Rhine Aflame!

Last night (7/7/07!) we went on a Rhein river dinner cruise. We boarded the M.S. Loreley in Wiesbaden and sailed west on the Rhein, from Biebrich to roughly Trechtingshausen. On the ride out, we passed about six castles and several quaint German towns to include the famous Rüdeshiem, and the soon to be famous Assmannhausen (Seinfield anyone?).

Once we got to Trechtingshausen, our ship turned around and waited with some 70 other boats, in eager anticipation of the celebration about to begin!!! (Carrie made me write that). Just before 10 o'clock the fireworks began. It was a little odd seeing fireworks at sunset, but we enjoyed it nonetheless (yes, the sun now sets around 10 - 10:30 here).

We proceeded down the river, stopping at the castles we passed which were now "Aflame!" They used bright red flares to illuminate the castles, and at several, they launched fireworks from the ramparts. At one, they had special fireworks that streamed over the edge of a tall tower, making it look like a waterfall.

It was a fantastically fun night, but we were very tired by the end - docking at 2:00am and not getting home until three. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the short video.

Rhein Aflame

Dublin Trip

In mid-May, we met up with John and the rest of the University of Penn Glee Club in Dublin. It was definitely a whirl-wind trip, but it was so much fun! We went to the Guinness Factory for a tour. We didn't have a lot of time to make it through every floor...but we were sure to get to the most important part, the Gravity Bar for our pint! Best Guinness we ever had! We also visited Trinity College, and although The Book of Kells had technical difficulties that day, the college and the rest of the library was amazing to see. Since we weren't able to attend any of the Glee Club's performances, John got they guys to do an impromptu concert while we were at Trinity. They definitely impressed a lot of people...however, security did show up to chase us away! (Be sure to look at a short video in our photo album below!) We had a good time walking through Dublin, eating lunch at a pub, and finding The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest Pub. We also toured Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The entire church was magnificent, from the stained glass to the stonework.

Dublin Trip

Click on the picture to see our album!

Catch Up Time!

Ok, so it's been almost a month since we blogged last and really we don't have a good excuse. We have been busy and time seems to fly by and before we know it, we've done a ton of stuff and haven't told you guys about it at all! Hopefully, now that we're more settled in our house and getting more and more of the initial and one time only things out of the way, we'll be more efficient about keeping you informed. The nights seem to fly by...by the time we both get home, check email and the interwebs quickly, and eat dinner, it's at least 7 and then if we have to go to the store for anything, either groceries or a printer or vacuum or whatever, we have to get there before they close at 8. Since the time changed about a month ago, it stays light here until roughly 9 pm which is super exciting, although a little misleading at times! We're excited for the middle of summer, rumor has it that it's light until past 10!

So enough rambling, what have we actually been up to? There are a 3 new posts below, so keep on reading!And check back soon for some more info and PICTURES!

Trip to Holland

The weekend after Easter, Kurt and I went on the Tulip Time bus trip with Enjoy Tours to Holland. We boarded a bus in Darmstadt on Friday at 845 pm which took us to Mannheim, where we (luckily) boarded a larger, double-decker bus for the actual trip. When we boarded the first bus and sat down, I wasn't even comfortable. The seats were so close together, I didn't know how I would make the 6 hour trip to Holland! I knew Kurt couldn't possibly be comfortable and even offered, before the bus pulled out, to just forfeit the money and get off the bus rather than have a miserable weekend! Luckily, we were only on that bus for about an hour before we transferred to double-decker!

We drove overnight to the Netherlands. We arrived at a little bed and breakfast type place around 630 and got cleaned up as best as possible in a public restroom before a traditional European breakfast of primarily bread, meat and cheese. Postcard Charlie boarded the bus with us after breakfast and gave us a brief history of Holland dressed in traditional garb. He went with us to the first stop on the tour: the Cheese Farm, to explain the cheese making process. Attached to the cheese house, there was a little souvenir shop where we tasted several different types of cheeses and shopped for wooden shoes and other little souvenirs. I even saw some of the same souvenirs my Grandma brought back for me as presents when she went on a European tour when I was a little girl!

From here, we went to the Ratterman Wooden Shoe Factory. It was pretty impressive to see how a pair of wooden shoes is made in just a few minutes! Even though there were a number of patterns and colors to choose from we decided that we didn't really have the right outfit to wear with wooden shoes. =) But we did find a little pair for to use for a Christmas ornament!

By mid-morning, we were heading into Amsterdam. As soon as we arrived, we went on a canal tour of 'the Venice of the North.' An amazing amount of land that makes up the Netherlands actually was under water until the land was 'claimed from the sea' when dams were built. As a result, there are canals throughout the city that people use for transportation and have houseboats on. It was kind of surreal when the tour guide pointed to an industrial section of town and said that 5 years ago, that land wasn't there, it was under water.

Afterward, we toured the building that was the original Heineken Brewery. The tour was similar in concept to the Chocolate Tour at Hershey Park but fun all the same! There were several interactive portions of the tour, the favorite being "What is it like to be a beer bottle?" We stood on platforms and were jolted this way and that as if we were a beer bottle. We started in the factory, and went through the entire bottling process to being shipped and then opened at a club. Ok, so I lied, the favorite interactive portion of the tour were the two times we got free beer. About midway through the tour we each got a half pint and then at the end we got a full pint...Very nice. The end portion was so packed and sort of dimly lit and smelled like beer. We all agreed that it felt like a frat party...ah the good old days! =) The free gift at the end of the tour was a bottle opener that is the size of a credit card that fits in your wallet...pretty ingenious! =)

Amsterdam is one of the most bike friendly cities in the world. There were people riding bikes Everywhere! We saw women in short skirts, long skirts, people in dress clothes biking. There were kids sitting on handlebars and what looked like wheelbarrows attached to bikes. It was crazy. Seriously, when we wanted to cross a street, we had to be more cautious of bikes than of cars!

For dinner we went to a 'Traditional Chinese-Indonesian Rijstable (rice table) dinner' which basically seemed like a family style Chinese dinner. We had fun visiting with other friends on the tour with us, but felt that it was overpriced and we would have been just as happy eating at a bistro down the road!

After the bus got lost for about an hour trying to find the hotel in The Hague, we checked in and then went on a walk with 7 other friends who were on the tour with us. We originally set out to go to a beach on the North Sea but it got late and we were worried we would get there and then not get back before the buses stopped running for the evening.

On Sunday, we visited the Madurodam, the miniature city , where landmarks of the Netherlands have been constructed on a 1:25 scale. The detail is perfect and we could have easily spent an entire day browsing around the city! There were even miniature tulips! We also walked through an Ice Zoo. I've seen ice sculptures before, but nothing like this! Literally, it was very cool! No wonder Europe doesn't have air conditioning, all of it was in this building! In addition to the zoo, there was also an ice slide and ice maze that we navigated through...very fun!

From there, we went to the Delft Porcelain Factory. The process of making the porcelain was explained as was the art of hand painting each piece. It was interesting to learn that the design is first painted on with a black paint and it is only when the piece is correctly heated in the kiln that the design turns the signature blue color. There are only a handful of factories that make authentic Delft pottery any more. There were some really pretty pieces there, but nothing that we absolutely had to have for the prices!

The highlight of the trip, without a doubt, was the Keukenhof Gardens. Unfortunately, we only had 2.5 hours there. We easily could have walked around all day! Maybe next year. The day was gorgeous, barely a cloud in the sky and about 80 degrees. The flowers were brilliant and fully blossomed...we really lucked out! Some of our pictures make the flowers look like they were glowing! They really were that bright and colorful in person! It was really cool to see some of the flower fields...they really look like the pictures. Rows and rows flowers! How beautiful would that be to wake up to every day!?

On the way out, we stopped at a stand along the edge of the road, I bought 50 tulips for about $10! It was fabulous to have 5 vases of flowers around the house for a while!

Sunrise in the Netherlands (Click to see more pictures!)

Easter

We spent the majority of Easter Sunday with about 10 people at the Marx's. Melanie and Adam live in Griesheim, near Darmstadt where we stayed in the hotel for 7 weeks when we first arrived. They have an amazing view. Their deck overlooks fields to the mountains on the horizon. It's very peaceful. Easter was a nice day, a little cool, but warm enough in the sun and we spent a lot of the afternoon out on the deck hanging out.

Melanie and Adam dyed and decorated an easter egg for each of us and gave us each a little rubber duckie. They made the traditional Easter ham and everyone else brought a side dish. I was so excited to be moved into our house so that I could make 'real' macaroni and cheese! There was awesome salad, macaroni salad, rolls, punch, easter beer, cookies and desserts.

Afterward, we came home and continued to unpack and get settled in the house.

Sycamore trees in Wiesbaden (Click to see Easter Pictures)

Wine Tasting in Rudesheim

We joined a group of about 15 for a wine tasting in Rudesheim on April 5. It was an adventure just getting to the Eibingen Zehnthof winery! Our GPS told us it would only be about a 40-45 minute drive since Rudesheim is just a couple of towns over from where we live. We drove along enjoying the scenery when we realized that we were driving right to the edge of the Rhine river! So we, and friends in the car in front of us, end up waiting and then boarded a ferry to cross the Rhine! It was a first for us...fun but a little unnerving at the same time! Then we drove up the side of a mountain winding through the town as all German roads do to the winery. The building was amazing...it is so astonishing that so many buildings here are as old as they are. This one was build in 1506!

We tasted about 6 wines and had a short history of the region and its wine production. We also had a tour of the wine cellar. They definitely gave us more wine to taste than the mouthfuls that we had up in NY on our honeymoon! We probably drank about 3 glasses of wine in less than 2 hours! Luckily we stayed for dinner!

The wines were good; we brought home 4 bottles to help fill our wine rack that we emptied before we left to come over =)

Wine Tasting in Rudesheim Album (Click to see more pictures!)

Move In Day

So we know we've been really bad about keeping up with the blog. I'm sure we have good excuses...really we do...the biggest one being that we Finally moved into our house!!!

So a description of our house for those of you who haven't heard. Basically, it's the biggest house we're EVER going to live in. We really lucked out! It's the end unit of a town house in Mainz, Germany. It has four finished floors. Kurt has turned the basement into an entertainment room with a projector that makes you feel like you're in a movie theater. The basement also has a washroom, storage room where the refrigerator will be as well as a sauna. The sauna hasn't been used in 6 years...so we'll see how that goes! The ground floor has a powder room, the kitchen with a breakfast bar and it opens to a dining room/sitting room area. I love this room because the majority of it is windows and it is always bright and cheery! The second floor has the main bathroom, the office, the guest bedroom (which currently has nothing in it!), and another smaller bedroom that we've turned into the Closet with our armoires and linens. The top floor is a loft and is the master bedroom and bathroom. It's very neat and airy but there is a lot of unusable space since the ceilings are sloped.

Move In 4 April 2007

It was very exciting that last Tuesday, April 3, was our last night in the Patriot Inn!!! We woke up early on Wednesday, packed up the room and headed to our house to wait for the deliveries. If you've never lived in a hotel for 6.5 weeks, you'd be surprised how much stuff you accumulate!

The move day went really well. The guys with the washer and dryer arrived around 830 and got those hooked up for us. Unfortunately, the refrigerator they brought wouldn't fit down the stairs, so we have to set up another delivery for a smaller one. Let me back up...we do have a refrigerator right now. It's in our kitchen but German refrigerators are pretty tiny so we're borrowing one for more storage space. Then around 930 or so, the guys came with our two armoires. Our house has no closets...this is pretty common for German houses...so we are borrowing two armoires for our stay here as well. After waiting anxiously, the delivery came about 1:00. It was so exciting! We were both giddy just seeing our stuff walk in the doors! We felt bad making the movers carry furniture up two flights of stairs...but it was better than us doing it ourselves! The movers were only able to bring half of our stuff at a time, and even taking a break to go back to the warehouse, they were done unpacking by 3:15!

We did a pretty good job of unpacking on Wednesday. The kitchen, office, and entertainment rooms were pretty much done that day. Kurt was able to test his projector and play Halo on a 142 inch screen so he was happy! When we got tired of unpacking, we walked to a nearby pizza place. Literally, it's a 3 minute walk...how fabulous is that?? Thursday and Friday, we finished more unpacking and started cleaning. There's still some cleaning to do...but only the rooms we're not using right away. It's wonderful to finally be settled into our own house again! It's true...you don't appreciate what you have until it's not there.

So now that we're all settled...who's going to come visit????