We realized that the combination of Christmas and the Stomps family always leads to adventure...
2 years ago, our first Christmas together, we traveled from Hamburg to my Mom's in the East of Germany then to the Netherlands, then again to Hamburg and back to Greifswald within a week. Last year we celebrated Christmas in Las Vegas which was amazing!
So this year we planned a quiet and relaxing Christmas but it turned out to be a crazy adventure. On Christmas eve we were invited to a family from our branch. The night before we had a big snowstorm and even on Christmas eve it was snowing like crazy.
We still decided to drive to our friends and there are no words to even describe how it was. First we drove to Greifswald and took a video of the streets.
When we thought it couldn't get any worse it did. You have to keep in mind, that in northern Germany we are not used to this amount of snow, or snow at all (snow usually melts within hours or days).
There are four different roads that lead to where we wanted to go (see map), the first one was blocked by a semi-truck, the second one was blocked by a snow plow that got stuck while trying to clear the road and the other 2 roads were blocked by all the snow.
So after traveling for almost 3 hours we had to call our friends, cancel and drive back to our apartment. Since we were not able to enjoy the Christmas dinner we had planned for we got hungry and had to stop at a gas station to get a nice big "Bockwurst"!!
Driving back was even worse because the roads got bumpier, snowier and icier. So instead of driving, we flew and slipped our way back to Stralsund. Four hours and only 100 kilometers later we finally got home and I was able to find some food to prepare us some dinner.
It wasn't a traditional Christmas eve dinner, but it was still delicious. After reading the Christmas story and opening the presents we watched "Inception" because David got that movie for Christmas. David totally loved the movie and is begging me to watch it again, if it were up to him, right now!
Here are some pictures of our presents. (Remember that we didn't have a Christmas tree, so we had to improvise and used our floor lamp as an alternative...)
On the 25th we planned to go and visit my mother for two days. Until we left, and even in the car, we were debating if we should go and decided we would go for it.
So, at 7 am, we started the trip heading 550 km south east. The first part of the Autobahn was crazy, you couldn't see any road and all David could do, was to hold the steering wheel tight and just drive straight.
As time got by, the roads got better, but still we were very very slow because a couple of times we had to drive behind a snowplow and they were soooo slow. Also most of the other drivers were slow and passing them was always an adventure because the second lane was full of snow and ice and keeping one lane free was a big enough challenge already for the German winter services. One time we, and all the cars around us, had to make a full stop on the Autobahn which was scary because we didn't know if it was just for a couple of minutes or for a couple of hours, as only a few days before people had been stuck in their car on the Autobahn for 10 hours.
After almost 8 hours we safely made it and got rewarded with a delicious Christmas dinner. Then, finally the time had come to relax and enjoy Christmas.
Driving home was a little bit better but it still took us 7 hours. So this Christmas was one to remember. Next year we will be back in the states for Christmas so we are already excited and wondering what kind of adventure Christmas has in store for us then.
