Our Turkey Feast...

In my recent Thanksgiving post, I informed all of you that Brian and I would not be partaking in a delicious Thanksgiving feast this year, and that we were going to live vicariously through you... Well, that turned out to be a little white lie... Oops! Because, wouldn't you know it, we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday evening... We got to celebrate Thanksgiving after all! :)

My friend, Theresa, was able to get some extra tickets for Brian and I to a Thanksgiving dinner held at a restaurant in Meersburg. Let's just say that we happily accepted the tickets! :) We were informed that this Thanksgiving celebration takes place every year as a way for all of the expats in the area to get together and celebrate this holiday. It is put on annually by the owners of the restaurant. Such a thoughtful thing to do!!

The evening was such fun! The restaurant was great... It was very swank and trendy. We were surrounded by a group of English speakers from all over the world (Bermuda, America, Germany, England, etc...), so there was never a lull in conversation! :) But, in Brian and my opinion, the greatest part of the evening (by far!) was the food... It was absolutely phenomenal!! They served turkey, ham, steamed vegetables, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, pumpkin soup, stuffing, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and we can't forget the American style chocolate chip cookies... All in all, it was an outstanding meal!

Needless to say, we've now added that evening to our list of things that we're thankful for this holiday season... We had such a wonderful evening, and we felt extremely grateful to have been invited and to have had the opportunity to celebrate the holiday with such a diverse group of people... And, to be quite honest, we were VERY thankful for the delicious food they served... Yum! :)

Outside of the restaurant... We definitely plan on going back again someday!

Our table settings...

The 30 pound turkey, along with the ham, that the chef wheeled out to our table... Delicious! :)

My Favorite Little Man Turns 3!!!

Wow! My favorite little guy turns 3 today!! How time flies! Unfortunately, I won't be there to celebrate with him this year, but I'm sending some "Happy Birthday" wishes across the ocean! :)

I miss you a whole bunch little buddy! I look forward to giving you a great big bear hug when I come home!! Have a very Happy 3rd Birthday! I hope all of your birthday wishes come true! I love you, Kaden! :)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I'd like to wish my mom a very Happy Birthday! My mom is one of the most amazing women I've ever known! She is a wonderful and supportive mom, a loving grandmother, a loyal friend, a superstar of a teacher, and one of the most hardworking women you will ever meet! But, most importantly, she loves her family unconditionally... And for that, we are truly blessed.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday, Mom! I wish that I could be there to celebrate with you! Just know that I'm thinking of you today! I look forward to seeing you soon! I love you and miss you lots!

Giving Thanks...

We want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! There are so many things that we have to be thankful for this year...

1) Our wonderful family... I don't know where we'd be without the continuous love and support of our family.

2) Very dear friends... Those friends who we've known for many years, and the many new friends we've met along the way...

3) Being able to experience life in Germany... We feel so very fortunate to be able to have this opportunity! We've learned and experienced so much in this past year and a half... We sometimes have to stop and ask ourselves "How did we ever get so lucky?" (And believe me, that question gets asked quite frequently! :))

4) Our health and happiness...

.... and the list could go on and on. :)

Needless to say, we feel very blessed. So, we'd like to take this time to thank you for being such an important part of our lives! We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving! Enjoy spending time with family and friends!! And being that Germany doesn't celebrate this holiday, we won't be partaking in any delicious Thanksgiving feasts today... Instead we'll be living vicariously through you! :) Enjoy!! We love and miss you much!

Happy Turkey Day!!

Cough Syrup Mishaps...

For the most part, living abroad has been an absolutely wonderful experience for Brian and I! We love learning about the German culture and being able to travel to so many different places... places that we never imagined that we'd ever be able to see before we moved here! So, as a whole, we really enjoy living over here... However, I have to admit, that there are times when "homesickness" rears its ugly head and sets in... This week has been one of those times. :(

Not only has there been alot going on with my family back home (and I feel completely helpless on this end!), I've also come down with some type of German "crud" that I just can't seem to get rid of.... Grrr! I've had a super sore throat, headache, crazy coughing spells, etc... Not fun! (But, on the bright side, I know how to say all of that in German... Ich habe Halsschmerzen, Kopfschmerzen, und der Husten. The smallest things can just make me so happy over here... Breaking through the language barrier is one of them! :)) Needless to say, it's definitely made me miss being at home...

I miss being able to walk into a store when I'm not feeling well, and knowing what kind of medicine I need in order to feel better. Or at least if I'm not sure what kind of medicine I need, I can at least read the labels on the packages to figure it out. And the fact that nearly every grocery type store sells some type of cold medicine over the counter is very helpful. Here, on the other hand, they only sell medicine in a store called an "Apotheke"... It is in only these stores where you can find over the counter Hustensaft (cough syrup), cold medicine, and pretty much everything else that you would find in a typical pharmacy in the U.S. And, you literally can not find these types of things in any other type of store here in Germany... They are only sold in an Apotheke.

Let's just say that this past Sunday found me to be very irritated. I felt like I was coughing up a lung and all I really needed was some cough syrup, but I had no way to get any... Not only do you have to go to an Apotheke to get any type of over the counter medication, the stores (like every other store in this area of Germany) are not open on Sundays... Ugh!! So, unlike the U.S., where I could have run to my local Target on a Sunday and picked up some cough syrup, I was completely out of luck... My only option was to go to the Apotheke between class and work on Monday...

So, this is where the story gets rather entertaining. On Monday afternoon, I headed into the nearest Apotheke and I attempted to use my newfound German skills to communicate to the saleswoman what I needed. I figured that I would attempt in German and then resort to English for additional details... So, I went up to the saleswoman and said "Ich habe Halsschmerzen, Kopfschmerzen, und ich huste viel. Haben Sie Hustensaft?" (I have a sore throat, headache, and I'm coughing alot. Do you have cough syrup?) Unfortunately, that's about where my German ended... :) The saleswoman, on the other hand, had many, many more questions to ask of me, and when I asked her if she spoke English, she informed me that she spoke "very little"... And, very little English was pretty much all she did speak! We managed to have a hodgepodge, German/English conversation about what type of cough I had and where my throat hurt... And, I don't know if she honestly understood what I needed, or if she had just had enough of me by then, but she went into the back and returned with a bottle of Hustensaft (cough syrup)... After looking at the picture on the package, I figured that it looked accurate, so I made my purchase...

The next step was quite interesting. I walked out of the store and opened up my box of cough syrup. I opened up the little packet of information and attempted to figure out how much of it I would need to take... Well, I kept reading "3x5ml" all over the information packet and on the box, so I assumed that I was to take 3 capfuls of the medicine... Which I did...

However, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was actually supposed to have only taken one capful then, and then 2 more throughout the rest of the day... See, where I read 3x5ml (take 3 capfulls of 5 ml of cough syrup), it actually meant take 5 ml three times a day... Not all in one sitting! :) Nice! Needless to say, I was quite happy and giddy for a couple of hours before all of the medicine finally wore off, which then took me from being REALLY happy to REALLY tired very quickly! :) It was actually during my self induced "giddiness" that I finally realized what I had done wrong when taking the cough syrup... I had that hazy feeling that I felt when I was on Vicodin after my wisdom teeth were taken out, and after feeling that way for a short amount of time, I quickly realized my mistake. :) Needless to say, I now know the difference and today I've done a much better job taking the medicine at regularly scheduled intervals! :) Gotta love that language barrier! :)

Needless to say, it's been an interesting week... Definitely a learning experience! However, it times like this where you miss the feeling of being at home, where everything is "normal" (by our standards) and easy... And as much as we've made Germany our "home", it's just not quite the same as being at home.

And, on that note, we hope you're all having a great week! We miss you much! And we're looking forward to seeing everyone in a few short weeks when we come home for the holidays! :)

Leipzig, Dresden, and Bimbotown...

This past weekend we road tripped to Leipzig, Germany. Leipzig is located about 6 hours north of Friedrichshafen. Our friends, Becky and Matt, have a friend that lives there and they invited us to join them for a visit. Now who would pass up a chance to take a road trip in Germany?! :)

We headed out on Friday evening, and after a long 6 hours on the road, we finally arrived in Leipzig around 11:30 p.m. Now, we can't really complain considering we had quite a bit of space on the ride there, as Matt and Becky rented a van for the trip... I have to admit it was quite nice! Much better than being squeezed into a small European car for 6 hours! :)

On Saturday, we woke up early and headed into Dresden. Dresden is about an hour and a half away from Leipzig, and it turned out to be the perfect day trip! I found Dresden to be an absolutely gorgeous city! It has so much history... We learned that much of Dresden was destroyed during the war, but they've rebuilt it to look almost exactly as it did before the war. In fact, many of the bricks and building materials used in the reconstruction of the buildings, were actually pieces of the original buildings that had been destroyed. Pretty impressive!

After spending the majority of the day in Dresden, we headed back to Leipzig for the evening. We had tickets for a place called Bimbotown on Saturday night... Let's just say, based on the name alone, we were quite curious as to what we were getting ourselves into. We had been told that this was an art show/bar experience... Hmmmm??? And let's just say, it did turn out to be quite an "experience"! :)

We took a taxi to Bimbotown and I have to be honest... I was a little nervous when we arrived... We pulled into an abandoned warehouse complex, and I swear that it reminded me of the movie "Hostel"... You know the movie where they kidnap unsuspecting travelers and do unimaginable things to them... Yikes!! Needless to say, I was a little scared...

However, my fear quickly turned to confusion when we entered the place. As I walked in, I noticed 3 bathtubs that were filled with water on my right, a chair that was bouncing up and down to my left, and a shirt on a hanger flying towards my head... Holy chaos!! :) And that was exactly what this place turned out to be... Absolute chaos! It was technically a bar/club that had been turned into an "art" experiment by some guy from London (those crazy British folks! :)). This club had random things occurring throughout the entire place!! First, as I mentioned earlier, there were the bathtubs that people could actually swim/bathe in throughout the night (eeewww! :)), beds that were attached to a cable on the floor and they rolled around throughout the club, remote control living rooms/dining rooms (literally, they were fake living rooms/dining rooms set up on a platform that had a remote control attached to it so that people could drive them around the club!!), cables that hung from the ceiling where hangers with shirts and trousers were circling around the club throughout the evening (I can't even tell you how many times I got tangled up in or had a shirt or pair of pants hit me in the face on the way by... Grrr!), a robot playing drums on stage, an area set up where people could shoot water guns at people (not cool!!), a huge movie screen showing some very random films was set up in the back, chairs that shot up into the air when you sat on them, sofas that would flip you off the back if you sat on them, and I could go on and on! Oh, and the bathrooms were another story... Don't even get me started on that! :) Let's just say that for a person like me, that has difficulty focusing in normal circumstances, this place just about caused me to have an anxiety attack! :) I can honestly say that the first half hour in the place was almost too much for me... The hanging clothes flying around just about did me in!! :) But, after spending some time inside and finding a place to sit that was a little less hectic (oh, and a drink was also helpful! :)), I found myself actually enjoying it... It was definitely entertaining... To say the least! It was a new experience, and one that I'm sure I'll never experience again... And as I sat there taking it all in, I could definitely tell that I was in Europe... Because something like that would NEVER be allowed to open in the U.S.! :) (On a sidenote, we ended up finding out that this place is only open on the first Saturday of every month, and it will officially close for business on the first Saturday in February... Apparently they've had too many injuries... Hmmm... Imagine that! :) So, if Bimbotown sounds like a place you'd like to visit, you'd better do it before February! :))

Believe it or not, we managed to stay at Bimbotown until the wee hours of the morning... Which, in turn, meant that we slept in until the wee hours of the afternoon on Sunday! :) All in all, it turned out to be a great weekend filled with good friends, many laughs, new experiences, and lots of sightseeing!

Welcome to Dresden!!

I love the pedestrian sidewalk lights in East Germany!! The little "Ampelmann" symbol is just so darn cute! :)

The Ampelmann symbol just has so much more "personality" than the traffic light symbols in West Germany, or even in the U.S.! :)

The Hofkirche in Dresden...

Dresden, Germany...

While we were wandering through the city, we came across a Christmas Market being set up... They were already selling Gluhwein. And, we all know how much I love Gluhwein! So, Brian and I took advantage of it and we were able to drink our first mug of Gluhwein this season!! YUM!! :) Oh how I love the holidays in Germany! :)

Inside the Hofkirche...

Inside the Hofkirche...

The organ inside the Hofkirche...

And, of course, I had to take advantage of this photo opportunity! How often do I find my name spelled the right way... especially in Germany?! :) And, go figure, it was actually a women's clothing store... Very fitting! :)

A curious looking tour bike... :)

The dome of the Frauenkirche... The inside of this church was beautiful! Brian and I were both reminded of spring/Easter when we walked in, as the colors are very pastel and springy. :)

Inside the Frauenkirche...

This building is an example of how many of the structures were rebuilt after the war... Notice the darker bricks in the building? Those were portions of the old building which had been destroyed... They used some of the pieces to rebuild the new structures... Pretty amazing!

Dresden, Germany...

Us girls enjoyed our tour of Dresden! :)

Brian and I standing in front of a section of the cupola of the Frauenkirche... It was a portion that had been destroyed during the war...

Our Dresden crew... minus Maciej...

The guys enjoyed their sightseeing tour through Dresden... :)

This was one of the many hanging suits that went flying past us throughout the evening at Bimbotown... I can't even count how many of those I got tangled up in! :)

One of the many "art" displays which could be found throughout the club... This one was rather creepy! :)

A view of the stage... Notice the interesting decor?? :)

The Cocktail Bar at Bimbotown...

How often can you pose with a hanging body at a club?! :)

This video is an example of the remote control living room... The first portion of it shows us sitting in the living room... Unfortunately our driver wasn't so good at driving the living room, so we didn't move around too much. :) (Also, feel free to stop the video when you hear Brian and Jo discussing the "ride". :))

This shows the robot that was playing the drums on stage... Very cool!! :)

A Saturday in Switzerland...

Wow! I've been on a blogging hiatus for quite some time... Sorry! It's been pretty busy around here... Within the past two weeks I've started my job teaching English at Brian's company, I started a volunteer position at a local Kindergarten where I teach them English once a week, I started my 2nd 5-week session of German classes (5 days a week, 4 hours every morning... ugh!), we went to Switzerland for the day two weekends ago, and we went to Dresden and Leipzig this past weekend... Just to name a few... :) So, needless to say, I haven't had much computer time recently... But, now that I'm a little more adjusted to my new schedule, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things with blogging... I've missed it! :)

As I mentioned earlier, we took an impromptu trip to Switzerland on Halloween Day... Our original plan for the day consisted of cleaning the apartment (or in German "Wohnung putzen") and going to the gym... But, when Maciej came downstairs and asked if we wanted to join him and Matt on a road trip to Switzerland, we eagerly said yes! :)

So the four of us headed to a little town in Switzerland called Stein am Rhine. We spent the afternoon wandering around and exploring the town. And what a cute town it was! :) It had lots of colorful buildings, quaint little cafes, cobblestone streets, a fun museum, and a gorgeous view of the lake... After spending the day there, we've decided that we're definitely going to add it to our "tour list" for when we have guests! (Our "tour list" consists of all of the "must-see" places in the area that we take all of our guests to... i.e. Meersburg castle, Birnau Church, Strasbourg, France, etc... :))

After spending a few hours checking out Stein am Rhine and going through the museum, the four of us headed to the Rhine Falls. These waterfalls have been deemed Europe's largest waterfall... We're assuming they mean the largest by volume, considering the falls themselves are not all that large... Especially considering that we live in the U.S. where we've experienced the likes of Niagara Falls and Tahquamenon Falls! :) Either way, they were very pretty... And combine that with the fact that the fall leaves were at the height of their color, it made for a very picturesque view!

Overall, it turned out to be a picture perfect fall day! :) And here's a few of the pictures to prove it... Enjoy!!

And knowing me and my love for cats, I had to take this picture! :)

A colorful fountain in downtown Stein am Rhine...

Stein am Rhine, Switzerland...

I love the colorful buildings!! :)

One of the many flower shops... The autumn floral displays were so pretty!

We checked out a museum in the city... We're not quite sure what the history of the museum is, considering all of the signs and displays were in German... However, it was just fun to wander around and try to guess what everything was... We assumed this was where they made the wine! :)

A view of the courtyard...

I love fall and all of its colors! :)

Inside the museum... We thought the floor was pretty cool! :)

A room in the museum... We decided that this was where they ate dinner... Plus we thought the ceiling was very interesting looking! :)

I befriended a bear at the museum... :)

I found this quite humorous... Switzerland is known for their cleanliness... Everything in that country is spotless! And this picture definitely shows how much they value their cleanliness... The side of the trash can says "Hund WC" (Dog Toilette) with an arrow pointing towards the trees... I can honestly say that that was the first time I've ever seen a restroom for dogs! :)

Stein am Rhine, Switzerland...

Rhine Falls, Switzerland...

Rhine Falls, Switzerland...

Rhine Falls, Switzerland...

Rhine Falls, Switzerland...