Frankfurt & Munich with Jen & Steven

26 April - 1 May

After Prague, Brian had to go to Munich for work, but Jen and Steven stayed with me in Frankfurt for the week! I loved having them here. They would explore around Frankfurt during the day, and then we'd hang out all together at night. It was so much fun to have my best friend and her hubby ready to hang out after work every day!

On our first night in Frankfurt, I took Jen and Steven to the commissary (US military grocery store that has US products) in Wiesbaden so that they could stock up on their favorite US groceries that they were missing after traveling for a few months. Unfortunately, I didn't know the rules (I'm only allowed to sign in one person), so Steven had to wait outside the grocery store while Jen and I did some damage inside. That night, we came back to our apartment and Jen cooked her favorite chicken recipe for us. Oh yes - that was another added bonus of having them stay with me - Jen really missed cooking, so she cooked every night and made me and Steven all of their favorites. They were all so delish, and it was fun to learn her recipes!

On Wednesday night, we hung out at our apartment, and Jenny made her favorite pork tacos. Wow, they were really amazing! Jen and Steven had also come to love Clerico (a variation of white sangria) in Argentina, so they made some of that, too. They said it wasn't quite right, but I thought it was delicious :) Jen also introduced me to one of my new favorite things that I have to be VERY careful around - Oreo Balls. Holy moly, those things are so dangerously amazing. It was obviously a great night of food, and we had so much fun hanging out all together and just relaxing.

We went out on Thursday night with some of my friends from the consulate. We ate outside at a restaurant in downtown Frankfurt and then walked to an old German bar for apple wine and beer. The bar was in the only building in the Romer Platz that was not demolished in WWII. While we were there, we met a couple of Australians who had invented a tool used in fishing and were traveling around the world to promote it. Very interesting chaps, they were!

On Friday, Jen, Seven, and I took another road trip to Munich to meet up with Bri for the weekend. Can't go wrong with a weekend in Munich! We cut right to the chase on the first night - dinner and beers at the Hofbrauhuas!

There are no small beers in Bavaria...1 liter for everyone!

Last time we were at HB, we lost a camera to a beer. Not again!!

While we got ready the next day, we watched recaps of the royal wedding that happened the day before. So much commentary on all of the hats! Then we stopped by a grocery store near our hotel where we bought a few things to snack on for breakfast. We made our way downtown, and there was a festival going on in the main square. It was a gorgeous day, a band was playing - it couldn't have been better.

We continued wandering and found this French market.

And then we found another market plaza with tons of tables full of people eating, drinking, and having a good ol' time. So we plopped down next to a group of Germans and joined in the fun. Our new friends introduced us to this creamy, cheesy, herb-y dip that you eat with big soft pretzels and onions - it's now one of my favorite German appetizers! Apparently you're also supposed to eat pickles with it, because one of the German guys disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a giant pickle, which he proceded to force us to eat with the dip. It was hilarious!

This guy sat down at the table next to us, so we HAD to get our picture made with him. Check out his get-up!

So that night, there was a huge soccer game going on in Munich, so we scoped out a good bar where we could watch the game. The first half was quite exciting and fun to watch with all of the Germans in the bar, but we decided to leave for the second half.

Next on the schedule - the "big spring festival" that was going on at the Oktoberfest grounds. Everyone at the consulate where Brian was working had told him about it and how they "had reservations at a tent". So we expected a spring, smaller version of Oktoberfest. It was definitely smaller and mostly just a carnival. So Brian and I picked one ride - the one we thought looked scariest/most thrilling - and we rode that.

On the ride with the German carnie who checked our seatbelts. Cheese!

On Sunday, the four of us went to the Dachau concentration camp. I had not visited a concentration camp yet, so I was not sure what to expect, but I knew it would be an experience I'll never forget. We took the audio tour of the camp, which had tons of facts about the grounds, the history of the town of Dachau, WWII timeline information, and actual accounts from camp survivors. The cold, rainy day set the mood as the four of us walked mostly in silence for hours as we listened. Below are pictures we took at the camp.

The gate to the camp with the words, "Arbeit Macht Frei" meaning "Work makes you free", a false promise to those entering the gates.

Outer perimeter of the camp

Purely by accident, we visited on the 66th anniversary ceremony of the liberation of Dachau, which occurred on 29 April 1945. These wreathes had sashes across them, displaying names of the countries presenting them for the anniversary ceremony.

On the main camp road. When the camp was used, barracks lined both sides of this road.

The Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel (monument)

The Jewish Memorial

Inside the Jewish Memorial

The Protestant Church of Reconciliation

Inside the Protestant memorial

The Crematorium - the first ovens built, but they were not big enough

Station at Barrack X (new crematorium)

Gas chamber at Barrack X

Crematorium in Barrack X

Barrack X

Memorial path leading to Barrack X

Wreathes in front of a memorial, which shows figures of emaciated people trying to escape through barbed wire

Barbed wire lining the camp

This experience was so moving, educational, shocking, upsetting, frustrating - it was emotionally draining. It was so interesting to discuss all of our different perspectives on what we saw and heard. And it definitely made us all so thankful for what we have, for living in the USA, and for all that the military did during WWII.

After Dachau, we said bye to Brian as he headed back to Munich, and we drove back to Frankfurt for a relaxing evening at our apartment.

Monday night was my last night with Jen and Steven. We walked over to a local restaurant, sat outside, and enjoyed one last German meal together. I so loved having them in Frankfurt, and I was sad that they had to leave! But I'm extremely thankful for the time we got to spend together and for everything that we experienced!

Prague with Jen and Steven - April 22-25

One of my best friends, Jen, and her husband, Steven, were on an epic 6 month trip around the world, and Brian and I were so happy that they chose to stop through Frankfurt to hang out with us! You can read all about Jen and Steven's amazing adventures on their blog here.

So Jen and Steven arrived in Frankfurt on the Thursday night before Good Friday, so we had all planned to go to Prague for the weekend. Brian was flying back from Rabat that night, so it was just the three of us for a few hours. After I picked them up from the airport, we had a champagne toast to celebrate their arrival, and we had a great night at our apartment catching up on their travels. When Brian got back, we talked long into the night about everything! We were so happy to have our friends in town.

On Friday morning, we woke up early to miss Easter traffic, and we had a fun time road tripping to Prague! I had read that parking in Prague is extremely expensive, so we parked our car at a train station outside the city and trained into the city. I highly recommend this to anyone thinking about driving to Prague - it was super easy and cheap!

After we settled into our hotels, we went straight to the old town square for lunch. The Easter markets were in full swing and were so colorful!

We scoped out all of the food booths and decided that the grilled meat stands looked most delicious.

Lunch spot at Easter Market

BK Easter Market Fun

I loved all of the spring-y Easter decorations!

Now it was time to start exploring! We wandered through the streets and found lots of fun things, like painted egg booths. These eggs are real egg shells and are hand-painted with every design you could possibly imagine! They were so pretty. Steven was obviously impressed :)

We also found dessert! These pastries are famous in the Czech Republic.

All of the churches we saw had lots of gold detail and were beautiful

As we continued walking, we found this cool old bookstore. It was fun to look through their selection of classics.

Walking along the river - what a view!

BFFs :)

We made our way to U Flecu, which is a famous brewery and restaurant in Prague. We were really surprised by how dark their beer is, but we all really liked it! There was also a small oompa band playing, which made the atmosphere lively and fun.

As we continued walking, we found this really cool riverside restaurant where a guy was playing well-known songs on his guitar. He could play just about every genre you could imagine, and he sounded so good! So we sat outside, watched the sun set over the river, and listened to live music. What a great evening with friends!

The next day, we met for breakfast at a little bakery and then started a full day of walking! We walked EVERYWHERE! We began our day by walking along this huge open area toward one of Prague's big museums. We decided not to go inside because it was such a gorgeous day, and we had a ton we wanted to see! But this area was really pretty with all of the spring flowers.

Then we made our way back to the clock tower plaza where the Easter markets were going on. This astronomical clock is another famous site in Prague. It was built in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock that is still working.

Then we wandered our way toward Charles Bridge. There were some great views of Prague from this bridge.

And there were tons of artists on the bridge - musicians playing, painters painting, and merchants selling lots of different jewelry.

Easter weekend is a really popular time to visit Prague. Look at all of the people!

On the other side of the river, there were lots of cute shops to see. We hiked our way uphill toward Prague's castle and found more gorgeous views. Prague is a very photogenic city!

St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague's Castle

Flying buttresses at St. Vitus

And the walk continued! Back to the other side of the river.

We went to a little store to buy a couple bottles of wine to drink by the river for happy hour and rest-our-feet-hour. The problem was both bottles tasted AWFUL - haha. So we tried mixing them together, and that made them a little better :) Oh well! Rest-hour continued, and we relaxed and watched the sun set.

The next morning was Easter Sunday! Before going to church, we had breakfast at this little bakery. YUM

We attended Easter Sunday service at a smaller catholic church on the other side of the river. We went to the second service of the morning, so the sanctuary was already full of incense.

The service was really beautiful. Then we went to a couple of grocery stores to get supplies for our Easter picnic. We had cheese, bread, dip, and fruit, and we sat in a park along the river in the sun. It was a great Easter Sunday afternoon.

We went back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for our concert that evening at the Municipal House in Prague. It was such a beautiful concert hall! We got there early so we could get good seats all together, so we were able to sit in the front row of the balcony.

The orchestra was a little smaller than we expected, but it still sounded great!

When the concert was over, it was still early in the evening. It was our last night in Prague, so we went to an Irish pub to hang out, but the music was way too loud for us to talk. So we kept walking around and found this place called Bed Bar. I think it was probably the most random place we could have gone on Easter Sunday, but we had the whole place to ourselves and had a blast!

On Monday, we checked out of our hotels, and Brian and I went to the grocery store to grab pastries for the drive back to Frankfurt. We made it back in time to grill fajitas at our apartment that evening. What a great weekend with friends!