Trains, planes and automobiles

 We got up at O'Dark hundred to catch the Eurostar aka the Chunnel Train.  Coffee and Croissants in the station as before boarding.

I wanted to ride it as it was supposed to be this superfast train, but either it wasn't as fast as advertised  or I was really out of it.  All in all it was a pleasant two hours to Belgium, through the French Countryside then on to Brussels (side note, I was thinking of my father and his love for the Belgian people who were at his side during the Bulge.  He had great admiration for the housewives who brought out their fine linens to help the Allies hide their large weapons.  When my father asked her, one woman said "If the Nazis win, linens won't matter")

We took a taxi to the airport.  The driver probably thought the bedraggled couple were going to stiff him, but we gave him a decent tip. He beamed at us.  He said he was having a bad day when he picked us up.  I hope the tip improved his day.

We ate a lackluster meal in the airport and bought some chocolate.  We went to board our plane.

We were sitting there when the board changed and the flight we were on was delayed for an hour.  No worries, we had time.

We got on the flight and landed, we got on the connecting flight.  The pilot announced that the baggage from the delayed flight was on the plane

Uh.

We shared the row with a nice guy who works in the car industry and we chatted about food and places to go, his trip to the US and his love for our wide open spaces.  It was a pleasant 90 minutes.

We waited at the baggage carrousel for  our bags that never came.  They assured us they would be on the next flight and we would see them that evening, just fill out this form...

The problem  AND YES I KNOW BETTER we packed Chris' c-pap in my bag. We HAD our meds and I had a change of clothes, sort of but Chris had nothing.

PRO TIP  PACK A COMPLETE change of clothes.  I was wearing my travel sweats and travel shoes. Since my foot was in a bad way I was going to need shoes and he was gonna need clothes.

Chris is bigger than the average German.  Finding clothes were  a problem.  Our European conversion plugs were in the suitcase.  

We got the rental car and drove on the autobahn, which MOSTLY has a speed limit except in some places.  Chris did a great job driving in Germany.  

We got to the hotel and the people were really nice.  It was this weird Best Western in a warehouse district and parking was a bit of a clusterf..k  but we were only there a few days.

we wound up asking the clerk, a nice guy named Valentine, about electronics AND a place to get food.  The restaurant in the hotel was closed but we got some burgers and soda delivered.   The next day was spent in the electronics store and TJ Maxx ( yay TJ MAXX) getting clothes.  Not much fit Chris butr what I found him helped.

We went to a cemetery that we thought might be where some of the Zorns were buried. Looking at the headstones, I realized they were all too new and we waited until the services were over and had a long lovely chat with the caretaker.  He told us the old cemetery had been closed ,but suggested we got to the Rathaus ( City Hall) to look at old records.  Next time.  

Looking for things to do, Chris found a museum that was in a castle- there were two but a CASTLE?? YES!!!!

I sat on a stone bench outside the castle and thought of my mom and cried.  She so wanted to be there, in that place where her father was born. The bench overlooked the Neckar River and was just like I pictured it to be. 

I said "Look Mom, we made it"  I was wearing her sweater.

We went into the  castle only to find a very modern vestibule.  A woman came down the stairs and introduced herself as the Mayor!  She asked where we were from and was thrilled to hear we were from California.  Until recently, Laufen am Neckar was a Sister City to El Cajon and she had visited it many times.  Why were we there, she wanted to know.  I explained that my grandfather had been born there.  Her face lit uh  "HERE? in Laufen?" i assured her that yes that was true.  She went back upstairs, and asked a staff member to bring us some literature, including a vey cool book of 750years of the City's history.  We took photos.  I think we will be part of her monthly report!

The museum was a small part of the castle with a brief overview of how the people lived in the area.  The castle itself was the home of the Graf ( Count or Earl)  It had some quirky dungeon-y things in it.

Laufen is like the Napa Valley with Estate wineries and we wandered into one.  We had some wine and I bought a bottle of it, but we were leaving the next day and I could not bring it back.  I did drink a bit of it.

We had a lovely lunch in the sunshine at another winery.

At this point, if you are keeping score, we still don't have our bags.  Chris was working the phones like mad to get them to catch up to us.  We could not go to any of the nice places that had been recommended to us because we were woefully underdressed.  We had dinner at a nice outdoor place in the rain.  

Chris got an email saying our bags had been delivered and I ran downstairs to find BOTH BAGS   I could have cried.  Maybe I did.

We had to get up super early to get to the Stuttgart airport to catch our flight home and this is where it gets real.

More tomorrow.