Ramstein Run

Since Dad's been here, I've taken him to The Netherlands as well as Germany. Given, The Netherlands wasn't all that impressive considering I took him to Schinnen (our pathetic lil commissary), but still..atleast he can say he went to a different country. Then we hit up Germany yesterday to check out Ramstein since he was wanting to get a laptop. He could've picked one up at Schinnen, but they had a whopping selection of 3 laptops verses Ramsteins option of 30+.

Our first stop once we got to the area was The Big Emmas (I've talked about it on here before).. I think my Dad didn't believe Eric and I when we were telling him that they serve HUGE amounts of food. Once he got his beer, I think he became a believer:

He ended up getting a half size Jager Schnitzel ... that he couldn't finish... (the beer was already taking affect)

Eric rocked out with his 1 liter of Coke Light while John sized him up with his 1/2 liter..

Dad gave me the "thumbs up" on my half size chicken salad....yes, this is a salad!

After Eric enhaled all of his Schnitzel, potatos and such, he figured he needed to make his stomach earn it's keep by getting a HALF size of their ice cream...he was pretty miserable after the fact considering he polished off the whole bowl

Once we managed to roll ourselves out of Big Emma's, we burned some calories as well as cash over at the BX. Dad found a laptop that matched the specs he wanted, we stocked up on some goodies for the house and what not... my only complaint was the amount of people that happened to be there that day. I mean, holy cow. I was starting to get shopping rage cause of all the people who kept running into me with their carts or the parents who were not watching their kids. It was bad!

When the time came for us to head on home, we made a pit stop outside of Trier, Germany. I've passed by this place many many times, but I always forgot to pull over and take a picture at this one particular rest area. Pretty, hunh?

Dad hopped out of the truck and fired off some pictures himself

Nice pic of Eric with John :)

Eric and I attempted to take a pic of ourselves with Trier in the backround, but my Dad was being an attention whore

Annnnnd here's a loving yet dysfunctional picture of Eric and I

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Oppsie

I forgot to post about these lil' things I picked up while Eric and I were in Germany the other day....

There's a place right outside of Ramstein called "The Big Emma's"..it's got AMAZING, traditional German food. I think I posted about that place several months ago..and I didn't take any pics of the food this time around considering we got it to go. BUT, I went to their beloved website and aquired some pictures for you so you can see what I'm talking about:

Schnitzel

Chicken Salad

This is a HALF size Hamburger...HALF. The full size is the size of a sheering wheel. Seriously.

Here's what the inside of the joint looks like:

And outside...

ANYWAY...back to the whole reason why I started this post, lol... While we were waiting for our food, I saw that they actually sell a lil "Big Emma" figurine. Sure, it might be silly to buy her, but come on.. that place rocks. The employee's are really nice, the food is amazing and we've never had a bad experience there. SO, here's my official Emma's goody:

Within Ramsteins BX / PX, there's a little shop that sells random european signs and such. You can have custom made stuff or just buy a blank plate if you so desire. Being how we're stationed in Belgium, I thought it'd be pretty cool to get a mini license plate (Belgian, of course) with our town on it. I WOULD'VE gotten "Kleine Brogel" on it, but you only have 9 characters allowed..otherwise, I would've gotten a German plate (Those have a "D" on it) and had "Vandegrift" put on it..alas, my maiden name has 10 characters. DAMN! Anyway, here's the sign I had made...the guy was REALLY nice and made it right then & there:

I also picked up a mini "Ausfahrt" sign :) It's going to be positioned right outside of our bathroom..hahahaa...

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