Weekend Pics

We took a quick, three day trip up to Garmisch, Germany this weekend. It's a small ski town on the German/Austrian border, where the Alpine Ski World Cup 2011 just happened to be underway. It was a lovely little jaunt out of town and, though we didn't ski this time, we all had a blast. We wandered around the quaint little town, ate lots of delicious food, swam in the hotel pool, met up for dinner with a big group of friends one evening and walked around the beautiful and frozen Eibsee lake.

There are more pictures in my Flickr stream, but here are a few of my favorites.

Urlaub in Berlin, Tag Zwei

^Holiday in Berlin, Day Two

Oops, I took too long to post and now I'm losing steam. Day Two in Berlin was what we were calling Super Fun Kid Day. I'm not sure why, but giving things Engrish style labels makes them even more awesome.

We started out at the Berlin Zoo, where it was so pretty, fun for the kids, and ohhhh so very cold.







Then, we headed into the Aquarium where it was much warmer. El Niño is really into that type of thing. Cheeseball is more into surprise relaxation spots.



Hours and hours and hours later Mom hijacked Super Fun Kid Day to drag the kids to the KaDeWe department store. It claims to be the biggest department store on the European continent and I think that's probably about right. It was ridiculously huge. I actually just wanted to pop into the Idee craft store, housed in the department store. But, that crafty El Niño hijacked my hijack and spotted the Lego Berlin store on the way.


Pretty stoked.

After that, we headed to the flea market where my pictures came to a crashing halt, because you know...propietors, goods...I have a thing. But, I did pick up some vintage buttons and a sweet pin to embellish some pieces for the store.

Day Three I can roll up in one sentence: swim meet. Actually, that's not even a sentence. We spent the entire day at the pool. I was hoping we would make it out of there in time to hop over to (what I heard was) an even cooler flea market. But, the meet ran long and that was that. Next time!

We had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to another trip to Berlin sometime. For now, though, we're thinking about Spring Break and what we want to see then!

Urlaub in Berlin, Tag Eins

^Holiday in Berlin, Day One

Last week El Niño had a swim meet in Berlin, which we used as an excuse to spend several days exploring. Berlin is newly minted as one of my favorite cities in the world. It has so much character and style and the oddest charm - kind of communist chic. So much of the old Soviet style is evident in the Eastern section, but modern sensibilities are taking over and making for a fantastically unique mix.

I need to warn you now that we did not visit Checkpoint Charlie or Das Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) or see any remnants of the wall or any of the new memorials to opposition politicians or Holocaust victims. It's not that I'm not interested in history or Nazi sites. It's just that I'm that tourist. I will go to Paris and never see the Eiffel Tower. I only saw the Mall in D.C. briefly and because I tagged along with others for whom it was a priority. I have an interest in visiting a place like Auschwitz where I believe the experience in person will be completely different than what you get from a printed account. But, to stand in line to look at the outside of the building where a handful of nutjobs dreamed up The Final Solution? Or to scurry all the way across town to get a glimpse of a place where there used to be a wall? No, thanks.

I was more interested in exploring the fabulously hip Prenzlauer Berg district and Berlin's storied flea markets. The kids were far more interested in checking out the zoo. So, we did what we wanted to do and we had an absolutely lovely time. I took a pathetic number of pictures, but here they are:



The sheer amount of graffiti - particularly in East Berlin - was astounding. And the quality was fantastic. I loved the way the artistic youth have absolutely reclaimed their city. Without it, the whole place would still look a lot like this:



Some people seemed determined to keep their spaces art free, and they were lovely too. I can't imagine the battle it requires, though.



There were so many cute shops and little cafes and restaurants of all different world cuisines! I wish I was less self-conscious about taking pictures inside establishments but I have a thing, what can I say.

Suffice it to say that El Niño got his sushi fix, I got my adorable eclectic shop fix and Cheeseball got very tired. After that, we hopped over to the slightly more tony Hackescher Markt. There was a cool Japanese department store called Muji of which I again took no pictures, but we loved exploring all the stuff. Their selection was definitely of the modern, sleek stylish Japanese variety rather than the kawaii, colorful adorable Japanese variety. Less interesting for the kids, but I loved it.

We wandered by this gorgeous synagogue, guarded by three fully armed Polizei.



Then stumbled on this beautiful building on the river.





And that was day one!

Oh, hello there.

Oh good, the blog is still here. I'm not sure what happened, but I lost steam for a while there. In the past few months, we've experienced our first Oktoberfest, gone to Italy, cheered El Niño in swim meets wandering across Western Germany, started watching the snow fall and I've started selling crocheted hats!

While Oktoberfest is technically only in Munich, we went to a fall festival with lots of beer and sausage.




We drink beer and wear Adidas!

Earlier this month, we went to Lignano Sabbiadoro in Northern Italy at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It was a neat little tourist town that is probably packed to the gills in the summer, but was quiet and welcoming at the beginning of the winter. It was a very short trip (although the drive with four kids under ten felt somewhat long) with two days spent driving, one day spent at a swim meet and one day spent wandering Venice.

Venice was amazing. We wandered aimlessly, admiring beautiful buildings that turned out to be things like grocery stores, until we found ourselves passing the same friendly Thai vendor for the fourth time. With phones out of service and the garmin confused by the lack of roads, we ended up buying a map. We explained to the kids what a map was and how in the olden days people were able to find their way with nothing more than a brightly colored piece of paper to guide them. They were in awe. The trip was a lot of fun, and whet our appetite for more exploration.

As I mentioned, I've also started selling crocheted hats. It started with a craft fair here that I submitted a few hats to. Only two sold, but an acquaintance recognized the work as mine and asked me to make a custom hat like one I had made for Cheeseball.

I later added a pink flower to this one.

This was the color scheme requested for my first order. Awesome, no?

Several other people overheard and I've received a bunch of other orders within the same group. I also volunteered to crochet some hats for El Niño's swim team and they sold 6 last week, proceeds going to the team. It's all been so fun and empowering, that I decided to open a store on Etsy. So, that was a really long way of saying...check out my shop!




So, that's three months in a nutshell. Suddenly I realize that I've missed this space and I think that means I'll wander back sooner rather than later next time.

Schloss Ludwigsburg

Just a few pictures I snapped when we visited Schloss Ludwigsburg. I took a bunch inside as well. Going back through them, I really only find myself drawn to the outside shots that also catch the old car show on display that day.

France, Part Fini

I'm dragging out the last of the pictures from our little trip to France. Going back through it all is making me yearn for more travel in the near future!

A former hotel neighbor told me about Germanwings airline recently and their insanely cool Blind Booking feature. You choose from categories like "Culture" or "Nature and Hiking", enter your dates, pay €19.99 and SURPRISE! you're off to some place of their choosing... The Man asked €19.99!? Do they crash a lot!?. I haven't heard of a ton of commuter flight crashes in Europe, so I figure we're good and I can't wait to check it out! Yay for summer and school being out!

For now, back to France...

The family we stayed with took us walking around the neighboring town of Pau.

An even more amazing view of the Pyrenees, beautiful architecture, a Sephora and a castle with ties to Napoleon, Marie Antoinette and Henry IV kept my head spinning for most of the morning.











Doesn't this look like it launched straight out of Mary Poppins!?

France, Part Trois (Also, my first medieval village and cathedral)

After spending the night in a small motel (that we made our reservation and checked in to via a slightly more complicated sibling of the good old ATM), we were back on the road for another 5 hours of driving. Of course, it took us 8 hours, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Utterly tired of the car and of speeding past beautiful countryside and dillions of illustrated signs touting all the incredible landmarks we were missing, we decided to take a break and stop at the next cool thing we spotted. That happened to be an amazing little walled off village replete with ancient cathedral named Saint Bertrand de Comminges.

Now, this is the kind of thing that sucks and rocks about no longer having my iPhone operational. With it, I would have been buried in Wikipedia entries and web sites learning all kinds of things about what we were looking at. Without it, I just sightsaw and took pictures and found myself very in the moment.

And what a moment! With an amazing view of the Pyrenees, and older than old all around us, it was a beautiful experience.

I was really looking forward to viewing history, and well...really old stuff in Europe. But, I'm still blown away by just how old this stuff is! This little village was originally founded in 72 BC. I mean WHAT!? After several hundred years of doing whatever people did in 72 BC and thereafter, the area was razed and lay deserted for about 500 years. Then, in 1083, the cathedral and most of the walled in village was built and has just stood around chilling ever since. That's more than a thousand years! It boggles the mind. And now here we are cruising around, buying soap and wooden swords and just generally being boggled.

On the way out, we passed through a small tunnel of sorts that The Man was veeery nervous about pulling The Rabbit through. But, we fit! He said get out and take a picture of this! And I said I can't open my door!. Ha ha ha, thank goodness we had a tiny little car before we moved here.

Spain! On the other side of those mountains! El Niño was stoked!


The view on the approach.

France, Part Deux (with potty humor)

After a whole day of driving, we stopped for dinner. Somehow, we ended up at an American 50's style diner (!!?!?) but, I guess that's what happens when you don't plan your route out and rely on your GPS to find the closest restaurant when it's 8:00 at night and the kids are starving and it's called something promisingly Frenchy sounding and you just hope for the best. It was delicious, though. And, as much as they were trying, the food really wasn't American. At all. So, it all worked out.


And this greeted us right across the street.


And the kids frolicked on their first French playground. Not nearly as hazardous as its German counterparts, but still fun.


While this isn't exactly dinner conversation, I just have to go there. You've heard of the holes in the ground found liberally sprinkled about Europe, masquerading as bathrooms? Well, welcome to France. There, a not insignificant portion of rest areas don't even have holes in the ground. Discovering peeing people dotting the perimeter of this particular rest stop (our first, sans toilette), we were reasonably sure that this was the thing to do. So, the boys peed on French bushes. Cheeseball peed on French grass and also on her pants leg. Camping is an acquired skill. I held out for a hole in the ground.




Even the bathrooms are beautiful in France.

France, Part Un

We're back from France! Ok, we've been back for a wee while now. With The Man on leave, old friends arriving and one last haul from Ikea coming in, life has gotten in the way of blogging life. How inconvenient.

We had a very lovely time in France. We stayed with family friends in the south of France (The South of France...?) and mostly just ate, drank and relaxed. Good times wherever you are, but somehow even more awesome given the location.

It's funny because I don't really think of myself as speaking French. Yet, the moment we crossed the border into France, both The Man and I felt an immediate, subtle (and unexpected) relief as we moved in to Less Foreign Territory. We can understand the words on the signs! I can read and comprehend the directions on my parking ticket! Conversations involve more words than pantomimes! Even when I don't know the meaning of the word, I know how it sounds out loud! I didn't even realize how foreign Germany still felt to me, until I was in another foreign country. Which is very funny to me.

Anyhow, France. The family that we stayed with had the most lovely house, in which pool the kiddos spent most of the holiday splashing water out of. The family members spoke varying degrees of English and Spanish along with, of course, the French. Mom spoke no English and was the epitome of Hostess with The Mostess. Think impeccable food, multiple courses and every whim or need anticipated and met. I was surprised at my ability to converse in French, SO many (NOT THAT MANY!) years after college studies. Mostly, I can speak like a fairly decent three year old. So long as everyone talks to me like I'm three, I'm right in there. It's such a beautiful language and I miss it - it makes me want to pick back up with the studies, after I learn the German of course.

But, enough with the words. I'm going to break the trip into a few posts, so it isn't too terribly long and overwrought with pictures and also because I'm lazy.

We aimed the GPS for Strasbourg, France, which is right over the border. Funny enough, my Dad was watching a tennis tournament there a few weeks ago and told me hey, you could just pop right over there!. To which I said, what!? France is far away!. Turns out it's an hour away. I'm an hour away from France. OMG how does life get better than this!?

Anyhow, Strasbourg is a beautiful city. We spent a short time wandering around before the need to Make Some Headway on the long drive to the southern edge of the country overcame us.


I consciously packed super cute outfits, with no boring fallbacks to weasel into and I still felt horrifically underdressed in France. French women have got themselves some style.








Of course, the kids stuck to the basics. Carousels are always fun, no matter what country you find yourself in.

Got ya covered, netbook.

As much as I try to juggle various projects like pretty much all other knitters, stitchers and generally crafty types do, it's just not my style. I like continuity. I like beginnings, middles and ends. I like finishing things.

So, this is what I've been working on the past week or so.



It's a cover for our wee teeny netbook! And finished just in time to pop it in the overnight bag and head off to France for a few days.

It didn't come out exactly the way I pictured it in my head. But, I only dropped one stitch and it's the biggest thing I've made with nothing but the picture in my own head to go by. And I'm pretty happy with it!

Sauerkraut Fried Sushi...?

I haven't really mentioned this here because it was just a big maybe for a very long time and then all of a sudden it was a definite and then it kind of felt like old news.

But, it's true...we're moving to Germany!! And we are all so. super. pumped. about it. With the minor exception of Cheeseball who isn't quite comprehending what Germany is or what it means to pick up and move. El Niño has been through this before and has always been fascinated with the idea of exploring the rest of the world. He may possibly be more excited than we are.

You guys, we're going from this...

to THIS...

Not a bad trade.  Actually, who am I kidding I'm more like OMGICAN'TBELIEVEITSOEXCITEDSOEXCITEDSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEXCIIIIIIIIIIIIITED!!!!

We leave before the end of the month and I can't wait to blog the transition!!  I'm going to try very hard to post daily on Mein First 30 Deutsch Days.  I have to give up my iPhone, though, with the move and I'm not entirely sure what kind of connectivity we'll have right off the bat. Still, I'm going to try.

Technorati tags: moving, Germany, relocation

SO Ready To Hit The Road

I'm hoping against hope that The Green Machine will be kicking down some new orders in a few months. And, that we'll be lucky enough to be carted off to someplace lovely and get a chance to do some real exploring. So, articles about traveling are catching my eye often. 10 Things Every Traveler Should Do I don't generally like to be told what to do, particularly by snappy little numbered lists. But, I like the tone of some of the suggestions.

Savor every moment of your first few hours

First impressions really are worth a thousand others. I often scribble a hundred pages of notes when I visit somewhere new. But then, when I get home, it's always the first page or two -- the taxi ride in from the airport, my first foray out onto the streets -- that captures something vivid and essential before my ideas and prejudices begin to harden.

Simple but not obvious and oh so true. When I first get to a new place, I often find myself consumed with getting settled, touching base and riding out the last little crest of that hyper-focused, mission oriented travel mode. The times that I've just tossed the bags aside and wandered about, I've been delighted - luxuriating in the sensory bombardment of a brand new scene before you take too much in peripherally and it begins to melt into background noise.

Embrace the prospect of being a tourist Some snooty types will tell you that they're "travelers," not tourists. But if being a tourist means wanting to see all the attractions that make a town unique, then what's so bad about that?

Growing up in a tourist trap, I developed an unhealthy aversion to touristness. But, spending your time trying to be cool and blend in doesn't leave a lot of time for really embracing what you're discovering. Oh how we used to giggle at the sunburnt tourist families in their deafening (and matching) aloha wear with their socks snaking up their glow in the dark legs and the ghosts of recently removed price tags floating around everything in their possession. But, you know what? They were having a blast. They were reveling in their tribe and soaking up the shiny trappings of a foreign culture. Not to say that they didn't take a wrong turn somewhere and end up missing out on a lot of what is really cool about Hawaii. But, I would bet most of them floated home on a cloud and treasured those memories for life. So leaving some room for the idea that I don't have to buy in to a place's hackneyed image-for-sale, I've learned to drop the pretension and be an outsider ready to soak up whatever can be offered wherever I land.

Run an errand for a friend

She's asked you to get, say, macadamia popcorn on Maui or to track down that wise monk she once met in Phnom Penh. The very search for what someone else wants or values (and it doesn't really matter what it is) will lead you to places you would otherwise never see.

I often get annoyed with these kinds of requests. Last time I went home to Hawaii, a friend asked me to go to WalMart and pick up a Hawaiian print quilt for her daughter. Seriously? Lame errand and a nice pain in the ass trip to the post office. Sometimes, though, I've really enjoyed the hunt. My Dad asked me to pick up a religious calendar at a gift shop for him years ago. The cathedral is one of the most beautiful in Hawaii - but probably not a place I would have wandered through of my own accord. And, as an epic bonus, it's located at the girls' school that my oldest friend's mother works at. I dropped in to see her while there - something else I probably would not have made time for - and had a very nice visit. It was the first time I'd seen this wonderful woman - a huge presence in my childhood! - in years and the last time I would ever see her as she died less than a year later. So, this tip has two sides. Embrace the scavenger hunts of people dear to you. And don't ask your traveling friends to pick up things solely to save on shipping. Save it for special stuff that can't be found anywhere else.

Go to McDonald's In Kyoto, you could see chicken tatsuta burgers, corn-potage soup and, in autumn, moon-viewing burgers on the menu, and your fellow diners might be dressed in Vivienne Westwood or Dior. In Bolivia, the McDonald's I visited was so exotic that society ladies sipped their McCoffees under the watchful eye of a security guard. Even in Manhattan, the Big Mac outlet I stumbled into one morning at 3 a.m. was home to an unexpected but very New Yawky kind of camaraderie. The food is cheap and semipredictable, of course, but it's all the ways in which the place is surprising that you will take home with you. What else are we looking for in travel (and in love and in life) but a tasty mix of the strange and the familiar?

This last one made me raise an eyebrow and momentarily crinkle my nose. But, then I remembered a trip to Anaheim as a kid. I went in to a McDonalds for breakfast and ordered one Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice please. The kid behind the counter laughed and said rice? this is McDonalds. Ok, apparently that is a special-to-Hawaii kind of thing. But they had burritos on the menu! (This was before all McDonalds had breakfast burritos.) It was one of my first peeks into the ways that different places can be so different and yet so the same. When my Aunt came back from India announcing that Ronald serves lamburgers there, that seemed like a good enough reason to my twelve year old self to check out the place. And the ornately appointed McDonalds right outside the gates of the Biltmore Estate was a real trip. So, going to McDonalds in Georgia when you're coming from North Carolina...? Probably not much of a treat. But, when you find yourself in a whole new world, it can be so fun to check out the way they interpret your regular old world. Gah. Have ideas, will travel. Please.