Disneyland in Bavaria

We arrived in Disneyland, I mean Oberammergau, around noon, and once again, I was blown away by a place so very, very different from home.

Our friends, Kevin and Amy, lived here when Kevin was stationed with NATO a few years ago.  I remember getting letters from Amy saying, "Sometimes I just stand in my yard and think, 'I live here!' and I can't believe how lucky I am!"

Looking around at this village out of a fairy tale, I understand what she meant.

When Kevin and Amy first got to Germany, they rented an apartment from Claus.  During their time in the Florian Guest House, they became friends with him and his mother, Elizabeth, so when Amy heard we were going to Germany, she suggested we come here and stay with them.

Claus met us a little after noon to show us our apartment.  He is a very sweet man and was so excited to meet "Amy's friends."  He said, "All Amy had to do was tell me you were friends of hers, and now you are friends of mine!"

Our apartment has a living room/kitchen, three bedrooms, and a bath.

The house.  Our apartment was a the front gable.

Kirk and my room

Kyle's room

Girls' room

Our apartment was the "Swan Apartment" hence the swan toilet seat.

Front door to the house

We decided to head to the Sommerroddelbahn (SRB from now on) right away.  The kids had been in the car all morning and were a little bit stir crazy, and there's not much to "do" in Oberammergau besides shop and sightsee.  I thought some fun was in order.

We knew SRB was in Unterammergau, but we weren't sure how to get there.  Once again, we GPS'd it.  After an initial wrong turn over the Ammer River (aka: Ammergau), we were on our way.  Unterammergau is a collection of about 3 houses and a store set in the middle of a hay field (It's acutally bigger than that, but not by much).  As we drove around not finding SRB, we saw all of these people, young and old, tossing hay by hand with big wooden pitchforks.  Some of the omas were dressed in traditional German fashion, or old-fashioned might be a better word, complete with scarf'd heads and aprons.  They must have been 80 out there in the fields, tossing hay.  I thought, "Isn't there some kind of machine that would do that for you?"

After a couple more wrong turns in a small town in the middle of nowhere, we found our way to SRB and spent some happy hours rumbling down the mountain in little carts and flying through the air on a zip line.

The cart

Going up

Coming down

Peace. Out.

It was so fun to play together as a family and not have to rush anywhere or look at a map or navigate a crowd.  The sun was out finally, and it was warm, and it was just so relaxing.

After our tickets were used up, we headed into town for some ice cream and walking around.  You wouldn't believe the houses there!  If they didn't have a fairy tale story painted on the outside, there was something religious or just plain pretty.  Every window had some sort of decoration, whether it was a flower box full of geraniums or a painted trompe l'oiel, or pretty shutters.  And clean!  Holy cow, there was not a speck of trash to be found.  Yards were tidy.  Cars stowed discretely in the back.  Like I said, Disneyland.

We stopped at Tengleman's (love you, Tman's!) and I got stuff for a homemade spaghetti dinner.  It was so nice to sit around a table and eat familiar food, even if it was just a box of pasta and a jar of Ragu.  I made a salad too, and the kids all said, "That was an awesome dinner, Mom!"  Who knew a couple of weeks away from my kitchen would make spaghetti a 5 star meal?!

After dinner, we went downstairs, and Claus showed us his Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum.  After WW2, when he was a little boy, his dad was the manager of the Florian Hotel that was used by the Allies as a headquarters for awhile.  His dad and Eisenhower became friends, and Eisenhower, who was a painter (this I did not know) painted a picture of Claus's dad, William.

William and Eisenhower became friends and corresponded a few times after Eisenhower returned to the States and again after his Presidency was over.  Claus has a great affinity for the Eisenhowers and the US, and has created a museum of memorabilia dedicated to both.  He spent a couple of hours telling us all about the things he has collected and stories of his family and the visits to and from the US.

Claus at the start of the tour.

Campaign items

"Mamie's Room"

USA!

It was interesting to see a German family so crazy about the US.  Gave me a different perspective on things involving WW2.  I mean I know that everyone in Germany did not like Hitler, but to actually meet people who didn't like him, and who love the US so much was really pretty cool.

Tomorrow there is a local flea market that we are going to hit and then head to Linderhoff Castle where Mad King Ludwig, owner of Neuschwanstein, met his fate.