Maryland Blizzard

Yurtle the Snow Turtle

Mike's snow angel

So Mike had a short trip to Vegas planned for work in the middle of December and he was planning on stopping in MD on his way home to see family and friends near the holidays. Well I couldn't let him go without me! Luckily he found some really cheap airline tickets for me and I was able to take a week off of work. The day after we got home from Dublin we headed back to the States - Mike to Vegas for a couple days and me straight to Frederick.

My flight home was pretty uneventful if uncomfortable. Flying tip - stay away from the Philadelphia airport, especially if you are just transferring planes. That was terrible. But I made it home and spent a great week relaxing, shopping, and spending time with Mom, Dad, and Katie. I was looking forward to Friday night when we would get to catch up with Ryan and Lindsay and Saturday we all of the extended family would be coming over to the house. And then the blizzard hit. Fortunately we still got to see Ryan and Lindsay but they had to come up to Frederick because I was afraid of getting stuck in Ellicott City. Instead they got stuck in Frederick - Thanks guys!!! And unfortunately there was so much snow that no one could come over Saturday :-( Luckily we planned ahead and I did get to see some family on Friday and Saturday. Plus being snowed in for a lazy day was very enjoyable!!

Mike and I played in the two feet of snow we got, trying to sled, and making a snow turtle (the snowman didn't work out so well)

My flight back to Germany was supposed to leave Sunday night. Wow were the airlines ridiculous!! Long story short I abandoned the commercial route and was luckily able to get on a military flight with Mike from BWI. Straight flight to Germany and much more comfortable. Its just a commercial jet but something about having it full of military members makes the flight attendants more friendly and the flight just more enjoyable overall.

Christmas in Germany was very quiet. We spend Christmas eve and day with our friends the Munshis. Eating good food, playing the Wii and just having a nice relaxing holiday.

Christmas morning

We hope all of you had a Merry Christmas!

Dublin

on the bus

St. Patrick's Cathedral

The second weekend in December Mike and I took a quick one night trip to Dublin with our friends Emily and Jamal. Earlier this year I discovered a band called Paramore (They were on the Twilight soundtrack - I'll admit that's how I discovered them!) and while I was looking at their website one day I saw they were touring in Europe. We hadn't been to Dublin yet so we thought it would be fun to combine the two.

We left very early on Saturday morning, slept through the flight, and arrived in Dublin around 10am. So we had the entire day to explore the city. Since we were only going to be there for one night we decided to take the hop on hop off bus to see as much of the city as possible. We hopped off at St. Patrick's cathedral which was gorgeous. We decided not to go in though because they were charging a fee! We hopped back on and then hopped off again at the Guinness factory. The process of making beer was pretty interesting (don't taste the hops - yuck) but the best part of course was the free sample on the roof top bar. Yummy beer and a view of the whole city.

After our tour we went back to our hotel - a very nice apartment I found - to rest up for the night. We ate dinner at an authentic Irish pub (yummy fish and chips) - complete with rugby on the TV. And then we began our trek to the concert. We hadn't really figured out the Dublin public transportation and didn't want to pay for a taxi. The concert venue was supposed to be just down the river so we decided to walk. 20 - 30 minutes later we finally made it! I personally think it was worth it but I'm sure there was a difference of opinion :-)

The concert was fantastic. Well worth it. There was lots of dancing, jumping up and down, and singing along - and not all by me!

The next day we checked out a Christmas market we had noticed the day before and went back to some souvenir shops. We caught our flight back to Frankfurt - Hahn and arrived in Germany to snow! We made it back home around 11pm. Just in time to go to sleep and wake up early for our trip to the States!

A Zermatt Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

This year Mike and I decided it would be fun to get a jump on the season and go skiing for Thanksgiving. We ended up going to Zermatt, Switzerland with 6 other people.
we parked the car on a train through the mountains for part of the trip

Zermatt is a beautiful little town. No cars are allowed so we had to park and take a train into town. Everyone gets around by walking, biking, or these little electric taxis. We stayed in a 4 room apartment that had a beautiful view of the Matterhorn - apparently one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The only problem was all of the stairs we had to climb to get to that beautiful view.

crazy stairs - our apartment was the top one!

The weekend was wonderful! We switched to skiing this year - I gave up on the snowboarding, too hard! There wasn't much snow. Apparently its the warmest its been in years! So I was a little scared of all of the ice. The second day I fell several times - ouch! But it snowed a little Friday night so there was powder on the ground Saturday! On Saturday we tried to make our way over to the Italian side of the mountain but we were too sore from the previous two days to ski much.

it was cold and windy up there!

very crowded lifts

We missed Thanksgiving dinner and being with family but we figure we should make the most of our time here while we still can. We didn't miss Black Friday! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are so thankful for our wonderful family and friends!!

Meet Vicky Our New Volvo!

Mike and I just bought our first brand new, never been used, car this weekend...in Sweden!! Its a Volvo S40, black with beige interior and with all sorts of nifty extras. My favorite is the keyless entry and drive. As long as the key is in the vicinity of the car I can unlock the doors and drive the car. I never have to take the key outside of my purse! The heated seats are also pretty awesome in the cold German winter.

Volvo has a great deal for military members in Europe. We got a great discount and instead of paying an extra $600 to have it shipped to us we flew up to Gothenburg, Sweden on a cheap RyanAir flight to the Volvo factory to pick it up ourselves. It was fantastic! Volvo really knows how to make customers for life. Someone picked us up at the airport and drove us to the factory - in a Volvo of course! There was only one person delivering Volvos and three people in front of us so we had to wait awhile but there was plenty to do. We checked out the Volvo swag in the store, enjoyed free coffee, tea, and internet, and just relaxed. Hans finally got to us and drove out our car in the holding area.

He took as much time as we needed to go over all the cars features and even took our picture with the car.

After we drove the car around a bit we enjoyed our complimentary lunch - complete with Swedish meatballs - and a factory tour. The tour was definitely the best part of the trip. It was so cool to see how cars are made. I never thought about it but there are so many different steps and parts. And a lot of robots!

We spent the night in Gothenburg. I wasnt impressed with the city but it was dark and raining! We found a Christmas market which was nice and met some nice Swedish people. its nice to be around friendly out going people - Germans are so reserved.

The next day we drove to Copenhagen, stopping at some beautiful beaches in Sweden on the way. Our first stop in Denmark was at the airport so I could get my Starbucks mug - it was so worth it :-) We headed to the center of Copenhagen and found the statue of the Little Mermaid. Sculpted in honor of Hans Christian Anderson. Then we stopped off at a really cool Christmas market along a canal. We checked into our hotel outside of the city and then braved the Denmark train system to head back into Copenhagen. Where we stopped at another Christmas market. This one was huge and we enjoyed an evening of shopping, eating, and drinking Danish beers!

Sunday consisted of driving 9 hours from Copenhagen to our house in Wittlich. The one cool part of that was the ferry ride from Denmark to Germany. I've never driven a car onto a ferry before - very cool!

Moral of the story - buy a Volvo and go pick it up in Sweden! You can drive it around Europe for awhile and then they'll ship it back to the States for you. The factory tour alone is worth it!!

click on the title for more pictures from our weekend

Double Date

Ali and I at the castle

Double Daters

Mike and I went to Brussels this weekend with our friends Ali and Shyam. Shyam was away for 7 months and he just got back so Ali and I thought it would be fun to have a grown-ups night out. Ali and Shyam left their boys with a sitter for the weekend.
So Saturday morning we headed off to Belgium. On our way we stopped by the oldest fortified castle in Belgium (preserved). When we got to Brussels we had lots of fun tasting beers and chocolates and finally eating dinner :-) Lots of laughs were had by all!!

England!!

my first sight in England - a book vending machine!

Big Ben

Stonehenge

Avebury

my sheep friend

ridiculous B&B breakfast

Hever Castle

Brighton Pier

Brighton

Mike driving on the wrong side! AAAHHHH!

Mike was gone for our anniversary - Oct. 6th if you're interested - so we decided to take a trip to celebrate our 2 years when he got back. Mike hadn't seen London yet so we thought this would be the perfect time. Maybe since it was the down season things would be cheaper (nope!). We decided to take a 4 day weekend, spend one very full day in London and then rent a car to explore the countryside.

London was great. We stayed near Hyde Park so the first thing we did after we got to our hotel early in the morning was take a walk through the park. Very pretty with lots of dogs and mamas and babies out. We then made our way to Buckingham Palace where we timed our arrival with the changing of the guard. Unfortunately in the down season they only do the changing of the guard every other day so we missed that. We continued on to Westminister Abbey (didnt go in - too expensive), Parliament and Big Ben. Then we took a boat ride down the river to the Tower of London. We ate some fish and chips for lunch and then stayed in the Tower until it closed. The history of the Tower is so interesting! Then it was a quick dinner at our hotel and off to see a show. We saw Avenue Q which I highly recommend. It's based off of Seasame Street but with adult puppets who have adult problems. Very funny!

The next day we rented a car - don't rent a car in London, the driving is terrible. It took us at least an hour just to get out of the city. And there was a lot of traffic on our way to Stonehenge but we finally made it! You can see the circle of stones from the highway as you drive up. Again the entrance fee was too expensive (or are we just cheap?) so we took a picture from the outside. The fence is in the way but you get the idea - we saw Stonehenge! We then did some back road driving - beautiful - and ended up in Avebury. This is a small town that is completely surrounded by a huge ditch and a stone circle. There is no entrance fee and you can roam around as you please. We had a delicious lunch at the only pub in the world located inside a stone circle and then we spent a hour wandering around the countryside with the sheep. It was fantastic. We drove a bit more and ended up in the Cotswolds for the night. We stayed in Stow on the Wold. Finding a B&B was a little dicey for awhile but we found a room in a very nice couple's house. I think we were their only guests! The husband was in the Royal Air Force in WWII so Mike enjoyed talking to him. And the breakfast they made us the next day was amazing!!!

On our last day in England we drove southeast to Hever Castle. This castle was once owned by the Boleyn family and Anne Boleyn grew up here. More really cool history! The castle was goregous as were the grounds. We picked a perfect fall weekend to wander around England!! We then drove down to Brighton and saw the ocean! The beach there was made of pebbles which was kind of cool and both Mike and I touched the English Channel. It was very windy and cold but it was nice to be at a beach. I miss the ocean. There was also a pretty cool pier in Brighton with games and restaraunts. We didn't get a chance to go into the Royal Pavillion (built by King George the IV when he was Prince of Wales) because it was too late - no pictures either because of the dark. But it was huge!! It reminded us of a mosque - or maybe the Taj Mahal on a smalled scale.

Mike and I enjoyed our small trip very much and we both agreed that England would go on our list of places we wouldn't mind being stationed at. You never know where we might live :-)

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Mike and I started to prepare for Halloween about a month ago buying pumpkins from the commissary. Unfortunately he left for a 3 week trip to Romania soon after and then this past week he started a masters program and had to go to class everyday after work. So no jack-o-lanterns. I could have been a feminist and said "I don't need a man, I'll do it myself" but I'm not that good with knives. I also declined to be a feminist yesterday when I found a dead mouse in our basement. I waited till Mike got home from class to get it for me - but that's another story :-)

This year I found an awesome strawberry costume at a local costume shop. I am a firm believer in couples costumes so I found a banana costume at Target and had my wonderful mother send it to me. Thanks Mom!

Friday was costume day at school so I got double use out of mine! We had the usual kids costumes - princesses, pirates, and ninjas. But one of my little girls dressed up as a whoopie cushion. Hilarious!!

Saturday was lots of fun. I went over to Ali's house to help her and Emily make food and set up for the party. I was very proud of my cheese ball that looked like a jack-o-lantern and veggies and dip that looked like a skeleton :-) Came back home to get dressed and we had trick or treaters!! 4 teenage boys wearing their normal clothes but they had their hoods up so we couldnt see their faces. I don't think Germans really get Halloween. They did say thank you in English though. We've been discovered! Anyway, Ali's party was great complete with orange jello shots, flip cup, Halloween Jenga and Beatles Rock Band. Yay for Munshi parties!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!


I don't know why this won't go right side up but you get the idea

Finland and Estonia

Helsinki market

Tallinn Russian Orthodox Church

me inside Fat Margaret (tower)

The last stop on our trip was Finland. We flew into Tampere because it was the only city in Finland that RyanAir flew to and then rented a car and drove two hours to Helsinki where my mom was staying. Getting to drive through Finland was great! The more we travel the more we realize how great it is to get out of the big cities and see the countryside. Finland reminded us a lot of the East Coast in the fall. Remember this was in August and it felt like fall already! But the countryside was beautiful. Lots of trees and lakes.
We got to Helsinki and mom showed us the sites in about two hours. Finland's capital city is actually pretty small - I can't imagine what the other cities are like. I'm guessing Finland is a mostly rural country :-)
Anyway the next day we decided to take a two hour ferry ride to Tallinn, Estonia since we had already seen everything there was to see in Helsinki. Tallinn is a pretty well preserved medieval city. There were a lot of old towers, walls and buildings to see. I especially enjoyed the Russian orthodox church, both here and in Helsinki. Its something that we don't often get to see.
Maybe the best part about Tallinn was eating at Old Hansa an 'authentic' medieval restaurant. Everyone who worked there wore medieval clothing and tried to speak how someone in medieval times would speak. The served us medieval dishes and I even saw one customer eating with wooden cutlery. Although we didn't get that chance. We did drink spiced wine and beer out of wooden cups if I remember right. or maybe it was stone. Anyway my favorite part was the bathroom! The toliet was made to look like a latrine and it was completely lit by candles. The sink was hooked up so it looked like you were pouring water out of a pitcher. Very cool.
The next day mom left and Mike and I spent the morning at the market in the harbor checking out the local crafts and goods. We then took a scenic route back to Tampere. Stopping there for a meal at Hessburger - Finland's McDonalds. Tampere actually seemed more hopping than Helsinki - probably because of all the college kids. But we didn't get the chance to explore much.

And that ends our whirlwind trip through Spain, Finland and Estonia! We feel so lucky to be able to have all of these wonderful experiences!

Click the title for more pictures on snapfish!

Barcelona

Sagrada Familia

can't resist books in English - a rarity where we live!

Mike and one of Gaudi's masterpieces

So, finally to Barcelona. Its almost been two months since we've been there! I really thought I was going to be better at this, anyway...

Barcelona was amazing. I just thought it was going to be another big European city - nothing new - so I wasn't expecting much but I was very pleasantly surprised! Barcelona is a huge city but it has so much character and Spanish flavor. The architecture was amazing. Mike was particularly impressed by all of the buildings by Gaudi. I particularly liked the Sagrada Familia - the cathedral by Gaudi that still is not finished. The outside was incredibly different and interesting. I can only imagine what the inside looked like because it was way too expensive for us!
We were only there for a short period of time so we took a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour to see as much of the city as possible. My favorite part of the tour was hopping off at the beach! Barcelona's beaches were beautiful and the water was incredible. Unfortunately there were a lot of unsavory characters hanging around so Mike and I didn't get in the water at the same time. Some one had to stay behind and protect out stuff!
At night we headed to the Montjuic fountains for a really cool water show. The show lasted about 10 minutes and each time we saw it the music was different. Once they played the themes to Star Wars, Titanic and a couple other movies that I now forget since it was so long ago.

After Barcelona we caught a flight back to Frankfurt -Hahn and then another flight to Finland to meet my mom on a business trip. This is the last leg of our journey!

Click the title for more Barcelona pictures.

Granada

inside the Moorish Palace

Granda

random castle

As we drove from Ronda to Granada we hit some construction and had to make a detour. Lucky for us! The detour led us past a dilapidated castle so we decided to stop. We drove through a little rural town and climbed up to the castle to poke around. We were surprised to find that the remaining tour housed a museum with a guide! She didn't speak any English but Mike made due with his Spanish. Turns out the castle's heyday was during the crusades - there was a movie the guide made us watch. In Spanish. Be we got the gist. And apparently some Scottish Lord was killed in a battle close to the castle so there was a whole bunch of stuff about Scotland and his family. He never set foot in the castle but I guess that was close enough. Anyway it was a neat little detour.

We got to Granada late but still had enough time to find our hotel - once in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the narrowest hotel in the world - and check out the Cathedral. It was beautiful and huge - at this point the Spanish cathedrals were starting to run together :-) We headed to bed early so we could get up before the sun to get into the Alhambra. I had tried to book tickets ahead of time but apparently two weeks ahead wasn't early enough. The guidebooks said to be there at least 2 hours before it opened if we wanted a chance of getting in. That happened to be 6am! So we got up and climbed up for 20 minutes before waiting in line with the hundreds of other people. The Alhambra is situated on a steep hill - I might even call it a mountain - in the middle of Granada. There we waited for about 3 hours - it took us an extra hour to buy tickets once the line started to move. We occupied ourselves by making sure no one got in front of us in line. People are serious about getting in to the Alhambra.

We finally made it in and spent the rest of the day exploring. Really - we were probably there for 6 hours. There was so much to see. It was amazing! Well worth the wait. There were acres of beautiful shady gardens with little pools. The castle complex was incredible with all of its Moorish architecture. Fantastic! In case you didn't know - Henry VIII first wife, Katherine of Aragon, was a Spanish princess who grew up in the Alhambra. This is how I heard of it and what made me want to visit. It did not disappoint!

Next we head to Barcelona, our last stop in Spain.

Click the title for more Granada pictures :-)

Gibraltar and Ronda

The Rock of Gibraltar

Ronda

This is what Mike had to say about our next two stops in Spain:

Gibraltar - hot crowded, sweaty, beautiful view, monkeys, long line and wait

Ronda - gorge, bullfighting ring - 1st and biggest ring circumference in Spain, just pretty, quintessential Spain

That pretty much sums it up :-)

It only took an hour or two to drive to Gibraltar from Rota but then we waited in line to get into Gibraltar for another hour. Apparently we had to go through customs since Gibraltar belongs to the UK but the guards just waved us in. Then it took another 30 mins to find parking - Gibraltar is really tiny!! The the wait in line to get up the rock... But it was a beautiful view. We didn't get to see Africa because it was too cloudy but we did see some of Spain. The monkeys were everywhere and not the least bit afraid of humans. I was of them though! I heard lots of stories about bag grabbing - and those things had sharp teeth and claws. It was around 2pm when we finished with the rock but we didn't want to get lunch in Gibraltar - very expensive! As most of you know I am not a very happy camper when I'm hungry but Mike promised me McDonalds if I waited so somehow I survived.

The drive to Ronda was beautiful. We drove up the coast a little and found some awesome views of the ocean - the Meditteranean I think it was at this point. We then turned inland and found some awesome views of the mountainous countryside. Ronda was incredibley beautiful. Its perched on top of a hill - surrounded by gorges. It was really cool to see a bullfighting ring too - I wasnt interested in an actual bullfight but it was neat to see where it happened. We also got to tour the cages where the bulls are kept which was interesting.

Two more stops on our Spain adventure. Next - Granada (my favorite!!)

more pictures if you click the title :-)

Rota

the beach at Rota

Mike being silly with the camera

Sorry for the delay but school just started and I've been ridiculously busy!

From Seville we headed south to Rota. We had originally planned to stay one night in Jerez but then realized there was aUS naval station nearby in Rota. So we stayed on the naval base at a much cheaper price. When we arrived we discovered that the base was a 10 minute walk to the beach. The proximity of the beach, the cheapness or lodging, and the comforts of a commissary and bx made us to decide to stay in Rota 3 nights instead of just one.
We spent two wonderful days on the beach. It was extremely hot and the water felt wonderful. There were platforms out in the ocean with a slide and diving board that you could swim to. We swam out there and just laid out like on a giant raft. There was a nice boardwalk and we were even able to rent an umbrella the second day after we had gotten burnt :-)
Those were our days in Rota. The first night we headed to Jerez, which is known for its sherry. We first stopped at an arab bath that I had read about in a guide book. We checked in and they sent us back to the dressing rooms where we changed into swimsuits. Inside the bathing area there were three pools - warm, hot, and cold. So we spent the next hour alternating pools eventually just going from hot to cold. It was incredibly relaxing! Afterwards we walked around town trying to find dinner but apparently it was some sort of religious holiday. We did get to see a pretty cool cathedral though. We ended up eating back in Rota where Mike made friends with the locals and they ordered tapas for us. Yummy.
The next night we headed to Cadiz for dinner. We found another delicious tapas bar that started hopping around 10pm. There was also another beautiful cathedral here.
After one of our nights out we headed back to the base and Mike was randomly picked for a DUI check. The guard asked him to blow into the breathalyzer so Mike, never having taken a breathalyzer before, tried to put it in his mouth. The two guards kinda laughed at him and said "no you just have to blow into it - like blowing out birthday candles." Mike eventually figured it out and we were allowed to go but we did wonder if they thought Mike was drunk since he couldn't figure out the breathalyzer.
Next we headed to Gibraltar!

click the title for more pictures

Seville

the cathedral

Seville from the minaret

the Alcazar gardens

eating yummy gelato

Mike and I just (a week ago) got back from a two week trip to Spain and Finland. Along the way we had many adventures - so many in fact that it's going to take multiple posts to share them with you all :-)

We started our trip by flying into Seville (Spain). I knew it was going to be hot - Spain in August - but was really not prepared for the amount that I was going to sweat in the next 10 days! Thanks to Emily for lending me summer dresses that I wore multiple times! We made our way to the hotel meeting a nice guy from Cincinnati on the way who helped us with directions. We never did find out why he was in Seville giving out direction. And it turns out that the hotel manager spoke no English and had no idea that we were supposed to be staying at his hotel for two nights. Go figure. Mike eventually figured everything out - yay for Mike and his Spanish! And we spent the rest of the day roaming the city and eating and drinking sangria at quite a few really good tapas bars.
We started off our second day in Seville by going to the cathedral. Like many churches in Spain, the cathedral used to be a mosque that was torn down and then built over. The minaret was still standing though - they just put a cross on top of it! I've rarely seen a church so big - and rich looking! The main altar was huge - maybe 40feet high - and made entirely out of gold! This is also where Christopher Comlumbus is buried.
After the cathedral we headed next door to the Alcazar or palace. It was built when Muslims ruled this part of the world and has since been used by Christian monarchs. I think it still in use today. But all this means that we got to see some really cool Islamic architecture. The intricacy of the tiles and the carvings on the walls were amazing. And there were huge landscaped gardens which were an excellent place to spend the hot afternoon.
The next day we headed off to the train station and our rental car and made our way south to the coast and Rota, Spain.

click the title for more Seville pictures!