LAST DAY IN EUROPE

Before leaving, we talked to the owner of this place where we stayed in the little village of Bornum...just down the road from Konigslutter. It turns out the owner had just gotten back from being in Clinton, Iowa for a 40th class reunion...he had gone to school there as a foreign exchange student. Such a small world.

Here's a picture taken from our bedroom window here this morning:


Here are a few more pictures from here. This part of Germany has a totally different feel to it.





I thought this was interesting. It's a building where the siding was coming off in quite a few places. Look at the interesting insulation:





Along the way we needed gas so got off on one of the exits. We drove for awhile and lo and behold we saw this whimsical place...where things are made out of pumpkins and gourds. There was a playground area for kids...really cute.

Here's a haystack Fraulein!



I love these things...just painted tree trunks and branches


This one is my favorite! It has a sign "Avery Strong" for one of Sara's Make-A-Wish kids who is having a bone marrow transplant today. She asked for people to send her photos with this sign...then she will get the pics to Avery's parents later today. This photo is perfect!


Check this out.....it's made entirely of small pumpkins and gourds!!!


This little burg is called Glindow ...you head out of Glindow and go towards Klaistow....it's a farm on the right. They are also know for their white asparagus around this area in the springtime. We saw lots of huge fields of asparagus..all gone to seed at this point.

So we kept going down the autobahn to Berlin to the airport to return our rental car. Dad is really looking forward to that! He's done plenty of driving. He was especially ready to give up driving after going through Berlin. What a nasty place...so much traffic and really rude drivers...honking and just being jack-asses. After a stressful 1/2 hour maneuvering from lane to lane to get to the car return place, Dad heaved a big sigh of relief.

We stopped off at Lufthansa at the airport and we got our boarding passes for all 3 flights tomorrow. If all goes well, we will be home around 8:00 PM. We had the information desk at the airport call the shuttle from the hotel where we are staying. We are staying at a place very close to the airport and it costs a bunch, but everything does around here. Ugh. We checked in and around 5:00 we went down to the restaurant here for dinner...well it was lunch, too. Since it's an expensive hotel, they have fancy folded linen napkins. A party hat!


Don't get too scared at Dad's 2 day beard. It's better not to enlarge this picture for that reason. His electric shaver is about to die...he forgot to bring along the charger for that. I told him to just use his shaver til it croaks, but his fear is that he will get half way through shaving and that will be it...a half-shaved face. Now we're talking about an even better picture! Anyway, his plan is to get a complementary razor here just in case it dies before he's done. I'm hoping his electric shaver makes it tomorrow morning at 5:15 when he's getting up. The toy razor they gave him at the desk here measures about 3 1/2" and comes with a tube of something that measures 2" and is shaped like a tiny tube of toothpaste. There must be all of 1 T. of lotion or whatever it is. Using a toy razor at 5:15 in the morning will not go over well.

We got some Berliner beer and had a nice dinner.


So when we turned in the car the mileage we put on the car was 5,164 kilometers...that's about 3,200 miles!! Wow! No wonder Dad was ready to turn in the car. We took one of our maps and drew with a green highlighter the route we took on this trip. We pretty much did the parameter of Germany, less the northwest, and a big chunk of Poland and then cut the corner quickly on Czech Republic. We've had quite a trip...even been to Hel and back! It was good to see the land the Sawatzki's came from and it was good to visit some of our favorite places that we have been to and love, and to find other places that are now on our "favorite" list...and just to be footloose and fancy free, having our cell phones turned off for the entire trip and never once watching TV.



Tonight we are in an air-conditioned hotel...the first one I believe the entire trip....so we have it cranked up taking full advantage of it! We are all packed and ready to go tomorrow. Dad is already sawing logs. I'm taking my shower tonight and will be ready in 10 minutes in the morning. Our flight takes off from here at 8:00 AM and we get into Lincoln at 8:00 PM...but don't let that fool you...there is an additional 7 hours difference...so we will actually be traveling for 19 hours. And we will be ready for our own bed.

Location:Berlin