Weekend Recap

This past weekend was the first beautiful weekend we've had of the Spring.  We've had some nice weather in the mid 60's, but this was past weekend was sunny and 75 degrees on both days, so we took full advantage of it.  We started off on Saturday meeting up with our friend Katia and her golden retriever, Heidi, at the dog park on the base near our house.  We'd taken the dogs there last fall and they loved it.  It's an enormous outdoor area completely fenced in, so the dogs can run all over the place without us having to worry about them getting out.  Heidi is Katia's first dog, so she was a little uncomfortable with how the other dogs at the park were playing rough with her, and after about 10 minutes she was too worried, so she took Heidi home.  Since we've had Milo for a year & a half now, we've gotten to know both his and Murphy's various barks & growls, so we knew when it was time to pull the dogs apart and when it was ok to just let them be.  The dogs at the dog park this past weekend were a playful group, so we ended up talking with the owners while the dogs ran around the park chasing each other and wrestling.  Both Milo & Murphy are naturally fast dogs, so it usually ended up being Milo taking the lead while all the other dogs chased him.

We stayed there for about an hour, then walked over to the community center where the 52nd Signal Command was having a fund raiser BBQ.  We got some great food and contributed to their cause.

That evening we had some friends over for dinner.  Shanna & I had gone through our cookbook and picked out a bunch of things we wanted to make both Saturday night, as well as the rest of this week.  For Saturday night Shanna made a taco meat casserole, lettuce wedge salad, and home made ice cream and cupcakes for dessert.  I was ecstatic because for the first time since we've been here, I saw genuine American Microbrew beer on base.  Rogue is one of my favorite breweries, based out of Oregon.  The case below was the last one they had in stock, and I couldn't grab it fast enough.

So Saturday afternoon I finished cleaning up the house while Shanna cooked everything.  That afternoon I drove down to the bottom of the hill to pick up our friend Penny who helped us out by looking after the dogs for part of the time we were in the U.S., and our friend Jesse.  Jesse is one of those "small world" stories.  I met him the same time I met Shanna when we played kickball together back in DC.  We were all friends for about a year, then he took a job in Miami and moved down there.  A month before we were getting ready to move to Germany he posted on Facebook that he had taken a new job and would be moving to Heidelberg, Germany.  He landed 2 weeks after we did.  For those not familiar with the area, Heidelberg is about an hour and 15 minute drive from us.  So we saw each other a couple times over the last year, but not much.  Two months ago he mentioned that his contract in Heidelberg was not going to be renewed, so he started looking for jobs in Stuttgart, and was able to transfer.  He got a place on the Marienplatz, where we live, and now, 4 years after we met and 3 years after he moved away from the DC area, he's only a 5 minute walk from our place.

Dinner was delicious.  The home made salad dressing Shanna made for the salad was delicious, as was the taco meat casserole.  And of course, home made ice cream from the kitchen aid is always delicious.  Plus it was our first chance since the fall to eat outside on the back deck.  Since the fall we'd gotten new deck furniture, so it was nice to be able to use it for the first time with guests.

The next day Shanna & I watched the Butler/VCU game from the night before, then hopped in the car and headed up to the Stuttgart Fernsehturm, or Stuttgart TV Tower.  It was built in 1956 and at the time was the largest TV tower in the world at 217 meters (711 feet) high.  If you remember some earlier blog posts, you'll recall that I went there last year shortly after we got here.  At the time, though, it was only me exploring, so Shanna hadn't been yet.  We figured with it being a beautiful day, this was the time to go.

There really isn't too much to describe about the tower.  You go inside, pay the 5 Euro fee, and then take the elevator to the top.  Last year when I went they had a descriptive panel going around the fence at the top of the tower that had various landmarks and the names of the cities you were seeing from up there, but for some reason they've since removed it.  I'm not sure why, that was useful the last time.  Now we had to rely on our knowledge of the terrain to find various landmarks.  We were able to spot the Hauptbahnhof, the Schlossplatz, the Rathaus, and our house.  Below are two pictures...the perspective of the TV tower from our house, then below it the perspective of our house from the TV tower.

Once we had seen enough we took the elevator back down and headed out.  The rest of the day was spent with all the windows open in the house, relaxing and enjoying the nice weather.

I'll have another post next week because this weekend Shanna & I are heading up to a town outside of Frankfurt called Seligenstadt for their annual Spring Market.

Click here to see larger Hi-Res pictures, or click any picture in the post above.