Germany Trip - 21Sept23 through 02Oct23 Part 3of3

Rothenburg Ob der Tauber

Our final destination in Germany was a little town called Rothenburg Ob der Tauber.  It's a fortified medieval town that was never bombed in WWII and is very well preserved.  There is not a lot of activities to do here per se, but it's an amazing town to see!

It was quite a pain in the butt to get here though. The plan was to take the train from Munich to Rothenburg, but our scheduled train kept getting delayed or canceled!  I was freaking out because everything is in German and there were many stops and transfers along the way.  I was shocked because normally getting around on a German train is super easy....I'm not sure if there were workers striking or construction or what.  But I had to be very mindful of what train we were on and where we had to transfer.  I don't know how I would have done it before Google!

Once we got to our destination, the train station wasn't far from our room, so it was an easy walk and easy to check in and then we were on our way.

Most of the 2 days we spent here were just walking around and taking pictures of the street scape.

This is one of 2 (I think) main entrances into the fortified town.  The roads are so narrow and small inside the walled town that it's really best to park outside and then walk in.  Our hostel wasn't too far away so we just walked.

 

This is the main square in Rothenburg

This corner is supposed to be the most quintessential picturesque view.  Everything in town very much looks like Disney world! That's a weird comparison, but it's kind of true. 

The walls of the fortified city

Looking back at the city from across the way.

You are able to walk all around the town along these walkways that are along the walls.

This city is so authentic, it doesn't even look real.

Me looking into a well.  Shockingly, I didn't fall in. 

I do like going to cemeteries because they are so different from ours.  It's quite interesting.  We had to pass through this cemetery to get to the grocery store.

I thought it was funny how they had the Aldi style watering can system.  You put money in to get a can, but in order to get your money back, you have to return it. lol

These kind of windows are pretty typical.  The walls are so thick!

I'm always amazed at what is 'allowed' in other countries compared to the US.  Can you imagine having this public stairway in the US?  Someone would fall and immediately sue and this would be closed.  We can't have fun things in America because everyone is sue-happy.

View of a house from the wall walkway

The edge of the town along the wall and watchtower

I like to take pictures of souvenirs with names on them to see what is a common name currently in Germany.

I don't know what kind of car this is, but it was the smallest car I have ever seen.  And it was ALL plastic!!! It was teenier than a Smart car. I can't imagine getting in an accident with this though!  You would be dead for sure.

This was a popular snack in Rothenburg.  The sign says: Snow ball and Coffee.  Snowball with cinnamon sugar or powder sugar, small cup of Roast House coffee".  They were basically a ball of crispy fried dough. haha

A lot of the older houses had a sign like this hanging outside of it.  It was a way of telling people who could not read what business was established there.  This was a farrier.

Our breakfast at our hostel/apartment.  I love the German breakfast! They usually have meats and cheeses and bread

That's all folks
After 2 days in Rothenburg, we took the train back to Berlin and headed back to the States.

Disney Marathon Trip - 04Jan2024 through 09Jan2024

My blogs are still out of order!

I decided I was going to sign up for the Disney marathon a year ago.  Luckily, I got in during the sign up period, because the entire race weekend was sold out in about 2 hours.  It was insane!  I thought I wanted to do a challenge, but I think it worked out that I only go into the marathon.  1) because the challenges are super expensive and 2) I was sicker than a dog the entire time we were in Florida.

Anyway, fast forward to Jan 2024 and we flew to Orlando out of GR on Jan. 4th.  We stayed in Pop Century Resort because I figured it would be easier to get to the start of the race if we stayed right in on of the resorts.  Pop century was really nice, even if it was the 'budget' resort.

I do have to say, Disney knows how to treat their guests.  It was amazing how nice and friendly and accommodating all of their people were.

Pop Century had a lot of huge Disney-esque landmarks around the resort.

We used the skyline to get from Pop Century to Epcot, which worked out great!

The Expo was at the Wild World of Sports facility.  They had buses running from Pop Century to the venue all day.  That worked out because we did not have a car.

I was faking being happy.  I felt like garbage the entire time

I had gotten tickets for us to go to Universal on Friday. Gary and I had never been and the tickets were not that expensive so we decided to go.  They didn't have buses from Disney to Universal, so we ubered there.

The coolest ride ever was the Transformer ride!  You wore 3D glasses and were in a roller coaster car like thing that moved throughout the ride on a track.  The car moved in sync with what you were seeing through the glasses.  It felt so real!  And they blew hot and cold air on you to match with what was happening.  The bad thing, is that this was the first time I had been on a roller coaster type of ride in about 20 years and I discovered that because I am old, I now get super dizzy and almost sick from all the movement of the ride.  

The only other ride that I thought was amazing was the Borne Identity live action show.  I thought it was going to be boring and kind of cheesy.  But it was AMAZING!  It was a combination of life action stunt people, a moving stage and a screen.  They had everything so synced up that sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between what was in real life and what was on the screen.  That did NOT make me dizzy! haha

There were a lot of cute dances and shows like this at different times throughout the park.

This is a duplicate of Fisherman's Warf in San Fran.  It was neat to see, but to be honest, I have been to the real Fisherman's Warf in San Fran, so I didn't think it was that awesome.  It's cool that they are able to duplicate so many places and make them look exactly the same, but I would rather go to the real place than the fake place.

Universal does have a 'Springfield'.  Now, that doesn't exist in real life, so that was cool to see.  We tried the Simpon's ride, which was sort of similar to the Transformer Ride, but less awesome.  I thought I could handle it, but I couldn't.  I had to keep my eyes closed pretty much the entire ride.  I thought maybe it was because I was sick, but I think it is because I am just old now.

I'm so old that this made me super happy!  The DeLorean! 

They had this Blue's Brothers show which was kind of cool and fun to watch.

I love love love the NYC stoops.  I sat on the fake one, even though the real one is way cooler.

We did go to Harry Potter World for a little bit.  As you can see from the picture, it was insanely packed with people. We could not find the entrance for the life of us...but luckily since every little kid had on their Harry Potter outfits on, we just followed a couple of kids behind this wall. haha.  And BOOM, you were in Harry Potter World.  It was actually really cool to see.  The kids all had these wands.  And the wands came with a map that you followed throughout the 'city'. You could use your wand to turn on a water fountain, or make an animatronic bird wake up and flap it's wings.  I was really close to buying a wand, but they were like $80 and I had just as much fun watching other people's kids do it anyway.
After spending a day there, I can see why the tickets are so cheap.  Because they don't make money on the tickets....they make money on all the crap that people purchase there!  I was SHOCKED at how expensive all that crap was.  And I'm just not into those kind of souvenirs.  It is a neat place to see...especially the places that are not real life place, like the Harry Potter World.  But, I don't see myself ever going there again.  It's just fake places, rides and shopping.  After Universal, we Ubered to Publix, got some food and snacks for our room, then Ubered back to the resort.

Saturday was a real bust.  I felt like absolute garbage.  Gary walked around the complex and took the skyline to other areas while I laid in the room and died all day.  Around noon, I finally pulled myself together enough to take a shower and get ready.  We took the Skyline and buses to Disney Springs.  Again, not really my thing, but it was neat to see.  It literally is nothing but shops and restaurants.  We had a snack and some drinks at this restaurant and and walked around a bit, but then I was done after about an hour.  Everything was super expensive.  I don't need an M&M sweatshirt or a Mickey tumbler. None of that interests me. LOL.  We took the bus back and I just went to bed because I had to get up SUPER early the next day for the race.
Around 2:30am, I got up to get ready for the marathon.  I still felt like garbage, but I was going to power through no matter what!  They had buses going right from Pop Century to drop us off at Epcot.  I have to say, Disney really knows how to herd people quickly and efficiently.  

Me heading to the start of the marathon

Because I got to the starting gates so early, I had time to wait in line to get my picture taken with Mikey and Minnie.  Most of the people running the marathon had costumes on!  I asked if I could take a picture of this random couple because their costumes were so good!

I got my picture taken with Mickey and Minnie before the race!

Ready to start!

Even though I'm not a huge Disney adult, I do have to say that it was really cool running down main street at Magic Kingdom in the early morning.  There were 'regular' park goers at that time, but Disney did a great job keeping them off of the race course.

kind of blurry...oh well

During the entire course...maybe every couple of miles, there were characters standing on the race course and you could stop, stand in line and get your picture taken with a character.  I know I'm not the fastest runner, but it would have taken me FOREVER to complete the race if I had stopped at every character to get a picture.  And the lines were LONG!  They also played movies on the course too, like in the picture above.

It was around the time I reached Animal Kingdom that all of a sudden I saw workers standing at the opening of these 'lightening lanes' and calling to runners.  Some runners went ahead and ran to these 'lightening lanes'.  I had no clue what the heck was going on.  I found out later, that at some point the parks open to the public during the race.  As soon as the park officially opens for the day, anyone running the race can get on a ride and then get off and keep running the race.  WHAT?!?!?  So these runners were running to the rides to ride them, then get off the ride and get back in the race.  No wonder the time limit is 8hrs! haha

It was also kind of cool to be able to run 'behind the scenes' during the race.  We ran past the place where they kept all the parade floats.....we ran 'behind' a lot of scenery.  It was funny to see these elaborate, Disney backgrounds and then run behind them and see all the nuts and bolts that hold them together.

It took me almost 5hrs to finish the race.  I don't think I have ever ran a race that sick before.  I had such a hard time breathing, but I finished!

My race swag

After the race, I got cleaned up and took a nap. Later that day, we met up with my dad and went out to dinner.  Weird coincidence, but my dad was in the Orlando area the exact same time that we was.  He drove there to visit his sister at the nursing home in the greater Orlando area.  He also met up with some work friends to play golf.  After my marathon, I called him and asked if he would like to go out to dinner since he was so close.  He picked us up at the resort and we went to Celebration Village to have dinner and drinks.  It was nice catching up with just him.  After a few hours, he dropped us back off at the resort for the night.

Monday we had reservations at Epcot.  I figured, since we were there, we might as well visit it.  Epcot is really cool, but I just kept thinking....I've been to the real Germany....I've been to the real France....I've been to the real Norway.  And I would much rather spend money in the real country than the fake Disney country.  

The really funny thing is that this gate is in Hiroshima, Japan on an island called Miyajima.  At the time of this picture, I was like "in 3 months I'm going to have a picture of myself standing in front of the REAL gate".  I'll post that in the next blog...

Still feeling like garbage and the only thing that sounded good was bread and Sprite...

One of the rides I did like at Epcot was called Test Track.  You got to 'test' new cars on a track.  It was pretty cool, but I screamed and yelled swears and I think I grabbed the guy next to me multiple times...poor guy.  It didn't make me feel too sick, just a little dizzy.

Hi Gary.  You are probably glad you didn't ride with me.

After the test track, I was feeling pretty good, so I thought that I could handle one more ride.....  We went on Mission Space.  Oh boy what a mistake that was.  I was thinking, how bad could it be?  When we got strapped into the ride and I saw the barf bags, I knew I was in trouble.  The ride was like you were launched into space, floated around, and then had to safely get back to earth.  I don't know how in the heck they get you to feel all those feelings, but I thought I wasn't going to make it on this ride.  I kept my eyes closed the whole time, thinking that would help me not feel anything.  I was so wrong!  It really felt like you were feeling the G-force of being launched into space.  Then it felt like you were weightless and floating around in space.  I could not wait for that ride to be done.  That was it for me!

I just liked the birds and flowers...and looking at flowers and birds shockingly didn't make me want to vomit.

I don't know why, but this sign made me laugh...and I thought it was pretty clever!

This pretty much sums up how I felt the entire trip.

We were supposed to leave early Tuesday morning, January 9th, and arrive late afternoon.  The weather had other plans.  First of all, we flew from Orlando to Charlotte without incident and changed planes.  We were late leaving Charlotte because we were picking up a bunch of stray people who's flights were all delayed/canceled who were coming from Texas back to Michigan.  They were mostly Michigan fans all coming back from the football tournament.  They had already been stranded one day, so they were happy to be getting on a plane to Michigan.  We left Charlotte, got to GR and the pilot came on and let us know that we couldn't land because of the weather.  He circled around for almost an hour and then had to call it.  We couldn't land and we were running out of fuel.  So, we headed back South and landed in Cincinnati, OH.  Once we landed, they told us that they would refuel and we could get going back to GR.  We refueled, but then the crew 'timed out' for their shift.  So, we all had to de-board and get hotels for the night because they couldn't find another crew to take their place.  Luckily, Gary and I only did carry-on luggage, so we had all of our stuff with us.  A lot of people did not.  So, as we stood there in line for our vouchers, some people had to coordinate with airline staff to try and get their luggage off of the plane.  Some people decided to change flights, some people teamed up to rent a car and drive back to Michigan....we decided to just take our chances and wait it out.  That seemed to work the best, because all the other flights ended up getting canceled.  At the same time, my dad was driving back to Michigan.  I thought, if he makes it to Cincinnati, he can pick us up and we can just drive back!  But, he stopped for the night about 3hrs south of Cinci.  So, we got our meal vouchers and hotel for the night.  We didn't really get a chance to sleep or anything because we had to be up at 330 to catch the shuttle to make sure that we got through security before the flight took off around 530.  At least we got a shower and got to lay down for a few hours.  
After a few hours, we got up, caught the shuttle, got through security, and made it to our gate to wait for the flight.  About 30 minutes before our flight, our crew came walking in.  We all cheered and clapped for them!  Once they got situated, we boarded the flight and FINALLY headed home!