Day 3: Romantic road to Munich, Germany

Friday, July 12, 2013

Today's highlights:

    -small town of Dinkelsbuhl 

    -Dachau Concentration Camp

    -Meeting up with Dick and Brenda, Robbie's aunt & uncle

    -Dinner with the Miles' and a Romanian friend!

Today has been such a whirlwind, we never even had time to eat lunch! And this is us! Biggest food-lovers of all time! Luckily we had a HUGE, delish German breakfast at our castle like the royalty we are. Seriously just what we needed to get a good start. We did a lot of driving, and it was mostly on the autobahn which was AWESOME because we totes went 180 km/hour and it's legal! (180 km sounds cooler than its equivalent in miles, but it's still pretty dang fast).

We were thinking of going back to our dear town of Rothenburg to see the Medieval  Crime and Punishment Museum, which I think would have been crazy and also super interesting, but in the end we realized that we wouldn't have much time bc we woke up so late (thanks to that 3am adventure). So instead, we hit the road toward Dinkelsbuhl, next stop on the Romantic Road. This place was adorable (again) and I wanted to take a picture every five seconds (again). I also almost bought lederhosen and a dress for our future children to play dress-ups in one day, but Robbie talked me down, much to my dismay.

 We were super bummed to realize though that the BIGGEST FESTIVAL OF THE YEAR in Dinkelsbuhl is happening one day too late. Every year the city puts on what is called the "Kinderzeche," which is a big festival that commemorates an event during the Thirty Year's War. Apparently, in 1632 the Swiss were invading and many German cities had already been desolated by their troops. They had surrounded the town of Dinkelsbuhl for several weeks and the people were terrified of what would happen to their beloved city. So the story goes that a group of children from the town decided to approach the Colonel of the Swiss army and beg him to spare their city. The Colonel was so moved by their courage and purity (and was also mourning the death if his own son) that he decided to show mercy and the town was saved. So this festival commemorates those children and their bravery. There is a big parade with kids all dressed up in period clothing AND a re-enactment of the event. What?! So cute and such a cool story! Too bad it all starts....tomorrow. Anyhoo, it was still a beautiful city. 

Then we hit the road again in our swagger wagon. We had to skip the last town we'd planned to see, for lack of time (it goes by so fast here!) so that we could make it to a more important place by five. Dachau Concentration Camp. 

I've learned a lot about the camps and the Holocaust through college and I've taught it in my classroom. But it is a completely different feeling to stand where it happened. One thing that really surprised both of us was how huge it was. There were just rows and rows of foundations where the barracks used to be. It was one of the first camps built (in 1933, well before the war started in 1939) and was actually one of the largest camps for the first few years of the war. It was intended to hold 6,000 prisoners, but when it was liberated in 1945, it was holding 32,000.

For me, one of the most overpowering parts was walking through the gate, into what they call the "Roll Call" area. First of all, the gate says, "Arbeit Macht Frei," which basically means "Work Makes You Free." From the start they wanted prisoners to believe that submissiveness and obedience was their only chance of survival here. Then they enter a huge dirt yard for roll call. This is the first place prisoners see when they step inside the camp, and all I could think about standing there was how confused and scared they must have been while standing on that very spot. Not having any idea what was to come.

Something I found really interesting was how much trouble the Nazis went to to make the camp "seem pleasant" to the public. Their propaganda was insane. They had huge heating systems installed (very advanced for that time) just for show. They never actually used them for prisoners. They also had the prisoners dig a big "swimming pool" to show the public that the camp encouraged sport and fitness. But in reality, it was a nasty pond that no one could touch for fear of disease. So much effort spent on trying to "look" generous, instead of actually being generous. Dark times.

But the camp also showed cool moments of bravery and spirit. It told the story of one man from Luxembourg named Albert Theis who served in the military there, and when it was taken over by Germany he was forced to join the German police force. He and several others refused, so some were killed and others sent to camps. He made it to Dachau, where every year the officers would try to make him swear allegiance to Hitler by any means necessary. The story read, "They refused the oath up to the very end." Wow. That is an incredible spirit. He survived the camp and lived a very long life.

So the camp visit was sobering, of course, but so powerful. We left with such a feeling of respect and reverence.

After the camp, we finally made it to Munich where we had to drop off our rental car (which turned out to be a nightmare trying to find the place) and then we saw some familiar faces!

Robbie's aunt and uncle, Brenda and Dick Miles, are serving as mission presidents in the Alpine German-speaking mission, which basically just means they get the most beautiful parts of four of the most beautiful countries in the world. Paradise. They live in Munich, Germany and are letting us stay with them for two days, because mission presidents and mission moms don't have anything better to do with their time, right? Haha, they are some of the most genuine, kind people I've ever met, and totally made room in their crazy, busy schedule to spend some time with us while we are here. So they came to pick us up from the car rental place and brought with them a surprise! A woman Robbie taught in Romania now lives in Munich and is good friends with the Miles' so she came with them, total surprise to us! It was so fun. Robbie was so excited. I had never met her but we became quick friends and chatted all night. (Chatted IN ROMANIAN! I haven't completely forgotten everything! Yay!)

The five of us went to dinner at this outdoor restaurant by the river and it was beautiful and (of course) SO delicious. I had real German schnitzel and Rob had some pork knuckle and sauerkraut. We're gettin our bucket list of the only German foods we have ever heard of knocked out one by one. The real winner of the night though was dessert. I think it's called Kaiserschmarn? Basically, it's pieces of lightly fried French toast dipped in sugar and cinnamon, with sliced plums mixed in and apple sauce on top. Holy crap. It was SO good! Fo sho  gonna be recreating that when we come home. 

It was so good to catch up with Svetlana (Romanian) and hang out with Dick and Brenda. What a fun couple to have as mission presidents! I would have loved them as a missionary. Exhausted, we finally turned in for the night and Robbie got to sleep in a full-size bed. Like a big boy. 

Day 2: Driving the Romantic Road in Germany

Thursday, July 11, 2013:

Highlights of the day:

   What is the Romantic Road?

   Car rental: boom shakalaka

   Quick stop in Wurzburg

   My FAVORITE CITY: Rothenburg

   Sleeping in a freaking castle

   Robbie's sleep walks and talks, round 2

I might have figured out a way to get pics from my camera to here. It takes a long time and only works sometimes, so when I can do it, I'm only gonna add in a few for each post, but hopefully that'll help you see a glimpse of this amazing stuff!

First off, today was awesome because we got to rent a CAR! Do you know what that means? NO BACKPACKS! (Don't be scared for me. I realize that I'm two days in to a 45-day trip, through most of which I will be carrying that backpack. But hey, if I have a chance to put it down for a minute, I'm gonna!) But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

We checked out and took off to find our car rental place. (Sidenote, we are renting a car only until tomorrow because we are traveling the Romantic Road, a fancy name for the route between Frankfurt and Munich. It's "romantic" because it is dotted with really cute little Medieval villages that have beautiful, well-preserved buildings and cobblestone streets. So we decided to drive instead of train so we could stop wherever we wanted to. We ended up only hitting two towns this day and one tomorrow, so there are so many more we completely missed. But I think we hit the best ones :) side note finished).

Anyway, as we made our way to the car rental place, we felt so European stopping at the little bakery and buying little breads for breakfast as we walked. We felt even more European when we got lost and Robbie had his first All-German conversation to ask for directions! Woot woot! What a babe.

So funny thing about the car. We finally get there expecting something in decent shape but kinda ghetto.  Much to our surprise (and delight) we cruised out of town in an Audi S4. Boo yeah! We tried to act super cool, like we drive cars worth more than our annual income all the time, but our cover was blown when we couldn't even figure out how to start the car. Technology these days, I tell ya. Robbie refused to let me ask the employee (its a guy thing I guess) so eventually we figured it out and hit the Romantic Road.  

First stop: Wurzburg! This place is known for two things: its palace and its beer. Obviously we could only do one of those, but we figured hey, we'll see other palaces, right? Ha, psych. Our afternoon at the palace was beautiful. Apparently this is called the Versailles of Bavaria (this region of Germany), so it's pretty impressive. 

Also in Wurzburg we had our first picnic, and it was delicious! And under 5 euro! That's a steal. And since we are poor there will be many more of those to come.

Next stop: Rothenburg! 
This is my favorite place so far on this trip and might end up being my favorite place in Germany period. Picture a stone city wall filled with bright, colorful buildings with bright shutters and flower pots outside every single window and cobblestone roads connecting each home. Oh man, that seriously doesn't even do it justice. It is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. We walked and walked (poor Robbie and his bum knee) all around and I was in heaven the whole time. 

We also decided to try this local dessert called Schneeballen. They were seriously in EVERY bakery window. They seemed fun, like little balls of shortbread and chocolate. Turns out they are not fun. Not fun at all. Yucky.

Before:

After:

Then we decided to splurge for dinner and had one of the most DELICIOUS meals I have had in my life. I might say that a lot on this trip, but seriously. I like food. We had Spätzle with noodles!  Basically pork steak in this amazing mushroom gravy sauce with homemade noodles. Ah, it's making my mouth water just thinking about it.  First real German full meal and worth every penny!

Finally after watching the sunset from the city wall, we headed to our sleeping quarters for the night, in a CASTLE! Whaaaaa? It was SO awesome! Well, mostly. When we got there our jaws dropped with how beautiful it was. Everything we saw made us love it even more, up the road, into the dark castle, up the old, creaky stairs, down the narrow hall, into our room, and then our wonder was a little overcome by worry. It turns out that when you book the "historic" room, they assume you want a bed made for midgets. I was okay, but poor Rob was way too tall for this beautiful, but extremely short canopy bed. We couldn't change bc they were booked so he had to sleep the night in the fetal position. Haha, whoops. My bad. The uncomfortable position may have contributed to tonight's round of sleep-walking and sleep-talking. However, this time he wasn't alone.

At around 3am (again), Robbie started dreaming that our castle had secret passageways and tunnels where little German children would hide and sneak into people's rooms to steal their money. He literally got out of bed and checked the back of the closet to make sure there was no secret entrance. He also started counting our money to make sure they hadn't come while he was sleeping. Haha, oh man. So then he couldn't go back to sleep and happened to be awake when I (yes, Angie, the sane one) started talking in my sleep! What?! This marriage is doing crazy things to my brain. 

So here's the story from Robbie's perspective. So Angie started mumbling incoherently, and then the first words I could understand out of her mouth were "I sleep during the day...I fly during the night..." At this point I thought she was possessed, until I heard the next line; "And sometimes they poop." That's when I knew that this was just Angie talking. I couldn't help but laugh out loud, which woke Angie up. As she woke up she realized what she had said and started laughing herself! We laughed for the next 5 minutes while laying in that midget bed at 3:00 am. Apparently, Angie had been dreaming that her friend April's little boy kept eating bat droppings. So she was trying to make bats sound really scary and disgusting so that Simon would stop eating their poop. So she was actually saying, "They sleep during the day... They fly during the night... And sometimes they poop." It was hilarious. And now I'm handing the reins back to Angie.

So that was our second day in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen for now! Tomorrow, finish the Romantic Road to Munich!

Day 1: Frankfurt, Germany

July 10, 2013: 

We arrived! We are officially in Europe! I (Angie) promised some peeps I would try to blog as we go as much as I can, and I will! But before I do, two things:

   #1- I will be the first to admit, I usually don't like reading blogs that have lots of words and little to no pictures (Gaston Syndrome), but since we are taking most of our photos on our real camera I won't be able to post many, just the ones we take on our phones. But I will try to give you a little somethin visual to keep you entertained when I can.

   #2- I might write a lot and maybe you are so excited for that, but maybe you're not because you don't wanna read a lot. So I'll try to give a list of highlights at the start of each post in the order I write them in so you can skip to whatever you actually want to read about. If you read it all, bless you and all your loved ones. 

So here we go! This post on Day 1 covers:

    Arrival

    Impressions

    Frankfurt Temple session

    Interesting sleeping arrangement

    The sleep walks and talks of Robbie, round 1

We got here around 1:00pm so now we are those typical American tourists with humongous backpacks who get flustered every time someone tries to speak to us in German. I look especially ridiculous bc I figured out that if I wear my side purse thing on the front and take if off my arms its way more comfortable. Unfortunately, that makes it look suspiciously like a fanny pack, and we all know THATS a good look. Hello. AMERICAN IN YOUR MIDST! Okay, lets be honest, it's not the fanny pack that's giving me away.

Language-wise, we have learned our first two important German phrases:
"Entshuldigung" = "Excuse me," 
"Vo ist..." = "Where is..." 
They have come in handy lots of times already. I couldn't get used to the first one because its hard to remember, but on the metro I accidentally bumped into an elderly man and it popped out right as he was saying it back to me! I felt so...German :)

So today we spent our first day in Frankfurt exploring and trying to get our bearings. We discovered we love Germans. They are so nice! Today while we were wandering, this young mother with two little girls walked up to us holding out an ice cream bar and speaking German. I'm sure we looked super confused, both wondering if she was trying to swindle us (we read too many scam warnings from Rick Steves I think). So she repeated in English that she bought a box that came with four but she only needed three. Would we like the fourth? What?! It was so nice! And it was blazing hot so it was much appreciated.

So we knew right off the bat what we wanted for lunch. Since we both served our missions in Romania, we became really addicted to these things called kebabs, or meat wrapped in a pita or on a bun with lots of other things. Well it turns out Germans eat them too! But they call them Döners. You better believe that was our first meal in Europe! It was delish and so cheap. 

Since we were planning to sleep in the temple housing that night (and we didn't know what time they stopped receiving people) we decided to make our way there and hit the last session of the day in the temple at 5:00. Of course, we got lost (who's surprised?) so by the time we got there, the cute little lady at the temple was like, "You better run! I'll tell them you're coming!" So she gave us our key, we ran up to our room (more details on that in a minute), changed as fast as we could, ran up to the temple entrance, got hustled through (me by about 6 sweet little German ladies doing everything for me), got our headsets for English translation, and finally made it into the session just in time. Needless to say, I was sweating bullets by the time I finally sat down. I was hiding my face from the woman next to me for about 10 minutes until my face turned a normal shade again and aired out a little bit.The session was beautiful! I've never heard it in another language so sometimes I would turn down my translator just to hear it in German and it was such a neat experience. Robbie was especially touched during the session by a man in a wheelchair. Here's what he says, "As I saw him go through the session assisted by the workers and friends, I was really struck with how amazing the promise of the resurrection is. That he'll have a perfect body. That no one will suffer physically after this life. Everything is made perfect because of Christ and the gospel. It's just really cool." It's so incredible how powerful the temple is. How it puts everything into perspective. How all that is unfair about life can be made right through the atonement (Read that talk from Linda Burton. So good). We just feel so lucky to be a part of it and to have the things we have in our lives because of it. We are so blessed. 

So after the temple session we finally had some time to breathe (and we were major jetlaggin) so we headed back to our room. Or should I say, closet. It turns out, the real rooms were all booked so they had to put us in the service building. We are obviously not picky people (blessed with the ability to fall asleep on command on any surface known to man) so we were fine with it. Plus, it was cheaper! (Win). So when we first went to our room, we weren't sure we were in the right place because the outside of our room looked suspiciously like a utility closet. Well, we were in the right place. Once you stepped inside, you saw two narrow bunk beds against one wall and about a foot of space on the other side to get past them to the window. And the top bunk was super high, about two feet from the ceiling with a legit ladder to get up there. And that was it. That was our closet for our first night. Haha. It was awesome. Definitely not fancy, but had everything we needed so...good enough for Murray!

Now whoever you are reading this. You may or may not know that Robbie sleeptalks and sleepwalks. And he does it the most when he is in a new place. Yes. This trip is gonna be fun. So that night, about 3am, I woke up to Robbie yelling louder than I've ever heard him yell (in sleep or real life) from the top bunk. I had to shout up there several times to ask him if he was okay, which almost made it funnier. It turns out that because his bed was so close to the ceiling, he sincerely thought the roof was caving in on top of us. After that we couldn't go back to sleep for a couple hours so it was a 3am party in our closet :)

All in all, it was a great first day! Tomorrow we start driving the Romantic Road!

Viva Las Airport

So when we bought our plane ticket, it was cheapest to do an 8-hour layover in Vegas. So we thought, "Sweet! We'll get our strip on!" ....I just went back and re-read what i just wrote and it sounds dirty. But you know what I mean....Anyways, we were sadly disappointed when we eagerly arrived at the shuttle station to take what we thought would be a free shuttle to the strip, and were told that it would cost us 28 bones! Boo. 

So besides mapping out how we would survive in this airport if we suddenly became Tom Hanks in "The Terminal," here is how we entertained ourselves in an airport for 900 hours:

Playing with new toys (featuring Robbie and the kindle)

Reading on our new toys. Rob's starting off with an old favorite, Princess Bride. I'm starting with a recommendation from my sis about a female pope. Apparently we will learn loads about Rome. 

Lots of trips to the drinking fountain and, consequently, lots of trips to the bathroom.

All the Egyptian Rat-screw you can wrap your mind around. I made Robbie play until I won. We played a lot.

AIRPORT LUNCH! Last time at Carl's! Seriously though, why does airport lunch taste better than regular lunch? Is it because you pay twice as much? Twice the taste?

Nap, nap-a-rooskies. Man, isn't he cute?

But we are about to board which is crazy exciting!! We are already surrounded by people speaking languages we don't understand. Woot! This is gonna be great!

So farewell from Las Vegas! Next stop: Germany!

Just TWO MORE DAYS!!

This feels unreal! Robbie and I leave on our big trip in less than TWO DAYS! I feel like we've been planning for so long that it doesn't even feel real. 

We are hoping to keep friends and family updated through our blog and I (Angie) just found this neato blogger app that hopefully will help! I just know if I don't record it as I go, I'll never do it after I get back. 

And just to test out the photo part of this app, here's a pic of us at the Oakley rodeo a couple nights ago. Woot woot!! Rob's real excited about this growing-out-his-beard thing. 

Well hopefully our next update will be from the road on our first stop: Viva Las Vegas!

Sunny Arizona

This past weekend we went to Arizona with my family for our annual Spring Training trip. Since big family vacations always seem to be tough to organize with my family (Los Trujillo's), this is the one time of the year we all try to get together. My brother Isaac and his wife Kelsie are the greatest. They live just outside of Mesa and every year they open up their neat, clean house to a whole big group of rambunctious siblings, in-laws, and kids who turn it into a temporary tent city for the weekend.

Our one missing family this year was my sister Marci's family. Being out in Ohio, it was tough for them to make it out. We missed them big time! Hopefully this can help them feel like they were here. 

 We love family and we love baseball. What better things to bring us together?  Robbie is even making the transition into being a baseball fan (or so he tells me. Win.). We try to go see at least one pre-season baseball game down there, and fill the rest of our time with all this good stuff: 

We ran through the sprinklers in 90 degrees. 

We built and demolished more Jenga towers than you could possibly imagine

We played with Aunt Angie's hair. The headache afterward was totally worth it. 

We listened to Grandpa tell his stories around the fire. And Adlee had some serious moral dilemmas between wanting to stay here with Mom and Dad or live up in the stars like the princesses in Grandpa's story. It caused some tears.

We did Crossfit! Saturday night, Isaac talked 6 of us into going out into his garage-made-into-a-crossfit-gym and kicked our butts. Like seriously. Ask Nick. Poor Nick. 

We ate really, really well. As Trujillo's always do. 

We had snuggle time with Grandma.

We played dress up with His Majesty, King Grandpa.
Man, these kids are lucky. 

We created Princess Club!

We let a boy join Princess Club, so Mia had a pretty serious talk with Grady about what exactly his responsibilities were. 

We had pool time with the cousins!

We played with naked babies and bellies. 

We did lots of giggling.

We watched Wonder Woman get into several battles with bad guys and use her secret powers to escape every time. 

"Adlee! Cross your wrists!" Funniest thing. 

We watched the Reds KILL the Diamondbacks 9-0, and we all agreed it was one of the most enjoyable games we'd been to. Perfect weather, food, air conditioning, seats. Robbie is a fan!

We sat in the "All-You-Can-Eat" section. Who even knew that was a thing?!  We got as many hot dogs, chips, peanuts, popcorn, and drinks as our hearts desired. It was the BEST!!! What's a baseball game without an unlimited supply  of questionable meat?

That's the stuff. 

We had an Easter Egg hunt!

Look at the mug on that kid. Just wanna smooch him!

Easter is the best with babies around, they couldn't possibly eat all that candy!

Uncle Robbie and Adlee. Presh.

We watched the boys do an Egg Toss. Nick and Robbie got pretty far, but alas, they did not take the title. 

Beautiful form, what a babe. 

It was a good time all around. I'm always so sad when it has to end. But it was so great being with family, and who knows, maybe we'll even end up down in Arizona this fall. Only time will tell. Until then, goodbye beautiful, sunny, want-to-lay-out-and-swim-all-day-and-never-do-anything-else weather! We'll miss you!

We're back!

Hello everyone!

After a really long hiatus from blogging on my old "single Angie" blog page, I decided to turn this (what started out as our wedding website) into a blog for Robbie and I as a couple/family (though I can almost guarantee the author of both blogs will remain the same). I can't promise there will be a lot of posts, because I stink at keeping up, but I am going to try real hard.

As a quick update on our life, here's where we are.

I (Angie) am still at Westlake High School teaching World History. It's awesome and I love my students. Some days, they drive me crazy, but that's all a part of love, right? Turns out, 9th graders are hilarious and have some funny stories to tell.

Robbie is just finishing up his second-to-last semester at BYU and looking for possible jobs to take after. We are REALLY open to moving out of state (Utah, don't be mad) but we'll go wherever we find the best job. We are hoping right now for somewhere back east or Arizona. Really, we just want an adventure.

Speaking of adventure, this summer after Robbie graduates, we will be going on a BIG adventure that we've been talking about ever since we started dating. We are spending 6 weeks backpacking through Europe from July 9th to August 23rd. We've already bought our plane tickets but have yet to start saving for the actual process of "living" in Europe for 6 whole weeks. But man, what bonds two people together more than scavenging for food in an Italian dumpster? We will be putting to test that whole "livin on love" theory.

So we will continue posting more details as plans progress, but for now, we just wanted to say...."hey."