Beautiful Crazy Day

I had a crazy day at work today - heck just telling Brad all the madness that happened took me an hour! The good thing is the day was BEAUTIFUL, so after I got off work at 6:30, and we ate a quick supper (eggs in a burrito - Brad's with cheese and salsa, mine with cheese and a chopped up habanero (my guts are still burning) - yum).

I then I drug Brad out to walk around a lake we live near, the ducks are all paired up, the fish are biting, and it was a gorgeous night. I think it was in the 70's today. The only thing we did wrong is we forgot the camera! I'll get some shots next time.

The daffodils and tulips are in bloom - it smells so good here, with all the buds coming out on the trees and the grass going green. The sun set before we left the lake so as we were walking back we could see bats flying around. Brad commented that bats are a sign of a healthy ecosystem, they're pretty fragile so they are one of the first species to die in a bad environment.

Today was the way I was hoping Oklahoma would have been when we were there in spring break - but everything was so dry, the lakes were so low, and though it was warm everything was still dead. I guess there are a bunch of fires in Oklahoma now, I'm not surprised after how bad it was when we were there. It's worse than it's ever been in anyone's memory.

Food is Different Here...

When we were in Luxembourg, Brad had pizza for lunch. Brad really enjoyed it, in fact we both enjoy eating pizza here. When we were back in the states we ordered pizza - but it was just not the same. Here the crust is almost as thin and crispy as a great big cracker. Sauce is a secondary effect - no where near as thick; if you order salami - it's pepperoni, if you order pepperoni - you better like hot peppers and bell peppers 'cause that's what you're going to get. Sometimes the cheese is different too!

Another thing I noticed was really different is the national food here, the pretzel (okay, I just call it that because they're everywhere, and in every bakery they are one of the key staples) is salty bread with some salt on the outside. In the states it's the same shape but it's soaked in so much butter and oil that instead of a bread substitute it's a huge calorie greasy treat (granted, I like both kinds!). And in both places they are also served warm.

French fries here are ALWAYS awesome! We've yet to get a bad french fry. And instead of ketchup, they're served with mayo. And they give you little wood fork things to eat them with (don't want to get the fingers dirty).

Breakfast, American style, with eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, waffles, french toast, etc. etc. isn't even served here. Few restaurants open for breakfast unless you want coffee or tea at a cafe accompanied by a croissant - or ----- a pretzel! (Yum - cappuccino and a croissant!!)

Weinershnitzle is not a hot dog - it's a breaded meat patty.

Salad can be served with yogurt dressing -- nothing like those yogurt things sold in the little plastic containers in the states.

Deserts, and yogurt, are no where near as sweet.

Chocolate truffles need to be scoped out carefully when you're buying them - at least half of them are liquor filled (yuck!)

Luxembourg

Saturday, April 4, Brad and I heard about a large flea market/antique sale in Metz, France from some of the people I work with. Never one to turn down a shopping venture of this sort, yet reluctant to put the dogs in the kennel again, we decided to drive up early (it's a little less than 3 hours away from Stuttgart). We woke at 4:30 and we were on the road by 5:00. Everything was going well, we made good time, didn't run into much traffic, had plenty of gas and a beautiful day, but when we got to the location the GPS had led us to (the Parc des Expositions in Metz, France is what we'd entered), there was no antique sale to be found - just a live reptile exhibit. Add to that some motorcyclists running a course that asked us to move our car out of the parking lot we were in (we were in their way) and we were both completely baffled. So I messed with the GPS some more and found out the stupid thing had brought us to Nancy, France instead of Metz, France and we were 40 minutes south of our destination! Dang it!! Since they were both the same distance from Stuttgart, we were clueless until we arrived! We ended up getting to the antique sale at 9:00 instead of 8:00! At the market, we we looking for two things - some cast iron pans and a wooden box - and we found both and for good deals. We looked at lots of other things, but everything was more expensive than we were willing to pay for something that was not quite right for our tastes. I imagine now, you're all wondering - what the heck does this have to do with Luxembourg?? Well..... after we left the sale (at about 11:30), I looked over the map for something cool to see, and noticed we were only about 45 minutes south of Luxembourg - the country as well as the capitol city, so I twisted Brad's arm and we headed there for lunch and some sightseeing. It was a beautiful day for it, in the 60's and sunny. The top picture is a self-portrait with the aqueduct in the background. Behind Brad in the second picture you can see some of the ruins of the walls We walked around and looked at the old buildings, looked over the old ruins of the city walls (down below in these pictures), checked out some old roman aqueducts, and ate a wonderful lunch of pizza and pasta. I was enjoying it because everyone was speaking french so I could understand things again, plus another gorgeous day walking around is never to be missed!

Walking around downtown Stuttgart

Friday, April 3, was a beautiful day for two reasons, first it was a day off work - they call them "Training Holidays" and they are days off that the command decides to take - one each month! While I think they're kind of excessive, 12 days off a year on top of all the Federal Holiday - the number of hours I work coupled with my enjoyment of a good day off give me no qualms about enjoying them!

So Brad and I went to downtown Stuttgart and had lunch at our favorite restaurant - Arche. I had a wonderful parmesan, ruccola, cherry tomato salad with some potato soup. Brad had pork kabobs, with french fries and salad. We sat outside in the sun and enjoyed the weather and people watching.

After we finished lunch we decided to go for a long walk. We went past the state square, where we've gone many times in the past, and headed down - thinking we'd walk down to the zoo. The zoo is a couple miles down, but it's all parks - these are some pictures we took while walking.

When we reached a train station we hopped the train back to central downtown and had an ice cream, in addition to going into Brad's favorite hat shop and my favorite yarn store. Just a beautiful day!

Mainz and the Gutenberg Museum

Thur, April 2, one of my co-workers needed a ride to the hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany for a follow up appointment. He had been there for a while, including surgery a couple months ago. We'd visited and driven him a couple times, so during this trip I was determined to take advantage of it! We dropped Adrian at the hospital, then headed to the next town over (11 km away) Mainz, Germany. Mainz is the place where Gutenberg is from and the home of the Gutengerg press. Brad and I had lunch there and checked out the museum. It was not as much fun as I thought since all the books were in German - duh!, but it seemed to be one of those places we should see, especially since were were so close. The museum had a few copies of Gutenberg bibles we looked at also. In a way it was simply amazing, we were standing in a room with about 30-40 books, all hand copied, all from 1500 or earlier thinking - wow - all of these books predated our country's existence! Another thing I thought was neat/interesting is the Gutenberg bibles were printed without the big letters that started the sections/chapters. Those letter were either stamped in or drawn in with a bunch of additional art included later, depending on what you purchased. So every Gutenberg bible is unique!

Mainz is a pretty town, and it was a beautiful spring day for walking around. While we were just there for 2-3 hours, it was a great time. Our only hiccup was when we parked, under a big parking sign (P) with a parking meter nearby - some guy stopped his car and told us we needed to move since we didn't have a parking pass. Of course - we argued we had just bought our ticket - but he told us the sign meant residents only. We ended up moving our car since we couldn't read the sign, but it sure was suspicious since his only interest was in getting our spot! We did take a picture of the sign and he was right... I guess the parking pass machine was just for some specific spaces, spaces that didn't include the one we were parked in! It'll teach us to always bring the dictionary!!!

We're back!

Okay, it's been forever since I posted. Guess I've failed at that New Year's resolution!!

We've been up to a lot in the last two months. We've shopped at the flea market most Saturdays, I've gone to Washington D.C. for conferences twice, we've made new friends and had dinners with them - including going to a wine tasting party, we've visited old friends (hi Kim!!!!!!), and last but not least we went to Oklahoma to spend spring break with the kids.

Lots has happened but for this first post I thought I'd share two quick stories with you...

First: Brad was going to go home for spring break while I had a big project to turn in. Because of world events and the new presidency, they delayed the due date on my big project from 24 March until 14 May; my boss asked me if I still wanted to take the leave I had originally put in for and I thought - what the heck, can't hurt to look. So on Monday, mid March, three days before Brad flew out, I went online to delta.com and looked at plane tickets - to fly on Friday, round trip to Dallas was $414.00, let me type that again: $414.00 - three days before my trip!!!!! Anyways, I thought that it was a sign I needed to go with Brad so I leaped at the ticket and off we went!

The second story is just something ridiculous I heard as I was getting off the plane in Atlanta - I had the two most naive or idiotic couples ahead of me on the plane. The first couple said - we're going to miss our connection - surely they'll save the plane for us, they have to know we're here!
The second couple, as we walked off the plane, said - go run over and tell her to call our next gate so they know we're coming and wait for us... Maybe 30 years ago when flying was a rare thing, but in today's climate where planes have tight budgets and schedules, and there is no penalty to the airline if you miss the connection - they'll leave you in an instant. One time, I ran to my next gate, getting there five minutes before scheduled departure time to be told "Sorry, we've already closed the flight, you'll have to talk to a ticketing agent and get rebooked". I was IN TIME! Not late like these two foolish couples!!!! Urgh - airlines!

Garmisch

At the start of the month we went to Garmisch, Germany. Brad and I were both really looking forward to it since everyone has told us what an awesome place it is. While very picturesque, I think it'd be a place we'll enjoy a lot more in the summer when we can go hiking in the mountains. We thought we'd go skiing, but never did. Neither of us had the right gear.

Our biggest disappointment was the first two days. We drove up Saturday so we could have Saturday and Sunday to look around before I had to go to my conference on Monday. We were planning to drive back home after the conference Wednesday night. So we dropped the dogs off at the kennel and headed out in the late morning, stopping on the way and arriving there at @3:30. After we checked in, we headed out to go shopping, thinking the stores would all close around 6:00. Instead, they all closed at 4:00 - as we were walking up to them!!! And to add insult to injury, they weren't open at all on Sunday (most tourist towns here have stores open Sunday, but no, not this one). We did wander around and found a nice place to sit outside, enjoy the sunny day and drink some coffee. And on Saturday night we went down to where there was a free live concert in honor of the fact that the world skiing championships were being hosted there that weekend. We didn't stay long because it was cold out, the crowds were heavy, and the band was only okay.

Then, looking at things to do, we realized people love the place as a base of operations - there isn't much to do in Garmisch, instead it's a good launching point for seeing things in the south of Germany. We fully intend to go back in the summer and do just that!

The two best things about Garmisch were the neat paintings on the buildings, and the awesome food - we were really enjoying eating out. We ate once at a steak reastaurant right by the hotel - awesome food! We went back there again and I had ostrich steak - I can honestly say I'd never atten ostrich before; neither had Brad. It was good, but tough! Not on my list of things to have again. Maybe it was the toast, peanut butter, & tomato it was served with.... (it is actually as wrong as it sounds!). Normally I figure that it's just a taste combination I haven't tried before but is probably pretty good - in this case, NOT! It was okay...

We stayed in the yellow building shown here - the Atlas PostHotel, built in 1621... let me say that again 1621!!! Crazy. Our room was weird with a nice modern bathroom, a small room with a chair and a couch, and the bedroom was enterred from two separate entrances on each side of the bed, because the bed was built in to the room and went from wall to wall! Our biggest complaint was there was one, pitifull lightbulb in the ceiling, thus the room was really dark. We did have an excellent view of the church tower, and we were located right in the center of downtown.

One of the restaurants we ate at was built in the 1700's! They both retained elements of the original decor too, it was just really neat! We finished off the trip with dinner the last night at an italian restaurant, I ordered the caprese and a spicy penne pasta dish - my god it was so hot my belly was still warm the following day! Yum :-)