Our 34th day in Germany (Friday) was actually pretty light on social commitments.  Stilla met with a couple folks, but I just hung around the house and got caught up on posts.  In the evening, we went over to Stefan & Annerose’s for Pizza.

We pre-ordered pizzas from the local Gasthaus in Meckenhausen called “Stafros”, that I’ve written about in previous posts on Christmas day and New Years day.  William picked up the pizzas and delivered them to Stefan & Annerose’s house.

And what good pizza it was 🙂

Annerose updated her chalkboard in the kitchen to reflect our upcoming departure on Monday:

Yah, Yah, thanks… we’ll miss you guys too.  See ya again soon Stefan & Annerose  🙂  And thanks for everything!

Saturday (day 35 in Germany) was a big “farewell” party day at our house in Sindersdorf… Wolfgang fired up the Kesseltopf wood-fired stove that I helped him repair on our 18th day in Deutschland (Click HERE for that post).  He hooked up the stovepipe in his wood workshop and fired it up in the early morning so the kesselfleish would be done by mid-day.

All the neighbors and friends that were invited to the party started showing up in the early afternoon.

Wolfgang did a great job converting his workshop into a party room. He lined up his work carts and tables in a row, and used temporary wood panels to even the surfaces out.  Then he covered them all with a nice bavarian motif table cloth.

It wasn’t long before all the family and neighbors showed up for an absolutely awesome meal of kesselfleisch and sauerkraut.

Wolgang cut the meat into individual portions and placed it on the plates while Stilla dished out the sauerkraut.  I delivered the finished plates to the guests at the table.

Yummm… no complaints from anyone.  You don’t this kind of good chow everyday, and certainly not in the states 🙂

All the neighbors and family showed up at sometime during the afternoon/evening.

The steam from the boiling water in the kesseltopf made the workshop warm and very humid.  I wrote “Hobden Hau ab Party (Hobden ‘Go away’ Party) in the condensation on the door 🙂

Prost!  (Cheers!)

There were also others in attendance… sorry if I didn’t get your picture 🙁   Our thanks to Wolfgang for setting things up and the meal!  It was a very nice going away party 🙂  It’s been an awesome visit!

We hope to just relax on Sunday and pack our bags… Our flight is at 9:45 AM on Monday.

Stay tuned…  I’ll probably post again before we leave… if not, my next post will be from Casa Grande, AZ.

Our 33rd day in Germany was Wednesday the 6th.  And another good day it was 🙂  We only have 5 more days to go before we fly back to the U.S.

Stilla’s sister Anneliese invited us for lunch at her house.  She made one of my favorite dishes, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Yummm 🙂 I drove over to her house in Meckenhausen with Opa because Stilla was out and about early in the morning visiting with friends.  One of the neighbors had taken her to see their kids that used to live next door but moved away.  She didn’t make it back in time for lunch and showed up late – it’s a good thing sister’s are forgiving 🙂

After Stilla showed up (mid-afternoon) and had her re-heated meal, we then picked up William and we all drove to the town of Berching to enjoy the Berchinger Erlebnisbad “Berle”.  This is a super-nice indoor pool complex situated in the scenic Naturpark (Nature park) Altmühltal right next to the canal.

Stilla, Anneliese, and William at the entrance to the indoor swimming park.

Entrance fees were paid at the automated kiosk.  You choose the number of hours you want to stay and pay accordingly.  You have to use your ticket again on the way out.  If you overextend your stay, you’re trapped until you pay the machine more money.  We paid for four hours, 5 Euros each, for a total of 20€.

View of the pool and super-slide in this picture (below) that I swiped from their website.  I didn’t take any pictures inside because I left my phone in the clothes locker.  We also enjoyed some good food at their in-house Italian cafeteria after we worked up an appetite again.

We had a nice relaxing day at the pool.  The water was nice and warm except for the separate olympic type pool that is kept at a lower temperature.  In one section of the pool, at certain times the water jets kept a strong current running around in a circle that was  hard to swim back out of.  Pretty cool.  And the slide was awesome too 🙂

When we all got back from the pool, it wasn’t long before it was time for our next social commitment.  We were invited to go over to Barni & Silvia’s house in Sindersdorf for Brotzeit and drinks.  Anneliese picked up Stefan & Annerose and then drove us the two blocks over to their house since it was raining.

Silvia brought out lots of Brotzeit-type meats for us to spread on the many different breads, rolls, and pretzels.

Cheers! (Prost!)

We had a great time (as usual) and said our sad goodbye’s and ‘see-ya-laters’.  Thanks for the hospitality Barni & Silvia!  We hope you can visit us again in the states sometime soon.  🙂

On Tuesday (5 Jan), we started out the morning by finishing up the attic clean-out that I described in my last post.  We made quick work out of the rest of the attic work and got cleaned up so we could keep our commitment to meet Stilla’s brother Ludwig and his wife Christa for lunch in Hilpoltstein.

We borrowed WIlliam’s car to meet Ludwig & Christa at their motorcycle dealership, Rothsee-Choppers.  Then we followed them to a super-nice Greek restaurant in Hilpoltstein; Restaurant Delphi.

Another great greek meal.  They just don’t have comparable restaurants in the states, at least none that we’ve found out about yet.

You may recall Ludwig from one of my previous posts (HERE).  We had a great meal and great conversation, hopefully we talked Ludwig & Christa into taking a trip to the states soon for a visit… we’ve tried to get them to visit for years 🙂  Thanks for the great lunch Ludwig & Christa!

On the way back home to Sindersdorf, we had some free time, so we stopped in the village of Mindorf to visit Stilla’s Uncle Michael.  He passed away last year and we were unable to make it back here for the funeral.

The Kirche (church) in Mindorf was built in 1400.

Uncle Michael visited us in Colorado Springs back in the late ’90s.  I think it was the first time he traveled anywhere.  Rest in Peace Onkel Michael.

On the way back to Sindersdorf, we decided to stop by the RV dealership that I mentioned in an earlier post.  This dealership just opened here in 2014 on the Autobahn 9 exit to Sindersdorf / Hilpoltstein.

I thought it would be neat to check out some of the German RV’s and accessories but it turns out that this dealership only has used motorhomes, no accessories in the building, and all the rigs were locked up.

Here’s their website: www.wohnmobilparadies.com.

We were able to wander around the lot.  Here’s a few pictures of what used motorhomes look like in Germany for my RV friends:

Most of the rigs are what we’d call Class C or B in the states.  As I’m sure you can imagine, the RVs here have to be small in order to maneuver on most of the European roads.  Although, it never ceases to amaze me how the big passenger buses get around.

It would sure be great to have the Urban Escape Vehicle over here, but I’m afraid we’d probably get stuck trying to get around the first traffic circle we’d come to.  And you can forget trying to pull a ‘towed vehicle’ here, the polizei would probably pull you over in the first couple kilometers 🙂  I get a lot of questions from our German friends here about how we tow the Silverado… it’s completely foreign and unknown to them.

A box truck conversion.

Here’s an ‘almost’ Class A from Hymer® with a golden gate bridge motif.

Now, here’s an unusual one (below).  I think the car is an Opel Kadett.  I couldn’t tell if the camper was permanently attached or not.  I wonder how they got this one through the stringent German annual vehicle inspections (TÜV).

I had to wonder if this one was a 4X4, if so, that would be pretty neat.

Here’s a decent sized Class C.  It even has a double axle.  Do we have those in the states?

There was even a Winnebago Brave® hiding in the back.  I wonder if someone imported this from the states because as far as I can tell, there’s no market for new U.S. model sales here.

There was one relatively new model Class C on the lot (below).  It had a SOLD sign on it.  It looked pretty nice.

An older Mercedes Sprinter® model conversion.

This one just looks odd to me… it’s hard to see in the picture but the steering wheel was about 4-5 feet back from the windshield.

Mini Class A’s ?

Hope you enjoyed the tour… I wish we could have checked out a couple of them a little closer, but as I mentioned before, they were all locked up.

In the evening, we were invited to attend the annual Volunteer Fire Department (Freiwillige Feuerwehr) party which was held at Stilla’s uncle’s Gasthaus.  You may recall that this is the Gasthaus where we also had Opa’s big birthday party.  Sindersdorfer Hof.

Once again… good food and good times…

A lot of the usual crowd were in attendance; William, Rita, Xaver, Werner, Wolfgang, etc.,

The former Captain for the Volunteer Fire Department (FFW) got the evening started by saying a few words and telling a few jokes.

Everyone bought tickets for the evening’s raffle.  Each ticket cost 50 Euro cents.  Stilla and Wolfgang bought 20 tickets each.  William, and I each bought ten tickets.

William did it the smart way and wrote down our numbers for easy reference when the numbers are called.

The prizes were stacked on the tables at the end of the room.  All the prizes were donated by local businesses.

The children showed off their musical skills and played some tunes for us.

After everyone had eaten their meals and listened to the children’s musical composition(s), numbers were called for the raffle.

As raffle numbers were pulled and called off by the ‘Activities Director’, the children would run a random prize over to each winner as they yelled out or raised a hand.

Stilla and I each won about four prizes.  William didn’t win anything until the very end.  Stay tuned to find out what he won…

Wolfgang won a baseball cap and wall clock.  Yoo Hoo 🙂

The raffle went on for quite a while until all the prizes were handed out.

Someone even won a house plant.

I didn’t win this cap (below) but it was given to me by our neighbor and friend.  Thanks Claudia!

Nice cap… but if I need to wear this, I’m probably too far north in the Urban Escape Vehicle.

We packed all our winnings into the gym bag that we won.  Actually, everything will be left here for William anyway… maybe I’ll keep the gloves for the times we hook up the Silverado behind the Coach.

And the last ticket called for the night William’s.  He hadn’t won a thing all night until the last number was called.  The big prize for the evening was the town’s May Pole (Maibaum)!  He got a symbolic branch as his gift until he picks up the May Pole.

For those of you that don’t know about a May Pole (Maibaum) here’s a link for more information.  Basically, it’s a german tradition (for the 1st of May celebration) for the townsfolk to go out and cut down a long straight tree.  It’s transported back to town with much fanfare and liquid refreshment.  The pole is trimmed, and decorated with rings of branches and design are often cut into the bark.  Then the town has a May Pole ‘putting up’ party where the pole is lifted into the air and then another big party is held (usually all night long) in order to guard the tree.  Another tradition is for people from one town to try to cut down another’s pole if it is left unguarded.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend many of these events when I was here over the years’ past.

Here’s some pictures (below) that I borrowed from William of the Maibaum being put up on the 1st of May 2015.  He was here to help put it up.

Basically, the May Pole is only good for firewood now.  It’s already been taken down and cut into logs.  So really, what William won was a bunch of firewood.  It’s probably worth about a hundred Euros ($100) in just firewood.

After the raffle event was finished, Stilla went from table to table visiting with old friends and neighbors… we only have a few more days before we head back home.

And that’s all for now folks.  Stay tuned…

I’m way behind again on my posts.  We’ve been on a busy schedule ever since the New Year began with lots of commitments to keep and people to visit.  Stilla has something scheduled for us almost every day with family and/or friends.  So, here we go, I’ll try to bring the blog a little more up to date:

Friday was a do-nothing kind of day… We just hung out around the house and took it easy after the New Year’s celebration(s).  A good number of relatives and friends that didn’t get a chance to stop by on New Year’s eve, did so today, in order to wish Opa a Happy New Year and/or Stilla a happy belated birthday.  We closed out the evening with some pretty darn good ‘take-out’ pizzas that William picked up.

On Saturday, we borrowed William’s car and drove to Weiden for the weekend to visit some old friends from Colorado.

We took Bundestrasse 299 almost all the way… a route I became very familiar with during my time with the Army here because it’s the most direct route from the house to the major Army training areas (Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels), and the 1-1 CAV’s border camp in Weiden (Camp Pitman).

Stilla snapped pictures along the route:

We finally arrived at Eddy & Sonja’s house sometime in the early afternoon.

Eddy & Sonja are good friends that we came to know while living in Colorado Springs.  Eddy was in the Army stationed at Ft. Carson and Sonja was good friends with Stilla through her group of German friends.

I dug up this old photo (below) of Eddy & Sonja from 2011 when they went camping with us.  We had a lot of fun riding around in the Colorado mountains on the quads.  Here they are on our Can-Am ATV.

After we got our hugs and hello’s out of the way… we jumped into their car for a trip onto the Grafenwoehr Training Area where Eddy now works.  He is stationed with one of the units here.

We got through the security gate (below) and onto the Grafenwoehr Training Area (GTA) with no problems, unlike our earlier experience in Katterbach last week.

We drove around the main post area and did some sightseeing.  It was fun seeing some of the old sights again.  Here’s some pics that might be familiar to a few of my old Army buddies that read the blog:

GTA has grown tremendously from the time I was last here back in 2003 or so.  Many units have transferred here from the various Kasernes (bases) that have closed down elsewhere around Germany.

We ended up at the new Post Exchange (PX).  They have a huge building here now that combines both the PX and Commissary.  I heard it’s now considered the largest one in Germany.

After Stilla did a little shopping at the PX/Commissary, we drove through a couple of the old troop training barracks areas;  Camp Aachen and Camp Algiers.

It started to get dark as we finished our little tour.  It was another nice trip down memory lane for me.

We drove back to downtown Weiden to a nice local restaurant that our friends knew about.  We parked and walked into the main downtown market area/pedestrian zone.

We enjoyed a superb Italian-style dinner with Sonja & Eddy.

We walked around and explored the scenic fußgänger (pedestrian) zone after dinner.

Pig and chicken sculptures were situated in the square.

We found a nice coffee shop while walking around and enjoyed some espressos.

After our enjoyable evening in scenic downtown Weiden, we spent the night in Eddy & Sonja’s guest room.  Government-leased housing has sure come a long ways since my day… their house has 4-levels, heated floors, 110V & 220V outlets, and a garage!

In the morning, Sonja made us a nice continental-style breakfast.

And we also woke up to our first snowfall since we got to Germany on the 4th of December.

I had to sweep the snow off William’s car before we headed back to Sindersdorf.  Haven’t had to do that in a long time 🙂

It was great seeing Sonja & Eddy again 🙂 Thanks for the hospitality!  We said our sad goodbye’s and headed on back to the house.

Before we left the town of Weiden, we drove around a bit and tried to find the old 1-1 CAV border camp (Camp Pitman) with no luck.  Camp Pitman is where we used to spend a month at a time (every few months) each troop (company) took turns guarding the border between Czechoslovakia and West Germany during the Cold War.  Things (landmarks) had just changed too much over the years.  The Germans probably tore everything down and built something new in  its place so it was unrecognizable to me.

We took the same route back on Sunday, but this time, instead of dry roads and green fields; we had slushy roads and snow-covered scenery.

We made it back safely and just hung out at the house for the rest of Sunday evening.

Next update coming soon… we worked at the house on Monday and went to another birthday party.  On Tuesday we finally made it over to the used German RV dealership; check back for another exciting blog update 🙂

In other news:  We got an update from my Mom in Casa Grande, AZ on our little dog.  She says ‘Coach’ had to spend the night at the vet, but he’s back home now and eating on his own.

Happy Birthday to my lovely wife Stilla!  And a Happy New Year to all!

It’s now our 28th day in Germany and it still hasn’t snowed.  It did rain a little in the morning and it got cold enough for Opa to fire up the kitchen wood stove.

Stilla was up early and getting all things ready for the steady stream of well-wishers that will be by to congratulate her today.  German tradition dictates that family and friends stop by for a handshake, hug, coffee or bier, and cake on someone’s birthday.  🙂

Stilla had some fine looking desserts set out.  I think Annerose helped out with this one.

All day long, family members and friends came and went… most just came though 🙂  What a good day for Stilla!  Luv U babe!

For a while, it was standing room only in the hallway for some 🙂

Stilla’s brother Ludwig showed off his (new to him) Jaguar.  I got a test ride while we picked up our son William from the next village over where he was hanging out with the younger crowd taking part in pre-new years eve activities.  Nice ride 🙂

By 7PM or so, we finally cleared the house and headed over to the Gasthaus in Meckenhausen.  Most of the family (and friends) decided to bring in the New Year at the local Gasthaus Bei ‘Staffi’ or “Stafros” that I wrote about in THIS post.

The evening meal started off with some Greek-style appetizers.  Various cream cheese-like spreads on bread, breaded goat cheese, a filled (with something) biscuit and a meatball.  It almost looks like a dessert, but trust me it wasn’t.  Yumm.

For the main course, the guests formed a line through the kitchen to choose from; Gyros, Schweinehaxe, Kalamari Rings, Tzatziki, Reis, Pommes, etc.,

Man, I have to go on a a diet after this trip 🙂

For my American readers: As in all German restaurants/gasthauses, the waiters and waitresses keep track of everyone’s drinks by writing the amounts on your beer card.  So don’t lose your beer card! – and that’s my German tip for the day 🙂

After dinner aperitifs; Ouzo.  I was the designated driver for the evening so I didn’t get to partake.

Some of the younger guests started comparing and trading some of their fireworks before the big finale.

There was plenty of practice fireworks going off outside in the street throughout the evening.

And finally, the clock creeped closer and closer to midnight…

The fireworks were all lined up in the street:

The crowd got larger and larger as folks came out from the gasthaus and nearby homes…

And a loud and colorful Happy New Year !!

Even way down the street, a second fireworks show was going on…

And a third show was going on up the street…

The aftermath… at least things got swept up quickly.

Unfortunately, we had one casualty in the evening.  And it wasn’t even one of the kids.  Someone, who shall remain anonymous, didn’t think a firecracker was lit when it was…. and well, you know how that ends.

He’ll be alright, but sustained injuries to his hand and face.  It’s a shame that anyone got hurt, but I guess its inevitable with so many fireworks and so many people.  We wish him a speedy recovery.

It was probably 45 minutes worth of fireworks show in the streets.  Then most gathered again in the gasthaus for a nightcap.

The Gulaschsuppe was right on time after all the fireworks were over.

After a fun-filled evening at the gasthaus, some of us went over to Stefan & Anneroses’ house to check on the younger crowd that had taken over the garage.  they even put an E-Z-Up tent in front of the garage door to keep the warmth inside.  Good idea.

The kids were doing fine… but I needed to get to bed, this designated driver stuff is hard 🙂

Annerose’s chalkboard again:

We probably made it safely back home by 2 or 3 AM… who can remember?

Ich wünsche Ihnen, liebe Leserinnen und Leser, einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr und ein glückliches, gesundes und erfolgreiches Jahr 2016!

Bis bald…

In other news: We just heard from my Mom that little ‘Coach’ may have eaten something that didn’t agree with him back at the “dirt farm”.  Had to take him in to the vet… will know more tomorrow.  Hope he’s all right 🙁

Authors note:  I was tempted to not even publish this post because it’s kind of boring, but thought my American friends and family might find shopping in Germany to be interesting.  Sorry (my German friends & family) if you’re bored – you can skip this one 🙂

Not a whole lot happening here on Tuesday.  We just did a little grocery shopping to get ready for the New Year celebrations and Stilla’s birthday.  Her birthday is on the 31st of December and everyone celebrates with fireworks 🙂

We drove to nearby Freystadt with our son William and stopped first at the German equivalent of a Dollar Store®.

Do we have arrow-shaped sponges in America?

How about round sponges on a stick?

I wonder if customs will let us bring back this giant-sized doggie sausage back with us for little ‘Coach’?

This one (below) is for my cousin Phil… bet he’d like to play with this.

Dollar (er… Euro) wall art.

How about some Star Wars theme party plates, napkins, etc., ?

We checked out at this German version of a Dollar Store® and then drove over to a grocery store called LiDL®.

Now here’s a concept we need to institute in the states… shopping carts that require a 50 Euro Cent piece to be placed in the handle to release a lock.  You get your coin back when you put the cart back and connect to another cart.  Cool… no more dings in your car door from carts left in the parking lot, and probably not as many stolen carts being driven around town by bag ladies and bums 🙂

Of course, they all require a little extra drivers training (on my part) because the back wheels aren’t locked in the forward position like the ones in the states.  These seem to have a mind of their own.

Baked goodies:

Now, this is interesting…

… put your fresh loaf of bread into the machine, set the thickness, slide the window closed, push the start button, and voila!  It slices your loaf in seconds.

But you still have to bag it yourself… guess you can’t have everything 🙂

You won’t find milk in the refrigerator here.  Only on the shelves.

And the grocery stores here have well-stocked liquor aisles.

And lots of fireworks for the upcoming new year celebrations:

Anybody know what a Litschi is?

Me either… but you can buy them here (below).

Most (if not all) stores in Germany, do not provide grocery bags when checking out.  If you want a grocery bag, you’ll have to bring your own or pay a fee for a fabric / cloth-type bag.  This store puts it’s empty cardboard boxes near the register in a large wire basket for customers to use (below).  That helps the store get rid of their cardboard while at the same time – helps the customers that forgot to bring their own shopping bag(s).

Loading the cart.

Loading the car.

Next, we stopped off at the Getränkemarkt (Drink Store).

Anyone want a beer (bier)?

You can even get a Corona® here.

How about a nice mini-keg?

If you buy this six-pack (below) you get a free trash can 🙂

Beer lovers paradise:

Nice varied assortment of holiday biers, only 9 Oreos (er, Euros) 🙂

ChristkindlesMarkt Glühwein in a bottle… in case you don’t want to go to a Christmas market.

Original Budweiser® from the Czech Republic.

Even my favorite – Pyraser Bier®, next to the other local biers; Spalter®, Tucher®, and Winkler Bräu®.

This is a ready-mixed beer and limo (below), called a Radler, it’s kind of like beer and Sprite… pretty popular over here for those times you want a refreshing drink without getting tipsy on the high alcohol content of German bier.

And this is a ready-mix Hefeweizen bier with Cola.  Also popular here.

Checkout counter at the Getränkemarkt (Drink Store).

Our final grocery store stop for the day was at Edeka®.  We went to multiple grocery stores because the last one didn’t have a particular item that Stilla needed to get for Opa.

Bakery at the entrance to the Edeka® grocery store.  Tempting eh?

The frozen foods aisle(s).

Impulse buy… frozen thin-crust pizza.  Yummm.

The yogurt aisle.

The soup aisle.

William decided to stock up on some soup.

The cookie aisle.

The chip aisle.

The alcohol aisle.

And the chocolate aisle.

Darn it… we didn’t get out of here without getting another cart load of groceries 😉

Hope you weren’t too bored with the shopping trip.  Check back for my next post on my old Army barracks in Schwabach.  We did a day trip yesterday (Wednesday) to a museum at O’Brien Barracks and also drove by Katterbach Army Air Field – both were places I was stationed at with the U.S Army for many years.  O’Brien Barracks was turned back over to the Germans in ’92 I believe, but Katterbach is still going strong.