A Georgia Girl in Germany

We had planned on beginning our sightseeing (with Nana & Papa) in earnest today, but during breakfast, a peek out the window revealed snow! We hadn’t planned on that! It was more of a rain-snow mix, although within an hour there was a very slight white tint to the ground. We had Schloss Hohenzollern on today’s agenda, but when I called them, I was told that they didn’t recommend we go because of the snow on the mountain up to the castle.

Enter Plan B: Schloss Ludwigsburg. I went there a couple weeks ago, but the castle itself was closed so was only able to walk around the grounds. This time, we called ahead and asked for the time of the English tour…and planned to be there for it. Of course, the GPS took us a different way, and we immediately got stuck in a stau on the Autobahn. Fortunately, it was short-lived, and we made pretty good time getting to the castle. By the time we figured out where to go to get tickets and get inside, we had missed the first 10 minutes of the tour. But, considering the tour included 65 rooms and covered one kilometer, that really wasn’t much at all. Plus, we were inside, out of the rain, so that worked well. The castle was gorgeous. I think MacKenzie’s favorite part (other than the portraits of the queen with a puppy dog) was seeing Rapunzel’s tower from the “game room” (see below).

When the tour was over, we thought about walking through the grounds…until we discovered there was a separate charge for that. Plus, the rain had picked up and the wind was blowing a little stronger, so we opted to forgo traipsing through the grounds in lieu of heading directly back to the van for a little warmth and dryness. Besides, I snapped the photo below of part of the grounds as seem from the second floor. Kinda reminds me of Versailles, or at least a scaled-down section of the palace grounds there.

Zachary’s best friend (Angeline) had invited us to join her and her parents at a local bowling alley tonight. Since Zachary’s been on my case about doing so for the past three weeks (her father’s on a league, so they go just about every Monday night), we had decided to go tonight (during Spring Break, so not as concerned about staying up late). I even talked to Angeline's mom about the possibility of doing so since they both seemed very interested in getting together outside of school and/or SAS. Unfortunately, we didn’t find them there, and Zachary was disappointed to say the least. Since all the lanes there were all full, we opted to go to the Panzer bowling alley for supper and bowled a game there.

Benjamin was quite the little bowler! He was acting like he's been bowling for years (all two of his years, at least!). He had a blast!! He’d set his ball down at the edge of the lane, give it a push, run back to me with a huge grin on his face to give me a high-five, walk over to his seat, take a bite of his pizza, then walk back to the lane in time to watch his ball knock down a few pins. No, he wasn’t Dash from “The Incredibles,” but instead had mastered the consistent ability of throwing/rolling the slowest ball in all the lanes. In fact, the guard would come down before all the pins were knocked over because of how slow the ball was moving. But, he enjoyed playing with the “ball-ball” and rolling it down the lane all by himself! To top it off, Nana & Papa got a big kick out of simply watching him!

Zachary and MacKenzie had fun as well. Zachary managed to bowl a strike (with the help of the gutter-guards to prevent a complete gutter-ball), and MacKenzie had a few good frames as well. As for me, I bowled within two points of my college average, so consider it a reasonably good game (yes, I was on the college bowling team--the token female on my 4-person team). We stayed out way past bedtime at the bowling alley, but, again, it’s Spring Break so I figure we can bend the rules a little as long as we’re having fun.

Labels: Benjamin, Germany, MacKenzie, Nana and Papa, Travel, Zachary