Day 4 & 5– Breisach, Germany

We finally boarded the riverboat yesterday. Here is a picture.

Just down from where we boarded the boat is a point in Europe where three countries come together and they have erected a sphere marking where each country joins.  It is 3 sided and you can walk around stepping into each country as you do – no passports needed!! The points are of Switzerland, Germany and France. 

Our riverboat left port around 4:45 a.m. Saturday and we arrived in Breisach, Germany around lunch-time.  Our choice of tour today was a tour of the Black Forest – best known for Black Forest Cake and Black Forest Ham! The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.  It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and the south.  The main industry for this region is tourism. This is also where the Cuckoo-Clocks were originally made and still are today and you could buy a Cuckoo Clock and they would ship home for you!!  I wanted one but Brian said no that the cuckoo would drive him crazy and they were too expensive.  They were beautiful though!

The biggest Cuckoo Clock in the world!

Just some of the clocks. 

This hat is called “hat of the 14 saints” of the black forest region and if a woman wore this hat with the red bobbles it meant you were “available”; if they were black “you were not available” (I assume single or married)!

From the Cuckoo Factory, we headed to a place called “Titisee” which was quite a unique little village with lots of shops.  Roseleigh and I finally found some “Swiss/German Dresses” for our granddaughters! Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the village – I think Roseleigh and I were too excited to find some shops although the men were not so keen. We stopped for a coffee and a slice of Black Forest Cake and overlooked Lake Titisee. 

Lake Titisee with Black Forest region in the background. 

We are just getting ready for dinner right now, so I will post this and then I am going to put a video together later which I will add later tonight. So if you don’t see a video below, come back later to view some more pictures. 

Day 3 - still in Basel....

Well, this is our last day in Basel and although a nice city, we are all ready to move on and board the Riverboat tomorrow.  Brian got up this morning (while I slept in) and went out for a run along the Rhine.  He ran about 6K and quite enjoyed getting out for his run (the first since his chemo a couple of weeks ago).  After breakfast, we took the street car to a place called Fondation Beyeler which was a museum located in a park-like setting.  We decided against going into the Museum as it was for contemporary art for which none of us was that keen to see plus it cost 25 francs to get in, so we felt a little expensive.  We walked around the park area and into the local village to look at the shops.  At one of the shops we found the "swim bags" that you can use on the river to carry your belongings on as you ride the current.  That just made Brian, Richard and Roseleigh very excited to be able to experience the river current ride later this afternoon.  I was not that keen as I am not that comfortable in water, particularly moving water with a strong current, so I was happy to be the "photographer" and wait for them to get to the point where I  was waiting to get their pictures.   You will see in my video below the "orange bags" they were wearing to carry their shoes, clothes, etc as they floated down the river.  

All three thoroughly enjoyed their ride and it was again just a beautiful summer day out.  So far, we have had fabulous weather and we hope this keeps us as it certainly makes it very enjoyable to walk about in shorts and being in the nice sunshine.  

We had a nice dinner at a local restaurant sitting on a Terrace overlooking the Rhine and then headed back to the hotel to relax and get another good night's sleep before heading to the Riverboat tomorrow.  We are all so excited to finally be getting on the riverboat.  

I certainly hope that the internet on the boat turns out to be good so I can keep blogging and posting our picture videos.  Here is the video of today's activities....

Day 2 - August 21, 2013 - Basel, Switzerland

We got up this morning and had a beautiful breakfast in the hotel.  We sat out on the Terrace enjoying the Rhine River. The breakfast was buffet style but you also could order eggs – any style. This hotel is probably one of the best hotels we have ever stayed in.  They treat you like Royalty and I certainly could get used to this!  We then spent the day walking around town and as the hotel gave us “mobility tickets”, we could ride public transit in any form, so we hopped on a streetcar and just stayed on the one car until it did a complete loop of the city and we were able to see where the locals live and other parts of the city we wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to see.  It was really quite interesting.  We walked around the stores but everything here is so expensive, it really isn’t worth buying anything but nevertheless is fun to walk around the stores.  I don’t know how much walking we did today but it must have been miles and after supper tonight, we were all feeling pretty sore and tired.  I have a few pictures I will post of things we found around town.  We are not sure what we will do tomorrow as we have one more full day here before we board the Riverboat on Friday which is the highlight of this trip (of course!)

One of the neat things that we have watched people do is they float down the Rhine River, being pulled along by the current.  They have these bags that you can buy, can’t remember what they call them, but you put all your belongings in the this waterproof bag, roll it up which then makes it waterproof and  buoyant and you float along with this bag so when you get further down the river and want to get out, you have all your dry clothes/belongings with you and then don’t have to walk back to where you started to get your things.  We asked where we could buy these bags but unfortunately the store someone directed us to had sold out.  We were thinking about trying it tomorrow as it really looks like a lot of fun. We are going to ask around and see if there is another place to buy these bags.

Here is a synopsis of a few pictures I took today.....

Day 1 - Basel, Switzerland - August 20, 2013

Finally, after much anticipation for this trip, we had a very uneventful flight over and, of course, feel very exhausted without much sleep on a red eye flight.  We were just ecstatic about meeting up with our friends from Perth, Australia, Richard and Roseleigh, and as we were getting out of the taxi at the Grand Hotel in Basel, there they were, waiting for us!  After a bit of a visit and then getting settled in our hotel room; we took a bit of a nap and meet up with Richard and Roseleigh for dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel. We had a  wonderful dinner and a nice walk around the area of the city we are staying. I have made a small video of the pictures I took so far and now we are off to bed for more adventures tomorrow!

August 8, 2013–Gourmet Night

It was Gourmet Night at Dad’s residence with the theme of Tribute to Graceland – Elvis Presley. So the menu was apparently some of his favorite southern food – Corn Bread, BBQ ribs, corn on the cob and twice baked potato, dessert being a Chocolate Peanut Butter square with ice-cream.  Then Elvis entertained in the evening. 

Dad had invited all his children to celebrate what would have been mom and dad’s 72nd wedding anniversary.  My mom was definitely there in spirit but we all miss her terribly. 

I took a few pictures and have put together a slideshow which I will put at the end of this posting.

Brian had another round of his chemo today for his NHL (lymphoma) and we are hoping he tolerates this just as well as the previous rounds.  We now have 9 days to build his immune system up again before we leave for vacation on August 19th; so we will be lying low for the next week keeping at bay any pesky germs. 

Please make sure you return to my blog daily once we leave for vacation as I am hoping to blog every day as I did on our last “trip of a lifetime”.  How blessed are we that we once again can experience such a trip and hoping this one is even better since Brian was not well on the last one having just been diagnosed with his lymphoma. 

I will start blogging on August 20th….so hoping anyone following by blog will enjoy!

July 23, 2013

Wow, time is flying by and I realized I haven’t written on the blog in a very long time, so I thought I would update a little!  Our little granddaughter, Annika, graduated from JK at St. Ignathius School in June.

Saying their prayers.One thing I absolutely love about the Separate School Board is that they say their prayers every day.

Annika, her principal and her teacher, Ms. Duffy.

Brian and I had a lovely time in Niagara-on-the-Lake at a great B&B and really nice ride on our bikes along the trails in Niagara.  It was a really hot day but thankfully no rain!  The day before going to Niagara, we went to watch David do his first triathlon of the year and he did quite well, coming 8th overall.  We spent an afternoon/evening with David and Jenn and Karsten and Meaghan in Niagara Falls and it was great hanging out with the “young kids” before we headed off to Niagara-on-the-Lake.  Here are a few pics…..

Waiting for the swim Start…

Coming in off the bike

Finishing the race. 

 

Karsten, David, Meagan, Jenn and Brian

Jenn and Brian doing their good deed for the day helping this woman who should never have tried to come down these stairs.  She was an accident waiting to happen before Brian and Jenn stepped in.

Karsten and David holding their “purses”!

Our B&B – Janet sitting in the background outside our room. We had our own private room.  This B&B is listed as the #1 B&B in Niagara-on-the-Lake and it lives up to its rating.  Breakfast was 5 courses which we ate outside at the tables you see in this picture!! It was awesome!

On our bike ride with the Niagara River in the background.  It is just beautiful riding along the trails in Niagara.

On the grounds of the Bufferfly Museum.  Very unique tree!

Just this past weekend, we attended the wedding of Shane and Sarah Riley; Shane is the son of our good friends, Eric and Dana. Eric was Brian’s best man at our wedding.  It was so great to see some friends we haven’t seen in many many years. I took some pictures at the wedding and put together a video of the wedding.  I am going to post it below as I know that my brother, Roy, and my dad, will recognize a lot of the friends who played on a ball team together even before Brian and I were married.  It was so good to see everyone.  I will end with the video below.

We will be leaving on our Riverboat cruise from Basel, Switzerland through to Paris, France, then on to England in another month; so I plan to blog daily during that time if you are interested to keep up with our journey through Europe again. We leave August 19th.   We are very very excited to meet up with Roseleigh and Richard who we met on the last cruise two years ago and to enjoy yet another Riverboat cruise. These truly are the ultimate in vacations!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

We have just been overjoyed with the weather in the last week.  Finally some spring-like (more summer-like) weather.  Now I just want it to stay like this.  Brian and I got our new patio furniture out and have already been to Zehrs Garden Centre and bought some Geraniums and have made up some nice planters as well.  Brian is hoping to dig out the grass around our new patio area in the back and we are going to make a nice flower garden back there to enjoy.

Last Sunday we went to Toronto to watch David participate in the Toronto Marathon.  We got up early and met up with Jenn’s parents (Jim and Janet) at a restaurant and had breakfast while David was starting his race.  We then head over to the finish line at the old Ontario Place and waited for him to finish.  It was such a beautiful morning too; it was great to be in the nice sunshine.  David did us all proud by finishing 8th overall in a time of 2 hours and 47 minutes!  He was pretty exhausted by the end of it but he was very happy with his race but says he probably won’t do another marathon again. It puts him too much into the “hurt box”, so doing half marathon and 10K races is more what he enjoys.  He is hoping to do a triathlon or two this summer just for fun and maybe Jenn will do one too.  Brian would love to do one as well but I keep discouraging him from that as I feel he needs to get his maintenance chemotherapy done before he tries doing anything too strenuous.  So I think next year would be the time Brian can start thinking about it but we shall see what Brian decides! 

Talking about maintenance chemo, Brian is due for maintenance chemo next Tuesday.  We see the oncologist on Monday and chemo is scheduled for Tuesday.  So next week will be a “resting week” for Brian as usually the chemo makes him feel a bit unwell for a few days. 

We also are very excited as we have now booked our trip to Europe in the summer.  We are going on the Rhine and Moselle Treasures Riverboat Cruise  from Basel, Switzerland to Paris for 11 days, then we are going to take the train (through the chunnel) from Paris to London where Geoff and Lynn have been so kind enough to pick us up and we are spending about 5 days with them before we head back to Canada.  I’m so excited that we are able to taking another trip like this and we will be meeting up with our friends, Richard and Roseleigh from Perth, Australia who we met on the last European River cruise.  We will be gone for about 3 weeks total.  (Aug 19 thru Sept 6).

Another piece of good news is that dad has signed the dotted line to move into the new Retirement Residence at the Aboretum called the Village of Arbor Trails. See picture:

Dad’s apartment is tucked right in the corner facing the pond you see above.  I wish I knew how to add an arrow symbol to point to his apartment.  He is on the ground floor and will have a nice little patio to sit out on. The area with the blue on the roof is where the “hub” of activity will be at the home, where the Main Street is located and the glass area there is where the dining room is so they have a nice view of the pond that you see which in this picture is frozen with ice and snow.  Move-in should be some time in August so I’m hoping it will be before Brian and I leave for our trip.  I think my dad is going to love it there! I’m really impressed with Schlegel Villages philosophy on aging. 

I’m including a few pictures here of our new patio set-up and some  other pictures with captions below. 

Our patio out the back – we totally enjoy sitting out there.  Very peaceful if you ignore the traffic on Victoria Road!

This is our front porch with the flowers we planted.  Hope we don’t get a frost now!

Our Bistro set on the front porch.

Janet & Jim Bruder and Brian with a sign that the Bruder’s grandkids made for David in the Marathon!

David after the marathon with his legs so sore he was having trouble getting to the car, so Karsten who had his bike with him (and followed David throughout the race) let him coast along on the bike to save his legs!!

Annika in her dance costume for her recital at the end of May.  She was just heading off to get her pictures taken. 

With nana and papa and the excited dogs as we had just walked in the door!