2025 Europe Trip Outtakes

So I try to instill this, especially, in my children...life is not all Instagram perfect.  So I thought I would wrap this trip up with some of the bumps in the road during this trip...or outtakes.

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  I took a really hard fall in the streets of Brussels walking from the train station to our hotel.  Luckily I had on a skirt, so I did not rip or bloody any clothes, but I had massive road rash on both knees.  And my left knee is still scabbed over all these days later and for the first time in my life I took ibuprofen for pain for a few days.
• Do not put your Underground/Metro ticket with your cell phone as Alec learned.  First time an agent helped him through the exit.  The second time we just pushed him through the turnstile with Andy.
• All Underground/Metro ticket systems are not created equal.  We had a good laugh that every time we tried to buy 3 one-way tickets in Brussels the path to purchasing those tickets on the kiosks was different each time.  Sometimes we could purchase 3 in one transaction other times we had to purchase them each through a separate transaction.
• Picking up our rental car in Brussels turned into an adventure as it was all set to German and it would take us a good hour and figure out how to change it to English.  In the meanwhile we muddled through and used my phone to decipher the onboard navigation and eventually get it all changed over.
• Night one camping at InTentsGP for the Belgium Formula 1 race we had a couple of drunk Brits try to enter our tent after the pub/bar closed.  Scared us, but ultimately, we all had a good laugh.  In their defense all the tents look the same minus a little number tag at the entry...and probably even more so drunk and in the dark.  We even came back blurry eyed from breakfast one morning and sat down outside one tent and started to eat and finally realized we were a row off.
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  Formula 1 Grand Prix morning was a downpour.  We literally walked 45 minutes in the rain to the track.  We did have rain gear, but our shoes were soaked and would remain so until the end of the trip.  "It smells a bit like feet in there" - Alec's line after attempting to dry his shoes with the hair dryer in Cologne hotel bathroom.
• "Do you have any toilet roll (aka toilet paper)? became the common line in the port-a-restrooms at our campgrounds for the Belgium F1 race.  I may or may not have dripped dry a few times.
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  Chips (Fries), Beer, and Water is the breakfast of champions when the catering tent is too full due to the downpour for us to even get to the cereal the morning of the F1 Grand Prix.
• Thank goodness my husband is an engineer...I am not sure I would have remembered that bars is another way to measure air pressure/PSI and jumped on Google to do a conversion to air up our tires properly in Germany.
• While driving in Germany it took us many exits to figure out Ausfahrt means exit and wasn't a very large city with a lot of exits.
• Returning our car in Cologne was a 20 minute adventure...first as we sat at a garage entry point with a gate we could not figure out how to open and then we looked left after several minutes to see an open entry right next us. Then we totally missed the small Hertz key drop box and wondered around a bit before finding it and dropping our keys without the proper paperwork and crossed our fingers it would go well.  It did.
• Andy had to block people on numerous flights who tried to push their way past us and others to be the first off the plane. Always keep in mind different cultures handle personal space differently.
• A lot of doors push inward in stores versus pulling out.  Once I stood trying trying to decipher a store sign in German as I thought it was closed to find yes, the door opened inward and it was just operator error.  I am sure the sales team inside was having a good laugh.
• But on the other hand motion sensored self-opening doors were also a lot of fun and caught us off
  guard and became an inside joke as we are in the midst of watching Andor and proved to be a little jedi power humor.
• I will never see these people again and my love of hats proves helpful....when we realize I should not have brought my US travel hair dryer or straight iron.  We eventually bought a small hair dryer before leaving London and a UK to EU converter for it to find no easy place to use it camping AND IT RAINED A LOT, and then we had hair dryers in our hotel rooms the rest of the trip.  You are welcome to whoever finds the unused hair dryer and my Lonely Planet Germany book in our hotel desk in Berlin.
• After years with a retainer Alec nearly lost it three times on this trip.  Two times in the morning when he wasn't quite awake.  Both times we were able to retrieve it from the "rubish"/trash.  The third took a phone flash light and scouring the plane floor.
• Leaving SFO late on a Friday night is still a challenge....from it taking an hour+ to get our luggage to it taking nearly an hour to go a couple of miles to get over the Bay Bridge at 11PM thanks to normal traffic as well as the Grateful Dead's 60th show that had just wrapped in Golden Gate Park. 

All of these unexpected bumps make us better travelers.  They make us more patient travelers and people, children, parents, spouses. It makes you ask others for help and/or to slow down. Along with all of these there were lots of pleasurable bumps from an impromptu dance party in Brussels to watching England's women football (soccer) team win the Europe Cup with a bunch of Brits in a pub.  None of it we would trade.  We have always been a family who prefers to spend our money on experiences versus things.  And not all of those experiences quite pan out the way you envisioned, but they all create memories that will last a life time.

Final Stop - Berlin

Up early we had a 7:45AM train to Berlin from Cologne.  We used the German Railroad, U Bahn, which was very nice.  Even nicer than the Eurostar, except we did not have a meal.  We did wind up with free beverages though due to a delay part the way through our trip.  We arrived in Berlin about 1.5 hours late, which was fine by us as it put us closer to our hotel check-in time.

The train station in Berlin was HUGE so much so it took us a bit to figure out which way was which to secure an Uber.  It took about 15 minutes to get to our hotel, a chain we used a fair amount overseas when the kids were little, Novotel.  This was the Novotel Berlin Mitte, located within a couple minutes’ walk of the famous Museum Island.

I had planned most of the trip, so I put Andy in charge of the afternoon and then I took over dinner.  For the afternoon we would head over to the island and to a museum tucked pretty much underground along river, the DDR Museum.  This museum was mostly hands-on exhibits where you learned the history and the lifestyle during the German Democratic Republic - The Wall - The Stassi - and much more.  It was very crowded, but we took our time and soaked it all in.  It covered everything from the standard political and governmental aspects to education, home life, vacation, shopping, environment, and economy.  We stood in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room of one of the apartments that people were allotted under the regime and then in a cell where people were locked away for the smallest of things. It was all very surreal

After we were done, we grabbed a quick ice cream, as we had skipped lunch, and were planning a good dinner.  A easy 5-minute walk back to the hotel Alec hit the gym and Andy, and I hit the hotel bar for a cocktail.  Our dinner this evening was about a 15-minute walk to the amazing Zur Gerichtslaube.  We opted for one more truly authentic German restaurant, and this one did not disappoint.  It is ranked #80 on Trip Advisor out of 9445 restaurants in Berlin.  This place was wonderful.  The Gerichtslaube (courtyard arcade) was built around 1270 in Gothic brick style and was repeatedly remodeled over the following centuries. Originally built in the Middle Ages and primarily used for the often extremely gruesome administration of justice, the Gerichtslaube (courtyard arcade) has had various functions over the centuries until it finally became a restaurant in the 20th century. We opted for outside seating as the weather was beautiful, and it was very lively.  This time both Alec and I got schnitzel, and the boys tried the beers made just for this restaurant.  The service was also very good.  We didn't finish until nearly 10PM, in typical European dining style.

The next morning we enjoyed a buffet breakfast at the hotel.  Very plentiful as it should be for 25 euros.  Then we had a 20-minute walk to meet our guide for another Get Your Guide booking.  This time it was a 4-hour tour entitled "Berlin: Discover Berlin Walking Tour."  We knew with a very cheap price it would be more crowded, but the reviews were quite good.  Sure enough about 20 people tagged along with our guide Eran (who was Israeli, but got to Germany via... Isreal --> US --> Amsterdam...fell in love with a German --> Germany...divorced, hated his IT job, loved history, so there you have it ...a tour guide). 

We crammed a lot into our 3.5 hours (given a 30 min break for snack, etc).  We visited Museum Island and learned all about the buildings and their former intentions.  We also re-learned most of the buildings are replicas as 90% of the city was destroyed in the war.  We saw bullet holes everywhere.  We stood at the site and saw the memorial for the famous 1933 pro-Nazi book burning.  We visited Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous of the east west crossing points. A little further and we came upon one of the three stretches of the Berlin wall that is still standing.  Less than 5-minute walk from there and we stood on the parking lot which covers the cement filled bunker where Hitler, along with several others, committed suicide.  I will admit I prefer the way Germany has chosen to note these historical places.  There are simple placards with information in German and English.  There is nothing big about any of it...while they do not wish to forget, they also do not wish to create larger scale markers which may be more inviting to those who still support the teachings and ideologies of Hitler and the Nazis.  

It was very poignant to go from there to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  Made up of 2711 dark gray slabs that are the exact same length and width their heights all vary...getting taller towards the center and shorter on the outsides.  They also are set in rows that undulate as well as slant.  They also are placed such that only one person can walk through on their own.  You cannot walk side by side, only single file.  Our guide had us walk through and talk about the experience on the other side.  It "felt like drowning," "felt like being buried," "alone," and so on.  It was definitely a very powerful and thought-provoking piece.  We ended at the Brandenburg Gate. All along our tour our guide had photos of the various sites put to use in Hitler's speeches, parades, etc.  It was so strange to be in such a place.

A long and emotional day we returned to our hotel after a little shopping and packed a bit before heading out to Rotisserie Weingrün.  Another top rated restaurant #112 in the city, this place was more California in style, and the food was amazing.  All of our meats...chicken, steak, sausages were cooked perfectly.  I enjoyed black truffle mashed potatoes...the best mashed potatoes I have ever had (sorry Grams).  And the cocktails, wine, and beer selections also did not disappoint.  An incredible meal to end an incredible trip on as the next day we would head home via a stop in Frankfort.