Fasching in Köln, Germany

We traveled to Köln, Germany on 3 February with Melanie and Adam to celebrate Karneval (in Köln), Fasching (in Mainz), or as you might know it: Mardi Gras. We enjoyed the scenery on the short two-hour drive. We even saw some snow laying on the ground...practically a first for us this winter! Since it was Sunday, we knew that there wouldn't be very many things open, but we held out hope that we would get to tour the Kölner Dom. We found out after about an hour of weaving through streets and attempting to dodge a parade, that unfortunately the church was closed. Apparently, they don't want costumed, possibly intoxicated people wandering around inside an ancient Gothic church. But it was fun to see the school groups all dressed up and parading through town!

In our efforts to get to the Dom, we spotted not only 4 or 5 Starbucks, but also people carrying boxes of Dunkin' Donuts! We quickly turned our mission into finding the Dunkin' Donuts. It didn't take too long and before we knew it, we were each enjoying a hot beverage and a favorite donut. While there are plenty of good snacks and sweets here in Germany, it's always nice to taste a little bit of home! "Sprechen sie Dunkin' Donut?"

After a quick rest at the hotel, we went out in search of dinner. Since we can't get Mexican food often, we thought about going to Taco Loco, a restaurant two blocks from our hotel. When we got there though, it looked more like a dance club with loud music and strobe lights. Needless to say, we kept walking. We did find a really delicious Mexican place for dinner...we'd even venture to say the best we've had in Germany yet!

After dinner, we passed time playing cards, then eagerly counted down the minutes until midnight which was when the Superbowl aired here in Germany. I made it to the kickoff before falling asleep. Kurt made it until the score was 7 to 3 - Patriots. We didn't get to see any of the commercials, instead the German sports announcers talked though all the breaks and showed clips from previous games.

After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel on Rosenmontag morning, we bundled up and made our way to the parade route. The parade on Rosenmontag is the climax of the Fifth Season. Everyone gets dressed up in costume to watch the parade and partake in the Fest atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was rather cold and rainy this year in Köln and while we were more dressed for the weather than most Germans, we only made it about an hour in the rain. It was fun to listen to the German marching bands play their folk music and see everyone singing along. Almost every group that marches by also throws candy into the crowd. We were able to catch several pieces that kept us pretty happy on our journey home! We had a bar of dark chocolate, several twix bars, a shortcake snack, and a couple chocolate wafers to share on the way home...slightly better than the cough drops and tissues we got in Mainz last year at their Fasching parade!

We are looking forward to going back to Köln when it's a bit warmer to tour the cathedral and some of the museums.

Just a note, we ran out of room in our 2007 album so here's a link to our 2008 photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/kurtandcarrie2008

Click below to see our photos from Köln. (Unfortunately, it was raining too hard to get good pictures at the parade)

Karneval in Köln

Happy Birthday to Carrie!

For my birthday this year, my first outside the U.S., we went out to dinner with a big group of friends. Our friend Ashley's birthday is January 26th and being the nice girl she is, she let me share her day with her! We had a delicious Italian dinner followed by cake and ice cream afterwards at Melanie and Adam's.

On the 28th, Kurt spoiled me and cooked me a wonderful chicken dinner. He also gave me a crystal vase from the Czech Republic and as well as red and orange tulips.

Here are some pictures from both days:

Happy Birthday

New Year's 2008

Danielle and Jonathan invited us to get dressed up and ring in the New Year at their apartment in downtown Wiesbaden. We had a ton of fun and were excited to experience our first New Year's Celebration in Germany.

New Year's in Germany, is crazy! Everyone purchases fireworks and sets them off from mid-afternoon on New Year's Eve and on through New Year's day. At mid-night, we all went on their balcony with champagne and watched a ton of fireworks being shot off from every street corner. The smoke from the fire works was so thick it was hard to see down the block! After welcoming in 2008, we all went back inside to dance the night away until about 4am!

The next morning, after helping clean up after the party, several of us had a big brunch together.

Look at our album to see how much fun we had!

New Year's Eve

Triberg Bus Trip

On Sunday 30 December, we went with Magda, Nadim, Melanie, and Adam on a bus trip to Triberg which is in the Black Forest region of Germany. Triberg is known for its cuckoo clocks and its waterfalls. After touring the House of 1000 Clocks, we watched a spectacular fire show over the waterfalls set to Mannheim Steamroller music. Afterward, we strolled around their Weihnacht Markt (Christmas market) where we warmed ourselves around a huge bonfire and drank Glühwein (warm mulled wine) under decorated Christmas trees.

Here is the description of the trip:
The visitors of the “2007 Triberger Weihnachtszaubers” will experience a unique Holiday event, which takes place directly at Germany’s highest waterfall. Special ambiance is provided by the 300.000 lights, scattered throughout the city of Triberg, forming a gigantic sea of light. The waterfall, especially during this season with snow and ice, presents the visitor a great natural display and leads the traveler to an impressing and lasting encounter. A thick program of various shows, national and international artist’s music performances attend the guests. A light avenue, 26 meters long tunnels with 50.000 lights, offers a true unique Holiday stroll experience.

Here are some of our pictures from the day:

Triberg

Paris

We traveled to Paris, France for the weekend of 19 October with Kate and Shaun. Getting from the Charles de Gaulle airport to our hotel Friday night turned out to be quite an adventure. Paris transit employees went on strike on Thursday, protesting a proposed cut in retirement packages. This meant that the metro wasn't running. Additionally, Paris hosted the World Rugby Championships over the weekend. Since the metro wasn't running, and there were at least 60,000 extra people in Paris, the taxi line at the airport was at least 1.5 hours long. So after a 1.5 hour bus ride, we ended up at the Arc d'Triomphe. From there, we caught a taxi to get to the hotel. At this point, we started getting excited to be in Paris and getting closer to our hotel and eating dinner...until the route was overtaken by some hundred roller bladers. That's right, hundreds of roller bladers apparently wind their way through Paris every Friday night between 10:00pm Friday and 1:00 am Saturday!

After starting the day off with delectable French pastries, we spent Saturday morning touring Notre Dame de Paris. In addition to touring the inside of the cathedral, we climbed a few hundred steps to the top of the cathedral to view the Paris skyline as well as see the gargoyles up close! Afterward, we found a boulangerie for a coffee break and croissant snack, and then walked throught La Sainte-Chapelle. The walls of the upper chapel are almost all stained glass and depict the story of the bible. After lunch, we headed into the Louvre where we hit the highlights, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Code of Hammurabi. We all agreed that we are now officially cultured! Saturday night, we met up with friends of Kate and Shaun for dinner at L'estrapade near the Panthéon for a French meal. Carrie's meal consisted of prune soup, roasted quail with grapes, and chocolate mint crème brûlée. Kurt started with whole sardines, moved on to a cut of beef and finished with 'chocolat du suicide.'

Sunday we climbed to the top of the Arc d'Triomphe and then made our way to the Eiffel tower. Since the lines were long, we didn't go up to the top but did touch the base so that we can say we were really there! We then walked to the Musée d'Orsay where we saw several paintings by Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Degas. Luckily, we decided to leave early for the airport because it ended up taking almost 4 hours to get there! Due to the strike, a few of the metro trains weren't running and the trip took longer than normal. That and the fact that the train we took, which normally does go to the airport, turned around about half way there taking us back to where we started. But in the end, we did get to the airport and on our plane...so all's well that ends well!

We had a great time in Paris and are looking forward to going back to see more sights that we didn't have time to see!

Click below to see some of our pictures from the weekend.

Paris

Brugge, Belgium

We took a road trip with Adam and Melanie to Brugge, Belgium over Columbus Day weekend. The roughly 5 hour trip from Mainz went pretty fast and we arrived in Brugge around lunchtime on Saturday. After winding our way through the tiniest cobblestone streets you can imagine, we took advice from Rick Steves and ate at a cute little Italian restaurant called Pili Pili. After lunch, we toured the Halve Mann Brewery, the only brewery still producing beer in Brugge, and enjoyed a Belgian Blonde Ale afterwards. The tour guide was very animated and we enjoyed learning how beer is good for us and how to enjoy a beer, not just guzzle liters down like the Germans. In the late afternoon, we went on a horse-drawn carriage ride around the city. The driver pointed out different sites and some of the meanings behind the architecture. For instance, many of the buildings had angels above every door and window to keep out bad spirits.

Brugge, Belgium

On Sunday, we toured Choco-Story, The Chocolate Museum. The museum was really interesting and we learned a lot about the history of cocoa and it's role through the ages from about 600 B.C. to today. Since the fog hadn't burned off, we made our way to the Diamant (diamond) museum. It was rather unimpressive, although we did get a sample of synthetic diamonds. After lunch, we climbed the 360 steps to the top of the bell tower and were at the top while the bells chimed which was a neat experience. After a boat tour through the canals, we made our way to Brugge's four windmills. They are placed along a canal, and it was a pleasant walk slightly away from the hustle and bustle of town. We also visited Brugge's Church of Our Lady which houses Michelangelo's Madonna and Child sculpture. This sculpture is said to be his only sculpture to leave Italy during his lifetime and one of the few outside Italy today.

On Monday, we drove about 30 minutes North to Zeebrugge to see the North Sea.

Zeebrugge, Belgium

On the way home, we stopped in Brussels for lunch. We were very impressed by the architecture in the market square as well as the chocolates!

Brussels, Belgium

Oktoberfest 2007

After a very long drive from Mainz to Munich, we experienced Oktoberfest for the first time with a group of friends. The whole atmosphere was definitely something to experience. Many people were dressed in traditional garb and everyone was having a good time. The fest grounds were huge...42 hectacres (almost 104 acres) and were packed with people, rides, and stands.

We took the U-bahn from our hotel to the fest grounds around 10:00 am and made our way to the Schottenhamel tent. After pushing our way through the crowd to get as close to the doors as possible, we discovered about 30 minutes later that they were overbooked and wouldn't be opening the doors that day. So we pushed our way back through the crowd and ended up at the beer garden outside the Hacker-Festzelt tent. There weren't any available tables so we all split up for a bit in search of beer. Luckily, at this particular tent, they didn't care if you weren't sitting, and they walked around yelling "Bier, Bier, Bier, Bier!" and we just had to follow them get our mass (1 liter) of beer.

Eventually, our group of about 14 people took over a table that some Brits had been occupying. We had it all to ourselves for a bit, but they ended up taking it back from us later on in the afternoon. While at the table, we had a great time laughing with friends and with others that were partying nearby. We saw a lot of cheering, singing, and chanting. We saw people standing on tables, chugging their mass of beer, and eventually passing out... basically we experienced a frat party at a whole new level. It was fantastic!

We had a blast drinking and eating with friends for most of the afternoon and look forward to next year!

Oktoberfest 2007