It’s finally the last week of school! It’s been a great school year for everyone, but feels like it’s been dragging on, and we are so ready for summer break!
Monday was the last full day of school and Tuesday was the last official day, but only a half day. The kids actually wanted to attend as the whole high school heads to the city pool as soon as school lets out. It’s been really hot here, like in the 90s, so it was a great day for it!
After taking the “Last Day of School” picture, we realized how much taller Ryan has gotten since the first day! He shot past Brooklyn and must have grown over half a foot this year; that explains why we’ve had to replace his pants and shoes so many times!
On Wednesday, Matt got a new bike and wanted to take it out for a spin. Spargel season in Germany ends mid-June so we went to The Boathouse for one last Spargel soup before its gone for the year.
The kids spent the rest of the week sleeping in and going to the pool with friends.
On Friday, Ryan departed for his first summer camp, the JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge, or JCLC. He applied on his own towards the end of the school year and was accepted. We are so proud he took that on, all on his own. The week-long camp is held in Bavaria, and he met the bus at the school on Friday to head off.
Friday after work, Matt, Brooklyn, and I departed for our own trip to Bolzano, Italy. We were meeting my aunt and uncle, who live in Vicenza, and were driving up to meet us for the weekend. The drive took about five hours, and we arrived around 10 p.m., just in time to share a bottle of wine with my aunt and uncle and then head to bed. It was still so hot in Bolzano, and we were grateful for the super strong air conditioning!
In the morning, we had a late breakfast in a nearby cafe and then did a lot of shopping on Via dei Portici, the main shopping street of Bolzano. Afterwards, we headed to the main attraction, Ötzi, the Iceman.
“Ötzi” is a 5000-year-old mummy, the oldest ever found. He is named after the Ötz Valley, where he was found inside a melting glacier in the nearby Alps in the 1990s, along with his clothes and gear. His discovery was really important because he provided so much new information about the Copper Age.
The museum had an excellent audio guide that walked everyone through the discovery, the artifacts found with him, and his body itself. The mummy is still stored in a thin layer of ice, with several backup plans if his refrigeration electricity goes out. He’s considered such an important scientific discovery that there is even an evacuation plan in case of emergencies. The museum was really well done, and we all enjoyed it so much!
After Ötzi, we had lunch in a pizzeria and then returned to the hotel for a nap.
We woke up from our naps in time for dinner. We walked to nearby restaurant, Franziskaner Stuben which served Tirolean food and the staff was dressed in dirndls and lederhosen. Northern Italy still hangs on to its strong Austrian roots.
In the morning, we had breakfast and one more coffee with my aunt and uncle before starting the drive back to Stuttgart.
What should have taken about five hours ended up taking eight. It’s a holiday week from school and work in Germany, so everyone was returning home like us.
We loved Bolzano. It reminded us a lot of Innsbruck with its mostly German-speaking people, architecture, and food. It was really clean and had a huge pedestrian center. It had fewer Maria Theresa references than Innsbruck but more pizzerias. We would love to come back again and spend more time exploring.
Saturday was also a big day for us; it’s the fourth anniversary of Matt and the kids arriving in Germany, so what we call our German-versary.
This year, we visited 14 countries, only two of them new, but we also added a new continent. We flew 51k miles and drove over 5k miles 😅. We had 11 visitors and broke a record with seven at one time! Our travel stats feel kind of low compared to previous years, but the kids more than made up for it on their many school and sports trips.
We are looking forward to crossing off a few more destinations over the next year!
Gilcrests Abroad 