Posts Tagged Germany
Green – Not the Good Spring Kind
Let me confess. I am completely jealous of all you folks out there who are experiencing spring. Every day I see status updates and blog entries about how glorious spring is, and I want to be able to say the same thing. Ok, yes, I can say spring is glorious, because it truly is. However, I want it to be here already. Last year it did not arrive until the last week in March/early April, and I fully expect the same thing this year. That said, the 6 inches of snow we got overnight this past Friday made me think spring is never going to get here.
Our lows have been in the teens again. Brr. Really.
We have some friends coming for a visit soon, and I really want the weather to be nice for them. I have been checking the forecast every day, and every day it’s drastically different. First it was supposed to be cold and rainy the whole week they’re here. Then it said it was supposed to be sunny and in the 60s (what? early spring? YES!). Today I checked the forecast, and it says we should have a mixture of snow, rain and sun with highs anywhere from the 30s to the 60s by the end of the week.
Oh my goodness, I would LOVE for it to be in the 60s even for just a few days of their visit. Maybe we will even get to see some blooms. Maybe.
5 comments March 10, 2010
Winter Photo Update Part 2
After a week in DC and spending a week catching up at home, I found it hard to want to blog again. Saturday has struck me with the urge to get a lot of things accomplished, and so far so good. Along with that motivation came the urge to finish posting our winter photos (thus far). Granted, this doesn’t include the time in DC, but I think that’s best kept for a separate post.
2 comments February 6, 2010
Einen Guten Rutsch!
I was lazy last night. I intended on pulling together photos from my family’s visit in order to make a fun photo post, but that never happened. Instead, we watched The Surrogates, and I knitted.
While thinking about the photos, I realized I didn’t get to tell everyone that John got me a sewing machine for Christmas!! I can’t wait to start on some projects on there. He also got me a Juice Couture Viva La Juicy perfume, lotion and shower gel set. I have wanted that perfume for over a year, so needless to say, I was excited. I was also very excited about his other gift to me – a 30 minute massage!!! Hurray! I can’t wait to make an appointment. I was going to go today after work, but they closed at 2 PM. Rats. I’ll just have to wait a few more days.
I also got a great new tan purse, some fantastic new clothes that I can use both for work and leisure time, quilted placemats, a picture frame, a new Chi (!), Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, two of the Julia Child cookbooks and a few other little things. I’m amazed at the generosity of our family and was a little embarrassed about having so many gifts to open. Again, thank you to all for everything!
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To ring in 2010, John and I will be having dinner at home – twice baked potatoes, steak and black-eyed peas (of course). Later in the evening, we’ll head to a local bar down by the river. We even bought some fireworks of our own this year. Unlike in Texas, people can shoot off fireworks of their own inside the city limits here. The other day, we were wondering where to buy fireworks since we’re accustomed to buying them at roadside stands outside city limits but are quite sure those don’t exist in Germany. Imagine our surprise when we stumbled across this in a local grocery store last night:
That’s right. Open bins of fireworks. In the grocery store. Madness, I tell you! (The sign basically says that you must be 18 years old to purchase the fireworks.) We bought two 1-meter long sparklers and 20 short sparklers as well as a package of assorted fireworks. It should be fun!
Einen guten Rutsch!
8 comments December 31, 2009
Woof Woof Whimper Slobber Scratch: Translated
I have spent the past several months trying to convince Mom and Dad to let me write on their blog. Whenever I get close to Mom’s computer, though, she just asks me where my toy is and starts playing “go get it.” This weekend, she finally understood. I want to contribute to the blog. And guess what? Since you’re reading this, she said yes! Woofray!
I had the busiest weekend. I was so busy running around, smelling new smells and trying new things that I’m not sure I can clearly remember what Mom and Dad did with me this weekend. The first thing I remember is that Saturday morning, Mom said my favorite word: park. I love that place. I immediately went to the door so we could leave, but Mom and Dad just shook their heads and said something I didn’t understand. Then I saw them do their weird grooming habits. I don’t know why they don’t just give themselves a few licks. That always works for me, and my girlfriend Emma the Rottweiler seems to like it a lot.
Much later, we finally left the house. Mom and Dad were saying the word “park” a lot now, so I hoped they were actually going to take me there soon and not continue to tease me. They did not disappoint me this time. As soon as we got close to the park, I started running back and forth in the backseat of the car preparing myself for all the running I was certainly going to do once they let me out of the car. A couple of my friends were already at the park and I met a few new ones too. I beat them all running for the ball. Hah!
Once we left the park, Mom and Dad made a few stops around where we used to live and then we went on a long drive. It did not seem like it was that long for them, though. They were happy it was “only 30 minutes,” whatever that means. When I got out of the car this time, I was innundated with the smells of a brand new place. There were people everywhere and it was noisy! There were lights and rides and lots and lots of food. I think I heard Mom say something about the biggest wine festival in the world, but I could be remembering that wrong. I don’t know what that means. I did hear Dad say we were in Bad Dürkheim, though.
We wandered around and about a thousand people wanted to pet me and some crazy man even handed me a stick. I don’t understand it, but Mom said he was drunk. Some other man also came up to me speaking gibberish. Mom had to translate for us and tell him though I’m a German dog, I speak English, not German. He shook my paw. Some crazy ladies oohed and ahhed over me and spilled their sweet yellowish drinks on the ground around me. Boy, I loved licking that stuff up, but Mom and Dad didn’t want me to have it. It’s like when they have their beers. They let me smell their breath, but I can’t ever taste their drinks! (But Dad sometimes lets me lick the outside of his bottle.)
Later some people gave me some cheese. They said something about it being from the Alps. I think I was there. After that, we sat around for a loooooooong time and Mom and Dad shared a table with a German couple. They talked a lot about how their wine smelled and tasted like coffee. I know what that is! Mom and Dad have it every morning, but the coffee machine makes crazy noises and I’m not so sure about it.
When we left that place, Mom and Dad made a phone call and talked in German to some people. Before I knew it, I was in a place I sort of remembered, but I couldn’t quite place it. Mom and Dad said something about meeting me here. I sniffed around a bit and then I remembered. This is where I was born! My breeder mama and papa were there. They were so happy to see me and were very impressed with how smart I am. They said my eyes are the color of bernstein (Mom: “which means amber”). It was fun to see them again. Apparently I have a lot of siblings there, but they were too little for me to visit. They’re only 4 weeks old.
We took a long drive home after that, and boy was I exhausted. I slept very well that night. Ok, I have a bug I’m tracking so I have to go. Thanks for letting me finally share things from my point of view. Hopefully Mom and Dad will let me do this again sometime.
Woof!
- Béni
15 comments September 21, 2009
Summer Breeze, Makes Me Feel Fine
Where to begin?
17 days in the States. 17 days of craziness and in some cases, completely random and awesome surprises.
Returning to Germany…hmm, not many (ok any) good surprises. I’ll get to that later. However, the silver lining on our return to Germany has been the realization (by both John and me) that we like living in Germany now. Hah! It only took me a year or so.
While we were gone, I missed our lifestyle here. It’s relaxed and easy. We get to spend lots of time together and do pretty much whatever we want whenever we want. The pace of life overall here is slower too.
Anyway, back to the beginning…
Our trip started out marvelously. We arrived at the Frankfurt airport after getting up ridiculously early to catch 3 separate trains with all of our luggage (ok, that part wasn’t so fun, but the anticipation of the trip made it feel better than it was). We got there a little under 2 hours before takeoff, and guess what? They upgraded us to business class from Frankfurt to Dallas. Woohoo! It was fantastic. The seats will lie flat. The TV screens are bigger and you have on demand entertainment – not to mention a much more extensive selection than if you fly coach. They welcome you with champagne. You get a nice little menu to select your food from (it’s better than coach, but it’s still airline food). You get a warm towel with which to “wash up,” a thick down blanket to wrap up in, Bose noise cancelling headphones, and an amenity kit filled with socks, a sleeping mask, Burt’s Bees lip balm and lotion, a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, ear plugs, tissue and a pen.
If only we didn’t have to fly coach ever again.
Oh and the flight attendants are NICE in business class. They even referred to us as Mr. & Mrs.
At one point, our flight attendant had gone on break, and I wanted a glass of wine. When I asked the substitute attendant for a glass of wine, she asked how old I am, to which I responded 25 (the truth). She looked at me quizzically and must have decided that all was ok, because she left and poured a glass of wine. Upon her return, however, she announced that she needed to see my passport because if she gave alcohol to someone who is underage, she could get in a lot of trouble. I sighed and looked over at John who was all cuddled up watching his TV. I asked him to please get my passport from his backpack. John also sighed, sat up and started rummaging around for his backpack. At this point, the attendant says, “oh, are you two married?” We both reply yes, and she then says, “oh, well, here you go” and hands me the wine. Uh, what?
Oh well!
One last anecdote about the flight…
I have a hard time sleeping on planes, but apparently, this is much less of a problem when I get to sit in a large comfy reclining chair/bed with a nice blanket. I passed out while watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine. John, however, was not sleepy and thought it would be funny to blow on my face while I was asleep. When he did this, I remember thinking (in my sleep), “wow, that’s a nice breeze coming in our room this morning.” I then opened my eyes and was confused by my surroundings and my laughing husband. At least I was able to enjoy business class the rest of the way. If I had been woken up in coach, I would not have thought it was funny!
10 comments August 25, 2009
Opinions
Yesterday, I posted a status on Facebook that I didn’t intend to get much feedback on. Little did I know, food versus biking race is a hot topic!
My status: “you know you’ve lived in Europe too long when you can’t decide between going to see the Tour de France or to eat at Chili’s (at the only German location an hour away) on Saturday.”
Out of the 16 or so comments that we’re mine, I picked out a few of my favorites to share with you:
Regarde le Tour de France à la télé avec ton menu Chili. (Watch the Tour on TV while eating at Chili’s.)
Tour de France is great, but all of you who voted for it have underestimated a dinner at chili’s– it’s hard to outrank a dinner that reminds you of home so much (there’s only so much bratwurst you can eat)
go to the tour and throw branches into the spokes of a Frenchmen.
Chili’s hands down…bike race? Not so exciting
In the end, we decided to go to Chili’s. Reasons?
1 – When you live this far from home, sometimes you just want to feel like you’re somewhere normal back home.
2 – We both want margaritas and queso.
3 – The Tour is a 2.5 hour drive each way from where we live. We’d meet at the starting point for the day (Colmar) and everyone would pass quickly, which means 5ish hours of driving for >1 hour of Le Tour viewing. Not worth it. We’ll try to plan better next year and make it out there.
4 – It’s supposed to rain all weekend. Yuck. That’s a vote for not even leaving our apartment!
- Sarah
5 comments July 17, 2009
I Know Where Ugly Betty Shops…
As our week winds down and we prepare for some relaxation this weekend (hopefully), I wanted to keep this post as simple as I hope our weekend is.
Photos from Eric & Christine’s visit last week!! Yay!
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I also posted this picture to Twitter (Twit Pic, which sounds like I’m calling my picture names). It was accompanied by the caption “One of the many reasons why I don’t shop for clothes at the PX.” I was surprised and impressed to get a response from the AAFES (PX company for you non-military folks) Twitter account in almost no time. Good job, AAFES! (I don’t find myself saying that often, so this is huge.)
Shönes Wochenende!
- Sarah
4 comments July 10, 2009
Put the Lime in Leimen
Because of all our exciting upcoming weekend activities the rest of this month, we had planned to take it easy this past weekend. We had a few things planned, but we had no idea how busy – or fun – our Saturday would turn out to be.
We woke up at 9:40, which was the latest we have slept since before mid-March. It was nice to sleep that late, but I also woke up in a panic because it was already so late in the day. We made it out the door an hour later and went to Schwetzingen to check out Spargel Samstag (Asparagus Saturday). Schwetzingen is known as the Spargel capital of the world. Yes, we moved from the music capital of the world to the asparagus capital. Exciting, I know.
Anyway, things were just getting started at the festival, and there wasn’t much exciting to do except maybe have a beer and watch older ladies model European fashion for their generation. Slightly entertaining, yes, but worth our time? No. I had really wanted to eat Spargel at the festival, but surprisingly, there were no booths like that. Oh, I must show you – this is what Spargel looks like:
Image taken from www.alibaba.com
Apparently, the farmers cover up the asparagus with soil in order to prevent photosynthesis. Thus, the asparagus tastes white. I have yet to taste it, but I have heard it’s sweeter and tender than green asparagus. C N Heidelberg posted her attempt at making Spargel mit Kratzete (white asparagus with pancake bits) here, and I’d really like to try to make it as well. It looks yummy!
Ok, I’m getting off track. Back to our day… since the festival wasn’t what we expected, we decided to grab a table at the Kaffeehaus and enjoy sandwiches for lunch. We headed back home to take Béni for a quick run to the park before doing the fastest change into nice clothes ever and going to the college graduation of a woman in John’s office. We left as soon as she walked the stage, which was about 2 hours later.
After running an errand or two, I convinced John to head over to Leimen, which is where I went to the Apotheke (pharmacy) earlier in the week. When I was there, it looked like they were also setting up for a festival, and I wanted to check it out.
It was a cute little spring festival, and we really had a good time. We both had bratwurst and a local beer while wandering around. I especially loved examining all the really old architecture in the city. Like Schwetzingen, Leimen dates back to the 700s. Crazy, right? These cities are 1,000 years older than the US!
One other thing that was great about the festival was the live music. An old man stood about 8 feet to the right of the conductor and did his own conducting and dancing to the music. It was incredibly endearing as well as entertaining!
I’m sorry if the play-by-play account of our Saturday was a bore. I really wish I had taken some photos to spice up the post, but I left my camera at home (probably a first for me!). Next time we’re in Leimen, I’ll be sure to take some good photos to share with everyone!
- Sarah
8 comments May 12, 2009
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