Summer Leave {Pt 1} : Munich

Two weeks before Malu departed to mobilize for his deployment, I took some much needed leave time from work so that we could spend some quality time together.  I always return from leave saying that I need "leave from my leave," because it was just downright exhausting.  It was tons of fun though.

 

The first couple days of leave, we drove to Bavaria to visit our friends, the beloved Finch Family, who make several appearances throughout this blog.  This family is near and dear to our hearts and they just wanted to see Malu for the last time before he deploys.  We ended up going to Munich!

 

I'd been to Munich several years ago, but merely passed through in-transit to Garmisch.  What a great city!  We didn't see even a quarter of the city because we were only there for the day.  We hopped on one of those free walking tours and left when the kids got antsy (or maybe when we adults were just plain tired lugging those antsy kids around).  A lot of people freak out in big cities or big crowds.  I love it.  There's always tons to see.

 

 

 

Munich is the capital of Bavaria and is the third largest German city behind Berlin and Hamberg.  It is home to the largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world at which the Hofbrauhaus holds the second largest beer tent.  The Hofbrauhaus am Platzl, located in the city center, is the most famous beer hall worldwide.  Apparently, in 1920, Hitler organized one of his first propaganda events at the Hofbrauhaus.  The place really does serve up some good food, in addition to their beers.  We know because we stopped by there!

 

 

I honestly don't like beer.  These are Radlers.  It's basically beer with sprite or lemonade mixed in.  I can [somewhat] handle the taste.

 

 Like every other German town or city, Munich has a Rathaus, or town/city hall.  The one we saw is supposedly the new Rathaus, although I'd hardly call it new.  It was built between 1867 and 1908.  I don't even recall seeing the old Rathaus.  The building was beautiful.  It has a glockenspiel that tells two 16th century stories. 

 

 

The Munich Frauenkirche, or Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, is a symbol of the Bavarian capital and one of the most famous landmarks in Munich.  The interior of the church highlights a "no-window" effect that is connected to the legend of the Teufelstritt, or Devil's Footstep.  At the nave of the church, lies a footprint on a square tile.  One version of the legend says that the devil made a deal with the builder to finance construction on the church on the condition that it contain no windows.  However, the builder tricked the devil by positioning the columns so that the devil could not see them from where he stood in the nave.  Upon discovering he had been tricked, the devil could not enter the already-consecrated church and was relegated to stomping furiously, leaving the dark footprint that remains today.  Pretty cool, huh?  The first picture below was taken outside the church.  The last picture is of the church standing on the Devil's Footstep.

 

 I think we hit up a palace before we decided to be done with the tour.  I don't have any pictures of the palace though.  No biggie.  But you guys get the gist.

 

Munich = Pretty Cool City

 

Whoa!  It's way past my bedtime!

 

Tomorrow's Friday!  Looking forward to the weekend.  The Finch Family (less Daddy Finch) will be visiting us here in Stuttgart for the Pumpkin Festival!  Yay!

My Sick Girl & Weekend Recap {Ramstein & Tubingen}

I spent today nursing my sick baby girl.  I suspected something was coming.  Over the weekend, she'd started coughing and complaining of a sore throat.  I suspect it's the change in weather (gotta love fall!) or maybe she just caught a bug at school.  Who knows?  All I know is that I was happy to be home from work taking care of her.  After work yesterday, I'd dragged her over to the PX to buy a few things (namely a much-needed pair of running shoes).  As soon as we walked through the door, the grabbed her bear-bear and climbed into her bed.  Shoes and all.  I had to pull her out to give her a bath; poor thing.

 

 

She woke up with a 102 degree fever, which broke by early afternoon.  I'd spent the day pushing tons of fluids and by evening, she was her usual springy self.  She is, however, a bit hoarse.  I'm taking her to the doctor in the morning just to see if we can rule out strep throat.  Let's cross our fingers for that!

 

As I sit here making this post, baby girl is sound asleep and I'm semi-watching the Hunger Games.  I figured I'd tell you guys about our weekend since I've seen the movie a few times already. 

 

On Saturday, I drove out to Ramstein Air Base for a bazaar.  It's basically the same bazaar we have here at Patch Barracks every spring.  The bazaar rotates through all the military bases in Europe (or maybe just Germany) and Ramstein is just a two-hour drive away.  A friend and I just figured that we'd head out there and see what we could find, if anything.  The PX at Ramstein is also tons better than ours.  We had to do the token stop at Johnny Rockets before even thinking about doing some shopping.  Nothing like a good American burger and a strawberry milkshake.  Vaiosina loved it!  After a good hour or so of shopping, we stopped to take a break and a pretty decent picture, if I may say so myself.  Love my little girl!

 

 

What's really cool about that day is that I actually drove to Ramstein and back to Stuttgart without any problems. Not sure if you guys remember, but I got into an accident over a year ago.  Since then, I basically have a stroke anytime I'm on the autobahn.  I finally made an entire trip without freaking out.  Go me!

 

On Sunday, Vaiosina and I ventured out to Tubingen, one of our favorite cities in Baden-Wurttemburg (our German state; of which Stuttgart is the capital).  We'd been to town a few other times and just love going back.  It's a sweet college town just 20 miles away from Stuttgart and is situated on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.  As such, the town is very picturesque with buildings dating back centuries (like it's town hall, it's castle, and the University of Tubingen), streets lined with canals, cobblestone streets, narrow alleyways and the traditional half-timbered, medieval houses.  Actually, one of the times I was in Tubingen previously was for the same festival we returned to see on Sunday--the Umbrian-Provencal Market. 

Every year, Tubingen's partner cities--Aix en Provence and Perugia--present their regional and home-grown specialties.  I'm talking wines, cheeses, produce, spices--you name it.  Last year, I took some pictures, but never posted them.  This year, I totally forgot to bring my camera and ended up using my iPhone.  Still got some good ones.  It was an utterly perfect day in every way--the weather, the atmosphere, and the company :)

 

 

 

 Too bad all of this goodness turned sour with Vaiosina getting sick.

Let's hope the doctor gives us a thumbs down on strep throat tomorrow morning!

Have a happy hump day tomorrow everyone!

P.S.  Malu's doing well.  We hear from him every now and then when he has a spare moment from his training.  We'll be meeting up with him this weekend in Nurnberg.  We are very excited!

 

Venice Festival in Ludwigsburg

Every two years in September, the city of Ludwigsburg (which is about a 20-30 minute drive from Stuttgart) holds a Venetian Fair, or the Venezianische Messe Ludwigsburg.  The last time we were in Ludwigsburg was for last year's pumpkin festival--which actually kicks of in a few weeks (we'll definitely be going again!).  In any case, the festival dates all the way back to 1768 during Charles Eugene's (Duke of Wurttemburg) reign.  He thoroughly enjoyed his trips to Venice as well as the Venetian masked balls and decided to bring the show to his home in Ludwigsburg.  He held the first show in 1768 in celebration of his 40th birthday.  The celebration was a three-day period that he held over and over again.

 

In 1992, the tradition was revived.  As I said, the event is held every two years over a three-day period in September.  There is a masked feast on the streets as well as a marketplace with many attractions and events.  People show up wearing ornate and colorful masks and outfits.  I even read that people have to apply to participate and if they make it, they get in for free.

We went on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful, hot day and it wasn't very crowded. We actually left before things got busy. I had other friends who attended later than we did and got so many more pictures of better costumes than the ones we saw, but we still saw some good stuff.

What an explosion of color!  I was going goo-goo ga-ga over the masks, but actually held off on buying any.  They were selling for three times what you can get them for in Venice.  Seriously!  I'm going to buy them when we make a trip out there.

 

 

Vaiosina clearly wanted nothing to do with these characters.  I mean, she was a tad bit hot.  Even I was pretty sweaty.  Frankly, these masked people freaked her out.  Whenever one came into full view, she hid her face in her stroller as seen here.  Poor girl.  Halloween's not looking too good right now.

 

 I'm glad we were stationed here in time to see one of these!

Now, I still have to go back and post about our summer leave.  I'll try to do it soon!

London {Part II} : Day 1

How cool is it that you can get to London in just 1.5 hours?  Way cool.  And guess what?  It only cost us about $80--round trip.  If you're ever in Germany, whether to live or visit, www.germanwings.com is the way to go.  You can do what's called blind booking and depending on what time of the year it is and where you're trying to go, you can get flights as low as 39.99 Euro.  Trust me!  I've seen it.

Anyway...I digress.

London...in one word:  EXHAUSTING

Okay, here's another one:  AWESOME

Our flight took off at 7:00 a.m., so we were up and at 'em at 4:00.  You can imagine how tired we were by the time we landed in London.  But hey, we sucked it up and immediately hit the ground running.

In the essence of time, I'll just let our pictures do most of the talking.  I will link the major places we visited to websites just because I don't have the energy to go into history, facts, details, etc.  Plus, let's face the facts...when you're out and about with a toddler with no husband to help, you're not really listening to the tour guide or reading displays.  You're busy quelling cries and/or screams and trying not to lose sight of said toddler.  It's exhausting.  I always just say or think, "I'll Google this stuff later."  

We took a train from the airport to Liverpool Station.

From there, we took a cab to our 'flat'.  Ha! I still crack up when I say that!  Just a note...lodging in most European cities can be pretty expensive.  When we travel, we almost always stay in an apartment versus a hotel.  You'd be amazed at how many nice apartments are out there...and we've had a few great ones.  If you ever plan on traveling out to this side of the world...www.homeaway.com is the way to go! Our flat in London was just okay.  We were in quite a rush to find a place to stay and settled on whatever we could find that looked decent.  The apartment itself was decent...

...the neighborhood?  Not so much.  Like the art work?  And it's not so much that the neighborhood was bad, there was just a lot of graffiti and bars nearby.  Oh well, it was a place to crash each night!  Plus, there were some really cool restaurants nearby as well.

So I think I can vouch for our whole group when I say that we set out to do some very particular things while in London. 

Take a picture near one of the signature Royal Phonebooths....Check!

Exchange our U.S. dollars for some British Pounds....Check! 
Aren't they pretty?

Do some damage with said British Pounds...Check! 

And did we ever!  Within minutes we found sidewalk sales down the street from our flat.  Everywhere else, it was souvenirs galore!

See cars driving on the other side of the road (and riding in a car on the other side of the road)...Check!

See how they have to put reminders on the streets for tourists to check right before crossing?

Ride the 'tube' or subway in London...Check! 

You know a subway is near when you see signs for the Underground.

See members of the Royal Guard...Check!

Have some traditional British fish & chips...Check!

Yum!

Tour the Tower of London and see the Crown Jewels...Check!

No pictures, but the jewels were gorgeous.  Some serious bling-bling going on, if you know what I mean.



In front of a mural of the White Tower...and Vaiosina playing with her double-decker bus souvenir!

Vaiosina and I going into the 'Bloody Tower'

Go for a ride on the London Eye and get a great view of the city...Check!

What a ride!  When you ask Vaiosina what she did in London, she always screams, "The Eye!"

Great view of London's many bridges spanning across the River Thames

View of Westminster Palace (Parliament Building) and Big Ben

Take a tour through London on a double-decker bus...Check!

After our Tower of London tour, we were absolutely tired and content to just tour the rest of the city by bus.  We got a close-up view of Westminster Palace (Parliament Building) and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Kensington Palace, etc.  By this time, my iPhone gave out and I couldn't take any pictures.  At least I can say I saw mostly everything!

See the Royal Family...Check!

Okay...maybe not quite.  Being in London is as close as I'm ever gonna get to these people.

Would you believe this was only Day 1?

Seriously.  But this knocked out pretty much all of our London wish list!

Thanks for sticking with me through this entire post!  Please stay tuned for Day 2 which entails our trips to Windsor Castle, the Roman Baths and Stone Henge.