Snow...and lots of it

I'll put up a more in-depth post later (probably Tuesday) about Christmas, but for now I wanted to put up this picture I took from our balcony.  It started snowing Friday morning and didn't stop until Saturday afternoon/evening, and all told I'm estimating about 18 inches of snow.  I shoveled four times over that span, and the first three times there was 5-6 inches each time, and the fourth time there was about an inch on the ground.

Today it's nice & sunny (albeit extremely cold at -12 C or 10 F).  Below is a picture I took a few minutes ago using a new app on my phone from our balcony that allows you to "fake" a fish eye view picture.  I think it turned out pretty well, and shows that while the snow was a hassle, it sure looks pretty when the sun is out.

Click the image to see a larger, hi-res version of it.

More to come Tuesday!

Weather differences

I posted in the previous post how crazy the weather is around here.  I thought I'd post a perfect example here.  The first picture was taken Monday, as the snow storm was subsiding.

This next picture was taken two days later, but this is what it also looked like 24 hours after the picture above was taken.  Notice the things you can see below but not above, namely half a mountain and a TV tower.

And, for no real reason other then I like putting up pictures of the dogs, here's Murphy making a bed out of my lap, and Milo making a bed out of Murphy.

Clicking any of the pictures above will take you to a hi-res version of them.

Wiesbaden & friends from home

Wow!  What a full weekend.  Things started early around noon on Friday.  It was the annual holiday party at Shanna's work, so we all met in downtown Stuttgart at what is fast becoming one of our favorite places to eat, Zum Paulaner.  Paulaner is a brewery based in München and not only do they make great beer, their brew pubs make great food.  We ate lunch and talked, and around 3pm everyone started to disperse.  A friend of ours who lives in Huntsville (a civilian) has been in Afghanistan for the past 6 months, and was on his way home.  He was flying via Rammstein, so he extended his lay over for a few days and met us down in Stuttgart.  He was staying with a friend in Heidelberg, but they came down for the day.  So we showed them around the Christmas Markets downtown, then the 4 of us met back up with some of Shanna's co-workers.  We walked around the Christmas Market, sipped Glühwein, and had a good time.

The next morning Shanna had to be up early.  She and two of our friends had signed up for a German Christmas Cookie class with the USO on base.  Since we were leaving later that day for Weisbaden, I dropped her off and drove back home to pack up.  The plan had been to pick her up at 2pm from class, and we'd hit the road.  I left about 1:30 (normally it takes 15-20 minutes on the weekend), but it took me an hour & a half to get there.  Someone had a trailer bed attached to their vehicle and were towing a car on top of it.  I didn't see the accident, only the aftermath, but the trailer & the car being towed had flipped over and were blocking both lanes of traffic on the Autobahn.  As a result, everyone had to scoot over to the exit lane and use that to pass it.  So we got a later start then expected, but we still made good time to Weisbaden, getting in around 5:15pm.  The weather was *supposed* to be nice this past weekend, but if we've learned anything, it's that taking a wild guess at the weather is as accurate as their prediction system here.  We got settled in at our friend Regine's place, then we headed in to downtown Weisbaden to Palmyra's, a Lebanese restaurant.  I've never had Lebanese food before, but this place was DELICIOUS.  I had the garlic chicken and Shanna had the lemon chicken.  Shortly after they served dinner, the lights dimmed, and a guy came out playing a bongo drum type thing, followed by a belly dancer.

It was a lot of fun...someone told them that Regine was the birthday girl (pictured above in the white shirt), so the belly dancer had her come up & dance with her.  Below is a link to the video of it:

Remember how I said it was supposed to be a clear weather night, but weather prediction was impossible to tell?  Well during dinner it started to snow, and snow hard.  The original plan after the dinner was to drive to Frankfurt 20 minutes away and hit the clubs there, but the snow was so bad that we decided to head back to Regine's house and take a cab.  By the time we got back, the snow was coming down hard, and we figured there was a good chance that if we went to Frankfurt, we wouldn't be able to get back.  Since we had brought the dogs with us, that wasn't an option.  So we told Regine to have fun, take a cab, and we'd look after her dog as well as ours, so if they got stuck it wasn't a big deal.  It's a good thing we did that, because sure enough, the cabs stopped running due to the bad weather and they had to stay with some friends who had a hotel room already lined up.

The next day Regine got home around 9:30am, and cooked a spicy egg casserole that was delicious.  We then packed up, dug the car out, and headed home.  When we left Weisbaden it was cloudy, but not snowing or raining.  Within 20 minutes of driving, the snow started to come down.  When we got past Heidelberg, it turned to rain, and by the time we got to where the A5 ends and the A8 begins, about 80KM from home, it was bright & sunny without a cloud in the sky.  A typical German day of weather.

On Monday Shanna went in to work in the morning, and I spent the morning doing some last minute cleaning around the house in preparation for our friends from DC, Ryan & Christina, who were visiting.  When I got the call from Ryan that they were close, I went looking around the house for the dogs to put them up before I left.  There was a blanket thrown on our couch, and the couch has a pillow on each end, so this is where I found Murphy.  He didn't move an inch as I took the picture.

Ryan studied German in High School, then lived abroad going to college for 2 years after he graduated High School.  His old room mate from then works for the State Department, and is based in Frankfurt. They stayed with them for the week, but on Monday took the train down to Stuttgart.  I met them at the train station, then we took the U-Bahn back to our house.  I had been worried about them getting in on time because that morning it started to snow pretty hard.  We had more snow Monday then any previous single storm so far.  So much that they shut the Autobahn down and Shanna had to take side roads to get home.  Thankfully she made it home ok, and the train made it to Stuttgart on time.  Below is what it looked like from our balcony after the snow had slowed down.

They were excited about trying as many new German beers as they could, so on the way home from work Shanna picked up a case from the base Shopette.  We caught up over some beers, then headed in to town for dinner.  Remember how I said we loved Zum Paulaner?  Well that's where we went for dinner. I knew Ryan & Christina would like it, and sure enough they loved the place.  They said it felt like the most "authentic" German place they'd been to on the whole trip because of the "hunting lodge" atmosphere and the great food.

When I took this picture I thought I had Ryan (on the left) and Shanna (on the right) in the picture too, but I guess it was cut off.

After dinner we headed back to the house just to relax.

Their train left Stuttgart at 3:30pm on Tuesday, but Shanna could only take a half day.  We got up and made breakfast, then I took them to the Mercedes Benz museum while Shanna went off to work.  They were thoroughly impressed with it, and bought a few souvenirs for Ryan's Dad who just recently bought a Mercedes back home.  We then headed to the train station for lunch, and said our goodbyes.

It was a packed weekend, and it was great spending time with friends from back home, both Friday and Monday/Tuesday.  We are having a lot of fun over here, and doing things we'd never have done if we didn't have this opportunity, but it doesn't mean we don't miss our friends & family back home.  So any chance we get to see them we look forward to.

There weren't many pictures taken this weekend, so any pictures clicked above will just take you a larger Hi-Res version.

Tübingen and Nürnberg

This past weekend was a three day weekend for Shanna, so we decided to make the most of it.  On Saturday we spent the day cleaning the house.  Next Monday we have two friends from DC coming to visit, and we're going to be out of town in Heidelberg & Wiesbaden this weekend, so this was the only time we were going to have to clean up before their arrival.  Sunday the weather had cleared up and was a sunny day, but still pretty cold.  Since the weather was nice we decided to drive instead of taking the train, so around noon we picked up our friend Penny and hit the road.  Tübingen is pretty close, and within 30 minutes we were there.  We were unsure of what to expect...it was day time, but Tübingen's Christmas Market was only this past weekend.  Most start in late November and run until Christmas Eve, but this particular one was for one weekend only.  Sure enough...it was packed.  We got lucky with parking, and walked a few blocks to the fest.  Of all the ones we've visited, this one was by far our favorite.  There were all kinds of food, drink, and trinket vendors and it stretched all through out the Altstadt, or Old Town, region.  Every time you turned a corner, you saw yet another street lined with tents and places to explore.  Since I posted pics last weekend of our trip to the Tübingen Chocolatefest, I left the camera at home...there wasn't really anything new to take pictures of.  But, I did snap this pic below with my phone.  I cracked up when I read it.

Auch means "also", so I initially thought this sign started with "Jesus was also a drinker", but apparently in this context, Auch means "even".  So it translates to a similar message, "Even Jesus was a drinker".  Yup...posted outside a bar in the Christmas Market.  I had to get a picture.  Below is a picture of the mugs they were serving the Glühwein in.

We spent about 3 hours walking around and I don't think we saw everything.

The next day we had tickets to Nürnberg.  We had tried to drive there a week or two ago, but ran into a snow storm and had to turn around.  This time we planned ahead and bought train tickets, and big surprise, it was a bright sunny day.  But that's ok, we didn't have to worry about parking or driving, we just took the metro to the train station, and the train straight there.  I've really grown to love riding the train here...it's more expensive then driving, but when it comes to travelling long distances, you can't beat the comfort.  Every seat has plenty of leg room.

We pulled up at the Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof around noon, and were hit with Christmas cheer as soon as we come up from underground.  There were tents all along the street leading to the main market square, where the Christmas Market was.  We walked along the street, and before we got to the main market, we came across the big church in town.  Every city seems to have one, and they are all impressive.

Nürnberg is one of the largest and most famous of the German Christmas markets, but I'll be honest, after Tübingen, we weren't that impressed.  It was neat to know we were in the same city that held the famous war trials after World War II, and it was neat seeing a new German city that we hadn't been to before, but as far as the Christmas Markets were concerned, they weren't that impressive.  They were nice, they just didn't live up to expectations.  The dove (or is it a pigeon?) in the picture below was not photoshopped in, I just happened to snap the picture right as it was flying by.

One area I thought was neat, though, was their "Partnerstadt", or Partner Town, section.  They had booths set up representing cities from countries all over the world.  For the U.S., they had people there from Atlanta, Georgia.  They had Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, BBQ sauce, Jiffy Corn Bread Mix, Heinz Ketchup, and a few other things...actually, it seemed more like a Tennessee stand then a Georgia stand, but I'm sure your average German Citizen wouldn't know the difference.  It was still nice to chat with some Americans though.  They also had a Glasgow, Scotland, tent, but sadly they had no U.K. beer.  They had some Scotch, though.

Towards the end of the afternoon Shanna & I got some Glühwein and Crepe's to warm up (it was FREEZING), and made our way back to the train station.  We still had 2 hours to kill, so we took our time, and had dinner at a Paulaner restaurant.  We also bought some French beer at a store next to the restaurant.  We were both proud of the fact that the majority of the time when we talked with locals that day, we spoke only German.  When we walked in to the Paulaner restaurant, the waitress said something in rapid German, and I knew what she said!  She spoke English to us once or twice, but the majority of the time she spoke German.  When we went to the French store, the lady didn't speak English, so I asked questions in German, and understood her response.  We're getting better & better with our German, and it's such a thrill when I can use it practically around Germany.

As we were leaving the store and heading to the train station, we saw the Grand Hotel, draped entirely in lights...it was pretty neat.

It was a fun weekend, and while the Christmas Market didn't live up to expectations in Nürnberg, we still had a good time there.  I definitely want to go back when it's warmer to tour the city.  And next year we're going to Berlin.  Some friends of ours visited there over the weekend and said their Christmas Markets were amazing.  So, something to look forward to. :)

Click here to see the pictures, or any picture in the post above.

Tübingen Chocolatefest

This past weekend we decided to keep it local.  We'll be travelling out of town the next two weekends, so this past weekend we wanted visit local markets.

Saturday we had arranged to meet our friends Charles & Kate at the train station and take the train out to a town about 45 minutes away called Tübingen.  Shanna & I had visited the town over the summer with some other friends, and had wanted to go back, but this was the first chance we'd had.  This particular weekend Tübingen was holding their annual Chocolate Fest, where they had vendors from all over the world offering up different types of chocolate.  They even had chocolate made with Chili spices that was GREAT.  I'd never had spicy chocolate before.  They also had a huge tent that was divided into two areas.  One area is where you bought the chocolate, and the other area was sealed off so you couldn't enter, but the tent walls were see-through so you could watch them make the chocolate.  Shanna & I were standing there watching, and I noticed a zipper that went from the ground to the top on the see-through tent flap.  There was also a guy standing inside making chocolates and he had a huge plate of chocolates in front of him.  I joked with Shanna that all we had to do was unzip the zipper, and I didn't realize the guy could hear me.  Thankfully he had a sense of humor and cracked up laughing as soon as I said that...he even pretended to drop some chocolate down in front of the flap for us to get.  The picture above is the town's Rathaus (Town Hall).  Every town has one, and in the smaller towns they are usually are intricately decorated, as you can see from the picture above.  They had every kind of chocolate food / drink you can think of, EVEN chocolate beer!  The beer part surprised me...I've had it before (and liked it) but knowing how the Germans brew their beer, I was not expecting it.  It made a little more sense when I saw it had been imported from France.  They also had beer brewed with almonds.  Shanna & I bought a bottle of each, but haven't tried the Chocolate one yet.  I liked the almond one, but Shanna didn't.

We had decided to leave Milo & Murphy at home because they don't do well in crowded areas, and at festivals, where people drop food, they go nuts trying to eat & sniff everything on the ground.  Kate & Charles, though, brought their dog, Pixel.  Pixel is a Shiba Inu and built for the cold weather.  They told us it's not uncommon for German people to stop & ask them if the dog is part fox.  One thing Pixel likes to do is sit on Charles's shoulder and watch people as they walk by.  If you click the above picture, and look in the lower right, you'll see Pixel partly sitting in Charles's backpack, and partly sitting on his shoulder.  We got stopped multiple times by people wanting to pet Pixel...they even got stopped twice because people wanted to take their picture with him & the dog.

One of Shanna's coworkers met us there, and took us to a Whiskey store he likes to visit from time to time.  The above picture is of a bottle I picked up of Whiskey distilled in a nearby town.  If you click the picture, you can see the label more clearly and you'll notice it says "Schwäbischer" on it.  The region we live in (the state of Baden-Württemberg) is nicknamed Schwaben after the Germanic tribe that settled in the area approximately 2,000 years ago.  Schwaben food & dialect have distinct differences from the rest of Germany, so it makes living here all the more interesting.  They gave out samples, and this particular type tasted great.

We had lunch there, and at that point were ready to head home.  It's been cold & snowy for the past two weeks here, and while it wasn't snowing on Saturday, it was definitely cold.  We took the train back home, and spent the afternoon/evening cleaning around the house and watching College Football.

Sunday we met Kate at the train station (Charles had to work) and went to Ludwigsburg.  I've mentioned the town in previous blog postings because I went there back in June w/ a friend from DC who was visiting, and more recently Shanna & I went to their Pumpkin fest.  This time we were going for their Christmas Market.

Christmas markets are generally much prettier at night, but they are also MUCH more crowded.  Because of this, we decided to go right when it opened, and even then, it was still sort of crowded.  They had plenty of Glühwein stands, as well as stands selling every kind of Christmas trinket you can think of.  Smokers, Nutcrackers, lace, you name it, they had it.  At this point they are starting to blend together and look sort of the same, but it's still neat to visit all of them.  Each Christmas market also has commemorative mugs that they sell the Glühwein in, and I've enjoyed collecting one from each market.  We're starting to have quite the little collection, I can't wait to see what it looks like after we've been here a few years.  We stayed a few hours, ate lunch there, then headed home.

I didn't take many pictures, so there isn't a separate page like there usually is...every picture I took is in this post.  Next weekend is Nürnberg, and the weekend after that will be Wiesbaden & Heidelberg...stay tuned!

Thanksgiving and Weihnachtsmärkte

It's been awhile since our last post because to be honest, not much has been happening.  The job hunt continues, but that's about it.  Finally, though, we have something to write about.  In the past week we've had our first snowfalls, had two Thanksgiving dinners, and visited several Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas Markets).

At the beginning of last week we started to see forecasts for snow.  Nothing major, and accumulation was around an inch.  But we had several storms through out the week, which all added up to the 3-4 inches that sits on the ground now.  Of course not really a big deal, but...it's only November.  I can only imagine what the coming winter months will bring.  Thankfully, though, the Germans are prepared and the roads were mostly fine.

As you can see from the picture above, the dogs were prepared with winter jackets.  We also found out that Murphy loves to eat snow.  We were playing with them by tossing small snow balls their way, and after chomping down on a few, Murphy figured out the source of the snow was a lot easier to eat then waiting for snowballs, and went to town on the piles of snow on our deck.

Thanksgiving week started at our friend Penny's house.  We met her when we first got to the hotel back in April.  We'd seen her in the lobby a few times and said hi, but it was when she saw us walking the dogs that we really started to talk more.  Her husband stayed back in Minnesota with their three dogs, and at the time she was not only homesick, she missed her dogs, so enjoyed every opportunity to play with Milo & Murphy. Not only was it us three, but several other friends of ours.  By the time it was all said & done, there were about 15 people there, with everyone bringing food, drinks, and dessert.  One of things we thought of back when we were discussing moving was that for the first time in either of our lives, we wouldn't be around family for the holidays.  I honestly thought for at least the first Thanksgiving / Christmas, it'd just be us & the dogs, so it was nice to spend the holidays with friends.

That Saturday some other friends of ours who had to work on Thanksgiving day invited us over to their house.  They live in a small town outside of Stuttgart called Esslingen.  Their Christmas market is one of the older ones, with the earliest records saying it started in the year 777.  In addition to the normal Christmas tents, they also had a Medieval section with a tent to practice your Archery skills, fire breathers, sword swallowers, and tons of great food.  Shanna & I decided to visit it a few hours before we were supposed to be at our friend's house.  It was a neat market, and the Glühwein was great, but I liked the place even better when we came across the Medieval section.  While I was looking at a tent with wooden beer steins, Shanna noticed a game that was being played near us.  When I walked back over, she showed it to me and we both thought it was great.  It's easier to describe if I show a picture first.

As you can see, it looked almost like a wishing well, surrounded on the edges by little "houses".  You bet on a house, then the lady would put a mouse in the center of the "courtyard" area.  If you bet on the house the mouse went in to, you won.  It was fun to both watch and play.  I ended up betting on the wrong house, but I still enjoyed playing.

We walked around for a bit more, then it was time to leave.  When we got to our friends house, they had done me a HUGE favor.  American Craft beer is not easy to find around here...in the past 7 1/2 months I've yet to find any.  But I knew of a store in Amsterdam that sold them, and our friends, Kate & Charles, had been up there a few weeks prior.  I'd given them a list of beers to look for, and they delivered.  It was pricey, but well worth it.  I even enjoyed one of them this past weekend watching the Chargers game.

We brought a few dishes over, but they supplied the majority of the food and it was DELICIOUS.  Afterwards we sat around talking as Milo and their dog, Pixel, played...for HOURS.  They went non-stop from the time we got there around 7 until we left around 10.  Needless to say, after all that walking around & playing, all we heard was snoring in the back seat the entire ride home.  When we got home the night wasn't over yet...LSU was playing Arkansas.  We left Kate & Charles's house after the game started, so Shanna watched part of the game on my phone, then the rest on our TV when we got home.  Arkansas won, which was the perfect cap off to a fun day.

The next day we called our friend Penny and told her we were heading downtown to Stuttgart's Christmas Market.  She met us down there and we walked around.  It was pretty neat and HUGE.  It stretched all across the Rathaus, Schillerplats, and Schlossplatz.  In the Schlossplatz, which is where the two Palaces are, they had built up an ice skating rink that stays there through the Christmas season.  And like all Christmas Markets in Germany, there was plenty of Glühwein to go around.

Monday was a day off for Shanna, and we had planned on driving up to Nürnberg for their Christmas market.  When we woke up Monday morning, though, there was a few inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing.  By 11am the roads were mostly clear, so we decided to give it a shot.  It was supposed to be a 2 hour drive, but traffic was jammed up and the snow was starting to come down hard, so after an hour of driving (with still 2 hours to go according to the GPS), we decided to turn around.  The rest of the day was spent cleaning the house and putting up Christmas decorations.

So overall, while we missed our family on the holiday, we were thankful to have friends here to celebrate with.  I'll be writing more about Christmas markets in the coming weeks as we have plans to go to a few each weekend until Christmas.  This weekend is the Chocolate Festival in Tübingen on Saturday and the Christmas Market in Ludwigsburg on Sunday.  Next weekend we're heading to Strasbourg, France, for their Christmas market on Saturday, then we have train tickets for Nürnberg that following Monday.  The weekend of the 18th we're heading up to Weisbaden for a friend's birthday and seeing their Christmas Market, and on the way back home stopping in Heidelberg for theirs.  And finally, on December 20th, some friends of ours from DC will be in the area on vacation and are staying the night at our place.  Busy times ahead!

Click here or any pictures in this post to see all of the pictures from the Christmas Markets and the first snow of the season.

Weekend Update

With the holidays approaching, and Shanna & I planning on a home visit in mid-March sometime, we're trying to save money and therefor aren't planning any big trips for the time being.  That said, though, we still plan on day trips, like the one we took this past weekend.

We'd received an email from our friends Kate & Charles earlier in the week that they were going to the Pumpkin Festival at Ludwigsburg Palace in Ludwigsburg.  It's not related in anyway to King Ludwig II, whose castles we've visited.  King Ludwig II was a king in Bavaria, but this palace is only a 20 minute drive from our house in Stuttgart, which is located in the state of Baden-Württemberg.  It was built by Duke Eberhard Ludwig in 1704 of the region that was then known simply as Württemberg.  For a short time it replaced the Altes Schloss (Old Castle) in Stuttgart as residence of the royal family, and Ludwigsburg became the capital of the Württemberg region.  His successors later transferred the capital back to Stuttgart, which remains today as the capital of the state now known as Baden-Württemberg.

Some of you might remember that I'd been to this palace before.  When a friend of Shanna's & mine, Patrick, visited back in June, he & I went here.  It's called Schloss Ludwigsburg, so the thought was this was a traditional castle.  But as we quickly found out, a palace is a more accurate description.  Shanna had never been, though, and we'd heard the Pumpkin Fest was fun to go to, so we decided to meet them up.  We took the U-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof, met Kate & Charles there, then hopped on the S-Bahn to Ludwigsburg.

When we got to the palace, we headed to the back where the Gardens were, which is where the Pumpkin fest was.  I have to admit...I was impressed.  I was just expecting rows & rows of pumpkins, but they had artists who had come in and made all sorts of animals and creatures from pumpkins & various gourds.  The one below was a fountain made from pumpkins...I thought that one was particular impressive.

As we approached the fest area we noticed a section where they had three HUGE pumpkins.  The sign in front of them said they were Europe's largest pumpkins for 2010.  The largest pumpkin weighed in at 668kg, or just under 1,500 lbs.

We looked around for a bit, and even bought some pumpkin seeds to munch on.  They had three different kinds.  One was cooked with Cinnamon, Sugar, and Vanilla extract, one was cooked with Chili powder and the last was cooked with Sea Salt.  They were all good, but Shanna & I decided to share a package of the Cinnamon, Sugar, & Vanilla ones.  For lunch, EVERYTHING was Pumpkin orientated.  Except for the beer of course...if you've never tried Pumpkin beer, you're missing out.  Dogfish Head Punkin' Ale is one of my favorites, but with the German Purity law in place in regards to what brewers can use here, I knew I wasn't going to find any there.  For lunch, Shanna & I had a Schwabien classic (the nickname for the people & the region we live in is Schwabien), Maultasche, but with a twist.  Maultasche is similar to ravioli, but larger and stuffed with meat & cheese.  The ones we had were stuffed with that, but also pumpkin.  Plus it was served in a bowl Pumpkin Soup.  It was GOOD.

We ended up walking around the palace grounds for a little bit more, then headed out.  ESPN College Game Day started at 4pm, so we had to be home in time to catch that. :)

The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet.  Shanna had to go into the office on Sunday, and since she had to do manual labor, I was able to come in and help.  She had been tasked with cleaning out & organizing their storage room, and they have a ton of old computers, monitors, and other equipment in there, so I was able to help with the heavy lifting.

Well that's it!  I'll post periodically with how things are going.  Click here or any of the pictures above to see the rest of the Pumpkin Fest pics.