GERMANY AND FRANCE

After leaving Norway, we traveled the coastline of Sweden starting at Lokkeberg and ending at Malmo where we took a ferry into Denmark.  We skirted Copenhagen and soon we were in Germany on a small island where we spent the night.  Our destination the next morning was Staufenberg, Germany where we lived for several months while Dan was in the army ( 1968-1970).  We parked the car and walked around this country village trying to find the house where we lived, but only touched on where we thought it might be.
In forty-five years things change and it definitely had in some respects.  We saw much of new housing being under construction as we walked.  We did find the big castle where we had attended a banquet those many years ago.  It is now a hotel and restaurant in the same rock/brick building that we knew.  From its high perch on a hillside, we could see the farmlands and the red roofed houses so familiar to us.  We tried to find the bakery where we bought brown bread occasionally, but were unsuccessful with that.
Only 9K from Staufenberg is Giessen where the army base was.  We rode around the city looking and trying to remember just where it was located.  Knowing that the base no longer exists as it was, it was a bit difficult.  A second try down one big street had us recognizing a few things.  Viola!  I sighted a restaurant named PIZZA PIE and we remembered eating at an establishment with that name.  We parked the car.
We walked past the restaurant wondering if it could be the same one we frequented.  We made our way to the corner of the block and it hit me!  The very first place where Dan had to have me stay when I arrived in Germany.  It was a Gasthus and I knew the spot well.  Across the street were the same trees in a park-like setting and I had observed children going to school with backpacks on when I woke on my first morning from a second story window.  I'll never forget that scene in my mind which has often come into my brain.
The Gasthus seems now to be apartments and a closed restaurant, but it is exactly the same structure painted now a light green.  My heart pounded with excitement.  We were curious about Pizza Pie, so we stopped in to ask about it and we needed to eat anyway.  There on the wall was the photos of the first owners taken at their 50th year in business.  A young woman, a  decendant  of that couple talked to us about the restaruant's history.  It was the place!  Of course, we had a photo taken of us there.  Then we walked about a quarter mile along the street where the army base was and is now a university seeming to do with law ( from what we could read).  Dan recognized some of the same buildings still in use, but most of the base is totally gone.
The young woman remembers riding her bike into the base grounds when she was a child.  It confirmed our thoughts about location.  This was one highlight of our trip.  We had hoped to see our stomping grounds where our married life began.