An American in Dresden

No longer an ex-pat

2010-07-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hello all followers and those who may stumble upon this blog!

It's been nearly a year now since we've left Dresden, that ancient Florence on the Elbe, and I figured it was time to close this chapter of An American In Dresden. We've settled in Williamsburg, VA, but not before reclaiming our stuff from storage and our cat from Wisconsin. Thanks to all of you for following this blog, as it was a great adventure in electronic media and a great way to keep in touch with friends and family.

Thanks also, to those who helped support us emotionally, whether through visits or phone calls or e-mails. It was an amazing year, and we couldn't have done it without you.

We're heading back to Dresden to visit later this summer, and can't wait. Hope to see you there, and we'll hoist a Radeberger or Feldschloesschen together.

“So where was I? Oh, that’s right – Barcelona!”

2009-05-15T10:52:00.001-07:00

¡Buenos días! Or, tardes… or noches… I guess it depends on where you are. But, the main thing is that we're back from a wonderful trip to Spain! For those of you that don't know, for a brief time I tried to make a history MA out of the Spanish Civil War, and I've been interested in Barcelona and Spain for some time. As long ago as 2004 Nadine and I picked up a guide to Spain, intending to take a trip there in 200- well, 2000-something. You know, whenever we could get the money together. So imagine our joy when I discovered a super cheap flight to Barcelona a few weeks ago! Based on the ticket prices and the recommendations of our friends Gunnar and Kathleen, we headed off to the Mediterranean coast a couple of weeks ago.

Instead of flying out of Leipzig or even Dresden, we soon found ourselves at Altenburg airport, a small landing strip in the middle of the idyllic German countryside. The landing strip was built by the Soviets, and I think that Ryan Air, the cheap airline that we used, is the only airline operating out of that airport. Not that they have many flights and they only fly to three airports, but it makes for a convenient location for Nadine and I.

Our (albeit not quite accurate in this photo) Flight Plan.

Our flight there was overwhelmingly German. Young and middle-aged couples and single guys made up the bulk of the passenger manifest, but there was also a school group that was using the plane. On Ryan Air, there are no assigned seats, so it is first come, first served. Nadine, small as she is, was able to scramble right through the crowd and nab us a couple of seats right away. The down side was that several boys from the school trip had gotten on the plane after us and we were then forced to sit with two behind us and two ahead and off to the right. Despite their yelling at one another (good-naturedly, of course, but no less annoying) for the entire two hour flight, we really enjoyed the Ryan Air experience. Before we knew it, we'd flown over the Alps, then Marseille, the Mediterranean, and finally the Pyrenees before landing in Girona. Well, the Germans all clapped as we landed, which I've been informed is a German tourist thing, and then a pre-recorded Scottish voice jubilantly announced that Ryan Air was the only airline in Europe to be on time 90% of the time, but then we were able to set foot on Spanish terra firma.

Okay, true, Girona is not Barcelona. It's a smallish town about forty miles from the French border, but its main claim to fame (in this story at least) is that it has an international airport. And, while the Altenburg airport is really just two big rooms in a barnlike structure and an old Soviet landing strip, Girona has duty free shops, restaurants, more than one airline operating out of its terminal, and an info desk. Its main attraction for us, though, was that it not only allowed for cheap flights, but we could then hop a bus to Barcelona along with the other German tourists.

The Pyrenees from the Girona Airport.

After an uneventful hour's bus trip, we were dropped off at Estació del Nord, in the heart of Barcelona. I'd done some research before we left, so after gaining my bearings and consulting a hand-drawn map that I'd made, we were able to walk from the drop-off point straight to our hotel, Hotel España. I can actually recommend this method and subsequent accomodations, since it allowed us to check out some famous parts of the city on our way, particularly the Barri Gótic and La Rambla, plus it's only about a mile or so from where the bus drops you off. We were also able to scope out some options for dinner as we walked the narrow alleyways that make up these famous quarters of Barcelona! The sights, the sounds, and the smells of Spain were nearly overwhelming as we headed unerringly to our hotel.

The Arc de Triomf, one of our first sights in Barcelona (right near the bus station).

Now, first things first, let me admit that we were a little nervous about our hotel. It was recommended by Frommers, National Geographic, and others, but after we'd booked it we found it on Google Maps. Let's just say that Google Maps does a good job of conveying the tightness of Barcelona's corridors and the dirty condition of storefront security gates without illustrating how many people there are in those alleyways and the feeling of safety that one retains due to the energy in the city. Pre-arrival jitters aside, we were pleasantly reassured that we hadn't booked a guaranteed mugging, but a nice turn-of-the-century hotel. And, yes, turn-of-the-century is a good thing for a couple of historians.

The Hotel España.

Room with a view... Note the tight corridors!

After checking in (which I was able to do in English as most people here speak it), we headed back out to find some dinner. By this time it was already about 9:00 at night, but in Spain that is a fairly common dinner time. We think it has to do with the siesta that they take in the afternoon. Our first real stop in Barcelona, beyond the bus station and our hotel, was a little place called Txirimiri. Txirimiri (pronounced Cheery-meery… we think…) is largely a tapas bar that also has some select offerings from the Basque and Navarre region of Spain. The Basque region is quite different from Catalonia, but the best thing about Txirimiri is its very local vibe. We were looking for someplace that offered good tapas and a local atmosphere, and we definitely found it there.

After a false start with my Spanish (the people in Barcelona definitely do NOT speak with the Mexican pronunciation I learned from Sra. Gould in high school!) and a short wait at the bar, we were finally able to settle in for dinner, which consisted of slices of baguette topped with a variety of things like chorizo, anchovies and olive oil, sardines and cheeses, Manchego cheese and a balsamic reduction, and this amazing sort of atomized-tomato. It was really as though someone had somehow turned a tomato into a mist and smeared/sprayed it onto warm baguette slices. We also had some "patatas bravas" which were fried potato wedges covered in a cream sauce and a spicy tomato salsa. Washed down with some frosty glasses of the ubiquitous Estrella Damm beer, it was a really satisfying dinner. For dessert we hit a gelato place where I had a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of chocolate-orange gelato ice cream (Nadine was still too full from dinner), and then we finally made our way back to the hotel for some well deserved rest before our big day on the town.

Monday morning dawned bright and sunny, despite the forecast of showers we'd had for the whole trip. Much unlike our usual nature, we got up early and then eagerly hit the streets. Stop one on our agenda: breakfast on the way to the beach. We stopped by a café called Cappuccino that I had noticed the night before (cappuccino and cheesecake for me, orange juice and an almond croissant for Nadine), and then started heading for the palm trees we could barely make out. After some unintended but scenic detours including a wall and tower from Roman days and an arm around my shoulder from a surprisingly friendly police officer (I had asked him for directions), we arrived at the sandy shores of the Mediterranean.

The Barri Gótic.

Roman Wall and Tower ruins.

Barcelona from the Docks.

It was a dream come true. Despite my mother-in-laws' insistence that it would just be another large body of water like the Pacific or Atlantic, it was so different! The water was such an amazing color of blue, not the grayish color of the ocean. When we were flying over, I had even remarked to Nadine that it reminded me of the color of the sky in high summer. Add the beautiful beach with flecks of gold in the sand (from what I'm still not sure), and it was really an amazing experience.

The Mediterranean Sea.

I wasn't the only one enjoying the morning! And, no, she was not with us...

Unfortunately, though, we had already used up several hours between breakfast and finding the beach, so we couldn't really dally. By noon we were back in the heart of the Barri Gótic, eating lunch at a place called Crepes Barcelona before heading off towards the Picasso Museum. After my Emmentaler-and-Sobrasada crepe and Nadine's sugar-and-lemon crepe, which we ate while wending our way though the streets, we discovered that the Picasso Museum was closed, however. Turns out that museums around Europe, while open on the weekends, are all closed on Mondays. So instead we went to Nadine's number two destination: Parc Güell.

After taking the subway to a different part of the city, we couldn't quite find the way to the park, so we stopped at a place called Café Fiorno. Café Fiorno is a great little Catalan café, and it will forever bear the distinction of having made the best "cortado" I have ever had (cheapest, too). A cortado, for those that haven't had one, is a shot of espresso floating on sweetened condensed milk. After delicious coffee drinks and an obligatory use of the free bathroom, we got directions to the park from the girl working at the café.

Okay. It's honesty time. I really wasn't interested in the park. It was designed by a guy by the name of Gaudí, and if you ask me, it truly is "gaudy." While a park made of mosaics sounds interesting in theory, the juxtaposition of concrete, mosaic tile, and the garish colors used did NOTHING for me. Maybe Nadine can do a P.S. on it… Until then, here are a few pictures.

The main balcony at Parc Güell.

The view from the Parc into the city.

A salamander at the Parc. Kudos to Nadine for this shot, since there were so many people there...

... As you can see from this shot!

After the park, we made our way via the subway system to the Passeig de Grácia, which is the shopping mile of Barcelona and used to be the place where the rich and famous lived. There are some truly beautiful villas there. The best part for me, however, was that the Passeig de Grácia empties out onto La Rambla not far from El Mercat de la Boqueria: the biggest, freshest, bestest food market in Barcelona! Much like we had had bad luck at the Picasso museum, though, the Boqueria was largely shut down. We were able to wend our way through it, yes, and we did have some candied orange slices dipped in chocolate, but with most of the stalls closed (and me limping due to an aching Achilles tendon), it just wasn't the experience I was hoping for. It was late afternoon by this point and we were near our hotel, so we opted to do as the locals and hit our room for a brief siesta.

One of the houses on Passeig de Grácia, designed by Gaudí.

A beautiful statue at the Plaça de Catalunya.

An hour later, after my wife and Achilles tendon were well rested, we found ourselves eating churros and the thickest, most pudding-like "hot chocolate" that we've ever had. Now that we had the energy to stay up late enough to have dinner, Nadine suggested that we pass the time by visiting an enormous statue of Columbus (on his way back from the Americas following his "discovery," Columbus landed in Barcelona, hence the statue). For some reason, I was a little reluctant to follow along, but I dutifully went. Moments before we got to the forty-feet-tall statue, the reason for my intuition-based reluctance was clear: a low flying pigeon attacked me. Well, attacked might not be the right word. Bombed would be better. Pooped on me would be even more accurate.

Following a quick stop at a fountain to wipe away the bird-droppings, I decided it was time to go for a drink. It fit our schedule-of-events, but following the poop incident, it was that much more urgent. We headed for a place called El Xampanyet that we'd seen on the series Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown. Frustratingly enough, they had opted for the Picasso museum approach, and they too were closed. Fortunately for us, though, it was late enough by this point to respectably have dinner, so we headed to a place called Evinia for some tapas (Spanish cheeses and potato croquettes with Iberian ham) and some cava, or Spanish champagne.

The closed El Xampanyet.

By the time we were done with dinner and dessert (gelato again – crema Catalana and coffee flavors) it was getting fairly late, but because of the siesta, we weren't that tired. We decided to stop at an elegant little bar called Vildsvin for a nightcap. There were exposed wooden beams, exposed brick, and some Austrians sitting next to us with extraordinarily thick accents in their English. They were soon gone, though, and we had the evening all to ourselves.

The next morning we packed up and headed out to breakfast, our luggage (Nadine's purse and a backpack) in tow. After waiting for a Spanish church to open only to discover that it was filled on the inside with scaffolding, we stopped at a little place called the Bar del Pi for breakfast. To Nadine's extreme credit and her uncanny connection with the city, she was able to consistently pick great and local places to eat, and Bar del Pi was no exception. There was no menu, not a single person there was speaking English, and everyone but us was smoking like crazy and talking or reading newspapers. It was perfect! An espresso, an orange juice, and two sweet croissants later we were more or less breakfasted up and started towards one last park, the Parc de la Ciutadella.

The wonderful Bar del Pi.

I say that we were "more or less" breakfasted, because I was starting to drag after about five minutes from leaving the table. It was warm in Barcelona and the bathroom situation was less than conducive to drinking the amount of water that I am used to. That dehydration plus too few calories that morning made me, well, irritable. I was unfortunately not that interested in the park and spent much of it sitting on a bench while Nadine took beautiful pictures and put up with me like a saint.

The Catalonian Parliament building.

One of the last views of the city, same as the first.

Before we knew it, it was 11:30 and we were on our bus headed towards Girona. Surreally enough, a few hours later, we were back in the middle of pastoral Germany, all memories of a bustling Mediterranean city seeming like a story from someone else's life.

The welcoming committee... Yeah, locals like to sit at the airport and watch people land. Weird, right?

It's been a rough adjustment since then, especially for Nadine. Barcelona was oddly familiar, and we decided that it had an energy like Madison, WI, just on a much, much larger scale. It was more multicultural, and more laid back than anything that we've seen in Germany for the past eight months. It was such a wonderful time, it's a bit hard to get back into the real world. But, I think that's what a vacation is supposed to be: too short, too good to want to leave.

So, there you have it. Barcelona was amazing, and we can highly recommend the city to any and all. Hopefully, the same can be said for all of our future destinations! We'll be doing a bit more traveling soon, so I'll try to keep you all posted. Until next time!

And Another Couple of Months Goes By

2009-04-18T08:22:00.001-07:00

(Extremely belated) greetings from Bruges, Belgium!

Back in December I received an e-mail from the History department at UW-Milwaukee notifying me that I had won an award for best Master's Thesis for the previous academic year. Since we hadn't been anywhere exciting for a month, we figured why not take a trip to Bruges? (Yes, inspired by the Colin Farrell movie...) It was a mix of "Merry Christmas to us!" and "Congratulations, Adam!" and it was well worth the more than 12 hours (one-way) on the train that got us there.

Given that we had already been to Bratislava and Vienna, we figured that we were old hats at this train-travelling thing and boarded our train from Dresden to Frankfurt. It was a fairly uneventful trip, and other than a bit of a crowd at the local McDonalds for lunch, we quickly took our spot on the train to Brussels, which was our next connection. At first we were a bit nervous, since we hadn't reserved seats for the trip, but the electronic notification above all of the seats showed us a couple of open spots, and we were able to ride in style into Brussels, one of the most international cities in the world.

Our route from Dresden.

Oh, but the thing that no one tells you: Brussels, as one of the most international cities of the world, has a huge, crowded, and confusing train station. To her credit, Nadine is usually a public-transportation guru, who really enjoys the fact that I am still not quite comfortable making connections. I guess I am still worried that I will get on a tram to come home here in Dresden and wind up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with no money or a way home. Inside joke:
We always joked in Madison that I would take the wrong bus and wind up out in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, WI, also referred to as Oshkosh. In any event, our guru was a bit overwhelmed in Brussels, and as we made our way to the appropriate platform, neither of us got a good look at just what train we needed. We knew it went through Ghent and St.-Someone-or-other, but beyond that we were just hoping to catch the right one.

Another major difference between the Brussels train station and the one in Dresden: in Germany, there is only one train assigned to each track during a significant time period; in Brussels, the train pulls up for about two minutes, everyone gets off and on quickly before the doors close and the next train pulls forward and takes its spot. Now, at the time, neither of us knew about this little tidbit. So, though I was fairly sure that the train would not be five minutes early, since that DOES NOT happen with trains, I saw Nadine confidently hop onto the train at our track. Considering that she is my wife, I love her, and besides, she was carrying our money, I chased after her. In the intervening 3-and-a-half seconds, approximately 5 people had stepped in front of me and were shoving their way onto the train, so I could hardly see Nadine as I started shouting "Nadine! I don't think this is our train!" I could see Nadine's fashionable gray coat moving forward, deeper into the train, so I tried again with the same lack of success. Finally, we came to a compartment between two train cars, and I finally said, "Nadine-" The train slowly pulled forward. "-I don't think this is our train." Her mouth agape, Nadine the guru asked me: "Now you tell me?"About thirty seconds later, we noticed that we were standing under a sign that warned travelers without valid tickets (and ours were only for the other train) would be fined a minimum of 200 Euros. Exciting times!

In an unplanned brief detour we swooped into Ghent, but luckily hopped the right train to Bruges there and finally arrived in that city, tired, hungry, thirsty, but otherwise none the worse. Well, "swoop" is probably not the right word, considering that the train was agonizingly slow, all the more so because we knew about the fine and kept dreading that a ticket controller would catch us. In any case, we got to stroll into the by-then-darkened old city of Bruges - only 30 minutes after our ETA, mind - and it was really a sight to behold. Bruges was spared the destruction of WWII and still looks like a medieval market town, complete with old church towers, canals, and beautiful sculptures. After a short walk, we happily checked into our hotel, the Hotel Malleberg, and went in search of dinner.

Pretty building near our Hotel.

After passing a few places, we settled on the Panier d'Or. At nearly nine-thirty at night, with more than twelve hours of train travel under our belts, we picked that restaurant because they advertised authentic (well, for tourists, anyway) Flemish cuisine and were close to our hotel. We actually got a fair deal with their tasting menu, and I got to have some locally made ham as an appetizer, a tall glass of Stella Artois beer (which I loved all the more since this was the first time I drank it when it hadn't been imported) and some Flemish Beef Stew that had some good dark beer in the sauce. Nadine had some breaded, fried cheese sticks (which a blasphemous heathen might have called "mozzarella sticks" until they, too, partook in the deity of all things fried and cheesy) and some Flemish rabbit. Topped off with some delicious ice cream, and a frosty yet oddly shaped glass of the local beer, Kwak, it was the perfect end to a very long day.

A word of caution regarding Kwak: while one may think, "Hmmm. 'Kwak' beer. Sounds like beer for ducks. Hee-hee. Quack! 'Kwak!' Ducks drinking beer…" and proceed to drink without caution, given the logic that duck-beer can't have that high of an alcohol content since they still need to be able to fly home, consider yourself warned.

Dangerous Kwak beer.

The next morning, we had a full schedule since we were leaving very early the following day. After a GREAT breakfast at our hotel, we headed out to the city. First stop was the Dalí Exhibition, where we got to see some pieces that were used in illustrations and small galleries, but which haven't been published anywhere. Nadine loved it, since she's quite the Dalí fan, and she even found a statue that she loved. Unfortunately it was out of our price range, but now we know what to look for at Christmas! Okay, maybe not this past Christmas…

The Dalí Exhibition sign that lured us in.

After that we hustled over to the Diamond Museum, to watch diamonds being cut. Turns out that Bruges was one of the major European cities to deal in diamonds in earlier centuries, and the city grew incredibly wealthy due to their trade. The diamond cutting show was really interesting for us, and we learned a lot about the terminology and the process. Not that we're ready to go into the diamond cutting business ourselves (although it would probably be more lucrative than our current career-paths!), but now we can spout out random diamond facts to amaze friends!

Canals on the way to the diamond museum.

Diamond museums are a historian girls' best friend.

Detail of a statue spotted during our meandering.

After Dalí and diamonds, we headed through town to find someplace for lunch. I picked a bustling bistro that turned out to be one of the hot spots in town. Their Panini were great (I had a local ham and cheese Panini… Mmm!), and I also had some weird chocolate drink to wash it down with. Then we went off to do a little shopping and scale one of the towers that dominate the city skyline.

Lincoln comics are apparently popular in Belgium for some reason.

The Market Square

Unfortunately, by this time I wasn't feeling the greatest. I'd been sickly off-and-on before then, but I think that the train ride the day before and the sneaky duck beer did me in. By afternoon on our only full day in Bruges, I was really starting to feel feverish and getting chills. Despite this, we climbed an enormous tower to get a look at the city, but discovered that Bruges looks rather unimpressive from above. Really, it was just a lot of red roofs and a few points of church spires dotting the roofscape. Plus, to make matters worse, as soon as we got to the top, the batteries in our camera died. We stayed to hear the tower bells play, but without any pictures, it just wasn't the same experience. Not that hearing old bells play needs pictures, but still.

Me, starting to feel feverish...

...and the tower we climbed.

Even though I was starting to sway a little bit and I was starting to sweat, we hit one last museum: the chocolate museum! The other thing that Bruges is famous for is that it is where the praline (chocolates with a filling, like Whitman's, for example, are pralines) was invented. Suffice it to say, we had to have freshly-made pralines while we were there. Not that I hadn't been eating them all day, since they were sold at nearly every shop, and one can't walk more than ten feet without getting to a new shop that boasts Belgian chocolate and pralines. Mmm. Even sick, they were phenomenal.

The chocolate museum was interesting, but it's about that time that things started to go a little fuzzy for me. I vaguely remember eating a true Belgian waffle, and I know that we had some pommes frites, since in my fever-addled brain I remembered that the Belgians are supposed to make a mean French fry. Dinner and dessert taken care of, we hit our hotel room to try and get some sleep before our 5:00 a.m. train left.

Yay! Belgian waffles!

We took a cab from a square near our hotel (I tried to make it on foot, but was simply too exhausted), hopped our train, and started out.

Now, please remember that our trip to Bruges was exciting, but that we were all healthy and hale. On the return trip, it seemed like nothing could go right other than the fact that we got onto the right trains. For starters, when we stumbled onto our connecting train in Köln, the electronic system was not working properly, and we couldn't tell which seats were reserved and which were free for us to take. After being ousted from several seats, we finally found a place to crash for a few hours. Or so we thought. The reservations system wasn't the only thing that wasn't working, and before long there came an announcement that everyone would have to get off the train and board a new one. We had been scheduled to couple with another train, but when the electronic coupling from our train malfunctioned, we were all packed into the single train in front of us. I, of course, was near delirious at this point, but we somehow managed to find seats and I settled into a fitful fever-dream-riddled slumber.

Wyatt, have I got some dreams to tell you about!

Anyway, we knew that we had a short layover in Berlin, and that it was jeopardized by the failed train coupling, but the final blow came when the announcer said that we would be 27 minutes late getting into Berlin. We looked at our train tickets. We had exactly 27 minutes as a layover in Berlin.

Fortunately, we flagged down a train agent who called ahead, and the train was held for us. Okay, for us, other passengers on our train, and a different train coming from Hamburg. By this point, my fever had broken, and I was becoming more coherent, so I was able to fully appreciate that we'd made our connection. Finally, nearly fifteen hours after we'd started that day, we walked in through our front door. Home, sweet home. And it was all the sweeter with the chocolates we brought back!

So, we're finally caught up with the big trip summaries! On a side-note, we are heading to Barcelona tomorrow, which I'll hopefully blog about before we come back to the States!

P.S. Thanks to everyone that congratulated me for finally finishing grad school! It was and is much appreciated.

Congratulations!

2009-03-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Adam just found out that he passed his master's exams, so now he's the proud holder of two master's degrees. Congratulations! - Nadine

Nadine’s Interlude: Having fun in Dresden

2009-03-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Adam’s update on our trip to Bruges might be a while since he’s composing the final essays for his second master’s degree at the moment (good luck!), so I thought I’d share a little about what we do here when not traveling or haunting various libraries and archives.

In no particular order, we’ve really enjoyed:

-Eating at Las Tapas. Las Tapas is a Spanish-style restaurant with two locations downtown, which serves, as you might have guessed, all sorts of tapas. The main restaurant is located near the famous Frauenkirche, and a smaller place in the main mall, the Altmarktgalerie. Nothing beats a day of shopping topped off with a dish of small potatoes served with a cilantro-based dip!

-Getting take-out from Sushi-Circle. Both Adam and I love sushi and it’s not been easy to find an equivalent to our favorite restaurant in Madison, Sushi Muramoto. Our first trip to the ‘best’ sushi place in town (per the most well-respected city guide to Dresden) proved quite a disappointment, but we recently discovered Sushi-Circle, a small place located in the food court of the biggest department store downtown (Karstadt). Although the selection is a bit limited and they don’t sell my favorite unagi rolls, the quality of the rolls is top notch and the soy sauce comes in little fish-shaped plastic containers. Plus, nothing beats the price of Euro 3.95 for six tasty rolls!

-Seeing Yadegar Asisi’s panoramas. Fed up with today’s over-saturated visual culture, the Berlin artist revived the 19th century art of painting city or landscapes onto large canvasses that stretch across 360 degrees. Visitors standing atop the platform in the middle of the panoramas actually feel like they are part of and overlooking the depicted land or cityscape. We saw both his panorama of Rome as it would have looked in 312, which was exhibited until February in the Panometer Leipzig, and his version of Dresden in 1756, on exhibition at the Panometer Dresden. Both were amazing, but we liked Dresden a bit more because we are so familiar with the buildings as they are right now and it was amazing to see what they city looked like 250 years ago in all of its baroque glory. For those of you who want to find out more, here’s the link to Asisi’s website: http://www.asisi.de/de/Panometer/_start_/index.html [German only, though].

Panometer Dresden.

-Catching movies at the Schillergalerie. This tiny mall is located right across from the ‘Blaues Wunder,’ a bridge built in 1893 that translates as the ‘Blue Wonder.’ ‘Blue’ because of the steel construction’s color and ‘wonder’ because it was one of the technical masterpieces of its time and spans the Elbe without actually having an anchoring pillar in the river itself. The ‘Blaues Wunder’ connects our part of town to the rest of Dresden and we cross it every single day at least two - or more often four times - to transfer from our bus to the trams heading downtown at the Schillergalerie stop. We also do our grocery shopping at Schillergalerie, or, as mentioned, catch a movie there. We usually try to stick to German movies (since English ones are dubbed here and more often than not the dubbing takes away from the quality of the film) and we saw a few good ones in the past couple of months, including “Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin,” a story based on the diary of an anonymous woman chronicling the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 Berlin, and “1 ½ Ritter,” a hilarious comedy containing the crème de la crème of the German acting world about two clueless knights setting out to rescue the king’s kidnapped daughter. I am now looking forward to seeing “Der Vorleser/The Reader” with a friend of mine, because we both had to read the book in German class. Oh, and apparently Kate Winslet’s very good in it, given the Oscar and all.

'Blaues Wunder' bridge.

-Attending Fasching. Now Fasching, held right before Lent, is a cross between Halloween and Mardi Grass with Cabaret stand-up comedy/political satire thrown into the mix. We attended a Fasching celebration in my home village, not Dresden, but Fasching events are pretty standard across Germany: adults dress up in silly costumes, gather at the local festival hall to listen to a program containing political and very off-color jokes mixed with some musical numbers for one to two hours, then proceed to get drunk and dance until the wee hours of the night. You might guess from the picture below what our costume choices were. The prize that night went to a couple of guys parading around as a six-pack of beer, however. They looked amazing and I wish I had pictures of them!

Scenes of a marriage...

-Playing Ubongo. This game is simply amazing. Two or more players solve a variety of geometric puzzles using a number of pre-determined Tetris-like pieces and whoever solves their puzzle fastest wins the round. Players work on different puzzles but use the same amount of pieces (three, four, or five). After picking up the small travel version we were hooked and proceeded to buy Ubongo Duel. In this version, two players solve the same puzzle and whoever solves five first becomes Ubongo Master. I am sad to report that Adam has won that title a bit more often, but I have been Master once!

An example of a completed puzzle.

-Taking walks around various parts of Dresden. We hopefully get to do this more often when the snow and ice begin to recede. We live close enough to the beautiful area of Pillnitz - which contains a very nice park and a summer castle built by the Saxon monarchs - to ride our bikes there and then take leisurely walks on the grounds and along the Elbe. We also like to stroll along the beautiful Brühlsche Terrasse downtown, which was originally a city rampart but has been open to the public since 1814 and was known as the ‘balcony of Europe’ in the 19th century.

Pillnitz Castle grounds.

Brühl Terrace collage.

-Visiting with friends! This is by far our favorite activity. We love hanging out with our friends who live here in Dresden and we also love picking up visitors at the main train station to show and share this city with them. Dresden is full of lovely restaurants, cafes, and touristy sights, so come visit us!!! To whet your appetite, go to http://www.dresden.de/dmg/en/Culture_Leisure.php

Where were we (several weeks ago, you know, the last time I actually posted something)?

2009-02-06T05:42:00.000-08:00

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah! Vienna!

So, the morning of October 31^st we hopped on our train from Bratislava bound for Vienna. It was hard to leave our friends Saskia and Matje, as they had been such wonderful hosts and we’d had such a great time, but other cities called. After a short trip across the border (I think it was only about an hour to an hour-and-a-half), we arrived in Vienna’s “Train Station South,” or “Hauptbahnhof Süd.” I must say, however, that it was a bit of a let-down. When one walks through the doors of the train station, that particular part of Vienna is rather dingy and dirty. It was not at all like the Old World European Capital City that I was expecting. Then again, considering that it is a modern European capital with a lot of tourists, residents, etc., it really should be no surprise that the area near the train station was chock-full o’ cars and the resulting smog.

Just in case anyone was confused about where we were, they do make t-shirts to help clarify.

In any case, we quickly made our way to our hotel, Hotel Kolbeck, and checked in. Like the first impression of Vienna, the hotel was not really anything to write home about, but since that defeats the purpose of the blog, here goes. The reception area of Hotel Kolbeck was nice, with a quaint exhibition that showed what the menu at the turn of the century looked like, fashions of days past at Hotel Kolbeck, etc. The stairs up to our room were a bit steep, but finely tiled and everything seemed nice and well appointed. Then we got into our room. That was a definite minus point.

Now, I’m not terribly picky about my hotel rooms, despite having worked in hotels for a number of years. Even though, I do know what things can be easily cleaned up/taken care of, and that means that having big streaks of something on the walls of our cupboard size hotel room was less than impressive. However, we got a single room that was relatively inexpensive and, given the brief nature of our stay in Vienna, we didn’t really intend on spending that much time there. Which worked out, as luck would have it!

Not long after we checked in, we headed off into the old part of town to find one of my former professors. I really liked old Vienna, since the streets were narrow and cobble-stoned but there were a lot of high-end shops. I am not really into shopping (gasp! Surprise!), but the atmosphere there was really what I think of when I consider Old World cities. We got to see the Church where the Hapsburgs were crowned from the 1830s onwards, one of Mozart’s houses, a sculpture that thanks the Lord for not killing the entire population back during a Black Plague outbreak in the 17th century, and a few other historically significant places as we were trying to find the café where we were to meet Dr. Jordan. Eventually, we rounded a corner and I saw my professor walking towards us. Even though we had never met (she had been on my master’s thesis committee and wrote a very important book that I used in my thesis, but she’d been in Austria the entire time), we somehow recognized each other and headed in.

A model of the Stephansdom, the church where the Hapsburgs were crowned.

The Stephansdom's front.

The beautifully tiled roof of the Stephansdom.

Detail of the Stephansdom. Note the Austrian eagle atop the tower!

A plaque adorning Mozart's house.

Mozart playing host.

Ruins that were recently unearthed in Vienna with the darker stones dating all the way back to the Romans.

We spent several hours in a small but crowded coffee house (where I had the best bread pudding I have had in my entire life… Mmmm…), discussing individual histories, academic goals, and really just getting to know one another. After that, we walked Dr. Jordan through much of the city as she headed home, then Nadine and I wandered about looking for a place to have dinner. Unlike most places here in Germany and also in the States, Austria does not have a smoking ban in restaurants, so most of them were simply too smoky for us to eat at. As luck would have it, though, that meant that we got to save a few Euros and pick up something extra special from an Imbiss: Horse-liver on a bun! Yummy! Now, I will admit that I was a little skeptical at first and that Nadine would have absolutely none of it, but it was really good! The horse liver was processed into a loaf, sliced into a thick slab, and put on a bun with some mustard. I know that it doesn’t sound that appetizing, but it was really not bad at all. The meat was moist, the spicy mustard complimented it really well, and the bun was warm and soft. Arguably one of the best things I ate the entire trip. At least, I remember it that way…

Downtown Vienna.

The (blurry) Lipizzaner Horses.

After finding a bit of dinner, we headed to a gelato place that the entire city was abuzz about. Let me say that it lived up to its hype! I know that I have mentioned gelato in previous posts, but this was easily the best frozen dessert that I have ever had! Finally we headed back to the hotel. It was still a bit early, and the town was getting a little bit loud because it was Halloween. Not that Europeans really celebrate Halloween, but it is getting more popular (thanks, globalization!) and we saw a bunch of people wandering around in costumes. So, we headed around the corner from our hotel and had a few beers and onion rings at a local pub before returning for the night. It turned out to be a really enjoyable date and was the best part of the day.

Vienna at Sunset.

We had a bit of breakfast the next morning, courtesy of Hotel Kolbeck, and then it was off to the train for our trip home. The train trip was essentially us sitting in a sardine can, and the guy across from me accidentally spilled a beer on me (he had set it on the tray belonging to a Mongolian woman sitting next to him, and when the train took a corner a little bit too fast, the can went flying), but other than that it was uneventful.

So, we’ve got one more trip to describe (Bruges, Belgium) and then we’re all caught up! Yay!

Nadine's Interlude: Winter Visitors

2009-01-11T07:28:00.001-08:00

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

Before Adam goes back to filling in the blanks for our day in Vienna, I just thought I'd post a number of pretty pictures taken in Dresden these past couple of weeks.

We had a couple of lovely visitors from Shepherdstown staying with us - Thank you for coming over, Fred and Sarah, we had such an amazing time! - and were surprised by a ton of snow during the middle of their visit.

Enjoy the pictures! (photo credit belongs entirely to Sarah; thanks for always having your camera at the ready, too!)

Winter romance (not that I would be responsible for

the snow all over Adam's scarf and coat...)

Sarah's favorite motif - bicycles in the snow

(these ones are parked in front of the Dresden university library)

Gorgeous view of our neighborhood

The Frauenkriche, Dresden's pride and joy

Dresden Castle complex

The Augustusbrücke, linking old and new town

Apologies, Bratislava, and Vienna

2008-12-28T02:57:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that I have been a bit negligent in keeping up with the blog. I rationalized at first that since we hadn’t been anywhere other than Dresden, Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Narsdorf for some time, why there was no need to do any posts. Sure, eating sundry animal parts that have been processed into a paste, sausage, or patty is fun and informative, but not everyone enjoys the culinary peculiarities. Especially when it involves goose- and pig-fat-based sandwich spreads. Not that I am planning on keeping them out of the blog, mind you, but I’m just saying a few people have been a bit squeamish.

Anyway, I thought to myself that I would wait until we’d been somewhere before I updated the blog. After all, the whole point of the blog was to commemorate our European adventures and we were planning on going to Bratislava and Vienna. “Sure,” I thought, “I’ll do it once we get back from that trip.” Ummm. Unfortunately we’ve been back for a little longer than I had initially intended. As in, we got back from there on November 1st… Heh-heh… Sorry!

Timeliness (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, we’ve recently taken a trip to Bratislava and Vienna! Let me start off by saying that Nadine and I are now avowed Slovakian nationalists. Slovakia, despite its portrayal in films as a sketchy, smoke-filled bastion of disillusioned former-communists that wash themselves outside in old washtubs while small dogs run past with severed hands in their mouths, it was actually quite nice. Smoky, sure, but where in Eastern Europe is it not? And I can happily say that we did not see a single severed hand, in the mouth of a dog or otherwise.

Why Bratislava, you might be thinking. Well, several years ago we met a Slovakian girl named Saskia who was living in Madison. We became fast friends during her short few months in the Midwest, and as soon as it looked like this whole Dresden thing was actually going to happen, we started looking at train tickets to Bratislava. And let me say that we were not disappointed.

We left Dresden on the morning of October 29th bound for Slovakia via Prague and Brno. The train ride was about six hours long and rather uneventful. I was happy that I got to take along a Cadbury’s Wunderbar (I’m a sucker for puns like this… I mean, Wunderbar is the German word for wonderful, while it could also be read as a Wunder Bar. Ah, those English… But, I digress) and even take a slightly unfocused picture of it. We got to watch some DVD’s courtesy of Nadine’s portable player, and before we knew it we were in Bratislava.

Our train route.

The slightly unfocused picture of the Wunderbar.

Saskia picked us up at the train station, and let me be the first to say that I have never met a better hostess. She had tram tickets in hand for the entire weekend, a plan for a tour of the town, and all the food and drink we could, well, eat and drink. Our first evening there was nice and relaxed, and we just hung out in their apartment, had some good homemade food (pasta with tuna, tofu, cottage cheese, and vegetables), and watched a Disney movie. Saskia loves animated films.

The next morning was a gorgeous start to our love affair with Bratislava. The sun rose over the Little Carpathians, a low mountain range that runs near the city, and greeted us with a hearty Dobrý Den! After a leisurely breakfast, we headed out into the town. We walked through one of the major shopping districts, and I was even surprised to see a McDonerkebab (Doner, or Döner as they are called in Germany, are lamb- or chicken-meat slices arranged on a pita with vegetables and a tzatziki sauce, and are VERY popular in Europe). It was nice, but nothing compared to where we were headed. Before too long Saskia said that we would be heading through the gates into the Old City.

The newer part of Bratislava.

To get into the Old City, you literally have to walk through the original gates and across a small moat. While the moat has since been drained and the drawbridge has been replaced by a stone bridge, the pulleys that were used to raise and lower the bridge remain. Once we got through the doors, Saskia took us to her favorite chocolate shop. I’ll admit that, though I like chocolate, I am not a “choc-o-holic” (despite the charges of heresy and blasphemy such an admission will probably incur). This shop, however, took the idea of chocolate and made it into one of the best edible items on the planet. Their whole menu was filled with chocolate drinks, and the counter was full of pralines, truffles, and other chocolate novelties. Also, when I say the drinks were chocolate, I mean they were effectively melted chocolate with goodies. Nadine had a drink that was chocolate with nuts and mango bits, I had something with chocolates, sour red berries (someone said bill berries, perhaps, but I’m still not sure), and some rather potent alcohol. The drink was called “The Slovakian,” so I figured that it would be a good try. Saskia had a drink with cream and chocolate and cherries which looked like it would have gone down just as well as either of the other two.

The gate to the Old City.

Detail of Old City gate, showing the pulleys from the drawbridge.

View of the Old City from the inside.

Some of the novelties at the chocolate shop: Nougat formed in the shape of corn, a fruit-flavored jelly drop, and a marzipan-filled date.

One of the most famous Bratislava baked goods, Bratislavský rožtek. It’s essentially a little sweet dough filled with a nut paste (or poppy-seed paste) and baked. Delicious!

After delicious chocolate drinks, we decided to go on a major walking tour of Bratislava’s Old City. For those of you not familiar with Bratislava’s illustrious past, it was the seat of the Hungarian Habsburg’s power from the 1500s through into the 1800s. Numerous kings and queens were crowned there, and one of our first stops included St. Michael’s Cathedral, THE coronation spot. There were even little golden crowns embedded in the cobblestone streets to denote the path that the royalty used to take on Coronation Day. We followed them (backwards) for a little ways along the Danube and found ourselves at a beautiful castle/royal palace that overlooked the Slovakian border with Austria and Hungary.

Nadine and Saskia in the Old City.

Random Latin painted on the side of an old house.

St. Michael’s Cathedral…

…and a detail from the tower. Note the crown on the pillow.

Bratislava Castle.

Looking towards Austria and Hungary from Bratislava Castle.

After wandering for several hours, we were famished, so we stopped at this small, dimly lit restaurant for lunch. Nadine stuck with the stand-by of crepes with fruit filling, and while I have to admit that they were great, they paled in comparison to my dish: little gnocchi-like things in a cottage-cheese sauce with Canadian bacon. It was creamy, it was cheesy, it was salty, smoky, and bacon-y, but the most amazing thing was that it was made with real cottage cheese! Every time that we have looked for cottage cheese (which isn’t really that often… I mean, it’s just cottage cheese…), I’ve come up with local variants that have very little to do with the ubiquitous Minnesota side aside from a (probable) common dairy background. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that all it took was a trip to Slovakia to find the little curds.

Following our late lunch, we headed back out into wonderful Bratislava, which included the old Town Hall and crossing the Danube and exploring the other side of the city. While crossing offered us an excellent opportunity to view the city from without (we’d only seen Bratislava from the ground-level, deep in the heart of it all), I must say that the charm of the Slovakian capital doesn’t quite extend across the Danube into its suburbs. Though the other side of the river is complete with a huge mall and is historically semi-significant, given that Napoleon bombarded Bratislava from that side, it was just somewhat, well, blah. Despite an overcrowded tram ride back later that evening, we were very happy to make our way to the city center.

The building where the Peace of Pressburg was signed. Bratislava was known as Pressburg for many years, and this is where Napoleon signed a peace deal with Austria during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Old Town Hall.

Detail of the Old Town Hall. Note the cannonball!

Danube River. It really is blue!

The “new” parts of Bratislava.

The “UFO” of Bratislava. It’s actually a restaurant on the New Bridge over the Danube.

The UFO at sunset.

Since we’d had a full day of walking and sight-seeing, it was high time for us to head off to dinner. Saskia and Matej felt sorry for their dog Minka, who had been alone all day, and so they decided that we should bring her with us to dinner. So, after gathering the dog we headed to Animal’s Pub, where the menu included a bit of kibble for their four-legged patrons. Unfortunately, however, so much time has passed since we were there that I can’t give a blow-by-blow of the evening’s repast, and I only remember that I had something with lots of meat. While this may seem mean and cruel, given that we were eating with a vegetarian (Matej) and an animal (Minka), I do remember that it was delicious as well! I vaguely remember eating fries with my meal, but that’s about it.

Everyone was full afterwards, but Minka wasn’t quite ready to call it a night, so we headed over to a small hole-in-the-wall place that specializes in these small Slovak pancakes called paláčinki. Again, time, language, and distance has made the specifics a bit fuzzy, but I do remember that for a mere pittance, we all had these cute little filled pancakes. Mine was something called a Geodeka or something, which meant that it had a chocolatey-caramel sauce inside. I’m not sure what it was aside from wonderfully sweet and highly satisfying after all of the meat (I think?) that I had at Animal’s Pub.

Anyway, after that we headed back to Saskia and Matej’s place for the night, and the next morning it was off to Vienna. We’d had a wonderful day and a half in Slovakia, and it completely made fans out of us. Since then, Saskia was kind enough to send us a basic Slovak textbook, though I’ve been too busy to crack it open yet. In any case, I can highly recommend Slovakia and Bratislava!

The Little Carpathians from Saskia’s apartment.

For Vienna, however, you’ll all have to wait for part two, since it is Christmastime and we are enjoying the holidays at Nadine’s parents' house. Again, my apologies to all for such intermittent updates, but if it’s any consolation there are just two more trips to talk about!

Merry Christmas!

Playing Catch-Up

2008-09-24T01:55:00.001-07:00

Sorry for leaving you all in the lurch! We've only been home six days in the last two weeks, which leaves us but little time to update. Curious as to what we did? Keep reading!

First off, we made our first international trip (well, while we're on our international trip…) to Děčín, in the Czech Republic. By the way, Děčín is pronounced "Dyecheen," for those of you that don't speak Czech, or don't have a wife and friends that speak it! A good friend of ours from Madison is there for a year teaching English and working on an International Policies project. Currently, she's the closest American, and she's definitely the closest Minnesotan (Amanda is from St. Cloud). We took the train across the border, where Amanda met us at the train station. It was a rainy, gloomy day, but we had great company, so the time flew by.

The next day, we got to visit with our friends Jana and Matthias. They've got two small children (one is two years old, and the other is eight months), so we got to experience life with little ones for a short time. They're fun, but noisy!

The day after that, we took a sight-seeing trip to a little district of Dresden called Löbtau to watch a movie called I Served the English King, or something like that (the title was in German). Nadine wanted to practice her Czech, since the movie is set in the Czech Republic before, during, and after World War II. Unfortunately, you never hear Czech being spoken, since the Germans have a penchant for dubbing, rather than subtitling their foreign language imports.

Löbtau was… interesting. Whenever we've discussed that part of Dresden with people, they've either given us a surprised look or knowingly chuckled. The movie theater that we went to is in an old factory, which Nadine thought would be hip and cool. Unfortunately, it was also located in the dingy, poverty-stricken, and politically radical part of Dresden. We've decided not to revisit the district, in part because it was the only time I have ever been that nervous in Europe. There are definitely some scary (and fiercely xenophobic) parts of Dresden, but fortunately, we now know that they're mostly in Löbtau.

After that we were in Narsdorf for a few days, watching the cats sleep under the apple trees. Well, it was a bit cold outside, so they spent most of their time inside, begging for food. Finally, on Monday we went shopping for a new jacket for Nadine. As you may be getting, the weather here took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse. The weekend before we went to Děčín, we were visiting Nadine's parents for a few days. Since it's a little ways from Dresden, we had to bring a few days' worth of clothes. It was nice and warm (upper sixties, lower seventies), so we brought t-shirts and thin little jackets. That was Friday. Saturday dawned rainy and cold (lower forties), and we were woefully without anything warm for two days. We're still waiting for it to warm up, but the rumor is that it's coming at the end of this week… We'll see.

One of the biggest things that we've noticed here might be the weather. We're so used to the Continental climate that the Midwest enjoys (or suffers through, depending), that having the weather turn so suddenly really leaves us spinning. It's so common for us to have clouds, then rain, then sun, then rain, then sun, then clouds, all in the same day. Plus, there doesn't seem to be any accurate way of predicting anything. It's not like Wisconsin, where we know that if it is raining, it will rain for the next several days. Conversely, if it is sunny, we'll have beautiful weather for a week.

So, anyway, that's where we've been for the last couple of weeks! Busy-busy-busy… Photos are coming, so keep your eyes peeled!

Leipzig and Chemnitz and Dresden, Oh My!

2008-09-07T12:03:00.001-07:00

What a whirlwind of activity these last few days have been, as we prepare to start our new lives in Germany! First to Leipzig, where we did a bit of shopping and I picked up some ingredients for one of my world-famous meals; then to Chemnitz the next day to see old friends; finally to Dresden (after I made my mouth-watering Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken… recipe to come in a later post, undoubtedly) to see one of our apartment choices.

This was our first train ride so far, and it was short but sweet. The ride from Narsdorf to Leipzig is short, made all the more so by some super-fast trains. We didn't have very many people on the train with us, although just on the other side of the seat there was a large, angry-looking woman who seemed… peeved that we were taking pictures and not just quietly sitting still. She kept to herself though (fitting, I think), and the ride was uneventful. (Pictures can be found below... I forgot that Nadine included them in her P.S. a few days ago!)

Once we got into Leipzig, we met with our friend Katja, and had coffee while we caught up a bit.

The café was near the Thomaskirche, where a guy named Joe used to play the organ. The nice thing about Leipzig is that it's so welcoming that even some guy named Joe can get his own statue.

"Joe" Bach.

The Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

Okay, I'm not sure how long he was in Leipzig, and he probably wouldn't appreciate me calling him "Joe," but Bach and the cultural history of Leipzig really come through when you're wandering the streets there. The streets are clean, the people are generally friendly, and you've got this feeling of a past that you can't beat. Plus, when you're in Leipzig (and probably other places, I just haven't found them yet), you can pick up Spritzringe. We stopped at a little café for lunch with Nadine's mom (schnitzel baguette sandwich for me; fruit and yogurt for Nadine; and a salad and fruit and yogurt for Nadine's mom), and Nadine and I had Sprtizringe for dessert.

I know that I have previously discussed the merits of Kuchen. Indeed, I stand by Kuchen as one of the best desserts available to man. However, Spritzringe definitely deserve their space in the Pantheon of Sweets. These delectable, puffy pastry rings are covered with a sweet, creamy glaze; at the risk of becoming a blasphemous heretic, I would describe them as donuts' European kin. But, if you will, imagine the fluffiest, softest, moistest donut you've ever had, then top it with a simple glaze that melts when you look at it. Mmm. Yes, I'm drooling.

Mmmm... Spritzring...

After that, it was off to do a bit of shopping, and then home.

The next day, we went to Chemnitz. We did, however, have to ride bicycles up to the train station, since we were running late and it's a short piece from Nadine's parents' house. As you may notice, my memory of that morning is tinged with less-than-joyful thoughts, as I don't describe the short journey with enthusiasm. Apparently, my, ahem… purely coincidental riding of Nadine's mom's bike that coincided with the bike's unfortunate (though only temporary) self-destruction, has led to my being banned from that bike. That's right, I was stuck with her dad's bike.

My nemesis. The one with the seat that angles sharply upward.

After a soothing ride to Chemnitz Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station), we were picked up by our friends David and Susanne. David and Nadine have known each other since they were in elementary school and David is from the same town as Nadine. We spent a quiet afternoon looking at pictures, and Susanne made a baked noodle-ham-cheese dish, which, along with the best cucumber salad I've ever had kept us all full and happy.

David and Susanne.

Then, David and Susanne dropped us off at our other friends' house. Those of you who've known us for at least a year and a half may remember that we went to Germany last year to be at Susi and Marcel's wedding; they live in Chemnitz with their 3-year-old son Noah, and we spent a late afternoon with them before high-tailing it back to Narsdorf on the train.

Finally, the next day we had the delicious Fettuccine Alfredo for lunch, then skipped off to Dresden to see one of the possible apartments. There will be more on that to come in the next few days.

As for now, it's time for me to sign off, since we need to get up early tomorrow and head off to Dresden again… Stay tuned!

Of Idyllic Days and Broken Gearshifts

2008-09-03T12:55:00.001-07:00

As I finally admitted to my mom today on the phone, yes, we are definitely on vacation! Our days are filled with hours of sleeping in (we blame it on the jet-lag… right, jet-lag…); late lunch, usually something warm, delicious, and hearty; a bit of sun and afternoon laziness topped off with coffee and Kuchen; then you try desperately to digest before dinner comes around, consisting of slices of black bread and cold cuts or cheese or both; as if that wasn't enough, as the sun dips low over the hills of Narsdorf, it's time for a Radeberger beer, then off to bed. For those of you studying German in preparation for a visit to wonderful Deutschland, Kuchen is the German word for cake. That, however, is usually where the similarity ends; when I say "Kuchen," I don't mean yellow cake with frosting or any such thing. Instead, it is this wonderful layered bar with a sweet, yeasty bottom, fruit or some other type of filling, and then a streusel topping. If you've ever had my peach or blackberry Kuchen, you may be able to extrapolate out the complex, amazing dessert that it is.

Every now and again we do rouse out of our tryptophan-induced slumber and venture out into the world, however. As Nadine just pointed out to me, "Hey, we're way more active than that!" For example: following a filling and delectable meal of meat-filled, braised cabbage leaves (don't knock it- it tastes a lot better than it sounds…) we went for a hike with Nadine's parents. Rochlitzer Berg is the local mountain, which, as any good native of Narsdorf can tell you, is a major and noteworthy hill- er, I mean, mountain.

The way from Narsdorf to Rochlitz Mountain. Note the lush woods on the mountain.

While the exact elevation may be in question (I'm still working on the "meters" to "feet" or "yards" conversion), one thing I can attest to is its beauty. Nearly every visit to Germany over the last nine years has included a visit to Rochlitzer Berg, if only to visit the café at the top (it's accessible by car, thankfully). Having grown up in the woods of Northern Minnesota, it's like a home-away-from-home-away-from-home for me. Some things are very similar to the plants and animals I've known since I was small.

Ferns.

Some, however, are not.

The photo is blurry (which doesn't help), but I have no idea what these flowers are...

Either way, last Sunday we made the first of (hopefully) many trips to that outdoor paradise; we didn't go all the way to the top since we had just eaten, but just being there was enough for me.

Path wending through the woods on Rochlitz Mountain.

An ancient marker on Rochlitz Mountain. Note the sword etched on it.

Now to the point in question: the broken gearshift.

As Nadine pointed out in her post, her mom's bicycle broke yesterday. As she also gleefully pointed out, I was riding it when said breaking occurred. However (and more to my favor), the bike under scrutiny here is about fifteen years old. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday morning (or rather, yesterday early afternoon) as we were finishing up brunch, Nadine asked if I wanted to go for a bike ride to the town where she went to school as a kid. Admittedly, it took a bit of persuasion for me to agree to the bike ride, since previous attempts at leisurely bike rides through the countryside here have proven… painful. Previous excursions were courtesy Nadine's dad's bike, which has a seat that angles sharply upward in the front. Suffice it to say, there must be an acquired method of sitting to fully enjoy that bike's use, and I never was able to acquire it. My reluctance, however, was eased when Nadine's mom offered the use of her bike, a stalwart steed that had performed admirably since the early nineties.

Shortly thereafter, as we were gliding along the scenic route between Narsdorf and Ossa, I attempted to shift from the Pastor-Fred-Gear (read: super difficult. Pastor Fred normally bikes over thirty miles every day, going up and down mountains included…) down to normal human gears, I noticed that nothing happened. I was surprised at this, as there was zero resistance from the gear shift. It went down to one and up to, well, a higher number, then back again without any resistance. This meant that when we finally coasted into Ossa, I was not only concerned that Nadine's mom's bike was not functioning properly but also concerned that I would then have to bike all the way back with no easy gears. Ossa itself was nice, but the beauty was lost on me, as I worried over the impending ride and confession of destruction.

The hilly, hilly, road to Ossa.

Nadine's school.

I have since learned that the mistake that I made was as follows: on any red-blooded American bike, you shift while you are pedaling; else the chain gets all mucked up and falls off. German bikes are different. When you pedal while you shift on a German bike, the gearshift's cord, which over the years has worn down to but one lowly and slightly rusted wire, snaps. So, with the suddenly non-functioning gearshift, we eventually rolled into the driveway, tired from the ride.

This small misunderstanding regarding the mechanics of European bikes did have a nice outcome, however. Once we got back to Nadine's parents' house, we promptly turned around and headed up the road to the town of Geithain, where the bike-repair shop is.

Narsdorf to Geithain. And then back again. Ugh!

While the bike-repair people performed surgery on the wounded Fahrrad, we got to enjoy a small park with this monument:

This says (loosely): The fallen sons of the city of Geithain in the war for the Fatherland, 1870-1871.

and have Kuchen at a local bakery. We stopped at the bakery because they advertised éclairs. Since the monument was for local soldiers who fought in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), I thought it only appropriate that we liberate the French- er, I mean German baked goods from French tyranny. Unfortunately, some things must not have translated quite accurately when the recipe was repatriated, and the éclairs were definitely not worth the Euro or two that we spent on them. We eventually arrived home, tired from our long day, but happy that the bike had been given a new lease on life.

Another curiosity in the former East Germany: small cobblestones with a "T" on them. During communist times, it meant that there was a telephone there in case of emergency.

So, there you have it. We are (apparently) more active than hibernating animals, and are enjoying our vacation here in beautiful Germany. As Nadine hinted, we visited Leipzig today, so look for a post on our trip there after we get back from another trip (to Chemnitz) tomorrow.

My erstwhile companion of late, Susi Schildkröte, in the Irmscher pond.

-Adam

Nadine’s P.S.

2008-09-03T10:35:00.001-07:00

Here's a little taste of our time at my parents' house so far: upon our arrival in Germany, they surprised us with this beautifully crafted cherry torte. It was delicious!

We then spent a couple of days acclimatizing and did not venture further than my parents' very idyllic backyard. We certainly didn't have cats sunbathing underneath apple trees in Madison! I think our own "little" kitty would have a lot of fun chasing after birds and butterflies here. But, the village tomcats also have to defend their territories against neighboring felines and prove themselves to the female sex. The resulting battles can be ferocious! The cat in the picture has a battered ear as a result of summer courting rituals and the other kitty here does not leave the house very often.

After successfully sleeping off jet lag and travel fatigue, we then started exploring places beyond the village confines. I had wanted to go on a bike ride for a while and so yesterday Adam and I started off towards a tiny village called Ossa (2km away), so that I could show Adam where I went to elementary school. I entered school under the old Communist regime, and going to school on Saturdays and commemorating the Communist martyr Ernst Thälmann are inextricably linked to Ossa in my mind. Unfortunately, the monument has been removed and I wasn't quite sure what exact building used to house the school, but the bike ride was fun nonetheless. Until Adam broke my mom's bike, which has been her trusted ride for fifteen years.

Adam inspecting the damage he's done.

My mom uses her bike on a daily basis, so we had to get it fixed right away. Adam had torn the gear shift; as punishment he had to cycle in the hardest gear to the closest town, Geithain (5km away), where we got the gear shift fixed, strolled about, and indulged in some baked goods. However, we wound up riding more than three times the 4km we set out to complete and I can definitely feel the effects in my legs today!

Today we went on our first big trip, to the city of Leipzig (30 min. by train) to do some shopping and to meet with one of my best friends. We had a lovely time and got to ride the train for the first time. Thanks to my parents, we now both own a "BahnCard 50," which allows us to travel within Germany for half the normal price of rail tickets. Essentially one of us gets to ride the train for free and we only spent €8 total on tickets today ($12.00).

Narsdorf train station

The first of probably many views of the inside of German train cars.

Tomorrow it's off to Chemnitz (25 min. by train) to see friends. We're of course taking the train again; got to collect those bonus points from Deutsche Bahn (a kind of Miles & More program for rail travel)!

To sum up

2008-09-01T04:03:00.001-07:00

Okay, let's bring everyone up to speed…

For the last couple of weeks (before the trip to Germany) we were hanging out at Fred and Sarah's in Shepherdstown. For those that don't know, Fred was Nadine's boss when we lived out East. He's the pastor of our home church, St. James' Lutheran, and another church that form the Shepherdstown Lutheran Parish. While we lived out East, Nadine and I were unofficially adopted by Fred and Sarah, and they have graciously hosted us numerous times over the last several years.

Rather than give a play-by-play of the two weeks, here is a basic description that fits most days: sleep late, run errands or have coffee somewhere, then it was off to Jason and Jessie's for me and Olympics for Nadine. As most of you know, I am not that big into sports, so the Olympics didn't hold quite the same appeal for me as they did to Nadine, plus it gave her bonding time with Fred and Sarah. We didn't ultimately go to Charlottesville, though we had planned on driving down. Despite the apparent laziness in the above description, we were fairly busy. Our daytime was filled with trips to Borders in Hagerstown, a few side-trips to Charles Town, Ranson, Martinsburg, etc., and just seeing lots of people that we don't usually get to see on a regular basis. We spent so long living out there while we were in college, that Shepherdstown has this homey feeling, complete with lots of friends.

Jason and Jessie (courtesy of Jessie's Myspace).

While at Jason and Jessie's, I got to interact with all sorts of wildlife. In Wisconsin or Minnesota, you hear about things like praying mantises, katydids, and cicadas, but you rarely see them. Over the course of several evenings, I got to play with all of the above. Fauna-wise, West Virginia is a bit different from the Midwest.

Adam and a friend.

I shall name it... Zorak!

Adam's dirty fingers and a cicada.

At the end of our two-week layover, Jason and Jessie and Fred and Sarah threw a farewell/birthday party for us. It was a great gathering, with friends and former professors (turned friends, now that we're graduated), as well as a bunch of delicious food. I think that my favorite items at the party were the sea-salt brownies that Jessie made, and the cilantro-pesto pasta salad with pistachios and raisins that Dr. Henriksson brought. We were so glad that everyone could make it, and those that had prior engagements were missed. Thank you to Jessie, Jason, Fred, and Sarah!

Dr. Jerry Thomas, Nadine, Sarah Soltow, and Dr. Anders Henriksson.

Robb and Jason.

Sarah's Chiminea, which kept us warm all night.

Sarah also makes what she calls a Candlelight Garden. It was beautiful.

Finally, on the morning of the 28^th, we got a lift from Fred to BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport). Our flight was not until 11:15 a.m., but we got underway at 6:30, since we weren't sure what traffic would be like or how crowded the airport might be. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of other people on the road and we made pretty good time. We bade Fred farewell at a little after 8:00 and dragged our luggage (2 pieces each, around 40 pounds per bag) up to the counter. There was a nice woman working there who helped us with our bags and got us all set. Despite the fact that some of our bags stayed extra-long in Philadelphia, without the ticket-agent we would likely still be waiting for them to arrive. For some reason, they were only checked through to Frankfurt when she originally ran off the stickers.

Shepherdstown to BWI.

After making our way to the gate, we hung out for the last couple of hours, with Nadine watching DVDs on her new portable player while I played computer games. 11:15 finally rolled around, and we hopped on our flight to Philadelphia. Before dropping us off, Fred joked that he could have driven us up to Philadelphia in less time than it took to fly there. Considering that the entire time we spent in the plane to Philly was about 45 minutes (our total air-time was 16 minutes), and we had almost three hours of waiting before we took off, he probably could have.

BWI to Philadelphia.

Philadelphia was okay. We were really excited when we got there, since the airport advertised free wireless for students. We promptly signed up, only to find out that it was not available in our terminal. Plus, the terminal was ominously quiet. We were expecting a lot more people, since it is such a large place, but maybe they don't use that terminal very often. All in all, we spent several quiet, lonely hours waiting for our next flight.

We hopped on our plane at 4:00 or so, but there was a delay getting off the tarmac, and we didn't take off for nearly an hour. I will admit, though, that U.S. Airways was a fairly nice airline, as far as trans-Atlantic travel is concerned. We had individual screens to watch t.v. and movies on, plenty of space (except for my seat- there was a big piece of machinery or something blocking the underside of the seat in front of me, which meant no leg room), and the food was higher-than-usual-airline-food quality. We each had a tex-mex chicken dish, with rice, corn, black beans, tomatoes, and chicken; a dinner roll with butter; a Caesar salad; and a brownie.

Philadelphia to Frankfurt.

The flight itself wasn't bad either. We must have had favorable winds, because it took less time than predicted. Which, given the loud woman two rows back who was drunkenly harassing the person sitting next to her about where she should go in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, etc., was a good thing.

We spent most of our time in Frankfurt dozing and listening to music, since by the time we had arrived, we'd been up for almost twenty hours. At 10:10 a.m. (local time), we hopped on a little puddle-jumper and flew the final leg into Leipzig, where Nadine's dad picked us up and drove us home.

Frankfurt to Leipzig.

Leipzig to Narsdorf, Germany. Ahh, home.

And that, my friends, brings us to Narsdorf, Germany, our current location. We've not done much since we arrived, but I have taken a few photos, and will write up a sufficient narrative soon.

Until then!

Deutschland, Deutschland, Über A-a-lles

2008-08-30T04:22:00.001-07:00

After about twenty-four hours of traveling, we finally arrived in Leipzig. Well, at least Nadine and I did, plus two of our bags. Two other bags decided to go sightseeing, and we're pretty sure that they caught the next flight out of Philadelphia after ours.

We've had a good night's sleep, and I think that we may have successfully avoided the dreaded jet-lag. I'll be updating a bit more later today or tomorrow, and give all of you a detailed account of our last two weeks in Shepherdstown and the harrowing tales of our overseas travel.

Sorry for the sparse posts in the last couple of weeks, but now that the ball is really rolling, prepare for long and frequent posts!

-Adam

P.S. The words to the German national anthem no longer say "Germany, Germany, over everyone." I'm told that the updated version is something like "Germany, Germany, one Fatherland."

P.P.S. If you ever notice odd characters or funny letters, it's because German keyboards are laid out differently. Sometimes I forget that while I type...

A Pennsylvania Chautauqua

2008-08-16T17:35:00.001-07:00

As promised, today we went to Pennsylvania to meet with our friends Steve and Caroline. Nadine and Caroline were in the same cohort at UW, and were fast friends early on. Steve and Caroline were gracious hosts for multiple backyard grill-outs and parties, since they were the only "real people" that we hung out with on a regular basis (translation: they had a house, not an apartment).

Steve and Caroline in Mt. Gretna today.

A few months ago they moved back to Philadelphia, heralding the break-up of our circle of friends. The parting was not so bitter, though, because we knew that we would have this extra time in Shepherdstown and could drive up to Pennsylvania and meet with them. So, this morning we got up and hit the road at around 9:15 AM, headed for Mt. Gretna, PA.

125 scenic miles of mountains, trees, streams, and sunlight.

We took a very scenic route, driving up through Maryland, over mountains and through state parks, then into Pennsylvania, where we carefully skirted Gettysburg on our way east. I say carefully, because even though we were not driving through the battlefield itself, I still complained of a heightened blood pressure, quickened heartbeat, shortness of breath, and nervous tapping once I started recognizing road names. For those of you that don't know, the first time I was on the battlefield there, about twelve years ago, my parents were barely able to slow the car down to a tolerable speed before I was literally leaping out of the moving vehicle. Therefore, I think I was quite well-behaved, given the circumstances.

While on the road, however, Nadine let it slip why she and Caroline had picked Mt. Gretna: there was a major Arts and Crafts festival going on. Now, normally, I hate arts and crafts festivals like some people hate clowns, so suffice it to say that I would have been happy to turn the car around and head back to Gettysburg.

My reaction to the news that we were going to an Arts and Crafts Festival.

But, we had friends to meet, and they would have been less than enthused about the Civil War battlefield nearby. I was a little surly, especially when traffic got crazy and women pushing strollers down the middle of the road were playing chicken with our Honda.

Yet although it was crowded, it was a good time. The trio of Nadine, Steve, and Caroline got some lunch (french fries, an orzo salad, and a quesadilla, respectively) at "The Goodie Shoppe," and we sat on hay bales and chowed down.

Nadine and Steve outside of the Goodie Shoppe, one of the largest food tents I've ever seen outside of the Midwest.

Then it was on to the booths. There were a lot of nice things and a lot of kitschy things, but after a while of wandering we finally came upon the artist Phill Singer's booth. I couldn't resist this painting:

and we wound up getting it and its lovely frame. It will live at Fred and Sarah's for the next year, then come home with us.

Just one (of many, many, many others) humorous piece of kitsch. Wyatt, for some reason it reminds me of you.

Mt. Gretna is a nice little community, mainly composed of vacation houses. It was founded in the 1890s, as a Chautauqua, or center of learning. The Methodists founded a number of these throughout the country, and they helped drive the Populist movement of that era. At one time, before the Chautauqua was even there and all that existed was a chestnut grove, President Benjamin Harrison came out and picnicked in the woods. Unfortunately, it is definitely NOT built to handle the thousands of festival-goers that were there today.

One of many signs adorning Mt. Gretna's streets.

The congestion that backed up country roads for miles.

After we got the painting, we continued on and stopped by a woman with a selection of musical instruments, most notably her washtub bass and her band-mate's Harpolin, or Harpolin-bowed psaletery. Essentially, it is a harp that sits across the lap, but then it also has a little violin-esque attachment that he plays with a bow using his other hand. It was very unique, and we were fortunate enough to have them play a few songs.

John Kovac and anonymous washtub bass woman.

One of the other performers we found was this guy:

who was putting on a show with a monkey. It was sort of a mix of magic, comedy, and monkey, but was very entertaining. At least to Steve and I. We kept looking at each other, nodding in affirmation that yes, it was good, because yes, it was a monkey.

Finally, we stopped at a small pizzeria and grabbed a couple of slices, a cheesesteak for me, and an ice cream for Nadine. It was okay food, but I think the biggest thing we were looking for was a spot in the shade and somewhere to sit.

A scant couple of hours later and we were home (well, we did take a little bit of time out for soft-serve at the best ice-cream parlor in the world, Nutter's Ice Cream of Sharpsburg, MD). It was a long day, but a lot of fun. And despite my initial skepticism, even the Arts and Crafts was fun, although part of that was undoubtedly the wonderful company that we had. Thanks for the great day, Steve and Caroline, and we hope to see you across the pond!

Nadine's P.S.

2008-08-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give a big shout-out to public transportation. What better way to start off our adventures than by taking a train?! Especially since train (and tram) travel will be our primary means of transportation in Europe. I also love this little book below. It contains historic and current maps of all metro system in the world and already served us well today when navigating the D.C. metro system. Yay for green traveling! - Nadine

Alexandria isn't just for Egyptians

2008-08-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Wonderful West Virginia! My apologies for a couple of days of silence. We've been recuperating, meeting people that we haven't seen for some time, and just enjoying having a couple of days off.

The last few days have been fairly uneventful. In essence, Monday through Wednesday, we did little venturing beyond the door of Fred and Sarah's house. Borders (in Hagerstown, MD) and Martin's Foods (Martinsburg, WV) are the full extent of the explorations for those days, and that was mainly so that I could make my famous Moroccan Chicken Stew and my Chicken Alfredo. Other than that, I've hung out several times with our other friends, Jessie and Jason, who we've been friends with since college.

Until today!

A friend of ours from Madison, Maggie, has been living in Alexandria, VA with her fiancee. We figured it is not a long drive from Shepherdstown, so we got up bright and early this morning (6:00 AM) and caught the 7:40 AM MARC train from Brunswick, MD. By about 10:00 AM, we were in sunny and humid Washington D.C.

Union Station in Washington, D.C. - Pretty nice for a train station!

The Capitol Dome from Union Station.

First things first, we stopped at a greasy spoon near the train station called Bagels and Baguettes or some such thing. It was okay... Rather greasy, even Nadine's plain croissant. But, it gave us fuel for the next phase.

Since we were meeting Maggie at 12:30, and we still needed to take the Metro out from the Mall, we decided to hit a museum. We are, after all, a couple of certified historians! We had never been to the new Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. It is a nice museum, and I am glad that they spent so much time on their exhibits. It is very tastefully done, and seems like it would be kid-friendly, too. Highly recommendable!

Then it was off to Alexandria. We took the Metro to the King Street exit, then were picked up by Maggie. Maggie and Nadine took their preliminary examinations together, and have been friends ever since that trial by fire. Nothing bonds grad students quite like the pre-lims ordeal (or so I've been told).

When we were on the way to downtown Alexandria, I mentioned that I knew very little about the town, other than that Robert E. Lee lived there, and that the first blood of the Civil War was spilled there. Skip the following if the Civil War is not exactly your cup of tea.

(In May of 1861, James Jackson, the strongly pro-Confederate owner of the Marshall House, flew a large Confederate flag over his hotel. When Union troops under Col. Elmer Ellsworth crossed over from D.C., they immediately went to the roof and tore down the flag. On their return, however, James Jackson ambushed them with a loaded shotgun. Col. Ellsworth, a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, took the lethal blast to the chest at point-blank range. Ellsworth's troops promptly bayonetted Jackson, who died of his wounds.)

Death of Col. Elmer Ellsworth (from an eye-witness description), May 24, 1861.

Anyway, as we were walking to Maggie's recommended restaurant, La Madeleine, what should we see but the following:

Plaque on the side of the Marshall House.

Marshall House, ca. 1860s.

The Marshall House today.

I was overjoyed. I eventually went in and asked if there were any exhibits, but the building now houses the swank Hotel Monaco, and has long since renovated over any Civil War-related areas and donated any historical materials to the local historical society.

We then went to La Madeleine, which is apparently a local chain restaurant. Nadine had their Crepes Romanoff (whole-wheat crepes with a strawberry, cream, and brandy sauce); I had the Croque Monsieur (ham, swiss, and a creamy garlic sauce) half-sandwich, black-pepper potato chips, and a cup of potato-leek soup; and Maggie had a vegetable pasta dish. We then topped it all off with desserts (mini-tiramisu and a single espresso for me, mini-sacher torte for Maggie, and mini-fruit tart for Nadine). Great food! If you're ever in Alexandria, it is well worth the stop.

We then wandered a bit. I finally got to see the exhibit on the Marshall House at the Lyceum, which is like a little Alexandria Historical Society. It was kind of sad, as there was no one there, save for me, a guy from New England, and a woman behind the counter muttering to herself and collecting the "suggested" $2.00 admission fee. Nadine and Maggie waited outside. Sadly, muttering-lady may not have realized that she was muttering to herself: the guy from New England kept asking if the building was haunted, because he kept "hee-ahring whispuhs." The woman said that she didn't hear anything, and as soon as she was alone again, would go back to muttering, and it would start all over again.

Fun-fact about Alexandria: From 1801 until 1847, Alexandria officially broke away from Virginia and was part of the District of Columbia. Apparently, its needs were not being served by the District, so it came back to the fold in 1847.

After that, we searched in vain for ice-cream, then high-tailed it to the Metro station. Following a few hugs and multiple declarations that Maggie needs to visit us in Shepherdstown (which she does!), we were back on our way. It was just the right timing, too, since it started to rain and lightning at that point.

When we finally got back to Brunswick, the sun had routed the rain clouds, and it was sunny yet again. After watching an altercation between a couple of commuters, and nearly getting t-boned at a round-about (round steak-ed?), we were home.

The Brunswick, MD train station, and a smattering of commuters.

That's all for now. We've got a slow day tomorrow, but we will be heading to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on Saturday, so keep watching for more updates soon!

The Eagle Has Landed

2008-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post for now, since we drove all day.

We've arrived in Shepherdstown, WV, and are lounging about on our friends' (Sarah and Fred's) couches. Nadine's got the Olympics on, I've got my computer humming away, and Sarah's got food cooking in the oven.

More later. Food and rest now.

Adam, Nadine, and Canned Heat

2008-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, Canned Heat did the song "On the Road Again."

Well, we hit the road today, sans John Morgan (our cat), but with a car full of stuff. Currently, I am in a Hampton Inn in Springfield, OH. Normally, we drive down through Chicago, pick up I-80, head off to I-76 near Pittsburgh, swing down to I-70, then Maryland Rt. 65 to good ol' Shepherdstown. On a good day, it should take about 13 hours or so. Whenever we've done the journey there or back, we've always done it in one day.

Today, however, we were up early and headed to the old apartment to finish cleaning. After a stressful morning and early afternoon of dusting, sweeping, and mopping, we were finally back to our friends' house (read: staging area for the move) to pack up and get underway.

Around 2:00 today, we jumped on the road. Instead of the normal route outlined above, we went straight down I-39, then took I-74 from Bloomington, IL to Indianapolis, IN. There, we
took up I-70 into Ohio.

I looked up the Hampton Inn in Springfield, and it got great marks. Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow, though so far it is a pretty nice hotel.

Other items of note: If you ever make it through Champaign County, IL, be on the lookout for "Burma-Shave" style advertisements for a local group called Guns Save Life. Not lives, mind you, but life. Their website http://www.gunssavelife.com/ should convey just how nutty they are. Unless you're into guns. A lot. At which point it's probably less nutty... I think my two favorite sign slogans were:

Dialed 9-1-1

And I'm on hold.

Sure wish I had

That gun I sold...

And:

My mom sleeps safe

She has no fear.

Thugs steer clear

or Bang! they'll hear.

Also, around Richmond, IN there is a real-estate guru with a TON of billboards. Not that uncommon, but he has some bad marketing people, esepcially considering his name: Tom Raper. Signs like "Tom Raper - All the right parts for the job," or "Tom Raper - Don't worry, he'll get it done." It should be innocuous, I know, but it just sounds ominous when a sign is declaring that he raper will get the job done.

That's all for tonight. It's late, and I need some rest before another long day of driving.

The End of an Era

2008-08-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day at Borders. I've been there since September 19th, 2007, so it wasn't that long, but it was definitely long enough for me to meet some great people. It was sort of a melancholy day, since I was having to say goodbye to some people that were very big parts of my life over the last year or so. There was cake, so it wasn't all bad, but it was still sort of sad. When Nadine came and picked me up, she said that it was really tumultuous for her, too. Borders has been such a big part of our lives, long before I started working there.

In addition to today being my last day at Borders, I finished working for the Mansion Hill Inn/Trek yesterday. I also finished up at the Wisconsin State Historical Society last month, so it's about time to start thinking about packing up and hitting the road.

We bought a couple of new suitcases this evening. They're the first ones that I have ever bought. Not that I am retiring the old ones, mind you. I've got some old bags that have served me well on multiple continents. But, with the major move to Germany, we were thinking that getting some jumbo sized pieces might work out a bit better, considering the amount of stuff we want to get overseas. Not like the new 50 lbs. limit on bags will allow us to carry all that much, but it's the thought that counts.

Photographs of the cake at Borders (thanks, Dayna!) and the farewell note to come once I can get the images to actually transfer to my computer. Currently, the image doesn't quite make it into the e-mail account when I text it...

Pre-Packaged

2008-07-30T12:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, a friend of ours went on a 'round-the-world trip. Throughout the trip, he kept up a blog so that friends and family could keep up with where he went and what he saw. I figured that it was a great idea, and you get to reap the benefits. Assuming, that is, that you actually want to follow my and Nadine's adventures through central Europe...

I stop working for Trek in a whopping two days, and will start packing us up. We're heading out to West Virginia before we go to Dresden, but I hope that the three weeks there will be productive while relaxing. Either way, I will keep you all updated!

Keep an eye here for updates, photos, and etc. as we begin our journey east, then really go east!