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