European vacation (from the father's camera)

Kari has done a nice job posting photos and memories from our latest European vacation. But much like my personal hero of family vacations, Clark Griswold, the dad in this family has his own perspective on the trip.  Unlike Clark in the '80s, however, I had a camera in my phone with me the whole time to help document the family bonding time. I know Clark would want me to share those photos.

Nothing like like starting off a day of intercontinental travel with a sick kid and an extremely tired kid. 

We'd rent a car for some of the trip but we did put in some time on public transportation in Munich. It builds character. 

The first order of business in Munich was checking into the hotel and taking a nap followed by a visit to the Kinderklinik (basically a children's hospital ER), which was a surprisingly easy experience even for us foreign tourists. Although he was seen pretty quickly and the diagnoses of strep throat for Ads didn't take long, there was some time to play in the waiting area, which surprisingly had a carousel and other entertainment options.   

And that night we found our way to the nearby beer garden, which would become our go-to dinner location for our time in Munich. 

 

We stayed at a Leonardo Hotel in Munich and the boys noticed the Vitruvian Man from the hotel's logo in the gift shop display while waiting to get into the Deutsches Museum. 

"do it again"

Overall we all handled the time change and jet lag relatively well. But it still had its effects and along with the busy days, little B was sometimes pretty done by late afternoon. 

Our evening walk to beer garden typically consisted of a stop at the little grocery market to pick up food for a picnic dinner and a brief stop to climb on this concrete sculpture thing. 

"Ein großes dunkles bier bitte" - despite my very limited German speaking skills, which mostly amounted to a translation app on my phone and a terrible accent, I was sometimes able to communicate sufficiently for the task at hand. In this case it was procuring a large dark beer for the wife. 

The Marienplatz wasn't anyone's favorite but we took some photos just the same.

Lot to do in the English Garden including watching surfing in the river, visiting one of the many spielplatz, and having ice cream.

Lots of fahrt jokes on this trip.  

B went over and started playing with some German boys one evening at the beer garden. I'm pretty sure they had no language in common but it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone.

"One Speed B" would often break into a run as we walked from place to place. Usually by himself but sometimes talking his mom into "doing a marathon" with him. 

We stopped into the Kinderklinik on the way out of Munich. This time for LT who'd developed the same symptoms. It wasn't as fast on a weekend afternoon but was still a relatively good experience and the other two utilized the play waiting area while LT was being seen.  We never did pony up the two euros to buy a "kickerballe" from a vending machine to play on the foosball tables though.

We stayed in a modest but nice little airbnb condo in Switzerland a little outside St. Gallen (the old town was suitable for B's "marathon" running). It was surrounded by rolling green hills and had a few toys inside.

The chocolate factory was a hit but so were the occasional random concrete art installations. I was amused by the cows grazing right near the residential roadside. 

Clad in full batman attire B did his best to keep the old streets of St. Gallen safe from pigeons. 

Questionable judgement by the 3 yr old led to poor decision making by the whole family and good times all around.

"American exceptionalism is a lot of responsibility but thankfully we are up to the task."

B found some of the paths at Linderhof Palace suitable for running.

A long day in the salt mines.

One speed B in various places in Salzburg. 

The stream of water running down an alleyway with little floating balls that kids could play with next to the outdoor seating of this restaurant we went to was kinda amazing.

After a day of touring around Salzburg we returned to the restaurant with the alleyway stream.

Navigating stop-and-go traffic in rented family truckster was not exactly what I'd envisioned driving on the German Autobahn would be like. But that's life and for reasons unknown we hit a big traffic jam on the way back to Munich from Salzburg.

"One Speed B" at the BMW museum, that we visited on the way to the back to the Munich airport hotel for the one night before the flight home.

The checkin counter had a little step ladder for kids, which was a nice touch.