Europe 2019: Gondwana Das Praehistorium

Europe 2019

Gondwana Das Praehistorium

Schiffweiler, Germany

I hate this place! It, and the people that work here, are on my list (that's the "Sheldon Cooper Top 50 Enemies" list). Whenever we go on a rather ambitious trip like this, I always tell everyone that "something isn't going to go as planned - just roll with it". This place was what "didn't go as planned" on this trip.

To explain, for a couple months leading up to the trip I kept telling Samantha about what we were going to do to get her excited. The thing she seemed to be most excited about was "the dinosaur place". It was just meant to be a fun stop on our way from Stuttgart to Luxembourg, but Sammy was really looking forward to it. 

We left Stuttgart on schedule, but German roadworks really killed our time. When they work on a motorway, which seems to be always, they divert everyone to the other side - contraflow. It's idiotic! You'd think the country that invented the car would be better than that.

When we could make progress, we flew! We made it to Gondwana at 5:00. The website said they closed at 6:30, so not great but still, we made it! We walked in and the girls at the counter said "We're closed". I told them the website said they were open until 6:30 and they said you can't go in after 4:30 because you wouldn't have time to see everything. 

Samantha started to cry. Not like a fit, but real tears of sadness. I picked her up and we walked outside as the girls at the counter said nothing. I felt like Clark Griswold going through all that to get to WallyWorld only to find it closed.

  

I was incredibly proud of my little girl. I think she sensed that I was very upset. I'm very easy going. I don't get upset often, but when I do it's dangerous. I'm not one of those people that gets mad and impotently complains - I start plotting. Samantha said "It's OK daddy and got down and started playing in this gravel area they had outside. 

We hung out there and let her play for about 30 minutes. At one point an ice cream van came through the parking lot and we all ran up and got ice cream from a very friendly Italian man.

Sam plays as I plot the demise of Gondwana Das Praehistorium.

Anyway, they're on my list and if I ever get the chance I will destroy this place.

Since I don't have a lot of pictures, or any for that matter, from the inside, I'll say a few things about our hotel in Luxembourg.

We decided to stay at Domaine La Foret in the town of Remich. The hotel only has 12 rooms. It was really interesting and we enjoyed ourselves.

Waiting on me to check in. More on our little gem of a rental car later.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel. It was probably a mistake. For one thing, fancy food is wasted on me really (and Samantha). I'm no foodie, and in my experience the fancier the restaurant, the worse it is...for me. For another thing, I didn't want to spend three hours eating dinner. That said, the hotel only had like 3 employees, and they asked me if we wanted to eat there so I didn't want to be rude.

Fortunately, Nana was kind enough to take Samantha to bed when she hit the wall and Nel and I stayed for another hour or so.

The place has a really nice spa, and Nel and Sam took advantage of the pool in the morning.

Branelle doing something on our balcony (probably Candy Crush).

The hotel was actually very nice and the few employees that we saw were fantastic. Luxembourg was surprisingly pretty as well.