The Weekend

We went to see this band perform last night...



....along with a bunch of other super-talented musicians.  I gotta say, it's the best ten euro we've spent in a while.

It was a busy weekend and we considered for a second not going.  Thank goodness we dragged our sorry butts out the door!

We had friends in town this weekend from Nürnberg that we hadn't seen in far too long.  They were in Heidelberg for a hockey tournament so we met up for dinner and hockey and visited the Schloss. 

It was beautiful beautiful weather and we wandered around and looked at the pretty flowers and watched paragliders and stared in awe at the many shades of green.  In a land where winter can be a teeny bit long and depressing, I'm thankful that the spring is as bright and vivid and beautiful as the winter is long and dark and cold.

Spring!

Spring is fast-approaching and we couldn't be happier!  I was so excited to see two lonely flowers pop up outside my window last week - the perfect excuse to play with my new camera. (!)

This little bee was kind enough to fly right into the picture - apparently he was as happy to see these blooms as I was.

Fasching

We celebrated Fasching last weekend in style - always good people-watching at the local parade....and an excuse to bring the bikes out of hibernation and put a little air in the tires.

One Sure-Fire Cure For The Winter Blues

Skiing.

The fact that I enjoy skiing is a complete phenomenon.  It goes against everything I know about myself - specifically, that I hate to be cold.  I think I hate to be cold more than I hate to be tired or hungry.  But the delicate balance of maintaining my pleasant demeanor is a little off topic.

We went skiing last weekend.

We drove to Garmisch which is a small-ish ski area with primarily intermediate terrain - which means I thought it was juuuust right - and Steve thought it was toooooo easy.  But we both managed to have a great time.  There was actually one new chair lift that was just perfect for us.  You could get off about halfway up and ski a red - which is an American blue - because heaven forbid the world standardize ski terrain color-coding.  Or, you could stay on the lift a little longer, and ski a black.  It's like this lift was designed specifically for Steve and Jami - because I could get off at the mid-point, Steve could get off at the top - and we ended up back at the bottom at almost exactly the same time.  So, we did that a lot.

We ate some yummy Bavarian food.

We fell into a tourist trap - which was unfortunate for dinner that particular evening - but fortunate for catching a little traditional Bavarian folk dancing.  I would love to post a video here but having technical difficulties...

Mostly it was just great being in the snowy, breath-takingly beautiful mountains.
 
It always is.

P.S.  This may not be funny to anyone but me....but....this is me....trying to remove my goggles without taking off my mittens.



It doesn't work very well, but I always gave it a shot before giving up and exposing my hands to that wretched cold.

Yay!!!  I did it!!!

Yesterday was a rare perfect day.  You could hardly believe it was early January - the dead of winter.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was well above 50 degrees outside.  The morning was a bit rainy, but when that blew through and the sky cleared, we knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity to get outside for a bit.  I have come to appreciate the importance of seizing such a day because they can be rare and fleeting - and there is nothing worse than the regret one feels after wasting a day like this indoors.  So, we walked......and walked and walked and walked.  We stopped for a late lunch at the wald biergarten, where I ordered käsknödel (cheese dumpling) soup for the first time.  Yes, it is as delicious as it sounds.  And then we walked home, tired and full and quickly losing sunlight.   There were rain clouds on the horizon and Steve commented how lucky we'd been - since we ventured out without an umbrella or rain jackets.....

Kirschhausen from a distance

a bright sunshine-y day

Another Try

After taking a long, long.....LONG blogging hiatus I've decided to give this thing another try. The guilt of not properly documenting this journey of ours and not sharing it with you has been nagging at me. Lousy at it though I may be, doing it badly is better than not doing it at all, right?

Besides what else do I have to do in these dark, cold days of winter?

We have several inches of snow on the ground and hoping it is done for a while.  Our street is down to one narrow lane and there is no more room to pile any additional snow.  So, here's hoping for slightly warmer temperatures and no new snow for a while.  It's pretty, but it quickly becomes a giant pain in the rear.

We celebrated a low-key Silvester last night with friends and neighbors in true German fashion - with loads of fireworks throughout the neighborhood being handled by untrained unprofessionals, far too close to homes and people to be considered even remotely safe.  This is one tradition that has not ceased to amaze and fascinate even now after our fourth New Year's Eve here.  I love it!

Happy New Year!  Wishing you health and happiness.

Finishing up Croatia

I realize the last time I posted anything here (long long ago), I was in the middle of our Croatia trip, which I naively thought I would break up into a series of little mini posts (since the less time it takes me, the more likely I am to actually DO it). That obviously didn't go as planned. So, I'll try to wrap up Croatia in a pretty little bow and get us all caught up to the present day over the course of the next week.
We had a great time in Croatia. We stayed in the town of Hvar on the island of Hvar. It's an enjoyable town, hotter than heck, but enjoyable still. Why we decided to spend two weeks in Texas in the peak of summer and then turn around and vacation in a place just as sultry, when we had perfectly good 75 degree weather back in our beloved Deutschland, I will surely never know. That was definitely a note-to-self for future reference.
I think I wrote about Milna and Brac. The town of Hvar is very different from both in that it seems to be a very see and be seen atmosphere. Lots of yacht-ownin' pretty people (yes, if you're wondering, we blended right in). We ate LOADS of fresh seafood. We sailed. We sunned. We wandered the streets of town (after dark, when the sun wasn't beating down on us like a giant ball of fire).

We witnessed an impromptu fish market. We were having lunch one day in Stari Grad, when a small-ish boat pulled up with a couple of fishermen. They threw some tarp on the ground and started unloading buckets and buckets o'fish. They called the local ice truck to come down, dump a few gallons of ice on top and wait for the townspeople to arrive. As we sat there, the majority of the fish was sold (much of it to the local restaurants that now had their evening specials in hand). Fascinating.
We visited the local castle. Because a trip of ours is never complete without exploring a castle.
On our drive home, we added a spontaneous overnight stay in Werfen, Austria. We had seen it on the way down and, decided we must stop in this lovely little town and explore its impressive castle on the hill. We were so glad we added this stop. Super cute town. Impressive castle. AND - bird show! We happened on to a super cool falconry show complete with, well, falcons - and vultures and an owl and eagles (one of which was bald). There's nothing like a good bird show in the middle of the Austrian Alps. And we got some good, stick to your ribs, Austrian food to help offset all that healthy Mediterranean style seafood we'd been eating all week.