The week after the our wedding mainly consisted of us just chilling.  T and I desperately needed to catch up on sleep (I was averaging about 3-4 hours a night the week before, during and a few days after the wedding).  But my godmother (and subsequently my goddaughter) were also still in the country and I wanted to at least have a day with them before they went on to Italy.

T and I were also pretty much done with driving so we wanted to go someplace not too well known so that we wouldn’t have to fight traffic or tourists.  My sister-in-law recommended that we check out the castle in Würzburg, my brother-in-law was also quick to give us a restaurant recommendation.

Both did not disappoint!

We got a bit of a late start because I had to be up around 6am to drop off one of my college besties at the train station and I wanted a little more sleep.  By the time we got to Würzburg, we were already feeling peckish so we decided to go ahead and get food.

The photo of Abner you see was taken at the restaurant Alter Kranen.  There we had traditional German food and let me tell you – it was delish! I would have taken photos, but I was too busy shoveling food into my mouth.

Anyway, the weather wasn’t the greatest but it only rained while we were safely under the umbrellas of the restaurant’s Biergarten.  Score! The rest of the day was rather cloudy and crisp but we were quite comfortable.

After our bellies were full of food – we decided to make our way up to the Marienberg Fortress.  It’s a noticeable landmark in Würzburg no matter where you are in the city.  It mainly served the purposes of housing prince-bishops for about 500 years.

During 1000 BC, the area that is now the Marienberg Fortress housed a Celtic refuge castle. Archaeologists have discovered artifacts that hinted that the Celts in the area had traded with merchants from Ancient Greece around 500 BC.

To be honest, I am not going to bore you with the very extensive history of the fortress but take my word on it – it’s quite cool.  If you are interested, then here’s the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienberg_Fortress

You will find that I mostly just took photos of Abner while we were there (as always, he’s such a good model).  And while I will continue to show photos of him throughout this post – I wanted to talk about another matter.

As exhausted as I was post-wedding, I wanted to make sure that I was able to spend time with my Godmother and Goddaughter.

Besides coming to Europe for my wedding, the family decided that they wanted to also do a little post-high-school-graduation trip together before my Goddaughter, Christina, would start college in the fall.

I know what you’re thinking…..am I quite young to have a Goddaughter so old? Let me clarify – she is my confirmation Goddaughter.  And her mother, Mercedes, is my confirmation Godmother.  You think that’s dizzying:

My dad walked Mercedes down the aisle for her wedding (where I was the flower girl) – since then she has called him her Padrino (Godfather).  One of my bestie’s mom is Chrissy’s baptismal Godmother.  When my parents finally had their church wedding when I was 11 (they originally just had a civil wedding but my mom still always dreamed of a church wedding), they discovered that they needed my dad’s baptism certificate.  They didn’t have it and the church he belonged to at the time was long gone – so the priest did a quick baptism before the wedding and Mercedes and her husband John were then my dad’s godparents.  When it was time for my confirmation, I immediately asked Mercedes to be Godmother and when it was Chrissy’s turn – she asked me.

I know, I know, our family is a tad bit religiously incestuous but whatever.

While we were spending the day wandering around this amazing fortress – we (as in my college roommate who was still visiting us and myself) would talk with Chrissy about her upcoming college year.  You see, she is going to our Alma Mater (Indiana University) as we speak and we thought it prudent to give her whatever advice we could come up with: living with a roommate, trying to find a balance between having fun (because IU is a party school) but still working hard (because you are paying a shit ton of money to study there), to how to keep yourself safe at parties, to using the resources that the university offers, and so on.

I know Chrissy is a bright kid (like ridiculously bright, and I am not just one of those proud relatives who speaks in hyperboles – she’s got the scholarships to prove it).  So I know a lot of our advice is probably stuff she has already heard before.  I have known her all her life, we still jokingly call her Baby Chrissy even though she’s 18 and there’s nothing baby-like about her anymore. It’s instinct to want to protect her from the evils of the world but she is about to start a new chapter in her life that will be exciting, fun, messy as hell, and stressful – all at the same time! As much as you hate it – at some point the babies need to learn to fly on their own.  I love the person she is now and I am excited to see who she will turn into four years from now when she finishes her degree.

As always, our time was too short since the family wanted to continue on with their Europe trip while I was in desperate need of a full night’s rest.  But it was worth taking the time to be with them.  Hopefully Chrissy will get her way and study abroad in Switzerland while she’s at IU (of course I approve of this idea since I literally live next door) and maybe we will have more time together.

Looking back, I wish I took more photos of them while they were here but how can you ignore this FACE?!!??

Anyway, if you find yourself in Würzburg, you really should visit the fortress, it’s gorgeous, you can literally feel the history bouncing off it’s walls, and you may learn a little about yourself.

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