Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

Who knew five years could fly by so fast?  It feels like just yesterday that Shanna told me she was offered a job in Germany.  We'd been married for three months at that point.  We talked about it, and decided that we were still young and didn't have kids yet, so if we were going to do this, now was the time.  In April 2010, we packed everything up and flew 9 hours to our new life in Europe.  During the past five years our life has changed dramatically.  We visited 28 different countries spanning Europe and Northern Africa.  We had one child, Benjamin, and now have another on the way in August.  We made some great friends, and had experiences we'll remember for the rest of our lives.  I never imagined myself sipping a beer on Red Square in Moscow, or walking next to the Great Pyramids in Cairo.  Now that we're back in the US, it's hard not to think that the biggest adventure of our life is over, and now there is just "everything else".  But I know that's not true, this is just the start of our next adventure as we raise Ben and his younger sibling.   There will also be other opportunities to live overseas again, but that's not anything we're thinking about for a few years to come.

Like everything else over the past five years, the trip home was an adventure in and of itself.  Because we were flying with the dogs, we couldn't fly out of Stuttgart.  The EU has a rule that you can only fly with animals out of airports that have on site Veterinarians.  Stuttgart did five years ago, but did not anymore.  That meant renting a car for a one way trip to Frankfurt.  The day of the flight home, we loaded up the SUV with four fullsize suite cases, one carry on suitcase, several carry on bags, a stroller, a car seat, two dogs, us, Ben and the dog kennels.  It took some creative packing, but we got everything in there.  The initial trip was smooth.  At 5am, the Autobahn was empty, so we flew up there.  We dropped the car off, and then the fun started.  We had to figure out how to take all of the previously mentioned things from the rental parking lot to the check out counter.  We managed, but it involved Shanna pushing the stroller and one suitcase cart, while I pushed two suitcase carts and held the leashes of Murphy and Milo.

It was difficult, but we managed to make it to the check out counter for animals.  First thing was to choose our seats.  Because we had dogs with us, we were not allowed to pick our seats before hand.  It was kind of a joke, when we first booked the flights, we were told that the low Government fare meant seat picking was not available to us until we checked in, but we could check in 24 hours early and pick our seats then.  At the 24 hour mark, I logged in, and was told I couldn't pick our seats because doing so required checking in, which we couldn't do online because we had dogs.  Thankfully when we got to check in, there were 3 seats next to each other still available.

After assembling the dog crates, we were just about done with check in when the police came running through.  Apparently some moron had left a bag unattended, so they closed the entire section we were in.   After 30-45 minutes of watching them carefully x-ray the bag, open it, inspect it, and finally declare it safe, we were allowed back to the counter.  At this point we were cutting it close for getting to our plane.  Thankfully the agent called the gate to let them know what was going on.  But we still had to hustle all the way there.  We had planned on changing and feeding Ben before boarding so he'd be calm, but that was now out of the question.  We were the last ones at the gate, and  barely made it on the plane.  Next up was a 10 hour flight to Atlanta.  This was the part I was nervous about, because I had no idea how Ben would do for 10 hours.  Thankfully he did pretty well.  He slept a large portion of it, played for other parts, and only really got fussy within the last hour.  But he was basically just voicing how we all felt.

We finally touched down in Atlanta 10 hours later.  Once Ben was out of the plane in his stroller, he was an angel.  He waved and smiled at people, and just looked around the whole time.  We waited in the passport control line for about 45 minutes, but Ben would smile and wave to people in line.  It was hot, and people were frustrated, but they immediately relaxed and smiled when Ben would wave to them.

After passport control, we flew through baggage pickup thanks to an airport employee who helped us every step of the way, including getting the dogs.  He dropped us off at the shuttle we needed to take, and we were incredibly thankful for him.  You'd think the adventure would be over, but you'd be wrong.

When we got to the hotel, we were in the middle of check in when the fire alarm went off.  We had to evacuate the building and wait for the all clear.  Thankfully it was a false alarm.  I was worried how Ben would do trying to sleep that night with the 6 hour time zone difference, but amazingly, he did great.  The next morning we should have been able to hit the road early, but of course, we hit another snag.  We had left one of the attachments for Ben's stroller at the airport.  We flew Lufthansa here, and it was now locked up in their office.  Since Lufthansa only flies from Atlanta to Europe, and those flights are only in the late afternoon, we had to wait until 12 for them to come in to get it.

We finally did, and the rest of the 3 hour drive to Huntsville was uneventful.

We've been back in the US for three weeks now.  It wasn't as hard to get adjusted as I thought it would be, but that's probably because we haven't stopped moving since we landed.  We've purchased a new car (we only shipped one back), started new jobs, celebrated Ben's first birthday, and have looked at more houses than I can count.  We think we've found the one, and will be putting an offer in this week on it.  I started at NASA this past week, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it.  A surreal moment came half way through the week when I logged in to do some work on a router at the NASA AMES Research Center at Moffett Field, in California.  We lived on that base 20 years ago, and 30 years ago.

Once we have a house purchased, and baby #2 arrives, we'll start the next big adventure in our life.  This blog started off as a way for friends and family to keep track of how we were doing in Germany, and slowly evolved into a travel blog.  While our travels are not over, the five year adventure in Germany is, so this will be the last post of this blog.  If we start doing a lot of US travel, I might start another blog.

That said, it's been a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading it.

Tschüss!

Barcelona

For President's Day, we knew we had one last trip to take before we moved back to the US.  Unfortunately, I got the cities mixed up that Shanna had and had not been to in Spain.  I thought she'd been to Madrid, but not Barcelona.  Turns out, it was the opposite.  But I had already booked our trip to Barcelona before I found out my mistake.  One other thing to note about this trip, while it's always neat to see a new city (and for me, a new country), this particular trip was mostly just exhausting.  Ben had always been a great traveler, but due to a few mistakes we made, he was not a happy camper this time.  We forgot his sleep sack, which is basically a blanket that he wears over his pajamas.  It stays on him all night so he can't kick it off, and it keeps him warm.  We also had his crib in the hotel placed right under a window.  The hotel was so hot we had to open the window, but this allowed cold air to flow in and down on to him.  The end result was he kept waking up through out the night, and during the day, we were exhausted.  So this blog post won't be as long as previous ones.

That said, though, we did see some neat things.  The first day there we opted to just go with a hop on/hop off bus.  Before that started running for the day, though, we visited a building designed by the famous architect from Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí.  His works are known for not having any straight lines and intricate colors.  This building looked like it was inspired by a Mardi Gras mask.

Notice in the picture that Ben is asleep.  While most of the pictures of him during our travels has him asleep like that, almost all the ones in Barcelona were like that due to him being up all night.  After we toured the building, we headed to the pick up for the hop on/hop off.  I never really liked those because the audio quality wasn't great, and it's just a dry presentation.  But we were so tired, there's no way we could have done an extensive walk like we usually do.  At least Ben enjoyed seeing the city from the upper deck.

We stopped and walked through a beautiful church along the tour.

For lunch, we stopped in a hole in the wall seafood place and had some of the best Paella I'd ever had.  Even Ben loved it, devouring it faster than we could put it in front of him.

The rest of the day was spent just walking around city center, shopping and touring.

The next day we took a taxi to a unique place on top of one of the mountains around Barcelona.  It was a huge church, and outside of it was an old amusement park.  What we didn't realize was they were closed on Mondays, and didn't find that out until we get up there.  But the church was beautiful, as was the view of the city.

At this point we were getting hungry, so we headed back to the city center to the big market place.  They had all kinds of fresh seafood, meats, cheeses, etc...  We found a little sit down restaurant to eat at, and had some delicious seafood.  I had to get a picture of the Jamon in the market.  I've never liked ham, but discovered I love Italian prosciutto when we moved to Germany.  In the past year, I've learned that it doesn't come close to aged Spanish Jamon.  It's not cheap, but the flavor is incredible.  They were selling entire legs in the market that you sliced yourself for the low low price of 125 Euro per leg.  Although, considering the cost of it when packaged, that's a pretty good price.  

That afternoon we took the hop on/hop off bus to some of the more remote locations, including the stadium where the local football team, FC Barcelona, plays.

Despite being exhausted, we did enjoy the trip.  The weather was beautiful and the food was delicious.  

To see pictures, click any image above or here.

Estonia

We're back in the US now, but we went on two more trips before moving back here.  With all the craziness that came from having all the Grandparents in town for Christmas, plus planning and executing an international move with a 1 year old, this is the first chance I've had to sit down and do some writing.  Ben is in Texas for the week with Shanna's parents, so I actually have an entire afternoon to sit down and write.

Back in November, Shanna and I were looking at somewhere to go for Thanksgiving, and thought we'd check out Estonia.  Their Christmas market started earlier than most of the ones around Europe, and the capitol city of Tallinn was one we'd wanted to visit.  I found a hotel right off the main market square that was built in the 1300s.  It was beautiful, but had one major drawback...no elevator.  With a stroller and a baby, it was no fun going up and down 5 stories to our room.  But, the room was nice, so I can't really complain.

That first night we fed Ben his Thanksgiving dinner, which consisted of Turkey, mashed potatoes, and corn, plus apple yogurt for dessert.  All baby food versions, of course.

Next, Shanna and I found a restaurant that was common in Estonia.  It was Medieval themed, but not like the gimmicky Medieval Times in the US.  They had no electricity in the areas where customers were, everything was candle lit.  They served ales brewed from recipes around the 1400s, and if a type of food hadn't been discovered in Estonia by the 1400s, it wasn't on the menu.  Shanna asked if she could have potatoes with her Elk Steak, but was told they hadn't made it to Estonia yet.  I had a delicious plate of Bear meat with their spiced ale.

Ben was getting tired after dinner, so we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.   One thing to note about that evening was it snowed.  So Ben saw his first snowfall in Estonia.

The next morning we had arranged for a tour guide to meet us.  She had just graduated college and was back in Tallinn giving tours while she was job hunting.  She walked us through the city, and had an amazing breadth of knowledge about it.  One of the most amazing things about the country is how digitally connected it is.  They are the first country in the world to have a card people carry around that they use for everything.  It has their medical records stored on it, they use it to authenticate to a website to vote online, it's their passport, drivers license...it even lets them store credit on it for using city provided services, such as public transportation.  97 percent of the country has a broadband connection to their house and/or phone.  I had noticed how much free wifi was available through out the city, as well as how fast it was.  Estonia is also spear heading an effort to allow people to become digital citizens of the country in the hopes of encouraging new business to come.  You wouldn't have to pay the taxes a normal citizen does, only business related ones, and you wouldn't have to reside in the country.  It's an interesting concept.  

She also talked about how the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia had the older generation extremely scared that Russia was coming after them next.  Until the early 90s, Estonia, along with it's neighbor countries of Latvia and Lithuania, were part of the Soviet Union.  The younger generation isn't worried about a return to those days (our tour guide was born the year Estonia regained it's independence), but the older generation is wary.  

Over all, it was a fascinating tour, not just because of the history of the city, but because of all the things we learned about the country from our guide.  One of the things she took us by that was neat was a Russian Orthodox church.  It looked a lot like the ones we saw through out Moscow and St. Petersburg when we were there a few years ago.

Once the tour was over, we headed over to the Christmas market.  It was pretty small, no where near the size of the ones in Germany.  But it was quaint, and they had some delicious food and drink to enjoy.  They also had different things than you usually see at a market.  They had ladies there selling hand woven hats, scarves, etc...  

Because of Ben's bed time, our days ended pretty early, and this one was no different.

The next day we had planned on taking a ferry to Helsinki, the capitol of Finland.  After talking with the tourism office, though, we just couldn't make it work.  We would have had to be at the dock by 7am, and it takes a few hours to cross the Gulf of Finland.  I don't remember all the details of why we didn't go, but the main reason was it required us to leave Estonia at 7am and we wouldn't get back until 10pm.  That was just too much with Ben.  

Instead we spent the day walking around the city and visiting areas we missed on day 1.  One of the neat museums we visited was centered around the Nazi and Soviet occupations.

That evening the Christmas market had dancers on stage, and Ben was mesmerized.  To this day, he still loves music and watching people dance.  He'll sit there and wiggle himself to the music.

The next morning we packed up, and caught a taxi to the airport.  We really enjoyed Estonia.  Some of our favorite trips have been to the smaller Eastern European countries that we didn't know much about, but found people who were friendly and loved telling us all about their country and their history.  And, across the board, their English was perfect.  

Estonia might not be at the top of your list of places to visit, but if you ever have a chance, do it.  It's a beautiful country with a fascinating history.

To see the pictures, click any picture above or here.