Wednesday, July 29, 2009

B'Gosh

Royal blue overalls are a must-have for all German men. At first, I thought it was a work thing.. only worn when doing construction, yardwork, etc. However recently, I've noticed all German males wearing them, young and old, and to any sort of event, whether it be dinner, a festival, work, bike riding, etc.

Someone should let them know Osh Kosh is not nearly as becoming on someone over the age of four.

Monday, July 27, 2009

365 Days Later

For our one year wedding anniversary, we headed to Bodensee, a lake bordering Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. We stayed in a little town called Friederichshafen, Germany, right on the water and biked to the neighboring towns, including Eriskirch, Langenargen, and Fischbach. We also took the ferry across the lake to Romanshorn, Switzerland. It was a beautiful area and we could not have asked for better weather. All around a perfect weekend!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Lost: The Series

This has become a trend.. We go lost AGAIN last night, this time WITH Cassandra (our GPS). What should have been a 30 minute highway drive turned into an hour long drive on cobblestone roads.. Somehow, we made it home.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Germany: +10euro Alexander: -10euro

Yesterday, Alexander and I decided to explore Trier, the town that we'll be living in when the house is done.. So after work, we come home, let the dogs out, etc. and look for Cassandra, our GPS. She's missing. Brilliant us, we've been to Trier 3+ times, so we'll just do it ourselves. I googlemap it on the phone and we take off. We made it to Trier with one turn around, not too shabby. Of course, we're trying to find a specific location, the Emperial Baths (kaiserthermen in German). No success. We kept getting turned around, so we give up, drive to another tourist destination, the Porta Nigra, park in a garage and walk around the town.

Walking around town was perfect. The town is picturesque, just beautiful. We stop and sit down for a drink.. the first time, of course I order mineral water (NO BUBBLES) and get bubbles. Oh well. The second time we stop for a drink, I AGAIN order water with no bubbles, and get bubbles, forget it. (By the end of the day, I like water with bubbles). After a couple of hours, we decided to stop and get a sandwich for dinner.. of course walking through town, we passed a MILLION cafes to sit at with sandwiches... on our way back, no such luck. So we sit down at a random restaurant (after we've already decided we don'tttt want german food) that only serves German food. We can read NOTHING on the menu and our waiter speaks not a word of English. Again, I got water with bubbles, imagine. We picked a random thing on the menu, honestly with no clue what it was, ordered it, and crossed our fingers! Turns out to be deliciouss. Some thinly sliced meat over some sauce with some kind of cheese on top.. scoop it on to bread, eat it, or at least that's how we did. Deliciousness. Of course we loved it and can never order it again because we have no idea what it was?

After dinner and gelato and some more food, we walk back to the car which is parked in a parking garage. We get in, drive up to the exit, put our ticket it, the machine spits it out and the gate doesn't raise to let us out. Awesome. Try again. No luck. By now, there are 3 cars behind us, I'm sure thinking, what stupid Americans.. Alexander pushes the intercom button for some help.. Who answers the phone? A German man who speaks NO English. Awesome. We're holding up traffic AND we can't get out of this godforsaken garage. Luckily, some random German man walks by laughing at us, but speaks SOME English. He told us to go downstairs to pay. OOOOH. Drive downstairs, put 5.10 euro in the machine, get back in the go, go back to the very same machine to have our ticket read. What happens? The very same thing that happened before, the machine spits the ticket back out, MULTIPLE TIMES. Awesome. We drive BACK to the pay station, stick the ticket in again, this time it asks for 5.70euro. Put it in. (we're up to 10.80euro at this point - parking for a couple of hours only - geeez). Drive BACK to the exit. It works! Hallelujah. We made it out of the parking garage..

Of course finding our way home, that's another story.. just as bad as trying to get out of the garage.. But we made it, finally!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Week 1: Fatties

Only in Germany for a week and we're already fatties. Gelato
3 times a day, wine 6 times a day, you'd think we were from
Biloxi, Mississippi.. Two a days start next week.



When In Germany..

..Do as the Germans and drive a beamer.

We bought our first BMW.. a 1997 used beamer counts, right? Alexander drives it like its a 2009 M3.. he can dream.

Really though, runs better than the Civic. No complaints!



Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Germans Beware...

We passed our driving test! Next stop, a car. We go look at another car tonight at 5. Hopefully the Germans will not have smoked in this one...

Saturday, July 11, 2009

House Hunters International













After only two short days in Germany, we found a house! On August 15th, assuming all construction goes as planned, we'll be moving to the town of Kasel-Trier, Germany.