Yep, third trip to Garmisch--Nick's fourth. He had the choice to attend the Army Dental Conference, with permissive TDY (meaning he didn't have to take any leave to be able to go). Of course, he said yes, because who would say no to a free week of leave in the Alps? This time, unlike last year, all of us were able to go. Instead of camping, we rented one of the "Rustic" cabins. Rustic just means there's no running water in the cabin itself and you have to bring your own towels. There's still a micro, fridge, table, chairs, bed, bunkbed, loft bed, DVD/satellite TV. Not too rustic, in our opinion. Plus, it was something like 400 bucks for a week as opposed to 150 at LEAST a night at the lodge. And, we could pretend we were camping. I was extremely thankful to not be in a tent with the two kiddos while Nick was at the conference, because it rained about 80% of the time he was gone. Having to stay in a tent would NOT have been my ideal choice.
We spent a lot of time at the library while Nick was at seminars, and went for walks. There's a delicious little bakery just down the road from the base. I wanted to taste every kind of bread they made, but I think I would have to go there every day for a month to do so! There was also a nice little park across the campsite from us, and the pool at the lodge was always available.
As a family we went on a couple hikes, one up to a little huette on the mountain above the base, with a great view of the valley. It was quite a steep ascent, and Nick and I were ready for a little rest, what with each of us carrying a child.
One of the other dentists from Nick's clinic came down to the conference as well, and we spent a few evenings hanging out with him at our site, and Nick did some serious hiking with him one afternoon. They rented snowshoes from Outdoor Rec, even, because snow was still pretty thick up closer to the top.
We did have a major dud of the trip. We decided to go up to Munich one afternoon and check out the Fruehlingsfest (spring fest). We should have known, when they said it was at the platz where Oktoberfest is, only smaller, that it was not worth our while. We were thinking good beer/wine, some local vendors, etc., and it ended up being a lame-o carni fest. We are not big carnival fans, but we told Stella she could ride the Ferris Wheel, so that's all we did. Then, we walked around Munich in search of a restaurant, walked through a bit of the English Garten hoping to find a nice outdoor imbiss or something, with no luck. We then attempted public transport combos of buses and subways to get back to the center, and were stuck on a subway going nowhere for about 15 minutes. Public transport that day was no fun. We had taken the train to get there, and the actual train wasn't bad, but the whole trip was pretty boring. We had hoped it would be better than staying in Garmisch, since it seemed like it was going to rain, but it turned out we were wrong and it had been sunny the whole time! Grrr...live and learn.
The trip overall was fun, though. It's always great to see the mountains and go "camping." Stella had a blast. The day we were leaving there was a kid-fest at the community center on base and she got to play with play-doh, make huge bubbles, get her face painted, watch a puppet show, ride a trike with pedals for the first time, and decorate a cookie. Not too bad!
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