Heyyo! Hopefully this is okay to post here- I don't think it falls under any other specific boards, so hopefully I've not mistakenly placed it.

(There used to be a bunch here, but our plans changed kind of drastically, so updated the post below!)

ETA: Update time! Deleted my previous post because it was very long and pretty much entirely out of date, since our whole plan has changed, haha.

So, best friend's baby brother is flying us to Germany to visit him! For THREE WEEKS! We're psyched. Our initial plan was to explore the area he's stationed at (Baumholder), but it looks like we're not even going to go visit Baumholder for a day now, haha. Instead, we're adventuring AROUND Germany and the neighboring areas, which is AWESOME. We are also spending a considerable amount of time in Paris and Amsterdam!!!

We're going to Frankfurt (where we are interested in the zoo, a giant mall, and some super long shopping road), Munich (where we're going to take some time to go to some nearby castles one day, but other than that...), and Cologne (where we're interested in a museum and ((more importantly!!!)) the church of St. Ursula and the Cologne Cathedral). In Paris, we're hitting a few cemeteries, a few random sculptures, Notre Dame, and the catacombs. (Also maybe Disney Paris, depending on the weather!!!) In Amsterdam, we're doing a punk festival, but before that, we're leaning toward the Van Gogh museum and a flea market.

We booked our hotels yesterday, and started being excited about things to do. So, I thought, hey, let's go on here and see if folks have ideas!

We'll be there the last couple of weeks of May and the first week of June-ish, if those are important to the suggestions you have. We're totally looking for suggestions on food we have to try, places we should totally visit, things we definitely shouldn't forget to have with us... any tips are greatly appreciated! We've never traveled abroad at all, let alone to these places~

Hope you don't mind that I'm pinging the Germans I know here 😊 💚

Is Baumholder large, and is it a destination that people visit for leisure? Are there other more interesting places nearby? I take it there's a US military base in Baumholder so that may at least make communicating there a bit easier if you only speak English. If you want, I can give you recs for Paris and Amsterdam.

Good luck! c:

I'm jealous! I've been learning German for years and want to visit Germany someday. Do you know any German? If not there are lots of free online ways to learn, like Duolingo.

As far as I can tell, Baumholder seems to be kind of smallish, in a rural-ish area. If you Google looking for suggestions, as far as I can tell, there's little to do, haha. That's part of why I figured I might post, in case someone knows the area and can give us good "in the general vicinity" suggestions. Baby Bro definitely implies that we won't have too much issue communicating- I'm slowly working on learning the language. I don't expect to ever be good at it, but I feel like I can understand it much easier than I can translate my thoughts to it? I'm totally open to suggestions on Paris and Amsterdam~! With those two places we're largely winging it, but having a list of "if we can" is a neat thing.

I've been using DuoLingo for a wee bit now- not long at all, and I've still got a handful of months before we head over, so plenty of time to keep working. I don't think I'll ever be fluent, but so far I can understand it easier than I can translate myself into it, so that's something at least. I told the bestie that it'll mean I can at least understand what I'm not able to answer, hahaha. She used to be really good at it, but it's been years since she messed with it- she's just started working at brushing up on it.

I'm much better at French (although still not great), so that's a perk given our side jaunt to Paris, haha. I think we're just completely out of luck in Amsterdam with the language barrier, though, haha. The biggest plus is that the places are all large and likely deal with lots of tourism, except Baumholder (but they've got a military base and according to bro it's not a hardship at all to not speak the language there, lol)~

I've never been to Germany, but I'm hoping one of the users I pinged will have some useful info for you. You'll probably be fine with a few basic phrases for "just in case" moments. Virtually everyone can speak English in Amsterdam and you'll find a similar situation within the tourist areas of Paris.

That's good to hear about Amsterdam and tourist-y Paris. And thanks for pinging folks! Even if they can't help, I appreciate the thought. :3

What kind of recommendations do you want for Amsterdam and Paris? 😊

I'm open to any suggestions on exciting things to do, or food we have to try (this trip will likely involve us trying to eat absolutely everything we can), or just random tips or whatnot about them, if there are any that pop to mind, haha.

We're trying to go cheaply, since we're going to be there for three weeks and don't have the most money in the first place, haha. For Paris, we're looking at a lot of wandering around cemeteries and doing a tour of the Catacombs? Our big splurge will likely be a show at the Moulin Rouge? We're not 100% sure, but likely. As for Amsterdam, neither of us have any idea- we know we're doing a punk fest, but we also know we'll more than likely head there a day or two before that to tourist it up? I have to admit, I haven't done too much looking into Amsterdam, haha.

From what I've heard, many Germans speak English well, too. I've seen it joked about that it can be tough to practice your German because Germans will start speaking English realizing you're foreign, lol.

Amsterdam: You can get thin pancakes the size of dinner plates for breakfast. They're great with this thick sticky syrup. The Heineken Brewery is cool if you like their beer. The food I liked best was the paper cones of frites with frietsaus and ketchup off the street. My friends and I would buy those and eat them in our hostel room once we were in at the end of the night.

The Amsterdam sign is free, and Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum are both very special if you're interested in history.

Paris: Find any boulangerie or patisserie for great breads and pastries. You can get good lunch specials too for things like steak frites by just walking around and checking out menus. It will be good weather to picnic with charcuterie when you go too. Stop by Ladurée if you like macarons for sure. Coffee, wine, cheese, chocolate, and bread are all amazing in France.

Père Lachaise Cemetery is huge and beautiful. You can walk the Champs-Élysées. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe are iconic symbols of Paris. All four of these destinations are free. The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and Versailles (short train ride from Paris) are all very worth seeing.

Most economically prosperous countries with global business and tourism will have many English speakers. Imo the main thing is to communicate courteously and successfully while vacationing in a foreign country, so the language that allows that best should be used.

Ngl, I'm completely okay with not practicing German over there if that's the case. ;) After only a couple more days with working on German, I'm way more confident in it- if I can keep up with the pace I'm setting from now til May, I should have lost almost all of my hesitancy with the language and have a much better grasp on it, haha.

I don't like the beer, but our first dachshund was named Heineken and we miss him more than probably any other animal (well, collectively we do- we each miss another animal more, but as a family probably miss him most)- might be cool to see if they have merch or somewhat to buy- I'm sure they will! Those foods sound A+++. I think the food I was most excited to read about was the herring actually, haha, but frites, yessss. I'm not sweet oriented, but the bestie should be excited for those pancakes!

I was just discussing with another friend how excited I am for the bakeries in Paris! Being not overly sweet oriented, I've never tried macarons or eclairs or cream puffs or crepes or... pretty much any French pastry, oops. The occasion to try a macaron came up not long ago and I put together that I could hold off and completely ruin myself for them by trying them in Paris and thus never being able to eat one here without feeling underwhelmed by comparison~ Pretty excited for that, haha. Cheese and wine!!! Yesss. I am so excited to just eat my way through Paris. I'm gonna just be a glutton.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery is how I got her excited about Paris, and I didn't even think of Champs-Elysees or the Arc de Triomphe! Eee! I also found some cemetery under a bridge that's apparently overrun with stray cats? So she's kinda pleased at that, being a cat person. I'm not placing Musee d'Orsay off the top of my head- I'll definitely Google that in a bit (and then likely feel silly for not remembering it- I'll blame the overwhelming amount of info I've been cramming into my brain about the various destinations and languages). I'm hoping to talk her into The Louvre if we do have enough time. I think Versailles might not make the cut, though, which is a huge bummer- the same friend I was discussing the bakeries with was sad that I'd miss that, too, as he adores it. I have been really pleased with how easily I'm falling back into French, though- even though I'm not worried about the language barrier so much there.

(ETA: Also, thank you both for the responses here! I appreciate it greatly~)

I've only been to Berlin, but I think this still applies:

Bring a small translation book with you - it'll definitely help in restaurants and stores if you need to translate something quickly. I wasn't able to use my phone abroad, so that was a really helpful thing to have.

Hi, I'm from Frankfurt so I can give give you lots of tips for things you can visit there. What are you interested in? :) I've been to Idar-Oberstein, a city near Baumholder. You can visit a gem and minerals museum there and real mines (the only ones in Europe that are open for visitors). The city also has some other interesting places.

Thaaaat is an excellent idea. We've both talked about how frustrating it will be to only have our phones work where wifi works (if that even works out), and we've both also commented on how we don't need a dictionary or what because we have phones. Clearly we weren't making THAT connection, haha! Thank you!

Oh, awesome! For Frankfurt, we'd written down a few neat looking things- her husband's family used to live outside of it and he had a ton of recs (some of which we listened to, haha). (I'm probably destroying spelling with my "no clue how to add umlauts and whatnot on this keyboard" spelling, but so it goes): I'm pretty in love with zoos, so we've been toying with the idea of Frankfurt Zoo or Opel Zoo, maybe? We'd also written down Stadel and Senckenberg, but if we do a museum there it'll likely only be one of the two- we have a lot of art museums written down other places, so maybe Senckenberg? Although, Palmengarten should hopefully be really pretty that time of year? Maybe? We're both pretty fascinated by religious imagery, so we thought maybe checking out the Frankfurt Cathedral, if they're open to folks walking through... Also I have a note that says something about a peeing tree (which sounds ridic?) and a note about a forest park- although it looks like maybe the forest park just burnt down recently, maybe? Her husband was insistent we do MyZeil (?), a big fancy mall? And we're thinking walking down Bergerstrasse seems neat? That's literally all we have on our list for Frankfurt (as compared to my Paris and Amsterdam lists which are, uh, maybe out of control).

For all that we're tourists, we're very fond of not being TOO touristy- our favorite places are always weird local hole in the wall bars or restaurants or shops when we visit places together here. It's easier to find those online, though, in that the reviews and commentary are always in English- most of the sites that look like maybe they'd be helpful are (obvs) in German and Google Translate isn't doing a great job. Between us we cover almost every interest but sports, haha- we're big on music and reading, writing and art, I love nature and she's all about makeup and clothes, fantasy and sci fi and horror and macabre, comics, movies... very little doesn't ping at least one of us for at least one interest, haha.

A gem and minerals museum sounds like absolute heaven, oh my gosh. __ I used to collect gems and minerals when I was younger! (Although, I think the collection bit the dust when this same friend's mother found them and was convinced they were witchcraft and threw them out in a weird super religious fit when I'd left them after a visit?) I've always adored them. I will definitely write that down and bring it up when we're in Baumholder- Drew likely knows where that place is if it's near Baumholder. That sounds flipping awesome!!!

(Thank you, btw!!! :D :D :D )

Frankfurt Zoo is really nice and you can spend lots of time there. We often visited when I was a kid. It's right in the city so it's easy to reach by tram, S-Bahn or U-Bahn. Opel Zoo is a bit further out. Städel and Senckenberg are definitely worth a visit. Museum für moderne Kunst and Schirn are also interesting art museums. If you want something unusual (and aren't scared of the dark ;) ), the Dialogmuseum lets you experience what life as a blind person is like. Palmengarten is really beautiful and great for a picknick. The Zeil is a huge shopping street for pedestrians in the middle of the city. There's actually two malls (MyZeil and Zeilgalerie) but the MyZeil building is really cool. There's lots of museums, the zoo, the Main and other interesting stuff for example the historic town hall (Römer) and the cathedral in walking distance. I'm not sure if you can walk around the cathedral freely but it should be open for visitors, they even have their own museum. If you're interest in religious imagery, there also is the Ikonenmuseum, which is exactly about that. Use the Eiserner Steg to cross over the Main river. It's a bridge just for pedestrians and you have a great view over the city from it. Friends or lovers leave locks on it hoping it will help them stay together. Alte Oper and Schauspiel Frankfurt are good if you like music and theatre. Berger Straße is also a shopping street like Zeil, just a bit smaller, so you don't really need to see it if you visit Zeil.

Haha, I actually had to look up the peeing tree because I had never heard of it. Apparently it's an art installation by an artist from Frankfurt.

I can't really recommend any specific places for food but you should visit a local bakery or a cafe and try some german pastries or bread (American bread really can't compare!). There's even a delicious cake named for Frankfurt, the Frankfurter Kranz. And you should get some Apfelwein. It's a special kind of cider that the region is famous for. There's even a city tour centered around it!

You're welcome! If you really need some info on a website translated, I can help you. At least the museum sites usually have an English version :)

Ahhh! This is all AWESOME. It's SO helpful!!! Thank you, thank you!!!

If I come across another "well, if only Google could translate this for me", I will definitely keep you in mind!

We've got such a wait between now and then that I'm sure we'll both be doing a lot of reading and researching right up til the last minute, hahaha.

THANK YOU~!!!

Thanks for mentioning Duolingo on this thread. I desired an easy and free way to learn a language (coincidentally, also German). I signed up there and started. Good luck and have fun at Germany :)

Glad to see more people trying Duolingo out! I love it. They added a Japanese course recently.

- Are you enjoying it? I tried it for French yeaaars ago and enjoyed it, but it was very new and very buggy then, so I kind of gave up? But now I'm loving it- I'm breezing through German and actually retaining it (which shocks me a lot, haha) and find that I've not forgotten French as thoroughly as I thought I had- when the German starts to get too swirly and confusey in my brain I switch to French for a single lesson to kind of take me out of my frustration zone. I'm not even having to write notes to myself- just struggling to remember exact spellings and whatnot. I really like their format, tho- altho the changes between mobile app and website are odd... my best friend took German in high school and skipped a bunch, but hasn't advanced much further because she's annoyed that it doesn't help with conjugations, etc- but if you get on to the website via computer, each lesson has notes and whatnot attached that do go over those things. Luckily, I'd written them down and just sent her a picture, haha.

My boyfriend is doing the Japanese! He's loving it- I think he juuust got to actual words rather than the alphabet? Maybe. He confuses me when he talks about it. He's doing Spanish for the same reasons I am French and having the same experience- he keeps talking about how differently the lessons are set up because of the language differences, haha.

I'm loving it so far. I do the same thing when I can't remember the German, I fill it in with Spanish lol.... For 5 years of Elementary school I learned Spanish and then in high school I took 2 more years of it, followed by a year of French.

I find that the more languages you learn the easier it is to learn new ones. For example Now that I'm starting German, the conjugation tables don't surprise me. And German in general seems sort of easy so far, I mean there are a lot of words that look like or sound like the English translation :D

I'm taking notes in a notebook for good measure and it helps me remember more. I wanted to learn German in high school but it didn't work out so I'm proud of myself for diligently trying to learn on my own like this.

I love languages. Now that I know Duolingo maybe I can learn one I never thought about before. :)