We left Switzerland behind us as we wanted to spend some time in Germany. To get to where we wanted to be, we had to cross through France. We spent the night in the village of Rouffach, France. We found a spot at the small community campsite. Registration was between 5pm and 6pm. Raija and I went up to the reception area and in my best French I booked a night for us. The lady was intrigued by my Canadian driver's license (used for identification) so I told her about our trip: "environ six mois en Europe et ensuite six moins en Afrique". To which she replied : "Oh lala et aujourd'hui à Rouff#*k!" (Translated: Oh my, and today in Rouffach!) Raija watched her in horror, leaned in to me and whispered "Mama, she said a really bad word!" The pronunciation of Rouffach sounded, let's say, interesting in English ;)
That night we enjoyed a walk through the heart of the village.
When Raija was in bed and Myron had crawled into his little tent, we had a little mishap that resulted in the gas strut popping off one side of the rooftop tent... It was not something we could fix in the dark so we slept with Raija in her bed... not ideal.
The next morning, while John and Myron wanted to try to fix the broken gas strut, John slipped off the step he was standing on, tried to grab himself, grabbed with his left hand... and dislocated his shoulder. It was the same shoulder he dislocated once before...
The village of Rouffach, quite a fitting name by now ;) , did not have a medical centre so I drove us to Guebwiller, where John received the best care possible. The staff was all very professional and friendly and within an hour we were set to go, John's arm in a sling (for the next three weeks) and a stack of painkillers to go.
We then had the next challenge, we needed to find someone to fix our rooftop tent as we did not want another night with the three of us in the back bad. Had I mentioned Raija and I were just getting over a nasty stomach flu?!
Let's say the mood was not great that day.
By the end of that day, after we got the tent fixed by a really nice camper repair guy in south Germany, we were so done with it all, we stopped for the day.
The next day we mainly drove the busy German motorway and in the afternoon we found a small campsite on a farm. To stay here was the best decision ever: it was peaceful, the weather was warm, chickens strolled around the grounds, and an earless cat instantly came to hang out with us. It also had a great play area where Raija spent a lot of her time.
In the morning we bought a carton of fresh eggs from the farmer's shop. "Do you like green eggs and ham?"
Our plan to travel through the Rhine area in Germany was scrapped and we drove straight to our friends in the north of Germany, to Walsrode. We had a lovely afternoon in their backyard and the next morning we got a private tour around the Walsrode Abbey. It was such an interesting place and we learned so much about the history of this 1020 year old Abbey and its surroundings.
The first time John visited Hannelore and Manfred, was when he was a 12-year-old boy. His sister's gymnastics club visited Walsrode as part of an exchange program between Walsrode and their hometown of Zaltbommel.
John was placed with these lovely people and they stayed friends ever after. John spent a lot of time with them as a scout and later we visited them together as well.
John was surprised to learn there was a street named after Zaltbommel, which in 1991 became the twin town to Walsrode.
We had such a lovely time here and we were very proud of Myron as he conversed in German most of the day :)
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