Our winter break started out nice and quiet. Grandma and Grandpa Craft came to Baku to visit us and Santa came as well! But on December 31st, 2015 all that changed! It will be a New Year's Eve I will NEVER forget and hope to never repeat!
It all started with a way too early wake up call at 3am to catch our 7am flight to Istanbul and then to Munich. When we got to the Baku airport our flight was delayed 2 hours. So Grandma and Grandpa got on their plane to head to Paris and then back to the states and we continued to wait in a very small airport with not much to do at all. When we finally took off we got settled in for what we hoped was a quick layover in Istanbul before getting to our final destination. But that was not in the works.
While we were flying, it was snowing in Istanbul which apparently is not a common occurrence. As the flight started to descend we did our usual.....helping the kids pop their ears, looking out the window....and just as we should have landed....the plane shot straight upward and took off again! It scared the daylights out of me. I looked at Barry and of course he was calm and collected as ever. I said has that ever happened to you and what exactly just happened? He ever so calmly said "oh it was just a missed approach". You see after knowing me since age 14, he knows he has to stay calm or I will lose it. Of course after landing he admitted that has never happened to him before...His calm demeanor did not stop me from praying to God for a safe 2nd approach. Tyler saw me and took my hands and prayed with me and then said ever so sweetly, "mommy it's ok, I'm here and I'll take care of you". Which is of course exactly what I say to him whenever he is upset.
So as I got my bearings in the airport with the help of a glass of wine or two....our flight there was also delayed for 3 hours. We found some lunch and waited in yet another airport for many hours. All this time the kids were so well behaved. They read books, drew pictures, and played with their kindles. I watched an entire movie on my kindle.
Then we FINALLY boarded our plane and waited for take off. It was taking longer than usual. Fast forward to SIX (not that is NOT a typo) hours later......after many passengers yelling in Turkish at the stewardess and even a few deciding to get off the plane.....after several snacks and even free dinner and drinks....... all the while still sitting IN the plane NOT the airport.....we left for Munich.
This flight was much easier....no crazy landings but I was on edge scared of all the events of the day up till this point.
Little did I know....the day was not even close to being over....
We landed in Munich and EVERYONE in the airplane clapped.....for a safe landing and for finally getting to Munich after the 9 hour delay in Istanbul.
So we headed to the baggage claim ready to finally start our vacation and OF COURSE NONE of our bags made it! We headed over to the counter to report our bags missing but seeing as how it was 11pm, no one was available to help us.
We left planning to come back to the airport the next day and look for our luggage ourselves as well as fill out the necessary paperwork.
We headed to the subway to find our hotel and got on. It was a 40 minute ride to the hotel and we were half asleep when we were told we had to get off the train one stop early as there was a terrorist threat at the next stop.
So we hiked it an extra few blocks to our hotel. At this point it was now 11:55pm and almost the middle of the night on new year's eve. In many European countries they celebrate new year's eve similar to the way we celebrate the 4th of July, with MILLIONS of fireworks! I am pretty sure the entire city was out on the streets with us, as we passed many drunk people, many champagne bottles on the ground, and worst of all the fireworks were literally being lit in the streets we were walking on as we made our way towards our hotel. I was scared to death we were going to get hit by a firework or the sparks. The kids were screaming from the loud noise and being told of a terrorist threat just prior to this had my nerves on edge.
We made it to our hotel at exactly 12:05. No Happy New Year's kiss here as we were running towards the hotel crying in fear of getting in the way of the fireworks or worse.
We checked in, and they actually had 2 small mini bottles of champagne for us and 2 small bottles of apple juice for the kids. We toasted a job well done for all of us and hit the hay until the next morning.
Once we made it past new year's eve we enjoyed our trip quite a bit. We spent 3 days in Munich shopping for new clothes and bathroom supplies, eating delicious food, drinking a lot of gluwein, and taking in the sights. Munich is a beautiful town and we enjoyed it a lot. We went back to the airport after our 3 days were up in Munich to rent a car to drive to Garmish and it was there that Barry found at least his suitcase but not the kids or mine. So we headed to Garmish with one new outfit each.
We arrived at a beautiful resort called Eidleweiss. It is an American military resort. It has a pool, 3 restaurants, and a few stores as well plus a massage parlour/salon.
We had a great room with 2 bathrooms, 2 large beds, and a pull out couch so the kids could have their own beds which thrilled them immensely.
The first day we took a bus tour with many other American military families to the famous Neuschwanstein castle that King Ludwig built. The bus stopped first at a really neat wood carving shop where everything was hand made and quite expensive. Then we stopped at a church that had a wood carved statue that cried real tears back in the day. Then we made it to the castle and heard all about the king and his love for swans seen thorough out the castle. We ended the day at a brewery with some great lunch.
The next day we took the kids skiing for the first time ever. It did NOT go well. There is quite a hike in your ski boots from the ski rental place to the ski lift. The kids hurt their shins and feet walking so far in the boots and had no motivation what so ever to ski. Grace kept falling down and crying and Ty just sat in one spot and wouldn't move. We got them to the kid section after about an hour of pulling them with our own ski poles. There was a neat escalator thing that took them up a bunny hill. Barry had Ty hold his ski poles and went down with him. I stood at the top and told Grace to watch the others before going down. I showed her to make a pizza slice with your skis to slow down but not to cross the x. She got it and easily went down twice! Ty never made it back up after he went down with daddy. He just lay down in the snow, eating it, and waiting to leave.
That was about the extent of our energy and patience for skiing so we left and headed for lunch after that. Grace felt miserable at lunch with a headache so we headed back to the hotel and three of us took a nice long nap. I'm sure you can guess which one of us didn't?
Tyler occupied himself watching all of the videos from the winter concert with his headphones on.
The next day in Garmish we visited a town called Innsbrook. Most of the things there were closed but we found some good food and cool sights.
On the last two days we visited a town in Vienna so Barry could see the Eagles nest but it was closed as with snow there it was unsafe to travel on it.
BTW.....I almost forgot......actually I did forget and a wonderful friend reminded me.....we DID get our luggage back.....the VERY morning we were due to check out of our Edelweiss resort..... the phone rang in our hotel room and it was Turkish Airlines at the Munich airport, they found our bags and were wondering if they could drop them off at our hotel in Munich. We were headed back to Munich the night before our flight headed back to Baku and checked into a novotel. While the kids and I relaxed, daddy headed back to the airport to return the rental car and picked up our long lost bags.....we weren't taking any chances on them delivering them and losing them again.....The hard part was having to give 5 instead of our original 3 bags back to them the very next day and hope they made it back with us to Baku. But they did, so we got some new clothes out of the ordeal!
Here are some pics from our crazy but fun trip!
 |
| Daddy enjoying his gluwein in Munich |
In front of the gluwein shop in Munich. In front of this shop they had ice-skating but our ski pants were in the missing luggage so we couldn't do it.
 |
| Daddy and Grace at one of the many wonderful German restaurants we visited. We loved that they have lunchmeat and cheese for breakfast and we are already missing the schnitzel and pancake soup, spaetzle, and red cabbage..... |
Here is the ice-skating rink in front of the gluwein shop.
 |
| A cool statue in Munich. |
 |
| It's hard to tell but this is the famous church with the wooden statues that come in and out and go around in a circle. |
 |
| Tyler in Munich telling me he is posing like a teenager. Why? Who knows..... |
 |
| This statue was in the spirit with his santa hat! |
 |
Having a beer at the most famous pub in Munich. I don't like beer but this one was good.
I drank about half of it and then ordered wine. |
Grace had apple juice at the famous pub.
 |
| This was the view from the cool wood carving shop we stopped at. |
 |
| The statue of Jesus that cried. |
 |
| This was the mural at the top of that church. I loved the rainbow in it. |
 |
| This is the name of that cool church. |
 |
| One Ludwig's other castles close to the one we visited. |
 |
| Daddy and Grace walking up to the castle. |
 |
| The castle from the walkway. |
 |
| An amazing bridge and waterfall just below it. |
 |
| Waiting for our castle tour to start. |
 |
| Daddy waiting for the castle tour to start. |
 |
| They had gluwein for the walk down from the castle! |
 |
| My castle goers. |
 |
| We found this old phone booth just outside the brewery on our way back to the bus and couldn't resist pretending to call someone. |
 |
| Tyler's turn. |
 |
| Time to ski, got our boots and skis mom. |
 |
| Ty didn't mind skiing if he could have my poles. |
 |
| But he preferred to lay in the snow and eat it. |
 |
| Grace on the cool ski escalator thing. |
 |
| Grace is skiing! Look at the back for a girl in a black coat in front of daddy. |
 |
| That is my girl half way down the bunny hill. |
 |
| She made it down. And didn't fall. |
 |
| Tyler and Grace after taking their ski boots off. Exhausted. |
 |
| The view of the mountains from our resort. |
 |
| A really cool house with Little Red Riding Hood paintings on it. |
 |
| Little Red Riding Hood house. |
 |
| The town the little red riding hood house was in. |
 |
| Did it mention this was our ski lift to the bunny hill? |
 |
| Just read the name of this restaurant out loud to yourself. It had great food. Then name was misleading. |
 |
| A cute building in Garmish. |
 |
| Grace liked this santa bear there. |
 |
| The streets of Garmish. |
 |
| Another cool building in Garmish. |
 |
| Grace saw a westie that reminded us all of Max. |
No comments:
Post a Comment