Germany Diary

While I was in Germany I kept a little diary of what we were doing most days. At the end of every night, I wrote down a little summary of what we had done that day to post on my blog later when I returned home.
So Enjoy!

Day #1:

Our Germany adventure began with a snow delayed flight leaving Chicago. Despite the annoying two hour wait on the runway to rinse off the ice from the plane, Gina and I ended up having plenty of space on that 8 hour to Frankfurt. Never before have I had so much room on an International flight before. Pretty much everyone in our area are had a row to themselves. Gina and I shared a row. : ) Thanks to some wonderful over the counter medicine I was able to sleep for most of the flight. Gina and I were both pleasantly surprised with how fast the 8 hours flew by. I didn't even get a chance to read or do much of anything else-which was totally fine by me!

From the Frankfurt airport, Gina, Blake, the founder of "Cooking with the Troops", Michael, the author and myself traveled by shuttle to Landstuhl, a small city about an hour and a half north of Frankfurt. We promptly checked into our very quaint hotel, Hotel Christine. Sadly, jet lag got the best of Gina and I and we spent several hours in the afternoon napping in our hotel room.

One of the best things about going somewhere totally foreign is the amazing sense of escape that comes over you. All my communication with family and friends has been limited to checking my email once a day on one of the computers in the hotel lobby. I love it. It's great being this unreachable for a little bit.

Day #2:

Well, day 2 is over and once again find myself completely exhausted. This jet lag is really kicking our butts!

Day #4:

The past two days Gina and I have really been able to get out and explore this part of Germany. We've seen a beautiful and very old castle, a church and of course tasted some amazing food. Seriously, who ever said German food was bad was definitely mistaken! I've tasted just about all the typical German food-Schnitzel, sausage, goulash, potato pancakes, breads, lots of pastries and some great cheap German beer. Oh and the hot red wine there is great too. There's certainly a lot more to this country's food then I would have ever thought.


Another thing that has surprised me about Germany is all the people here that speak English. This town that we are in, Landstuhl, is about two hours from the France border so there's also a lot of French words everywhere too. I'm enjoying that but it feels a bit strange speaking and reading French in Germany. We are hoping to get over to Paris one of these days that we have free after the big cooking event is over. That would be amazing because I love Paris!!

Day #5:

Today was the big day we've all been waiting for and the whole reason why we all came here to Germany in the first place, the Cooking With The Troops meal. It was a huge success and the wounded warriors loved all the food. Gina and I helped chop vegetables for the salad and prepared the garlic bread.

It was a delicious dinner and everyone was delighted to have a home cooked meal. I'm sure they also really loved seeing two old fashioned pin ups.