Life: Idiotropic

On Friday, Mom, Elise, Luci, and I drove about an hour south to the quaint little city of Monschau. It is in the Eiffel region near the Belgian border near many national parks and ski resorts. The entire area is beautiful. Monschau is small and old, untouched by the war, its buildings are still in beautiful condition, so... it's a tourist trap. But that's ok. I'm a tourist and had heard great things about the town. We were in a time crunch on Friday, so we couldn't see everything or do the long hikes up the hills to the castle and ruins, but just wandering around the narrow cobblestone streets was nice, looking at the crooked half-timbered houses strung along the creek running through the town. There was a nice park for kids next to a sweet little chapel. A sculpture garden showed off the work of a local copper artist there. Many restaurants tempted us with little signs like "kaffee und kuchen," and "frische wafel mit heis kirche und sahn." Hmmmmm.... I love hot waffels here. They melt in your mouth. We managed to avoid temptation until the end and found a nice konditerei in the square by the creek. The service was good and quick. The coffee was perfect. And... it was a great place to sit. Elise wouldn't sit. She stood by the door looking out towards the water... then she's inch slowly forward - just a bit so as to not arouse suspicion. Then another inch and she's sitting on the first step - then the second... until she was walking ever so slowly towards the creek. I eventually stood out there and waited and watched a little duck swim lazily back and forth. There were lace shops, jewelry shops, sculptures and food, tacky gift shops and a Christmas store. I would go again to do all the hiking and walks. There were little doors setting into the side of the mountain that we weren't able to explore and it would be interesting to learn more about that place.

This is the fire station (above). Cute, isn't it? Inside the big garage door sat two firetrucks and just below each window was a nice little planter box full of perfect flowers. The curtains even looked great - nice Belgian lace. Who bets their wives had something to do with that?

Here is another view of the little creek with the ruin up on the hill. At one point we saw quite a large crowd up there. The roads into Monschau are all very steep and curvy going in, so to get anywhere there are a lot of steep trails. I'm not quite sure how we'll manage that one with the kids... but we will. There's a lot to see.


On Saturday, mom and I had originally planned on taking the train to Koln, but we decided to go back to Monschau again to have more time. We stopped at a little restaurant/gasthaus on the way that we'd seen the day before. It looked really beautiful and had a great view of the valley below, so we wanted to find out more about it. The lunch was excellent - just amazing food. Tiara even loved it. Mom and I both had lamb. Tiara had baked goat cheese with toast and a nice salad. Mom looked at the rooms and said they were nice. The owner is Austrian and does an Austrian buffet every Saturday. There are hiking trails all around the Inn and horsebackriding too. I got some information - would be a great place for a weekend date and I'd really like to go when they have the Austrian buffet. The service was great and the people were friendly. We'll go back.

Next we got sidetracked by a little antique shop on the way. You know, there are always times that you are going somewhere and don't have time to stop and check things out... so this day we checked things out and then had almost no time in our destination itself. Still, it was a fun day with three generations... mom, Tiara, and me. The antique shop was fun and the owner was very kind and very knowledgeable. We roamed around upstairs to find an attic full of treasurss covered with at least 10 years of dust. He said he has enough room up there to last him a lifetime. No doubt. I'll go back there to browse again. Tiara found a pair of earrings and mom found a painting. I found a zipher, but will wait... if it's meant to be...

So... finally we got to Monschau. We had time for a couple shops, a quick walk, and a treat at the konditerei. It was rushed, but still fun and Tiara enjoyed seeing it although she would have liked to spend less time in the lace store and more time in the Christmas shop.