XP: Vote For Finn!!!

My friend, Andrea's son Finn has been entered in a baby photo contest. If she wins, they will get a fabulous photo session for one of the cutest little boys ever!

The polls are open and its is easy to vote! Go to the site and cast your vote for Finn! The contest opened on Friday, July 10th at 12 noon EST and will run till end of Monday, July 13th at midnight.

Thanks Ryan for this great idea! I'm sure once you get to the site, you too will see who is clearly the favorite in our hearts!

Thanks everyone and good luck Little Finn!!

Celebrating my birthday- three weeks delayed

I swear, I will get around to posting about our trip to Italy and our first trip to Paris, and the last day of school (thank goodness!!), but I am working on the computer that only has the most recent pictures on it.
We returned to Paris this past weekend, in order to celebrate my birthday. Yeah, I know, we did that three weeks ago. But, as I posted earlier, we missed my birthday dinner. On my birthday, we went in to Paris for the morning and early afternoon, and then drove about 25 miles out of Paris to our hotel to get changed for dinner. I guess I miscalculated, well, maybe we both did, but I assumed we could leave at 7:30 for our boat's 8:30 departure. That may have worked, if we didn't spend over an hour sitting in traffic entering Paris and then another 20 minutes trying to find the boat dock. Needless to say, as we were approaching the dock, we saw the boat sailing down the river. Bleh! I called the company immediately, and they told me that I could reschedule for any time, but getting my money refunded would be extremely difficult. So, I decided to reschedule for my first weekend of summer break, this way, I could go to work with Joern on Friday, and we'd have a head start to Paris. We manage to enjoy lovely dinner in the Montparnasse district for my birthday, but I was really looking forward to returning to Paris for another weekend, and my real birthday dinner.
This past Friday, I went to work with Joern, and he scheduled his day to bring us close to the French border. Since it was Friday, he was finished around 2:00 and we were able to head out to Paris! The weather was sunny and warm, and we had really no traffic the entire way, so we arrived by 7:30 pm. We stayed at the same hotel outside of Paris, where we stayed last time. Yes, the hotel is a major chain, Clarion, and your run-of-the-mill business hotel, lacking any Parisian charm, but it was much less expensive than any hotel in Paris. Plus, we booked their Executive Suite, with an amazing bed, separate living room / conference room (seriously, the dining table could easily accommodate 10 people for a meeting,) and an incredibly fabulous shower. Plus, it is near a huge shopping center and tons of restaurants.
Once we were checked in, we headed to the grocery store in the mall to pick up some food for breakfast. While we were walking around the very homey feeling mall, we found a microbrewery that really reminded me of home. And yes, we could have searched for some very French restaurant, but living abroad you learn that to eat like the locals doesn't always mean indulging in typical food, plus, Joern is always excited about trying a new beer. Dinner was great, I had a hamburger and Joern had a nice steak. We split a maple beer that was delicious! We headed back to the hotel, where we relaxed, enjoyed some French wine, and watched Back to the Future II on the DVD player.
After a leisurely morning on Saturday, we headed in to Paris in the early afternoon. We decided not to rush to monuments or museums, Paris needs a lot of time, so instead we drove around a while. Finally, we parked near Ile St. Louis, and decided to walk around for a bit.

Besides being home to Notre Dame, the Ile St. Louis is actually an adorable neighborhood with streets lined with cafes and shops. We really enjoyed just strolling along the streets. The walk from the city across the Seine was also lovely. Despite the crazy number of tourists, the area was quite peaceful.


Of course, it was fun to look into the windows of the shops and many boulangeries and patisseries of the area.




Since it was such a warm day, we decided to follow the crowd, and jump in one of the many lines at ice cream stands. Turns out, that was quite a wonderful decision. The shop we stopped at had incredible flavors. Joern tried the Pine Nut Praline and I had salted caramel. They were both delicious and perfect-me-overs for the afternoon.
From there, we headed to Notre Dame to check out the famed gargoyles.


Since we were in a bit of a time crunch, and the line to enter was long, we simply sat outside the church and listened to the bells chime.

On our way back to the car, we admired the Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, decorated quite patriotically for the 4th of July.


We headed back to the car, got changed, and headed towards the Eiffel Tower, near the boat dock. Since we had extra time, we drove around, and found the most incredible view of the tower- from the Trocadero. You could easily see other monuments from this spot too, including Les Invalides.


Once we found a parking garage, we made our way to the boat, and boarded around 8 pm. The cruise was incredible! We sat in the Premiere Service section, meaning we sat in the front of the glass covered boat. It was very romantic, the service was wonderful, and the food, although not Michelin starred, was pretty good. The cruise lasted two and a half hours, although I would not have minded if it lasted a lot longer. And that's where I'll end my written description of the weekend. I wish Sunday was better, but needless to say, there was too much wine and champagne included in the dinner. Sunday was not really a day to remember. Oh, and yes, the glare from the glass cover of the boat does detract a bit from the pictures. Sorry!









It was cool to celebrate the 4th of July with the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower!


My long-awaited birthday cake!

Joern's Birthday!

Joern's 35th birthday was on the 27th of May. We had a very quiet celebration with my in-laws, because I had to work until 8 pm, and because we were headed to Italy that weekend to celebrate.
We met my in-laws in Nuertingen at a wonderful little Greek restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we came home, and Joern got to dig in to his birthday cake, Paula Deen's caramel cake. It was by far, the easiest cake experience I have ever had- maybe because it was my 5th year of making the cake!

Joern's present from me was a meat slicer for his very precious Parma Prosciutto.
I am excited to see what this year has in store for Joern.
Oh, and even though its been almost a month, Happy Birthday again Joern. The celebration shouldn't stop :) I love you!

I'm hiding

Not really, but I haven't been around in a long time. School is over in 11 more days, so expect lots more detailed and exciting posts at the beginning of July. But, it has been busy here. On May 27th, Joern celebrated his 35th birthday. We enjoyed a Paula Deen caramel cake. On the 29th, Joern, Marcel, and I made our way to Parma for the long weekend here. We spent two days outside of Parma at our B&B and then went to Portovenere, on the Ligurian coast for a day.
Our 8th anniversary was on June 9th. We had a pretty quiet celebration, and enjoyed a delicious dinner of filet mignon and fresh pasta with traditional balsamic vinegar. Our desert were cupcakes that I prepared for work the following day, as June 10th was our last day of work before my birthday.
June 11th was a holiday here- of course, it was my 30th birthday! And we were lucky enough to be given June 12th, a Friday, off as well. With the amazing gift of a four day weekend coinciding with my big birthday, I decided Paris was an excellent destination! We left around 8 pm on Wednesday night, and made it in to Paris at 2 am. It was incredible to see the Eiffel Tower from bed as I woke up on my birthday morning! My birthday was spent meandering around Paris, with nothing really big in mind. We did have a dinner cruise on the Seine booked for Thursday night, which we ended up missing because we were stuck in traffic (our hotel on Thursday night was 30 minutes outside of Paris, and we had no idea traffic into Paris on a Thursday night would be so bad.) On Friday morning, I called the boat company, and rescheduled the dinner cruise for July 4th. You will read the full story in the upcoming weeks. Friday, we slept incredibly late, enjoying our plush king sized bed in our HUGE suite! We went to a mall for a little while, then returned to Paris for the afternoon. We walked along the Champs-Elysees all the way down to the Louvre, and enjoyed the Louvre's late Friday evening hours. On Saturday, we made our way out of Paris to Reims, in the Champagne area of France. We visited two Champagne houses, Ruinart and Mumm. Both were interesting. Ruinart also makes fabulous champagne! We drank lots of wonderful champagne and enjoyed exploring the town of Reims. We came home on Sunday, and were glad that we took it easy over the weekend. I'm also incredibly excited to return to Paris in 3 week's time.
In all, it was a wonderful 30th birthday. It was so much more than I ever could have imagined!!

Munich Day 2

I guess I should just start posting again with our second day in Munich, obviously a ton of time has passed, but I will just catch up chronologically.
After a great breakfast, and a not-too-good night's sleep, we were on our way at 9:30. Joern and Marcel had a ways to go to get to their 7 Series group meeting. So, Joern dropped me off at the main train station and they went on their way.
Because you just can't break me of some habits, I made my obligatory stop:

With my vanilla late in hand, I headed out to the Deutsches Museum One of the great things about German cities is public transportation. The U Bahn (subway system,) was so easy to navigate, clean, and brought me so very close to the museum.
The neighborhood around the museum is really lovely, it lies along the Isar, a major river in Munich. I really enjoyed the peaceful surroundings as I made my way to the museum.

The museum is gigantic! It is the world's largest science and technology museum, and is definately a boy's dream! I started off in the maritme exhibit hall. They had such interesting exibits, including an entire submarine,

and a very interesting recreation of a passenger ship from the 1800s. What especially drew me in was the segment that showed life on a ship for emigrants to the US. That could have been my family!
After the maritime exhibition hall, I headed to the aeronautics wing. My friend Emily, who lives in Munich, posted that the museum has a cross section of a Lufthansa passenger airplane, so I was intrigued. Of course, the aeronautics wing includes much more than simply the cross-section, they had a large mixture of both military and civilian aircraft. I was surprised how interesting I found this area!



From here, I headed to the paper and printing sections. Again, extraordinarily interesting. The paper exhibit included a Chinese costume made entirely from paper, as well as showcased a number of historical methods of paper making.


I wish I had been able to spend more time in the museum, but honestly, it was a bit overwhelming. I believe the best way to throughly enjoy the Deutsches Museum is in a couple of trips, so that your mind doesn't get completely overloaded by all the things to see and learn. On the way out though, I caught sight of a beautiful view of Munich's famous skyline, which includes the famous twin towers of the Frauenkirche.


Once I was done visiting, I met my friend Emily for the afternoon. It was so great spending the afternoon with Emily in her new hometown of Munich, as she knew so much interesting trivia and of course, it was so lovely to spend time with a fellow expat!
We enjoyed a fabulous, leisurely lunch out in the sun- it was probably the warmest day of the year up to that point (and since then as well.)
After our long lunch, we wandered around Munich for a while, chatting, and having Emily teach me all about the city. I think I need a refresher though before posting about the history- this will teach me not to take notes!!
We stopped and had some delicious ice cream, which helped to cool us down after baking in the sun at lunch.
We did find ourselves at the Viktualienmarkt though, which seems to be an incredible outdoor market. Unfortunately since it was Sunday afternoon, the stands were closed, but I do hope to visit again during opening hours, as it looks wonderful!


From the Viktualienmarkt, we wound back towards the Marienplatz, where Emily was kind enough to wait with me for Joern and Marcel to return from their BMW meeting. When they finally arrived, Joern was able to bribe Emily to have dinner with us (only a little salt was needed.) We had a fabulous dinner at Augutsiner Großgestätten, one of the many restaruants run by "Munich's beer," Augustiner. The building itself is really great because it has a very large interior courtyard, which definately helps on warm summer evenings. Dinner was much better than at the Hofbräuhaus, with a better atmosphere to boot! We had a great dinner with lots of laughs!


We had such a fun time, Joern and I are already talking about a return trip to Munich!

Munich Day 1

Last Saturday, Joern, Marcel, and I headed out for an overnight in Munich. Joern is a member of a BMW 7 Series club, and they had a memorial meeting for a member who passed away last year. Since the meeting was slightly outside Munich, I decided that I would skip the meeting, opting instead to visit with my friend Emily who has been in Munich for a few years now.
Our trip on Saturday took about two hours. Once we were in Munich, we had to wash the car, since a large emphasis of Joern's club's meetings involves looking at each other's cars.
Of course, Marcel thought he had different responsibilites in the car cleaning endeavour.

We then drove in to Munich, and had to pose for some pictures with one of our two babies:

From our photo op, we then went on to our version of Mecca, BMW Welt and the BMW Museum. Hello heaven!
The first stop with BMW Welt (BMW World,) it is basically a showroom with displays of current and future BWM technologies, as well as the pick-up location for new BMWs.

After looking at all the lovely cars, we made a stop by last year's Formula 1 model.

The boys were quite pleased with the many displays of the current BMW engines available today.

Before leaving, we walked up to the bridge from which you can watch people picking up their cars. Evidently, the cars are presented on little turn-tables, so that your car is completely the center of attention. The new BMW owners then get to drive their car right out of the showroom. BMW offers a great program for overseas buyers, which allows people to still pick up their car at BMW Welt, then to drive around Europe to their final desitnation of a shipping port, where you drop off your car for shipping overseas. I'm sure that it is a very special way to bond with your new car.


Because it was getting late, it was time to head over to the BMW Museum, which is right next to the headquarters of BMW. Quite possibly, my favorite place in the world!


The museum was even more lovely than we had expected. It was very well designed, as it starts at the top, and you spiral down. You don't have to go into all the sections, which made Joern happy because he was there to see cars, not motorcycles, and not to read about the history of the company.
At the very top, you begin with early BMWs.

From there, we made our way to the section devoted to the 7 Series, BMW's luxury line. We are super 7 Series people, as we have two "collector" 7 Series from the 1980s. Some of it, I think, is Joern's love for all things 1980s, but also, they are really special cars, and I know we're quite lucky to have two.
The most exciting thing for us was that the car they chose to represent the E32 model (1986-1992), the cars we have, is that we own the exact model, a 750, that was on display, same color, same interior. The only thing we agreed on though, is that our car's wheels are much better looking than those on the displayed car. I have never owned anything that was on display at a museum. We talked about how exciting it is that BMW picked our exact car as one of the best ones they ever made. Obviously, although we may be a bit biased, Joern and I wholeheartedly agree.

With our chests puffed out a bit more, we checked out the rest of the museum. The concept cars were quite interesting, especially the Z9, as you could see many elements that other BMWs have taken from it.

We enjoyed looking at two of the cars that were in James Bond films:

And Joern was particulary excited to see his first car on display as well:

Once we had our fill of the museum, we made our way to the center of Munich for dinner

After much discussion, Joern decided that he wanted to stick with what we know for dinner, so we went to the Hofbräuhaus for dinner.

It was crowded, and the waiter was ridiculously rude, but the food was pretty good and the beer went down great!

Frühlingsfest 2009

We went to the Stuttgart Frühlingsfest (Spring Fest) over the holiday weekend. The Frühlingsfest is like the Volksfest, just a smaller, springier version.
Joern, Marcel, and I went on Friday afternoon, and we met Joern's friend Fabio, and his wife and daughter.
Overall, it was a lot of fun. I am a sucker for these fests during the day and early evening. The atmosphere is quite fun and happy, and most of the people aren't too drunk yet.
Because Joern isn't really much of a "fest person," we only started going to fests last year. I found out that Joern actually brought me to the Frühlingsfest in May, 2000, during my first visit to Germany. During that first week we met, we were so excited to be together that we never slept. Joern was looking for something to do one night, and suggested the Fest. We only were able to go on one ride, the Wild Mouse, because we got there right before the fest closed. I don't remember much about the Fest because we weren't there long, and Joern didn't explain that we were visiting the Stuttgart's spring-version of Oktoberfest.
Now, I've turned it into a way to commemorate our first meeting nine years ago. It is so much fun to walk around the Fest grounds and talk about our first week together.
This year, we were offered a few moments alone, mostly on the rides, but that's okay too.
Here are a few highlights of our afternoon:



We probably went on a few more rides this year than the usual, the Wild Mouse, the Log Flume, the Alpina Bahn (roller coaster,) and the Polyp. Marcel and I went on the high swings, because you probably couldn't pay Joern to go on them.


What I really love about the Fest is the amazing sensory overload it supplies. I love the flashy, brightly colored stands, the plethora of stuffed animals at the game stands. I know it is all marketing, all intended on getting you to spend an extra Euro, but this is a very unique style of marketing. Something about the sights and sounds of the Fest really appeal to me.





We also stopped in the Göckelesmaier tent. There aren't as many tents at the Frühlingsfest as the Volksfest, but they're still fun, the chicken and the beer taste pretty good too.




All in all, it was a great day. The Fest is all about celebrating Spring, being Swabian, and well, the beer! Days like this make me feel so lucky for all the amazing experiences I have living here in Germany.