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 :-)

Saturday

Well, it was Saturday and guess what we did? Yeah...we went downtown to the market. This time we really did it right, driving down and parking at the City Hall (Rathaus) parking lot. It was great, we bough a bunch of veggies and then went and put them in the car; then we bought some plants, and then went and put them in the car; then we went to the flea market - Brad bought a chisel and I bought another scarf. We had lunch and headed home.

Here's a normal lunch in Stuttgart, GE:

Brad: potato leek soup with little hot rolls followed by a mixed meat platter (lamb, pork, & some kind of ground meat patty) with french fries. It was all really good but the lamb was awesome. It came with a butter herb sour cream. He also had a Dark beer (Dunkel in German).

Me: potato leek soup with little hot rolls followed by a riccola salad with fresh Parmesan, pine nuts, tomatoes, and a vinaigrette dressing. It was really fresh and delicious. I had a cappuccino and mineral water.

We had to take a picture of this Dragon art for Kaylee

Stuttgart and Wiesbaden

Last weekend we went downtown for our usual Sunday routine, but my workmate John, his wife and kids all joined us. It was pretty nice out, but got colder as the afternoon wore on. We went to the hat shop, where John bought a ivy cap for his father's birthday, then the flea market, and ended up at the toy store - where John was admiring all the train model diorama stuff. John is in to trains, though I imagine he didn't expect to see the moving diorama models that go in the house of ill repute!

On Monday we drove 2+ hours up (and 2+ hours back) to Wiesbaden where my other workmate, Adrian, is in the hospital. He ended up having surgery on a slipped disc in his spine on Tuesday. His disc, up at the top of his spine, affected his back and arms. The doctor came in an explained the whole procedure to him while we were there. It really is true that one of the last things someone learns in a different language is TACT! A minor communication misunderstandings seem a lot bigger -- Adrian asked if he should have the surgery, and the doctor answered the question "do I have to have the surgery", which answer was No, because he isn't going to immediately die if he doesn't have the surgery so it's considered optional. Of course if he doesn't have it, he'll continue in excruciating pain... He came through everything okay and gets out of the hospital next Wednesday.

New Year's Resolution

I can honestly say I've already met one of my New Year's resolutions - and here's the evidence! One pair of socks knitted :-)

Cruiser had to get in on the second picture - what a clown, he just had to rub in on my legs since they were out there.

My next knitting project is a pair of socks for Brad - they may take me a bit longer since I'm using smaller yarn, smaller needles, for bigger feet! He teases me if I look at any of my other ongoing projects because I'm neglecting his socks. One time he said, "Don't you want me to have warm feet?" or "I only have one pair of medium weight socks and I've already worn them this week".

Saturday Flea Markets in the Winter

Brad and I went out for our normal Saturday morning routine - the flea market in downtown Stuttgart. We started out taking the train to one end of downtown, where the yarn shop I go to is - I bought some yarn for to make socks with - this being one of my new year's resolutions. You can see a picture of my ongoing yarn work in the right bar, I found this handy link to Ravelry, a cool website where knitters and crocheters can post their work, find other projects, and it has cool tools like the link I added here for tracking progress of projects. It's a great way over time to keep track of all the projects attempted, completed, or - as they call it - hibernating.

After the yarn shop we hopped the train again to the flea market - it's still going on but at a significantly smaller scale than when the weather is nicer. This picture shows the square the market happens in - the rest of the year the whole square behind Brad would be filled with stands, but as you can see there a just a couple at this time of year. The horse statue is in the middle of the square (Charlottesplatz) and the stalls that are there are equally spread around the whole area.

After we shopped for a while, finishing just as we reached the point where we were freezing! (It was in the low 20's yesterday) we went and had lunch at this nice little restaurant just by the square. We've been there a couple times now and the food is really good - and very reasonably priced.

One interesting thing that happened to us on the train is one of the train inspectors came along. The German train system is strange, instead of having to use your ticket to go through a turnstile (like every other train system in the world I've ever used), the German train systems is more on the honor system - you're supposed to buy your tickets, or stamp your multi-ride tickets, and have them when you get on the train. Randomly, train inspectors will come along and you'll have to show your tickets or face a 40 Euro fine (about $55 dollars), payable on the spot. Yesterday we had one of the inspectors come by, I have to admit I had almost forgotten to punch our tickets - thank goodness I remembered at the last minute!

Winter Fishing

I had to post a couple more pictures from our Christmas vacation in Minnesota - the girls both went ice fishing with Brad and Mark on different days and each had a blast. I liked it 'cause it meant I got to spend a day with each of them alone myself. Here's some of the pictures...




























Note - you don't see Kaylee touching the fish -- I guess catching them is much more fun than taking them off the hook -- who knew she'd get squeemish!

When the boss is away... A RANT

Normally I would say my boss being out of town is a good thing - we seem to always get more done when he's gone, but unfortunately this time he decided to go on a trip to Virginia while one of my co-workers is in the hospital, another co-worker's job is gapped, and there is a lot going on. Add the fact that this trip he's on is to give a 2 hour brief to people who aren't even going to be doing the jobs working with us then the whole thing is bu!!$hit!!! Me and John are stuck working until 8 at night every night so he could attend a 2 hour lecture and then spend 4 days with his sister! He should have canceled his trip when the other guy in the office went into the hospital!!! I'm sick of working 2+ hours more every day than 95% of the rest of the people at the command. Add to that fact that the pace hasn't gotten any better since I started in July - and there is a whole bunch of Europe I could be out seeing - and I'm kinda gripy about it. Brad is livid!! Anyways, enough whining for now...