Wiesbaden Vista

First off, I have some exciting news. We finally got our new computer after a month of waiting. It is silver and shiny and nowhere near as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Don't get me wrong, I like the new computer, I just don't know how much I like Windows Vista. It is not compatible with any of the programs or web-based applications I use for work and school. So it seems I will continue to work on my old, virused Toshiba at the little desk, and will ocassionally look over to my nice big desk and see the pretty silver laptop that made me cry today.

Come on web and program developers! Develop some patches to Vista, or whatever it is you can do to make my life easier.

OK, back to actual blog-worthy stuff. As you all know, Edward and Jen were with us for the past week. It was wonderful to have them and to get to spend a solid chunk of time with Edward. I love my brother very much and it was wonderful to have him here.


Justin left off his last blog with us smooshed in the car and heading to Wiesbaden. The drive was tight, but smooth, and we arrived intact to our apartment around dinner time on Sunday. Pecos greeted us with all the excitment he could muster (as shown above). In his defense, Pecos did perk up a bit when we started eating delicious Turkish take-out for dinner.


On Monday, Edward and Jen got to enjoy a day-in-the-life-of Kate. It began with me working (note the crappy computer, big desk combo picture above), and Edward and Jen sleeping in. Their sleeping in was greatly aided by the use of the Rolladen. Rolladen are basically metal shutters that you can roll down to different levels to block light (or thieves) out of a room. Edward, who would sleep in a cave if he wouldn't be considered a hermit, loved the Rolladen. He even took a picture of them; though they are only partially closed in the picture below.


Once I finished working, I took Edward and Jen to exciting places like the library, PX, and commissary. When Justin joined us after work, we went up to Neroberg, the wooded mountain above Wiesbaden. We enjoyed a Wiesbaden vista, a walk in the woods, and a tree that would make a good hiding spot. After a dinner of chilli, we all retired for the evening.


On Tuesday, Edward and Jen finally got to enjoy a bit of Germany. We headed up the Rhein to the picturesque town of Rudesheim. Here we walked around and noted the furious efforts of the town folk to prepare for the tourists that will soon be upon them. As we were a bit early in the day and the season, the town was not as exciting as it could be.


We left Rudesheim and continued up the Rhein. We admired the many castles en route and looked at the big rock that is immortalized in German folk-legend as the Lorelei (not named after Lorelei Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls, surprisingly). After a quick ferry across the Rhein, we headed back south, to Justin's, Pecos's, and my favorite Rhein-destination, Bacharach.


Justin and I enjoy Bacharach for its quaintness and its devotion to the wine god, Pecos likes Bacharach for its easy access to the Rhein and Rheinsteins,and I think Edward and Jen came to like Bacharach too. I'm not going to bore you with the wonderfulness of Bacharach (I think it's appeared in at least three other posts), just accept that it's a great town, unmatched in its charm, and that if you come visit, I'll probably take you there.


After enjoying some Bratwurst, we headed back to Wiesbaden to join Justin. Justin took us on a driving tour of Wiesbaden that ended at the Ratskeller--the place to go for authentic Bavarian grub in Wiesbaden. After gorging ourselves on meat and beer, we headed home to dream about the Swiss Alps. Edward will fill you on that venture soon.


PS: To any concerned fans (namely those whose names start with an L and end with an iz), Edward's mustache was temporary, though it will be immortalized in the blog forever.

Holland's Opus with Edward and Jen

Edward and Jen were in for a double-blink awakening. And they knew it.

After spending a combined total of three high-class weeks practically bathing in the largess of Jen’s wealthy employer – which included business-class transatlantic flights, expensive dinners, and five-star lodging in the heart of Piazza del Popolo in Rome – this couple boarded a flight to Amsterdam where they’d meet up with us and shed their top hats and tails for cheap flats and trail mix. (And for some reason, funny glasses).

The weird part: they were happy about it. Does money really not buy happiness. Edward and Jen were about to find out.

We met at a cheap international budget hostel called the “International Budget Hostel” in a cute neighborhood in what could still barely be called the southwestern corner Amsterdam proper. The hostel was located directly off Prisengracht, one of the three main canals in Amsterdam that ring the old city. Like many things in Amsterdam, the hostel was tall, skinny, and overpriced – but well worth it!

The sibling reunion was celebrated by taking cues from the locals – eating Indonesian fast food (prevalent in the city thanks to the Dutch East Indian Company’s trading/migration routes with former Dutch colonies in Asia) getting poop stuck on your shoe (as seen above), trying on wooden shoes (below), and drinking Heineken beer (a local brew, of course).

The next day, Saturday, was sunny and warm. Kate, Jen, and I decided to leave the confines of the skinny roach motel as early as we could and tread down the street to the Anne Frank museum, which is housed in the actual building where Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank hid with her family from Nazi persecution for almost two years. Instead of a picture of that, here's the Heineken logo:

Although distressing in a poignant way, the museum tour was relatively quick and painless and almost made up for the lack of tact exhibited in the gift shop. To deal with the twinge of sorrow I’m sure we were all feeling afterward, we coped by eating some famous Dutch stroop waffles (syrup cookies). Yum!

Then, after meeting up with Edward, we decided to keep with the mantra of affordable tourism and opted for a short stroll in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark – the largest city park in Amsterdam loved by both locals (jogging, roller-skating, pushing prams) and tourists (sitting on benches, lazing in the grass) alike.

After benchwarming and gawking at the locals and their well dressed children, we stepped onto a small hop-on, hop-off canal boat. Here, I made friends with a very cute dog.

On the boat, we took a very nice tour around the city. And tour we did – from the flea market to the flower market to the festive food sites (we got Indonesian again), we hopped and bopped around the old canal city, really getting a feel for what it was like to be an Amsterdammer. The only thing that could have made us feel more authentically Amsterdammish that day is if we’d have rented bikes (the main mode of transportation) and stuck our fingers in some dykes (the dams, that is).

We finished Saturday by bumbling upon an old Dutch restaurant, looking at the menu, and deciding instead on the Chinese buffet next door, where I apparently ate more than Jen had ever seen consumed. And she had even been to Sea World once.

The next day we decided to ring in the spring by exploring the flower gardens of Keukenhof, located about 30 minutes south of Amsterdam.

Keukenhof was a great reprieve from the gray and cobbley corners of Amsterdam. And the fragrences! Can't you almost smell the flowers through the screen?

Anyway, I know I for one enjoyed Keukenhof very much and highly recommend it to anyone with a sense of smell and a penchant for smiling when looking at flowers. But, while the spirit-lifting infusion of color and fragrance certainly put springs in our steps that day, it prepared us poorly for the next five sedentary hours of driving back to Wiesbaden.

An Edward and Jen weekend in Holland

Coming soon.

Auf der Reeperbahn, nachts um halb eins!

Prostitutes prostitutes prostitutes! Let me tell you, if there’s one thing that sets the city of Hamburg apart from its brother and sister cities throughout Germany, it’s not the history, politics, or economy…it’s the ladies of the night.

OK, first a little setting: Kate and I went to Hamburg for a week to take a class on Germany. I had to do it for work and Kate, well, Kate was nice enough to come along and provide me with distractive notes and drawings during class. We both learned a thing or two about our host nation and can now proudly say that the American education system should probably never be critiqued by a German, as their system is apparently no better.

Hamburg, for those who may not know, is big and beautiful, complete with lots of green areas (above) and lots of wet areas (below).

It plays second fiddle to Berlin for the rank of Germany’s largest city, but manages through its booming port to squeak by with the title of “largest economy.” It is one of three city states in Germany – the others being a small coastal neighbor called Bremen and, of course, Berlin.

Speaking of Bremen, we actually stopped by this Hanseatic port on the drive up to see what this diminutive city-state had to offer foreign travelers.

The answer: not much. The best Bremen could muster was an old windmill, Becks beer, and this peculiar manifestation of a Brothers’ Grimm story called the Bremen town musicians.

Here’s the link to the story; it’s kind of cute: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/bremereng.html

OK, back to the prostitutes…. The class was held in a moneyed suburban neighborhood called Rissen, located on a hilltop overlooking the Elbe River. On two of our nights there, Kate and I were able to jog around the woodsy hillside and watch the sun set behind big old ugly juggernaut container ships. Nice, in a post-industrial-commerce kind of way.

On another night, we were able to go out on the town, drink a couple beers, and remark at the inimitable locale of St. Pauli – the seedy region best known for its ladies.

According to hamburg-tourism.de, the area is apparently more than just strip shows and sex shops. They have musicals and cafes, the site argues. But, come on. An area does NOT earn the distinction as every North Sea sailor’s favorite port for having cafes and musicals. Unless they’re fans of the Village People’s “In the Navy,” that is….

Kate and I enjoyed the area, actually, not because we partook in any of the sordid activities there, but because it seemed like a fun, alive, and interesting subculture that, to former urbanites like us, seemed pretty non-threatening.

Perhaps, though, that was due to the regulations there. Like most things in Germany, there are lots of rules there – specifically concerning the prostitutes there who, funnily enough, all wore similarly colored pink jackets, tight washed out blue jeans, and had their hair blanched light blond. Apparently, they all have to abide by stringent solicitation rules on times, places, and methods of solicitation. Like Amsterdam, there’s an area where there are negligee-wearing ladies summoning gullible and desperate prey to their windows with their siren-like ways. Unlike Amsterdam, however, this area is completely closed off to minors, women, and those at high risk of heart failure.

To be fair, there was more to the city than that. Gastronomically, it’s home to the hamburger, for instance.

We also happened upon a city fair while there where we rode the vomit-inducing “High Energy” ride, which was basically like a cat-o-nine-tails that flips and spins at the same time. Blarf!

So, it was a good week as well as a fun week and sure as heck beat going to work for a week. The dessert to this dish, though, was the weekend, which we spent in Amsterdam with Kate’s brother, Edward, and his girlfriend, Jen.

Here's Edward with a mustache! More on that later...

Hamburg for a week

Post will be forthcoming....

Paris and the case of the sleeping polar bear

Lucky for us, our misfortunate victimization in Paris (read our previous blog if you’re confused) couldn’t have been more spectacularly timed. In fact, Kate and I had a whole weekend to enjoy before we noticed our car had been broken into. So, for us it was quite the bon voyage!

We stayed in a hostel in the multicultural northern end of the city that offered surprisingly nice views of the city. Here's one, in fact, of Montmartre, which I'll mention later.

The purpose of the trip was to run in the Paris half marathon, a 13.1-mile jaunt through the complex web of grande Parisian thoroughfares, including a short stretch along the historic Seine. To use an over-used, under-appreciated phrase, it was in-Seine!

Je ne sais quoi I’m talking about. Anyway, the trip was good and the run was a success.

We started with a tour of Château de Versailles (NOT pronounced ver-SALES, I later found out), which was the de facto capitol of the Kingdom of France for a good many years. Residents included a bunch of French Louises (that’s the plural of Louis) and even an Italian named Napoleon. The most prominent frog who lived there, however, was Louis XIV, who was known as the Sun King. #14, as he liked to be called, apparently held lots of wild soirees and had a grandson (also named Louis) who married a crazy Austrian named Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen. Seriously. To us, she’s known as Marie Antoinette or the “let them eat cake” lady.

Anyway, the Sun King had a very nice place and I would definitely recommend a tour to anyone heading to Paris. Just don't get the "Louis, louis" song stuck in your head, because the irony far outweighs the annoyance.

We then walked the Sun King’s grounds and got a better understanding of why he was called the Sun King as we were temporarily blinded by the radiance of it all.

The next morning we ran our little feet off, recouped in a quiet, dark room, and then made our back out into the world full of joie de vivre. Our first stop was Sacré Cœur, the basilica on the summit of the hill of Montmartre, the highest point in the city. It was a beautiful, sunny day and there were lots of frogs walking around, holding hands, and enjoying the live music, which, curiously enough, all seemed to be written by Bob and/or Ziggy Marley. Slow, peaceful, and all about Zion, the music added a calming and romantic ambience to the afternoon that Kate and I very much enjoyed.

Perhaps it was all the THC in the air, but afterward Kate and I had the munchies and headed out to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant recommended to us by Kate’s brother, Edward. It was a fixed-menu fondue place where you drink wine from baby bottles. Yes, it’s here that you can get your booze fix, your cheese fix, and of course your oral fixation fix, all under one roof.

The place had a beaucoup of tourists there – mostly American college girls apparently doing semesters abroad – which seemed annoying at first as we were trying to soak up all the frenchiness (and cheese) that we could. It made me realize it’s really nice to live in Europe where we can go out and not be tempted to (or able to) eavesdrop on conversations, thereby allowing us to focus on each other’s thoughts. Or, as the case stood, to focus on drinking out of baby bottles.

The next morning we got up. This may not seem like much, but it was quite an affair considering we were probably both very close to cardiac arrest after ingesting the colossal portions of fromage the night before. So, to celebrate, we headed to the Louvre.

As you’d expect, the Louvre was great. Although the swarms of tourist made it almost impossible to avoid the American patois, we could easily escape into our thoughts as we contemplated the works of art such as the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and the Sleeping Polar Bear. (Kate especially enjoyed this last one).

Afterwards, we bid adieu to France and headed home in our windy little car.

An unfortunate occurrence

Kate and I drove the 4.5 hours to Paris this past weekend to participate in our first organized run – a half marathon. We expected to make a weekend out of it, including a visit to Versailles to see the ostentatiousity (I made that word up) of Louis the XIV and to take in some of the finest art in the world at the Louvre. As this was our second time here in six months, we also set out to take it slow - to enjoy the café culture and to eat a lot of bread and cheese, two things that the French do really freaking well.

Our goal, therefore, was to get a better idea of what Paris has to offer. And, boy, did we get that.

Paris is a city. It has 9 million people in the greater urban area of all walks of life. Some are rich. Some are poor. And some are crazy. As you can see, one of the crazies broke through the rear window of our dirty, unadorned Ford Ka to steal a schmutzy eight-year-old backpack. Of course, he had absolutely no idea what was inside.... It could have been my dirty socks. Or a bomb. Or dead squirrels.

Fortunately for him (and unfortunately for us) it had our computer (less than a year old), our passports, my cell phone, and all of Kate's school work. The worst part is obviously the computer, as that had our entire lives on it. All Kate's work. All my work as a teaching assistant. All our pictures. Etc.

So, it sucks. There's no other way to say it.

After reporting the crime to the Paris police and seeing the bureaucracy of that government up close, we wiped the remaining tears and made the long journey home. It was a cold and windy 4.5-hour. C

The worst parts: Our car insurance won't pay for the damage because it's under our deductable. Home insurance won't pay for the computer because it wasn't IN the home. And the passport rigamarole, which consists of photos, money orders, government forms in triplicate, etc., will probably continue for the next couple months.

Quarter life crisis for Pecos

As many of you know, Pecos just turned four and is going through a quarter life crisis. He still can't decide if he's more bitch or more butch.

Of course, we're a little concerned. But all a loving parent can really do is just love them and hope that they find themselves in the end.

Fasching

Not much going on this week, but I realized earlier that we hadn't posted any snappy snaps of the German Mardi Gras - called Fasching. Here's a pic of a guy in a broccoli suit. Oddly enough, he was not the only person I saw dressed as broccoli. (Although I didn't see any other costumes that represented the vegetable kingdom around).

Kate and I went as cowpokes. Here's me.

And here's Kate unashamedly eating something that most likely contains cow.

As you may have guessed, Fasching is to Germans what Halloween is to Americans - a good excuse to dress up in whatever you have around the house (e.g., a broccoli suit). As such, people dress up in junk and call it a theme.

Take, for example, the below picture. In it, you'll see the following: Dorothy, who is wearing a blue wig, of course; the scare crow, whose costume consists of suspenders and an alien mask; perhaps another scare crow with a funny Bavarian hat; and a girl dressed as a sexy cat (perhaps representing Toto?).

Much like Mardi Gras, there are also symbolic floats that mean something to someone. This one, however, means nothing.