Christmas Markets

It is the season of Christmas Markets over here in Germany, and Colin and I went to our first one the other day. It was a small one in Kaiserslautern, but still really fun.  We had deer brats and sat by the fire.  They put their fires inside cut logs, no barricades or enclosures to keep people safe from falling in or burning themselves.  It's kind of fun, because in America that would never happen.  someone could get hurt, and more importantly, someone could sue!  ha.  There was a surprising amount of people there, all of them crowding around the band that was playing.  It is hilarious, because they love American oldies.  They sing along and nod to the beat, some even dance.  It was like being at a fair in America, but you couldn't understand what anyone was saying....  They have some of the same 'fair' food that we do over here, but mostly a lot of crepes, brats, and these doughnut looking things.  I wasn't sure what they were but they looked good.  The markets also sell Christmas type gifts and homemade items, such as wood carvings, ornaments, and these paper stars with lights inside.  It looked like this one was mostly food.  We'll have to see if the pattern holds true at others.  We;re pretty stoked about going to this one in a few weeks one of Colin's co-workers told him about.  It has a live nativity with "All the usual animals, the camel, the sheep, the monkey"... monkey!?!  I guess around here monkeys are typical of the nativity scenes...  I can't wait to go check it out, since it just isn't that typical of our traditional nativity scenes.  It should be fun.  

Other than Christmas Markets, we're just living life.  Putting away all of our stuff, hanging pictures, relaxing.  Colin's working, and I've applied for a few jobs.  We don't really need the money, but it's hard not to get lazy when you're stuck at home all day car-less.  I've gotten so bored I've even been cleaning! gasp! ha.  Mostly I spend my days doing laundry.  German washers and driers are a LOT smaller than american ones, and if I don't do a few loads a day even I wouldn't have enough clean clothing.  They also take a really long time.  No speedy cycles around here.  I always go downstairs thinking it will be done to find its only half way there.  Also I can't do laundry during quiet hours, which makes it take even longer.  Not before 9, from 12-2, or after 8-9.  Not complaining, some things are just different over here and I just have to adjust. It's actually pretty nice, because you never have to worry about your neighbor's loud parties, and if you have kids(like our neighbors), no one will be doing construction on the roads during their nap times. 

I'm loving cooking in my beautiful kitchen and enjoying all the space we have.  Also enjoying their gluten-free things.  Surprisingly, they have a lot of stuff here for me.  It will take a while to try it all and decide what's best, I limit myself to one thing each time we go to Globus (have I talked about Globus yet?  I love Globus).  They have a huge section with tons of different kinds of breads, cookies, snacks, and pastas.  Bigger than any I've seen in the states.  Also, Globus is open late (10pm) and on all American holidays(that aren't shared by Germans.  They're closed for German holidays), so I can go whenever!  It was very nice on Thanksgiving when we wanted stuff and realized we could go to any German store :)

The Weekend

Hey all!  Nothing too big to post this week so far.  We had some fun going to the Temple in Frankfurt, but forgot our camera :(  Luckily the Ward has a temple trip every month for the English sessions, so come next month you can see the outside.  Or if you're feeling ambitious you can just google it!  It was really nice.  After that we went to a flea market in Frankfurt.  It was huge, and I could have spent hours there, but sadly (sad if you're me, excited if you're Colin) we got there 30 minutes before closing.  I did have time to buy one Christmas gift there, which is good.  I've got to buy them all soon, or they'll never get home until after new years.  Anyway, that was really all we did this Saturday.  We came home so I could finish writing my talk for church the next day and just relaxed.

In other good news that some of you might already be aware of, all our Household Goods are coming on the 23rd!! I'm not sure if I posted it on facebook or in the last blog, but I'm super excited to have all my stuff again.  The Air Force has been really good to us, letting us borrow beds and couches and pots and pans, but there is nothing like your own belongings to make you feel at home.  Sadly, it also means we have to find a place for everything and our house will be CRAZY for a while.  We're going to have to buy more dressers and closets for all my clothing... We've got some thanksgiving plans with friends in the area, which is nice.  It should be a good time.  Anyway, that's life for us.  I'll let you know if anything big goes down.  Like all of our stuff was destroyed by the movers... I'm really worried about that one

INTERNET!!! and Paris and Koblenz (not as exciting as internet)

I HAVE INTERNET! It is very exciting.  We have been waiting for it for weeks.  And then yesterday when it got here, we couldn't figure out how to hook it up, since all the directions were in German.  Today I did it!

Anyway, in the meantime we've gone a few more fun places.  The first weekend in Nov. we went to Koblenz for the day.  It was a really nice area.  It is where the Rhine and the Mosel combine, and we had a good day.  We saw a few churches, went to the statue of Wilhelm, and just enjoyed the beautiful fall day.

A church in Koblenz

This is The province we live in.  I'm standing in front of it as they surround Wilhelm, who joined them all together into one country.

Where the Rhine and the Mosel meet

Wilhelm on his horse

This is a picture of the fall leaves changing colors.  It's beautiful over here right now. 

This last weekend was a 3-day weekend for Veteran's Day (aka Armistice Day over here).  It kind of snuck up on us, so last minute we booked a trip to Paris.  We got there on Friday and checked into our hotel, which was really nice, and apparently had really large rooms for Paris.  We walked around and oriented ourselves, and went to Notre-Dame.  There we bought our 2-day museum passes that got us entry into every museum in Paris pretty much, along with to the top of the Arc-de-Triumph.  So for the rest of the trip we wandered about on foot and metro to all the sites.  We went to the Lourve, the Orsay, a WWII museum, a Rodin museum, walked under the eiffel tower, along the Seine, and ate on a barge on the river.  It was a lovely trip.  The one thing we did learn, however, was that in France, you need a special chip in your credit/debit card to use any automated machine.  So our cards were useless unless at a store or restaurant.  It was really lame, because in Paris they have this bike system where you can rent a bike for the day and drop it off at any location around Paris.  There are tons of them and it looked like a great way to get around the city.  But sadly we couldn't use them :(  So for next time we have learned our lesson and will get a card with a chip asap.  Also, we learned that Parisians are CRAZY drivers.  Their roundabouts are not really roundabouts, they're traffic circles.  They have no lane lines.  The people inside must yield to incoming traffic.  Think about this for a minute.  If everyone is coming in, when do people leave? If there are no lane lines, what is to keep a car where they are supposed to be? who knows how many can fit across any given road? As many as choose to.  It is ridiculous.  There is a picture of me standing in it further down the post.  Anyway, here are some of our adventures in picture form  :)

Notre Dame

Our hotel room

Bathroom

bathroom

the view out our window

The Arc-de-Triomphe

me and Caligula

Me in the crazy Paris traffic

Colin on top of the Arc with his back to the Champs de Elysses

This is a cool pic of the Eiffel Tower Colin took. We have a video of it "glittering" but I couldn't figure out how to upload it.  I'll try again later.

Other than that, we're just hanging out.  Colin is working, I'm coming to base, looking for a job, cleaning our house, reading, and just relaxing.  Its a pretty good life.  Germany is starting to feel more and more like home, especially after leaving the country.  It was nice to come back and be glad to be "home".  Twice as nice to be in a home with internet so we can keep in touch with people.  Now just give me all my furniture and I'll be content.

Worst blogger ever...

Sorry guys, I'm officially the worst blogger ever.  It has been like 4 weeks since I last blogged, which wouldn't matter if nothing exciting was happening...  maybe I can claim I was too busy.  Or use the excuse that we don't have internet.  If you're Colin's friend on facebook, you've probably seen some of our goings on.  If not, I'll give you the picture story.  We got a house/apt in Melingen, Germany.  It's a pretty sweet house in an awesome town.  Its about 2000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and the best kitchen.  Here is the virtual tour.

this is the dining room from the kitchen

This is the dining room from the living room

Me in the living room (pic taken from the dining room)

Our beautiful kitchen.  Best kitchen in all the houses we saw.

Our tiny German fridge.

The fan and light come on when you pull out the cabinet, but when you aren't using it, it just looks like a cabinet, not a range hood.

cool drawers in the kitchen

our kitchen shrunk(closet)

half bath downstairs off of the entry way

me at the top of our stairs

Colin in one of our spare bedrooms.  We have two nearly identical.

Colin in our huge tub.

our upstairs bathroom

Master bedroom from the door.  That wall with the window/skylight  is where our(temporary, borrowed) bed is now.

master from the wall opposite the door

cool skylight/windows.  They all have rolladens, which are like metal blinds that keep out the light in the summertime when it is only dark for a few hours.

our attic

ladder to the attic

cool windows/doors in the living room.  All the windows open both like this and out like a typical door. 

our entryway. you can see the half bath too.

our spiral staircase 

We also bought a car.  With the money from selling our cars (we based it on when my car sells and if it sells at a really really low rate) we were able to buy one really nice car.  It's not German, which Colin would have prefered, seeing as we're in Germany, but our 2007 Corolla was the same price as a 2001 BMW and the Corolla had less than 37,000 miles versus a lot more.  Anyway, we love it.  I'm still getting used to how tiny it is compared to my big red explorer, but atleast it fits in parking spots here.

We've also done some traveling while over here.  On the 15th of Oct we went to Heidleberg, which has a cool schloss, or castle, an old bridge, and some fun shops and biergartens(we didn't have any bier, obviously, but you can't help walking through them when they're in the center of a city street...)

The next Saturday we went the opposite direction to Saarbrucken, near the French border.  It had a famous church, and it's "schloss" (I put it in quotes since it isn't really a castle, It is just an old building that has been renovated and used for many purposes, but they still call it a schloss.)  Anyway, it was really cool because some college students had taken it upon themselves to create an invisible memorial to the "invisible people" the Jews by putting the names of Jewish cemeteries on the bottom of the stones in the walkway up to the schloss. They did it secretly one by one at night so no one knew for years.  Now there is a sign telling you about it, but the names are all still hidden.  It is also the largest registry of Jewish cemeteries.  Sadly it is kind of useless as a registry, since you can't see the names... Other than those things, we didn't find a whole lot of interest in Saarbrucken.

ludwig's kirche (church)

invisible memorial of Jewish cemeteries.

On Tuesday after our trip to Saarburcken we went to Volklingen, an old, decommissioned steel mill.  We were going to go on Saturday until we found out it was free on Tuesdays.  This was one of the coolest things we've gone to yet, and sadly we forgot our camera.  I stole a pic off their website for you.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site.  It is HUGE.  And since it has been decommissioned trees, weeds, flowers, and other plants are growing up through all the traintracks and things.  I wish I could do this place justice.  Maybe we'll go back another Tuesday and get pictures for you so you can see how awesome it was.

The next weekend we sigend up for a USO how to ride the trains tour that took us to Trier.  Trier was awesome, the train was so so.  Everyone talks about how cheap they are, but I honestly didn't see it.  We did the math and it would have been cheaper for us to drive.  Other than that (and me losing my phone) Trier was awesome.  We saw the Prota Nigra, some old churches, Roman baths, neat old buildings, and more.  We had a great time there and ate at the best restaurant we've been to yet.  It was a Kartoffel (or potato) restaurant, and everything came with a side of potatoes.  The potatoes here are the best.  Sooooo good.  They make them in all different shapes, fried, baked, boiled, and every way they're delicious.  Anyway, we had pork with Brat Kartoffel which is potatoes sliced thinly and fried.  That's my favorite way to eat them.

brat kartoffeln

After our tour, we went to a haloween party with some other officer's from Colin's CE group And that was fun.  We played some rock band and Colin even sang.  Then Colin whooped everyone at MarioKart, and we just chilled.

So, that's what you've missed in our life.  We should get internet in a few days, but until then we'll probably be pretty scarce.  Sorry for the long posts.  If I blogged more you wouldn't all get so overwhelmed with info and pics in one sitting.  I'll have to work on that :)