This week started out with more sickness! On Monday, Brooklyn still wasn’t feeling well from being sick over the weekend, and on Tuesday, Ryan joined her. Apparently, everyone is sick because we weren’t able to get an appointment at Urgent Care until Tuesday, despite calling first thing Monday morning. Both kids ended up missing two days of school, but luckily were able to sort-of keep up with the missed work from home. There is so much schoolwork, it is really hard to get caught up if you miss a day! Brooklyn also got a lot of extra study time in for the SATs on Saturday,
By the end of the week, everyone was feeling better and on Friday night, we finally got to attend Vfb Stuttgart football game! The Stuttgart team has not always been that great. One year, they will be in the minor league and do really well, and move up to the majors. Then, the following year, they do poorly in the majors and get kicked back down to the minors. This has been the pattern since before we moved here. However, I believe they are now in their second year being in the majors, so have become quite popular and tickets are very hard to come by if you aren’t a member. I was able to get these tickets on Stubhub several months ago and the date snuck right up on us this week.
Unfortunately, the game time was moved from 6pm to 8:30pm. This would put us back home way too late for Brooklyn, who needed to be at SATs at 7:45am on Saturday, so she opted out of the game. Upon hearing this, Ryan followed suit and asked to go to a school dance. Once we had a ride secured for him, we invited some friends to take the kids’ two tickets. We will have to try a family trip to the stadium another time.
The weather was beautiful- in the mid 50s, and we were able to enjoy the evening in the iconic MHP Arena, previously the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
This was my first professional soccer, ahem-football, game, that I’ve ever been to and I certainly learned a lot. I was expecting the atmosphere to be somewhat similar to that of an American football game, but I was completely wrong and that’s mostly down to the loyalty and dedication of the fans. They take football SERIOUSLY. They are there to support their team to glory, and not for fun.
The first thing we learned was that you don’t actually sit in your seats. This is your standing spot; sitting only happens during the half time break. Don’t make yourself look stupid by taking a seat!
The home team fans are all dressed in their team’s colors, have a team scarf (don’t come without one!), and bring huge flags. The team chants are the biggest element. There’s probably 20-30 chants that each fan has memorized. Designated cheerleaders lead the chants, some of them with accompanying dances and hand motions, with the assistance of loud beating drums.
The opposing team also has their fans in attendance. They are bussed in and only allowed to sit in the “opposing fans” section, where they are behind a fence, to presumably prevent fights. This turned out to be necessary as several fights did break out over the fence during the game. The opposing team brings their own banners and flags to hang on their fence/cage. They also bring their own drums, cheerleaders, chants, and in the case of this game, smoke bombs and fireworks that they set off during the game.
All of this leads to very loud and chaotic environment. It was extremely entertaining and so fun. At first, the American in me started wondering when security was coming to put out the fireworks. But it was just allowed to continue; people handled themselves and no one was hurt in the end; useless worry on my part.
In the end, Stuttgart won and it was awesome to be a part of the celebration in the stadium. When we left the arena, we accidentally walked counter- clockwise instead of clockwise and walked straight through the Berliner fans loading onto their busses back to Berlin. This led to us getting yelled at and called lots of names like “stupid Schwab!” which was actually pretty funny. Luckily, we made it back to the car in one piece.
Saturday morning, Brooklyn headed off to the SATs, bright and early before 8am. We are so proud of her regardless of what her score ends up being. She only decided she wanted to try it two weeks ago so hasn’t had as much time as others to prepare. We are happy that she will at the very least get to see how its proctored and find out what areas she needs to target studying for next time.
After the SATs, she went straight to a softball practice. That evening, the team had a lock-in sleepover at the school.
After Brooklyn was settled at SATs, I joined a couple of friends on a quick weekend trip. Our main destination was Koblenz, with a few stops along the way and back.
Our first stop was in Wachenheim to see the almond blossoms in full bloom.
I’ve never seen almond blossoms before; they look a lot like cherry blossoms, but smell a lot better!
The Almond Blossom trail took us through some vineyards and up to a lookout tower. It was a gorgeous day with no clouds and warm enough for us to take our coats off for the hike. The trail had plenty of daffodils and crocuses along the sides; it was a beautiful Spring morning!
We hiked back down to the car and stopped for lunch in Bad Dürkheim, which is the same town we met the Johnson’s in last July. We even had lunch in the same sushi restaurant. After lunch, we were back on the road to Koblenz.
We finally arrived in Koblenz by 3pm, got checked in to our Airbnb and set out on a walk around the old town.
The name, Koblenz, literally translates to ‘confluence’ in English and it’s called this because it is the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine rivers in Germany.
After walking around the old town and along the Rhine waterfront, we took the cable car over the Rhine to the Ehrenbreitstein fortress.
By the time we arrived at the fortress, the interior was closed. However, the exterior of the fortress was still open as well as a biergarden due to the fact that there is a youth hostel within the grounds.
We got a round of drinks at the biergarden and then enjoyed the sunset from the terrace of the fortress. Afterwards, we hiked back down from the fortress and back to the old town to grab some dinner. Lucky for me, we had my favorite food for dinner, Italian. When we were done with dinner, we headed back to the Airbnb and finish the night with a game of Phase 10 and a couple of bottles of wine.
Sunday morning we headed to Diehls Hotel for breakfast on the waterfront. Then, we went back to Koblenz’s old town and walked around the Moselle’s waterfront and the Deutsches Eck, aka the “German Corner,” which is the actual meeting point of the two rivers. The spot is a paved over terrace and has a huge monument of Kaiser Wilhelm.
We timed our walk just right because one of the few boats operating off-season was departing at 11:30. We grabbed tickets and jumped on board and then enjoyed round of beers as the boat took us up the Rhine River.
We floated past several cute towns and a couple of castles. One of them really stuck out. We looked it up on Google and found out it was Stolzenfels Castle. I must have read about it at some point because I had flagged it as “want to go” on my map, although I can’t remember when. We decided to check out the castle after our boat ride.
After we disembarked back in Koblenz, we stopped in St. Kastor’s Basilica, where we were treated to an organ and choir practice.
Afterwards, we drove back up the river to the base of Stolzenfels Castle. It was a bit of a hike up to the castle, but we were short on time so we did it quickly.
We noticed from the boat that the castle looks a lot like Lichtenstein Castle, which is near Stuttgart. While we were touring, we learned this is because it was built during the same time and has the same Prussian family links that Lichtenstein Castle has.
One notable difference is the beautiful Turkish garden in the courtyard overlooking the Rhine river.
After we toured the castle, we hiked back down to the car. We were all starving at that point, but there was no food nearby so we drove to the next town, Boppard, where we ate in yet another Italian restaurant.
Boppard is another town. I had flagged to visit at some point so I was happy to get to cross off two places that day. After lunch, we stopped for an ice cream and then made the long drive home.
Ryan and Matt had a guys weekend while Brooklyn and I were gone. They ate steak and watched movies and were happy to lay around relaxing. Brooklyn was also home by the time I got there and we spent the rest of the evening getting ready for the week ahead.
Gilcrests Abroad 