logs. At every stair, going up or down, I had to pack Rachael on my back, though, because they kind of scared her.

The logs holding up the stair case were covered with these weird whatevers. I thought they were neat.

The crocodile log. It was nice to have a place to sit after hiking up all those stairs!!

What a ham =)

The maze, or het labyrint. We had to walk and walk and walk through this maze to get to the center. We walked on lots of wood chips, some rocks, and finally some sand when we got to the end!

I made it! Without Cheating! Oh, what wonderful sand! (I may have cheated on the way out, though =)

Rachael Ann, having a good time running through the maze =)

Two in our party running fast out of the maze

The steps

The view from the top of a 3-story wood structure we climbed. It was neat! See the nuclear plant in the distance?

Closer shot of the nuke plant

Our family, enjoying each other and the Belgium landscape

Look, Mom, no shoes!

More of the view from the top. I loved the jet streaks in the sky.

Part of the trails we walked

Looking down from the top of the structure. There were lots of people there that day!

Walking on rocks =) These didn't hurt as bad as some of the other substances.

Rachael Ann with Rachael and Sophie =) She loves being adopted by bigger girls and playing with them. They seem to flock to her =)

Cute girls =)

Bare feet

This bridge was so cool. We could hear people walking on it before we even came to it. The chains clinked and clanked.

This sign talked about how we were walking like people used to and showed the different between our feet today and those from people thousands of years.

I guess Rachael and I were slow. Adam sat there waiting for us. I don't know how he did that, keeping his feet in the water. It was freezing! This was the muddy part. I loved it!!!!

Muddy feet!!

I like this picture =)

Another fun obstacle

The waterfall, though frigid, was really cool!!

Walking back to the beginning. These were some of the beehives.

We ended our tour by washing off our feet and scrubbing them up pretty good. Adam was glad to get his shoes back on =) This was just a cool experience! I loved every minute of it, even when we were walking on the wood chips =) I live for adventures like these. I'm so glad we are a part of this group, that we are living in Belgium, and that we can have these kind of memorable experiences!! Ta ta!

De Pauze - Waffles and Trappist Beer =)

We went out for dinner the evening of our barefoot walk at the restaurant called De Pauze. It is a neat little place selling lots of foodstuffs, from frites to gelato and snacks to a full, sit-down restaurant. We'd had the frites before and wanted the check out the restaurant because we saw that they served waffles (BTW: The frites here are not as good as the ones sold at the hole-in-the-wall frituur about 200 yards away =). We had to check it out!

Now, we live in the Flemish region of Belgium, the Dutch speaking area. I had all my Dutch translation books with me to help figure out what I was reading on the menu. Then, bummer! It's in French! We were confused. But, Adam took French in high school, and we were able to muddle our way through to find some things we recognized that sounded nice. Here's what we ordered:

This was Adam's dinner: a Croque Madame. It looked fantastic. He actually knew what he was ordering when he told the server what he wanted. I had no idea what it was. He just kept telling me to wait and see what it was when it finally came out. This is the Croque Monsieur (a hot ham and cheese grilled sandwich) with fried egg on it. He said it was very good

I ordered a sandwich. It is an Italiaanse Furie. The description for it was "parma, parmezzaanse kaas, speciale mosterdsaus, augurken." All I knew was that it had Parmesan cheese and a special mustard sauce. I thought I'd give it a try. It was sooooo good! The mustard on it was very tangy; the ham, thin and salty; and the cheese slices were similar to Provolone. The pickles were not dill, nor were they bread and butter chips. They're hard to describe, but they fit the sandwich perfectly. All of this was served on a delicious French bread and dusted with Parmesan cheese. I would definitely eat it again!!!

Rachael's macaroni was the best macaroni and cheese I have ever had. The spiral noodles and chunks of ham were smothered in this incredibly creamy, cheesy sauce. It was absolutely amazing!!

Adam also order a Westmalle Trappist duble beer. I don't really like beer, nor does Adam, unless it's really, really good. And this qualified!! We drive by the Westmalle brewery every day. Apparently, it's churning out some delicious brews! I ordered some iced tea. What I got was a Lipton tea, with lemon, and I think it had some seltzer water or fizzy water or something, because it had a sharp taste and fizzed on my tongue. Wow! I've never had a tea like that. And I won't mind if I have another one, too, because I loved it!

Now, the real reason we came to De Pauze was to try the waffles. Belgium is known for its waffles, and since we live here, we decided to learn a little about the culture, right? =) Now, there are two kinds of waffles in Belgium: Brussels waffles and Liege waffles. What makes both waffles so good is that they are made with yeast and allowed to rise. The ones we ordered were the Brussels waffles. This waffle came out on a platter, dusted with powdered sugar, and served with ice cream and chocolate sauce. The waffle itself was very crispy, though very light. Scrumptious! The ice cream... well, let's just say that all  ice cream here is so much yummier than regular ice cream in America. And the chocolate sauce: c'mon! We're in Belgium! Of course the chocolate sauce is going to be AWE-some! And it was. It was all awesome, and delicious, and delightful, and scrumptious, and melt-in-your-mouth divine! We were not disappointed in our first taste of Belgian waffles!!!

All in all, we had a fabulous dinner at De Pauze, and the price wasn't too bad. Euros are expensive, so eating out is expensive, but treats like these are so nice, especially when it's under the guise of 'getting cultured.' =) I loved it =) Anyways, Ta ta for now =)