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I woke up about 5:40am, just a little over 5.5 hours sleep. I felt rested but needed coffee, and there wasn’t any in the room. But breakfast was included and the restaurant opened at 6am so I got dressed and made my way down. Breakfast was simple – cereals, deli meats and cheeses, a good variety of natural breads, fruit. And lots to drink – full pots of coffee and milk – both hot – and a carafe of OJ. The cereals were interesting with the hot milk: a granola-ish one that sort of turned into oatmeal, but not in a bad way, and chocolate rice crispies.

I was planning my day using TripAdvisor and re-reading my blog from yesterday. I was reminded of the American Cemetery. Since I was up so early I had enough time to still do that, take a later train to Trier and still have plenty of day left to do what I wanted there. So I checked out about 7:45 and made my way. It was about a 3 mile walk, I made it there in about an hour. I was along a busy road the whole time – plenty of traffic but not much to see, either going through woods, industrial, or something under construction. And there was no signage. I followed Google’s walking instructions with my fingers crossed. It took this weird turn down along a trench where they were building who knows what, and underneath a bridge. I was getting nervous. As I got under the bridge, I finally came across this, the first confirmation outside of Google that I was headed in the right direction.

It was another 1/3 mile or so up a road through more woods. As I progressed, the sounds of the busy roads behind me diminished and the sounds of the birds got louder and louder. Think Vivaldi, not Hitchcock. It was a nice Spring day and about 60-65 degrees at that point.  But I had worked up a bit of a sweat because most of that trip was uphill. I was appreciating a flat walk through the woods.

This is the military operations map for the surrounding region. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers, or know anything at all about WWII history, The Ardennes will mean something to you. If nothing else, you’ve probably heard of The Battle of the Bulge; the casualties from that battle and others are buried here. 5076 total.

It’s hard to put into words what I was thinking about while I was here. It’s impossible not to be moved, especially with the history I have in my head. Even yesterday on the train as I was traveling down from Koblenz I was thinking about it, knowing these lands were blood filled for years during both wars. I always think about that when I’m on a train in Germany. It makes all the pettiness in American politics these days seem so ridiculous. This was real evil at play, and men literally from all over the world joined efforts to stop it. The Ardennes was a long fought battle, one of the hardest of the war, and it was this victory after Normandy that eventually led the Allies to Berlin. We think we know struggle, loss, and sacrifice. We don’t.

If the date looks funny to you, it’s because he didn’t die during the war. He was the leader during the Battle of the Bulge, which is why he was buried here. He died from injuries in a car accident about 6 months after the war ended. Go figure.

I left the cemetery about 9:30am. If I was quick, I could just make the 10:26 to Trier, just an hour later than I’d thought I would go last night. With literally running the last couple of blocks and through the train station, I made it just after the doors to the train had closed. Crap! Then the gal in front of me – who was also running – hit the magic button and they opened again. Good to know! She jumped in and I went right behind her.

And I got the same seat I had yesterday! Time to charge my phone on the hour ride. By that time I had already walked a good 6 miles or more so I was ready for a little rest.

Trier was known as the “Rome of the North” back in the day, with origins as far back at 17 BC. By the 2nd century AD there were great temples, a town wall with several gates, an amphitheater and a huge bathing facility. Trier became an imperial residence in the 3rd century. The city is littered with ruins of this stuff, some better kept than others.

“The High Cathedral of St. Peter” is the official name of this church. We’ve been in lots of European churches. Some really impress us – Cologne of course, Westminster Abbey, any of the three in Ghent – and some are “meh” like the one yesterday. This one is up there with the best of them.

Everything about this was impressive. Romanesque architecture (of course), side altars with sculptures in amazing detail, a nice mix of materials – stone, wood, and marble. Good old pews instead of chairs – I maintain that’s a German thing. A gigantic organ (that’s the thing hanging down left of center). This one was stunning to me.

OK enough of that. I headed down the little street opposite the entrance to St. Peter’s and wound up in the biggest square, Hauptmarkt.

The Hotel Villa Hugel, which I found on Booking.com. My room wasn’t ready yet so I just dropped off my bag, used the restroom, headed back out.

I wish I had known about this on the way up. I nice little walking path that served as a shortcut and much easier access down the hill than the street I walked up. The guy at the hotel gave me a little map and pointed out a few tricks of getting around.

I saw this indicated on the map but it wasn’t marked so I walked a little past where I was supposed to turn to see what it was. Wasn’t marked in real life either. I decided to call it Random Roman Ruin. I have no idea how old it is or it’s purpose, but it does look old. It was just there in the middle of a boulevard.

 This is the park in the middle of the boulevard just to the left of it.

I ventured around to the other side to discover it was open – so just like a 2/3 circle – and empty. Still no clue.

Next I headed over to the Karl Marx house. He was born here in Trier in 1818. I’m always interested in political history and this was pretty interesting. Although he’s the author of the Communist Manifesto, he must roll over in his grave seeing what guys like Stalin did with it. He was the original socialist. The Nazis were socialist, too. At least based on what I learned today, there’s nothing in his original philosophies that had any room whatsoever for dictatorship – quite the opposite in fact – so it’s difficult to understand how Stalin, Hitler and later China took it there. Then, just this evening I was reading this over dinner. Interesting timing.

What to do next? It was about 3:30. Do I go back to the room and check in and rest a bit? The hotel has a swimming pool and sauna available and that was sounding pretty good. But I knew if I went there I probably wouldn’t leave again. Especially if the restaurant was open for dinner. Thinking about my TripAdvisor list from this morning, I had done just about all I wanted to do already. And there was still tomorrow morning if need be.

I decided to go to the Landesmuseum. It’s a bit of a museum chain if you will in the Rhineland. I had been to one in Mainz. I stopped for something to drink at a cafe on the way and had a nice rest in front of this pool. That building in the back is the end of the Trier Palace.

This museum was not like one I had ever really been in before. It was dedicated just about exclusively to archeology because of the Roman roots of the region.  There was lots of fossils, bones, etc., in the early part, dating back 150,000 BC, including some stuff from the Neander Valley in Germany, which is where Neanderthal came from.

Then came the Roman finds. There was rooms and rooms of this stuff.

I took a nice hot shower and went down for a dip in the pool then sat in the steam room for a while. Felt Great. I worked on the blog for about an hour then went down for dinner about 7pm.

I am usually not a food picture guy but my friend Melanie specifically requested it when I talked to her on Saturday. Since she’s the original inspiration for the blog, I figured I’d work on it. Then Art commented on it yesterday. So Mel and Art, these are for you!

We both slept a good 7 hours and woke up a little before 7am. We had breakfast at the hotel buffet, which was pretty decent. Food-wise, German breakfasts aren’t that different from American food, except for timing: I’ve haven’t eaten pork-n-beans for breakfast since the last time I was here. Now that I mention it, that was probably the last time I ate them period. Deli meats and cheeses for breakfast also. And mushrooms, always mushrooms. They actually go good with the pork-n-beans!

We headed to the train station together, our trains leaving about 4 minutes apart: Dan’s to Monheim for work, mine to Luxembourg.

I do love the trains and the train stations! I took one bound for Koblenz, a town we did on our first trip 2 years ago, where I would transfer. It is somehow comforting to do something familiar on my way to something new. The train was packed with workers until Bonn – a stop I made last year – and then it looked like this.

So a very comfortable ride until Koblenz, although there were a few delays and I missed the connection I had planned. I would get to Luxembourg an hour later than I originally thought, but I had nothing scheduled so it didn’t matter. It ended up being 4.5 hours on the train. It somehow went by very fast. I didn’t mind it at all, it was very relaxing. This was the little corner I had all to myself, with a plug to charge my phone even.

I snapped this off my phone just after leaving Koblenz. Today I am going to Luxembourg City, tomorrow stopping in Trier on the way back.

This also gives you an idea of the ground I covered today. Luxembourg is only about 125 miles from Cologne. It takes awhile by train because of all the stops. It’s faster by car but we have no interest in driving when we’re here. We really enjoy the public transportation. It’s way more relaxing than trying to drive on a number of levels.

Luxembourg is nestled between Germany, Belgium and France. At less than 1000 square miles, it’s smaller than Rhode Island. The entire country has less than 600,000 people, and roughly 20% of them live in Luxembourg City, the capital. According to the United Nations, it has the highest per person GDP in the world, with banking and finance contributing a big chunk to that. It is also the site of the European Court of Justice for the EU.

And by the way, some of the best travel money I’ve spent is on the “pay as you go” international package Verizon offers. It’s available for most countries and has been just So Convenient to have. You don’t have to worry about roaming charges and can keep the cell/data part turned off to minimize charges. I really only use it a lot the first few days when I’m by myself, and wouldn’t do it any other way. Once Dan joins me we use his phone primarily because Bayer pays for that.

When you cross borders it automatically changes to the provider in that country Verizon has the deal with and you get text messages. These came in while I was on the train.

I checked into my hotel right at 2pm, took some things out of my bag I didn’t need and headed into town. The hotel is like 2 blocks from the train station and maybe .5 mile to the city center. There is an American Cemetery about 4 miles outside of town. I was thinking about going but since I got here an hour later than planned I decided to nix it. General Patton is buried there. Had no clue.

This town has interesting terrain. Lots of hills and valleys. My legs got a good workout today.

This is their Notre Dame. I went inside for a few minutes but it was nothing to write home about.

Europeans love American Presidents, especially the ones from WW1 and WW2. Paris had streets named after both FDR and Woodrow Wilson.

This is the full shot of the Constitution plaza from the picture above.

Lunch was at a little soup place. I had the international soup of the day, which was Jamaican. Almost like curry in coconut milk but not quite. Lots of red peppers and potatoes.

This was a government administration building on one end of a nice square which I kept coming back to. It’s a small town after all. This was my first siting.

That’s the back side of Notre Dame behind another square. There was a restaurant with sidewalk seating right behind me.

And this was the square around the corner from that one! This was a hotel, with restaurants lining the right side out of view.

I headed over to The Casements. These are ruins of a fortress that had its beginnings in 963 AD, with old town down (way down) below it.

The Casements and the old town below were declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1994.

This is a monastery in old town looking down from the fortress area. The fortress was essentially a maze. Dark, really cold at times, lots of steep staircases, most frequently very narrow and spiral.

I did some meandering before going back in and found myself in a pretty seedy area just in the next block behind the hotel. Got out of there fast and found myself back at the train station. Stopped in to see what my options were for leaving tomorrow. I don’t have assigned seating so can just jump on any train I want going to Trier. Will probably do 9:26am.

I had heard that there wasn’t much to do here and that was definitely true. I’m glad I came, though, it’s still interesting to see people in other countries going about their daily lives. There are three “official” languages in Luxembourg – Luxembourgish, French, and German. And yet everyone I encountered spoke English as well.  It’s like a quintessential European city, it doesn’t really have a language or cuisine of its own. But I had fun.

And a PS: The guy on the right is Xavier Bettel, the 42 year old Prime Minister. The guy on the left is his husband, an architect named Gauthier Destenay. They’ve been together since 2010, and were married last month, May 15, a few months after it became legal here. That’s all :)

Not too much to write about, just glad to have gotten here safe and sound. I left Davis Saturday afternoon and dropped the car off in front of a friend’s house in Burlingame. Arranged for a cab to take me to the San Francisco airport from there. It’s close, there wasn’t much traffic and not much of a line in security: it took only 20 minutes to get from the Burlingame house to my gate. Good way to start!

My flight was delayed a little but finally left around 7:30pm. It was almost 10 hours in the plane. I read and played games on my Kindle and watched 3 in flight movies (The Imitation Game, Gone Girl, American Sniper.) The time passed relatively quickly. I slept less than 1.5 hours. I deplaned in London around 1:30pm local time and, having to go through customs and security again (Heathrow is a joy in this way….not….) it took every bit of the 1.5 hour layover I had to get to my gate.

The flight to Dusseldorf was also a little late, but I was greeted with a nice surprise at the end: Dan took the train from Cologne to meet me at the airport. What a guy! I was so not expecting to see him I barely recognized him as I was making my way through the exit to find the trains. It’s only about a 45 minute train ride to Cologne but we had to wait a bit for the next one.

I think it’s fitting that the first official picture of the trip be the same as it was last year: the square outside of the Cologne train station and in front of the cathedral. There were street performers doing acrobatic/gymnastic things to congas at the bottom of the steps, so in the shot below you see all the people on the steps being entertained.

We are staying at the Hilton and it’s just a couple of blocks away. We dropped off my bags and started meandering in search of dinner. This is our 3rd trip in as many years, each starting in Germany because of Dan’s work, and each starting with Italian food the first night. There are a ton of Italian restaurants in Germany and for whatever reason we hardly ever go out for it at home, so make up for it while we’re here.

On our way, we came across this. Couldn’t resist.

We eventually ended up here. It was a 4.5 on Yelp and was what we usually go for – neighborhood hole-in-the-wall. It was cute on the outside, and we sat at a front corner table – literally behind that sconce and menu on the left. The weather was cool and breezy and it was lovely.

But culturally confusing. It was an Italian restaurant with a menu in German, and a group of women speaking Russian or something like it to our right. We would say “danka” and the waiter would say “grazi”. The food was OK, although we both agreed my dish was better, and Dan didn’t care for his much at all, so we switched halfway through. Mine was a creamy, cheesy mushroom fettuccine thing – can’t go wrong with that. Clean simple flavors done very well I thought. Dan’s I think was more German than Italian – it reminded me of stuff my Granny used to to make. The tomato sauce was definitely not like a marinara or anything else classic Italian – although I’m not sure I can put my finger on the flavor profile. I liked it better than he did so was fine switching.

Y’all get another year of Dan going “are your eyes open?”, which generally results in this expression:

Afterwards we walked through town some more and found a nice little gelato shop on the other side of the cathedral. Yum – something about the gelato here is just “that” much better than at home – extra creamy or something, It’s obvious from the first taste. I stuck to basics: stracciatella and pistachio; Dan got whiskey and banana (!). Let’s just say he didn’t like his as much as I liked mine. “I should’ve gotten strawberry” he says as we were walking back to the hotel. (PS: If you haven’t had stracciatella before, think Eskimo pie. And if you don’t know what that is I can’t help you…)

It is 11:30pm local time, which makes it 2:30pm back home. So I’ve been up close to 35 hours with maybe 2 hours sleep total. Time for bed. Tomorrow the real fun begins!

Last pic: in previous years I’ve talked about how glad I am that I learned to pack light. I outdid myself this year. Dan had to bring a sports coat for a work function so we decided to use that as an excuse to perhaps to go into some nice places for dinner later in the trip. There were places last year in Paris we couldn’t get into because we didn’t have the right clothes. Which, by the way, we’re totally OK with. But we decided to challenge ourselves and bring more variety and still not check baggage.

That’s a standard carry-on sized roller bag – maybe even on the small side – and the laptop bag I purchased for last year’s trip and use everyday for work. Here’s what’s in them:
laptop, mouse, cell phone, kindle, all power cords; 2 sets of earbuds, 2 euro adaptors, 1
sport coat, 1 pair of slacks, 1 long sleeve dress shirt;
3 short sleeve button downs shirts, 4 polo shirts;
1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shoes, 6-7 sets of socks and underwear
electric razor, toiletries, swimming trunks, 1 shorts and tshirt set
2 umbrellas
passport, euros, 2 weeks supply of prescriptions, vitamins, lactose pills, fingernail clippers, toothbrush, other misc toiletries

Seems like I’m missing something but you get the idea. That may not be packing light exactly, but it’s a creative use of space I’ll tell ya that. And no worries about “will my bags make it?” I think we’re ready!

I’m generally pretty focused on being in the moment. I’m a good planner and make time to do just that; then when I’m doing I’m in it and not thinking of much else. Planning vs. doing are two very distinct activities in my head, something I got really good at that while working on my masters as I was working full time and doing a bunch of traveling, both business and pleasure. I’ve been thinking about writing about those distinctions for me because I had to take it to a zen level to keep my sanity last year and I find it playing out in my life now in a number of ways. But that’s a different blog.

All that to say, when Dan asks things like “are you excited about xx” that’s some weeks or months away, I’m always like “uh, no, not even thinking about it.” But almost without fail when there’s a big trip coming up, I actually DO start to get excited once my official “one week away” countdown begins.

That countdown started yesterday. About this time next week I’ll be in London Heathrow waiting for my next flight. It’s been a heck of a year and I’m ready for a vacation, and am really excited about both new and familiar things on this trip.

Dan is really enjoying his work at Bayer and while his travel schedule can be rough he is committed to making it work well for both of us. He’s done 4 trips this calendar year already that were all 10-12 days – two in Raleigh/Durham and two in Europe. We’re committed to turning one of his Europe business trips a year into a vacation for us so he tries to pick one where he’ll only have to work a few days and then we can tack extra time onto that. This is the one!

I’ve also had a busy year with finishing my masters in April (yahoo!) and starting a new job in January which has been entirely satisfying, challenging and rewarding. So excited to be where I am in my career. But again, another blog entry probably.

On top of that, we’ve had some interesting real estate things going on. Won’t get into too much detail here but let’s just say it’s kept us both busy and frustrated at times. Some of you have heard our intention to move from Davis to Midtown, Sacramento. We’ve actually been in escrow on a property since December, original closing date was set for January 29. And we still haven’t closed. Short version: sellers have to address some issues the title company brought up relative to a little lien the City of Sacramento has on the property. It’s nothing we care about, but the deal can’t move forward until they fix things and it’s been painfully slow. So we wait.

We are definitely ready for some play time. Here’s the plan this year:

Dan is actually leaving from home Wednesday night. He has to work in San Francisco on Thursday, and is flying out Friday morning. He has some big work to do early part of the week and wanted an extra day to help with time lag. I wasn’t able to leave until late Saturday because I had a board meeting for my job I needed to present at. As of late this past week, that obligation has been pushed to the September board meeting. I’m relieved that I’ll have more flexibility on the day I leave, because the logistics of getting to Fremont in the morning then SFO that evening was getting tricky. Car? Public transportation? Neither was ideal. But all that worked out about the same time and I’m leaving my car in front of a friend’s house in Burlingame. So we will have a way home when we get back.

So I leave Saturday evening out of SFO to London, then will meet Dan in Cologne, which will be home base the first few days. Since he will be really busy with work Monday and Tuesday, I’m going to head out on my own and catch up on some things he’s been able to do on his weekends over there earlier in the year. Monday I will take a train to Luxembourg City and spend the night there, Tuesday move on to Trier, Germany, and spend the night there. Wednesday and Thursday morning I will hang out in Cologne. This is my 3rd time there and I’m looking forward to both something familiar yet there are still things to see and do for the first time. And I do love the cathedral and the train station! Cologne for me has turned into some kind of touchstone and I’m not quite sure why yet.

Thursday afternoon we fly to Barcelona. We’ve rented an apartment from AirBnB and will be there through Monday. Originally the idea for this trip included Madrid and Lisbon. But Dan was trying to maximize both points and efficient travel via British Airways and you had to fly through London to get to Lisbon, which didn’t make sense to him. And the train would take too much time. So he turned the question around: where you can get a direct flight to from Barcelona?

And one of the answers to that question is: Helsinki. We loved the novelty and diversity that would bring. So we’re doing 5 nights there as home base, with several day trips, including one for sure to Tallinn, Estonia.

Dan’s very excited that I’ll get to say I’ll have my feet in 5 countries on this trip: Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Finland, Estonia. I have to say I’m pretty excited, too.

The blog has become a given and such an integral part of the trip it now even factors into our choices for where we stay – ensuring there’s a desk set up of some kind so I can write somewhat comfortably every night. We enjoy the interaction and look forward to you joining us for the ride!