Europe: Day 1: Chicago, Frankfurt, Rothenburg

I am so excited to finally be writing/telling you about this!

When Kevin's brother texted him at the beginning of the year about wanting to go to Europe, 

and Kevin said yes,

I thought he was kidding.

EUROPE?!

No way.

It just sounded too cool.

But we did it, and now it just seems like a big awesome blur of a memory.

So here I go trying to put it into words to remember it by...

Some background on the peeps in our group:
Dustin served his mission in Germany.
Alissa nanny-ied (?) in Germany.
They lived in Holland for 3 years after they were married.
Josh, Ang, and Kerr had all been to Europe before.
Basically we had the greatest tour guide ever (Dustin)!
He knew everything about well, everything.
I'm not kidding.

We flew out of Boise,

so my mom drove us (Zach, Kerr, Kevin, Me) to the airport.

This is the last pic I took of Bronx before we had to get out of the car.

I HATED hated hated hated leaving him....saddest thing ever!

The real fun began as we checked in and were informed that our flight to Chicago was being delayed because of the crappy weather they were having over there.

Whaaaat?!

(not "really" happy because we had to sit and wait)

I tried to keep calm and just kept thinking:

"It's all good, we have a layover there anyways so we'll still make our connecting flight to Frankfurt."

HA.

Dang that crappy weather.

When we did finally land in Chicago,

our connecting flight had taken off about 10 minutes prior.

Lots of frustrating feelings right about now.

And it wasn't just us,

the whole airport was nuts.

Like, it seriously felt like a ZOO!

Every flight was delayed it seemed...I felt bad for the workers.

So anyways,

we ended up lucking out and ran into a random security guy who marched right up to a lady that put us on the next flight to Frankfurt.

Score.

We were now only going to arrive 2 hours late than our original schedule,

instead of a whole day like we were thinking (because the next flight we needed didn't leave until the next morning).

We got pretty excited when we saw how huge our plane was.

I think the best part about all of this is that when we finally boarded,

and Kevin found out he had a TV to look at for 8 hours,

he got soooo excited and started "planning" out what movies he was going to watch.
He's a movieaholic.
If that even counts as a word :)

I just hated not understanding German (it was a German airline) and all the other languages around us.
It made me feel pretty small.

This flight went by fast for me.
I had been nervous about flying pregnant/sitting down for so long/needing to pee a zillion times....
you know. Pregnancy things.
But surprisingly I don't even think I went once on this flight.
I mostly slept and watch a movie with Kevin, of course.
When we landed in Frankfurt,
we jumped 8 hours ahead and were in the middle of the next day.
Kinda weird,
but it didn't really seem it at the time.
We left the plane and this is where we started feeling like we were "not in Kansas anymore".
haha
It was just different....like they don't have all the "fluff" if that makes sense?
And anyone can smoke anywhere.
UGH. that was disgusting and annoying to me.
We went to baggage claim,
and whattdoyaknow?

Our bags didn't show up on that magic conveyer belt.
What?!
Nooooo this was not happening.
Luckily,
We had packed a carry-on with an extra pair or two of clothes and shoes.
So that saved us for the next 3 days (yes, 3 days without my makeup and hair stuff!!!)!
Turns out,
when our plane was delayed and we missed our original flight from Chicago,
they re-routed us (and our bags) to be on the next day flight.
And we had left that night.
Soooo even though we had asked, and been told that our luggage would get on the earlier flight with us,
it didn't.
All we could do was cry and wait for it to arrive.
(just kidding-i didn't cry yet, but wait for it, it'll come)

We met up with Dustin, Alissa, and Ang, and Josh here at the airport.
They had just come in on a train from Amsterdam
(because they flew here 2 days earlier).
We picked up our two rental cars here,
and finally were on our way to our first official stop:

ROTHENBURG
..............................................................

Here is our first hotel!
That one straight ahead.
The 640 year old Gasthof Goldener Greifen.

View overlooking on of the balconies.

Inside.
This is the "lobby".
I don't know what I was expecting hotel-wise for Europe,
but this was pretty darn cool.
It was a huge old nice house.
Dustin told us that's how a lot of people here make their money;
they turn their home into a "bed and breakfast" for travelers.

We dropped our bags off and started to explore!

They were remodeling the town center,
so they put up a picture to replace it.
How nice :)

Cobblestone streets galore.
I don't even understand how fashion/high heels became big here.
We'd see girls walking in them and just stare.

Everything was just what the textbooks described.
But 10,000 times cooler.
All the buildings were just SO ORNATE and CUTE!
It kinda felt fake.

Rothenburg has the world famous Christmas store:
Kaethe Wohlfahrt.

SUCH  a decorated store!
So much to see it was almost overwhelming.
And dang to their prices.
We didn't get anything here but we did get a picture with the large nutcracker guard.

Later this evening we went on a city tour with one of the night watchmen.

He was a hilarious tour guide,

and we learned some cool history of the city.

(i swear the history was SO much more interesting than it was when i was in high school)

 Thinking back,
this was probably one of my favorite places we visited.
I think because it was so quaint and picturesque.
Exactly what you'd imagine a fairy-tale village to look like!

............................................

Europe Day 1 (Sep.20th): Chicago, Frankfurt, Rothenburg
Europe: Day 2 (Sep.21st): Rothenburg, Stuttgart/ Porsche Museum, The Black Forest, Gutach, Triberg
Europe: Day 3 (Sep.22nd): The Black Forest, The Castle Hohenzollern, Ettal
Europe: Day 4 (Sep.23rd): Neuschwanstein Castle, Wierkirche, Linderhof Palace
Europe: Day 5 (Sep.24th): Munich, Oktoberfest, Austria, Salzburg
Europe Day 6 (Sep.25th): Hallstatt/Salt Mine, Red Bull Hanger
Europe Day 7 (Sep.26th): Csesky Krumlov, Prague
Europe Day 8 (Sep.27th): Prague
Europe Day 9 (Sep.28th): Nuremberg, Idnstein
Europe Day 10 (Sep.29th): Idnstein, Frankfurt, Canada....HOME!!!