Our two week trip to Germany

This post is a tad bit late. Carol and I visited Aaron, Megan, Alora, and Ethan in Stuttgart this spring. We departed on our flight on 26 April from Dulles International and landed at London-Heathrow. We had a nearly two-hour layover, then departed on a Lufthansa flight for Stuttgart.

We didn't have much of a problem, except right at the end when we were passing through customs. The two grenz-polizei (border patrol) were chatting amongst themselves, and an African-American woman preceding me just walked through with no problem. As I tried to just walk through, with Carol following, one of the polizei called out in German, "Hey, Hey, wart' mal!", which is "Wait a minute!" I answered in German and he started the questions, "Where are you from, why are you here, is it for vacation or work...", and I'm just blithely answering, but a bit nervously. I didn't know if I did something wrong, or what. He looked at Carol and asked her, in German, if she was with me. I translated quickly, and she said, "Yes, of course." When I told him we were here to visit our son, who is stationed here, the border patrolman asked if I was bringing gifts, such a alcohol, coffee, or cigarettes. I was almost amused at the question. "No," I said in German, "We're Mormons. We only have some clothes and toys for our grandchildren." His somewhat harsh expression softened, and he let us through. What an experience for Carol on her first ever trip to Europe!

During our time, we drove to Berlin (a wonderful 7-hour trip due to road construction) and revisited the apartment area where we lived during the time I was stationed there, as well as the Church on Im Dol Strasse. We also took a day to visit the Berlin Zoo, looking at all of the animals. We were only a couple of blocks away from the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedenktnesskirsche or Memorial Church. It's the bombed out steeple every tourist sees as part of the Berlin landscape. We also took a drive past the old Berlin Army compound, which was totally leveled and grown over. The Outpost movie theatre was a museum about the Occupation, with a large DC-3 aircraft (from the Berlin Airlift era) next to it. The Thomas A. Roberts Elementary school still looked occupied, as did the Gym. However, all other buildings and shops, including the commissary and BX, were all torn down, During our visit to the Dueppel area where we lived, we did find the pine tree we planted as a family when we left Berlin in November 1990. Now almost 20 years later, it has grown tremendously. On our return to Stuttgart, it only took 5-hours. Amazing how much faster it was when there was no road construction and detours.

We also took time to visit downtown Stuttgart, seeing the city center, shopping district, and fountains. Our last local trip was to Schloss Solitude, a small 18th century palace near Stuttgart, and Burg Hohenzollern, the ancestral castle of the German Kaisers and Romanian kings.

Time went too fast, as we were so used to hearing Alora come running to greet us, with both blankets Carol had made for her and Aaron gripped tightly, and jumping in our laps. We got used to Ethan's mischievous grin and laugh, and the way he looses himself in the Signing Times videos. I don't think Carol and I have yet to get the lyric, "...it's signing time with Alex and Leah..." out of our heads. On the other hand, we DID learn to sign.

We left on 5 May to fly back, same route. We got back home by 1500 that day. Aaron later told us that when told we had left to go home, Alora said, "No Way!!" Ethan just wandered around looking like something wasn't right. In such a short time we got become such a major part of their lives. Carol and I can't begin to thank Aaron and Megan enough for letting us spend so much time with the little ones, and for opening their home to us. I'm sure they were glad to get there own bed back. :-)

Once we go through some of the pictures we have, we'll post for all to see. We love and miss our Letteer's in Germany, and look forward to seeing them again.