Rest and to Karlsruhe

The shed is now closed in, once the door is stained and put up and so the next day Becky and I began packing up. We were going to be leaving Birmingham UK for the last time on this trip. It was a rainy day, and I just cleaned up things around the shed and got packed. Fiona came late morning, and she and Becky took Jamie to his swim lesson in the afternoon. Then we loaded her car, and we drove back to Bassingbourn with Fiona.

The next couple of days were days to get caught up. We had left most of our stuff in Bassingbourn when we left for our Scotland tour and then went directly to Abigail and Mark’s house. This was a chance to get things organized, update the blog, and have a couple days to relax. We needed to reload our bags as Mark was traveling to Germany and had to run in two different races in two different cities a week apart. Mark and Abigail invited us to travel with them, and we would spend time in between races seeing Germany and maybe a couple of other places. We needed a day to get ready.

These couple of days were really nice. I was able to get caught up on many things and we relaxed. Becky took a couple of walks. She and I had lunch at the Hoops pub in Bassingbourn one day. We had great meals and conversations with Perry and Fiona, and the weather was gorgeous. Jamie and Abigail showed up late one night as we would be flying out of Stanstead airport and Fiona would be dropping us all off. Abigail dropped Mark off at a hotel near the airport as he had an early morning flight and we all did not fly till later in the evening.

Finally, the day for the Germany trip to begin. It was very warm. we packed our stuff. Perry had to put a new queen bee in one of his hives as the other queen died or something as there was not one and that was why that hive was going crazy for several weeks. After introducing the new queen, we all could not go outside as bees were not being nice at that point.

We finally loaded up and headed to the airport. Fiona dropped us off and we worked our way through the Ryan Air program. This is a very inexpensive airline, but they charge you extra for everything, so everyone does everything they can to not check luggage, and everyone has a bunch of little bags. We were no exception. We did check one very large stroller, but they allow that to go for free. We got through security and to the gate with now real problems. The other part of Ryan Air is you board the plane upstairs from the tarmac. All this was very interesting to Jamie who was already tired since it was way past his bedtime.

The flight was not bad and not full, so Becky was able to sit in another sit. Jamie never slept and so Abigail had her hands full the whole flight. Jamie was great just very wiggly. We arrived at the Karlsruhe/Biden-Biden airport at 11:00 pm local time. Mark had reserved a car shuttle to take us to the hotel in Karlsruhe. It took about 20 minutes for us to connect with him, but we finally arrived at the hotel. Abigail and Jamie had a room and Becky and I had a room and Mark was at the athlete’s hotel. Unfortunately, there was no cot in the room for Abigail. It was also very warm and there is no AC, as there is not much anywhere in Europe. They did have floor fans at least.

It was almost 1:00 am as we went to bed, but we were now in Germany. Country number three for Becky and I.