Trip to Garmisch

Early last Thursday morning, my son and I drove up to Aachen, Germany to catch the first of our 4 trains to Garmisch, Germany. We chose to drive the two hours up to Aachen to save us 80EU on tickets. Garmisch is clear on the other side of Germany and would have been a very long drive, so we took the train. That way if my son was antsy, we could always get up and walk on the train and have a snack without me needing to worry about multi-tasking while driving on the autobahn.
Our first train left without incident from Aachen to Koln, about an hour train ride. It was a perfectly foggy day in Germany, so I was again, happy we took the train. We pulled into Koln, only to find out that our train into Munich was cancelled. Not postponed, but cancelled, and it was going to be the nice ICE train too, the one that goes 300km/hr. We found the customer service station to help us out and only had an hour wait until the next train.
 We took our time, had some McDonalds, on my son's request, and went for a walk before heading back to the platform. We spoke to a college kid from Italy who was also bumped from our first train to Munich. He was worried about speaking English, but it was fabulous. Better than some American's, actually. We talked about college and how he'd like to study in London or in the States somewhere. It was nice to talk to such a motivated young kid, and he was very patient with my son's showing off for him.
We headed up to the platform about 5 minutes early, low and behold, our train was going to be another 25 minutes late. The day was chilly, but not too bad, so we stayed up there and talked to a man from Brussels that was interested in talking about America. Too bad I haven't been to NYC or LA. I have been to New Orleans, so that helped his view of my Americanism.
When we were finally able to get on the train, it was PACKED. Originally, we had reserved seats, so we were guaranteed a place to sit. Now, with the train with it's original passengers and all the ones that had been bumped, we were jammed in there. My son and I shared a seat next to a nice woman who's daughter is married to a Chicagoan. The weather continued to be dreary and foggy and it was beginning to take it's toll. The little boy was so sleepy and nodding off watching movies on the iPad when she told us that she needed out at the next stop. That would leave us with two seats! However, jostling my son around renewed his energy and we spend the rest of the afternoon in a power struggle. He lost the use of the iPad until he was able to rest quietly for a short period of time, and that never happened. Really, if it had been 5 minutes, I was willing to give, but nothing. I'm sure the people around us were ready to see us get off one stop before the end. At least they had 5 minutes of peace.
The next train was a metro/regional train to Garmisch and that was also packed with commuter passengers. We spent the first two stops sitting on the stairs waiting for people to get off. That also was a very long train, only an hour usually, but it really seemed longer.
My friend, Loren, was waiting for us at the train station with a nice bottle of blueberry gluhwein, so that made things better. She also loves my naughty little boy, and that made things much better. We caught a taxi and rode the mile up to Edelweiss Lodge. My son was so excited to see Loren's boys that he couldn't wait, he ran ahead of us yelling for them down the hallway. The place has such a great family atmosphere, it's like worrying about a loud child at Great Wolf Lodge. Not a big deal, it also helps that the walls are very well insulated. There were tons of kids there, and the lodge was full, but we never heard any of the rooms around or below us.
Edelweiss was beautiful, a great place with decently priced amenities. I absolutely, can't wait to get over there again. My son loved being able to watch movies on the TV placed right outside the gift store. There are also little kids' games that are free in the basement. The pool is wonderful and had a nice zero entry section with a waterfall umbrella and the hot tub is outside looking out on the mountain. Beautiful. Really, when can I go back?
This was Loren's family's last weekend in Germany and they leave for the States for a 3 year tour tomorrow. I'm so glad that we were able to have time to see each other again and let our kids play. Heck, I'm glad that her husband and oldest son watched my wired kid so we could go exercise every morning and shop alone. Those things there were more than worth the crazy trains it took to get there.