Mostly Mom: February 2016

It doesn't take long before you're in Germany's Black Forest to realize that you've stepped back in time. Perhaps not to the time of the Brothers Grimm, although it is easy to see where the inspiration for some of the famous fairy tales came from. A land full of trees and winding roads, shadows and mystery. I couldn't quite pinpoint it at first--why I thought I had stepped back in time. Maybe it was our innkeeper, an elderly woman, who still tended to the bedsheets the way it was done some two centuries ago. She hung them on a line to dry and then we saw her in a little room pressing all the linens and bedsheets. Close to our inn, each of the houses had sheds full of cut up wood. Some of them even had small woodworking rooms where you could peek in and see a man carving his latest clock. Maybe it was the traditional German attire: dirndls and leiderhosen worn by shopkeepers. Or perhaps it was just the feeling of being in a very remote place--perhaps the same way Hansel and Gretel felt when they got lost in the forest.

The weather added to the surreal. We woke up to an early morning fog as we drove our car down the narrow winding road that took into town. Although the day was overcast, the people seemed unaffected by the lack of sun and eager to help and let us know the best place to look at cuckoo clocks, which originated in this part of Germany. The day we visited was the end of the Christmas season and there was a big festival. The kids wanted to ride the ferris wheel. Afterwards we enjoyed some "gluwein" (warm wine) (the kids drank hot chocolate) while we watched a puppet show. Towards the end of the night there was a fire works show. The crowd was large and we were too far away from the actual show to see it, but were entertained by the music. We escaped the crowds and went to a traditional German restaurant. We ordered some very tasty German food and the famous Black Forest Cake. Unfortunately, cakes in Germany are not as sweet as what we're used to back home. So we're still continuing our search for that perfect German dessert!

We left the Black Forest and made our way back home. Along the way, we stopped at Freiburg, known as one of the more "sunnier" cities in Germany. Compared to the black forest, it was indeed sunnier. We visited the old town square where the Freiburg Minster, a gothic church which was built between 1200 and 1500, stands prominently with its 116 meter spire. It's one of the few churches to have survived World War II unscathed. There was an outdoor farmer's market at the town square and enjoyed some bratwurst and got some fresh vegetables to take back home.