Servus München, Howdy Texas!

When we started our blog, it was to document our adventures in Munich.  And I think we did a pretty good job capturing both the daily life as well as documenting all of our incredible vacations over the years.  Though lately we have been pretty MIA.

Why?  In February, our journey in Germany morphed from being about European travels with the two of us (and sometimes our dogs) and into a slower-paced life as a family of 3 (or 5 if we include the dogs).  After patiently, and then impatiently, waiting for our son to arrive, we finally welcomed Max into the world 9 days after his due date. 

Thus the grand adventure we started here has turned into a family friendly version, with us even going on a few family vacations – venturing into the Bavarian and the Austrian Alps a few times. 

Left: Bizau, Austria.  Right: Schloss Linderhof in Bavaria.  Both: Max not looking at the camera.

However now that we are parents, our focus on what we want out of life has shifted.  We realized quickly how important it is to us to be back in our own culture and near our family, especially as we now have 4 nephews that we want to be closer to.  And instead of planning our next giant vacation in some new European place – we are planning our move back to the US! 

MERICA

As of this coming September, we will no longer be ‘Weiss Aus Deutschland’.  Instead we will be just the Weiss family in Houston – blog-free. Our little Bavarian baby will learn to love Tex-Mex, how to say ‘y’all’ properly, and see what a real rodeo is.  But more importantly, he will grow up with family nearby – which is what we want most of all. 

Don't worry Grandma Margie - you will get a smile photo soon!  Your visit was just before he learned how to do it. :)

So while we can’t say we are ready to LEAVE Munich (I don’t think we ever really will be fully ready to leave this wonderful city), we are more than ready to GET BACK to Texas and our roots (and maybe Tex Mex).  Munich has been an amazing place to live: it has really helped us grow both as individuals and as a couple, and it has brought us the best thing of all: Max.  We will definitely leave a piece of our hearts here in Munich, and we hope to return one day with Max.  We want to bring him back not only to show him where he came into the world, but to help him realize that the world is a much, much bigger place than the USA. 

At the beer garden 

With that, we leave you with a collection of ‘American’ things we have come across in our years in Europe – a very accurate portrayal of what we are returning to, wouldn’t you say? ;) 

America is about BBQ and giant burgers - what else?

We all love sitting around eating Chocolate Cookies ice cream, right?

Space and motorcycles.  The epitome of USA.

Please don't ask us what American Cream is.  It sounded way too perverse for us to try. Cool American, however, is delicious.

A semi-truck and Uncle Same.  MERICA.

And most importantly, Hot Dogs.  America = Hotdogs.

Seriously. Hot Dogs.  You know - those British-branded Ye Olde American style hot dogs that were TERRIBLE. 

Our 4th Germanniversary

Today marks the 4^th anniversary of our arrival in Munich.  This last year definitely held the most changes in our lives in Munich so far as we left behind our travel-orientated lives to prepare for our first child!  And as today is our Germanniversary, we continue our annual tradition of looking back on the prior year and reflecting on our favorite and least favorite moments of our 4^th year in Munich.

Highs:

Here are our favorite moments of this last year (in no particular order):

• Learning I am pregnant, and then finding out we are having a son! 
• All of the travels we fit in pre-pregnancy and early-pregnancy: Scotland, The Rhine region, Hallstatt, Portugal, Switzerland, Paris (Julie only) and Israel (Julie only).  Hey – Noah got to go to Brazil for the World Cup last year…
• All the friends and family who visited us!
• Going to Frühlingsfest and being able to fully enjoy it, beer and all
• Driving out into the countryside late at night to watch the Geminid meteor shower.  After so many tries over the last decade+, we finally were successful with a meteor shower and saw more shooting stars than we ever expected.  (the photo is not of the meteor shower since we didn’t take a camera with us)
• Our first trip back to the US in over a year and a half, and seeing family and friends (including meeting my nephew Tegan for the first time)
• Finally seeing two of our favorite Bavarian spots covered in snow and ice – the Partnachklamm gorge and Schloss Neuschwanstein
• Our 2+ weeks of Christmas vacation, where we focused on relaxing and spending time together.  We watched all 7 Star Wars movies, Noah cooked a lot of delicious food, and we played a lot of video and board games.  In about a month, it won’t be just the two of us anymore, and it will be a LONG time before we have the luxury of spending 2+ weeks doing nothing.
• Discovering Trustedhousesitters.com and having two wonderful couples stay in our apartment and take amazing care of our dogs for two of our vacations.  How I wish I had known about this website when we first moved to Munich!

Lows:

And now the lesser favorite moments (also in no particular order):

• A super hot summer + no air conditioning.  We had to simply shut the living room door and avoid that room as it reached the 90s with all the windows.  The rest of the apartment wasn’t much better – upper 80s.  And we aren’t exaggerating about it being hot – Germany reached its highest temperatures in history!
• Having nausea for all three trimesters (though if that is the worst that happens for my pregnancy – I will gladly take it!)
• Spending Noah’s birthday sick with a cold (on top of the morning sickness), then passing the cold on to him.  Happy 30^th Noah!
• Missing out on Oktoberfest this year – Thanks Max! J
• Noah’s embarrassment over calling a Kinderarzt (pediatrician) and saying he was looking for a Frauenarzt (gynecologist) for his baby.  He gave the receptionist a good laugh.
• Hard to fulfill pregnancy cravings!  You can’t go get a Wendy’s Frosty or good queso here.  And 2 days after I started craving non-raw sushi – our sushi place closed down for a month for their August holiday.  The plus side – I probably would have gained a LOT more weight if we were back in Texas the whole time. 

Thanks Munich for a wonderful 4^th year, and we can’t wait for what awaits us this next year!!

Baby Weiss coming in 2016!

Noah and I have been awful at blogging lately – our last blog entry was at the end of May (about our 5^th anniversary weekend to be specific).  We do have a valid excuse for this though – which is that I am pregnant!!!  I’ve been preoccupied with nausea/exhaustion while Noah has been busy feeding me.  But I figure it is about time we get back into writing on our blog, and I thought this would be a good story get us back on track.

Ever since Noah and I moved to Germany, having a baby here was something on our radar.  The reasons why are clear: First is the paid time off: 14 weeks full-paid maternity leave for me, plus an optional 14 months of ‘Elternzeit’ (time off with a partial pay cut) for Noah and I to split as we choose.  Next there are no hospital bills (socialized insurance), and there is Kindergeld (the government pays you additional money monthly for each kid you have)!  The only issue – when we moved here at the age of 26, neither of us were actually ready for the baby part of the deal.

When we originally thought we would be here for only 2 years, we focused our free time on traveling, rather than thinking about children.  However I had decided I didn’t want to have a baby in my 20s.  So it seemed like it was settled – no German-born baby for us.

Then, when Noah signed a 3-year contract in December of 2013, all of a sudden the baby-card was back on the table.  But when 2014 rolled around, I still had the travel bug too badly.  I figured I would need to cure myself of the travel bug before I took on the baby bug no matter my age, so Noah and I continued vacationing around Europe. 

However as 2015 approached, I realized after our Scotland trip we will have made it to all the places on my travel wish list.  All of a sudden, I felt my travel bug’s symptoms waning.  So what did I do?  Made a spreadsheet, of course, with the various scenarios and timing options of having a baby.  Luckily Noah is used to this type of approach I take to life - our budgeting, our travel planning, and now our baby planning.  Based on my calculations – I was able to determine the ideal time to try for a baby and the only part left was to put our plan into action.

Fast forward a few weeks into May, and I start having some weird symptoms.  Many of which can be attributed to pregnancy, but they can also just be from about any other illness in the Web MD database (I probably searched them all).  Neither Noah nor I wanted to get our hopes up too much that we had success right away, but if I had to bet money, I would have chosen ‘pregnant’. 

We were heading out on our 5-year wedding anniversary weekend to the Rhine on Saturday the 23rd, and my period was scheduled for Wednesday the 27th.  However, I had it in my head that it would be so cool to learn we were having a baby ON our anniversary (the Saturday).  So when we arrived to our hotel, I took a pregnancy test, only for it to say NOT PREGNANT, and make me sad.  Noah reminded me that 1) it is probably still too early, and he can also rub a coin on my face and flip it in the air and have the same level of scientific accuracy and 2) it is not that big of a deal if it doesn’t happen this time around.  Side note – this is exactly why blogs suggest NOT taking pregnancy tests early, because they probably won’t work (although the manufacturers claims might suggest otherwise).

So I relaxed and enjoyed our vacation and tried to take my mind off of the whole baby thing, though in the back of my mind, I still kept thinking of how I felt different.  We came back on Tuesday from our trip, and Noah and I took the dogs to the park.  I asked Noah when I should take another test.  He agreed that I should take one that day, but that it isn’t a big deal if it says no.

As we returned I was still thinking about taking another pregnancy test, but Noah had moved on to wanting to clean his car.  So he took off to the carwash, and I decided to take another test.  A few minutes later I checked it – and I saw the second blue line.  This test says I AM pregnant.  OMG WHERE IS NOAH???  I debated calling him, but decided that finding out at a carwash that your wife is expecting isn’t the most charming of all stories.  So I waited for him to return.

When the doorbell finally rang, I am excited but want to mess with him a bit too.  I mean, he did suggest taking this test and then left before I had a chance to do it, so he deserved it.  In the meantime, I had checked the mail and a DVD had arrived, so when he came up the stairs I had the DVD behind my back.  I said I had something to show him, and then presented him the movie.  I could see his face get excited and then drop a bit – clearly he thought I had a positive pregnancy test in my hands (later confirmed when he told me).  I then brought him to the kitchen to show him the real news – and then I declared I need more tests to make sure (I took 4 more after this with varying degrees of blueness to make sure).

Noah declared that we need to celebrate, so he went and got champagne (for him) and bitter lemon (a soda, for me), and pizza.  And we can’t forget a red candle, which clearly stands for love. 

So now I am 20 weeks / 4+ months pregnant, and our baby is due February 2^nd, 2016!  Now we need to get back to writing the blogs we have had planned, but haven’t gotten to. 

Hanging out with Cousin Nate

The start of 2015 has been very, very low key for us as evident from the lack of recent blog activity.  Our 2015 adventures have recently ‘officially’ kicked off with a two-week visit from my cousin Nate, who was travelling around Germany and visiting many of his German friends from the U of M.  This counts as perhaps only the fourth or fifth time I have spent time with my cousin, which just goes to show that sometimes you have to move halfway around the world to get friends and family to visit.

We celebrated Nate’s arrival with the traditional Hirschgarten Biergarten experience.  Although the weather did not entirely cooperate, we were well supplied with food from Aunt Ellen and Uncle Rüdiger.  The spread included Obazda, radishes, sliced meats and cheeses, and about a dozen hard-boiled Easter eggs - which they were still desperately trying to get rid of. 

As a side note, the Easter egg hunt is a very important tradition in my uncle’s family and is only to be carried out using hard-boiled eggs buried deep into the wild forest (see prior blog).  This is not your plastic-eggs-filled-with-candy-slightly-hidden-in-the-backyard kind of game- they take the Easter egg hunt very serious.  So Julie, Nate, and I agreed to eat the remaining Easter eggs (although none of us really liked them), to honor our Uncle Rüdiger who worked hard preparing the perfect Biergarten spread (and so that we could finally be rid of any guilt for not eating them).

The rest of the week, Julie and I spent at work and got to enjoy Nate’s company in the evening.  We shared dinners at the apartment and got into some pretty serious battles in Settler’s of Catan, which Julie ended up mostly dominating (of course).  We also got together at Ellen and Rüdiger’s place during the week to watch the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal matchup FC Bayern Munich vs. Porto, where they ended up losing 3-1.  It was a really fun evening of yelling at the TV and enjoying popcorn from my aunt’s vintage American popcorn maker.

On the weekend, we took Nate to the famous Andechs brewery for all of our first time.  The monastery is only about 30 miles from Munich – I am not sure why we haven’t been before.  We, the doggies included, enjoyed a nice afternoon exploring the ancient sights set high up on the hill overlooking the fields down below.  The three of us split a giant Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle) for lunch and enjoyed some of their famous beer.  Rita made friends with the elderly Bavarian man next to us who was nudging crumbs down to her on the ground.  Afterwards we went for a long walk along the Amersee before calling it a day. 

Nate left us on Sunday to visit another friend (he technically has more German friends than we do), and we went to go pick up Logan and Ashley at the airport who were just arriving for part one of their European vacation.  However Logan and Ashley were asleep by the time Nate returned, and left for Paris early the next morning, leaving both to wonder if the other really existed.

Perhaps the most exciting part of Nate’s visit (at least in my opinion) was attending the second leg of the Bayern Munich vs. Porto quarterfinal.  It was a nail biter waiting for our tickets to arrive, which I bought 2^nd hand online (for a lot of money) and only arrived the day before the match after some unexpected shipping delays. 

Anyhow, there was a lot of excitement for this game considering FC Bayern needed at least 2 goals to advance to the semifinals and most people expected them to fall short.  In the end this match was truly unbelievable.  You know that moment in a basketball or football game where one team just starts dominating for a few minutes causing the opposing team to stop the game with a timeout?  Well imagine that level of domination for about 45 minutes straight because in soccer there are no timeouts.  Bayern Munich ended up scoring a touchdown worth of goals and winning 6-1, which meant Nate and I witnessed the most wild and exciting match we could have imagined.  As I write this, however, that game feels less meaningful since FC Bayern was just eliminated in the semifinal by Barcelona (Julie back-dated this blog which is how I know the future).  But still that was one of most entertaining and exciting sports games I have ever witnessed. 

We ended our week with Nate by celebrating in the traditional Bavarian style by going to Frühlingsfest, our favorite beer festival of the year.  Ashley and Logan, back from their other travels, joined us as well.  We started out by cruising around the fairgrounds a bit and then taking a ride in the Ferris wheel.  Later we played a round of that ski ball horse racing game, where you nudge along your toy horse forward along the race track by rolling a ball into holes at the end of a ramp (makes sense right?).  It was a pretty tight race between all 5 of us, except for Ashley’s defected horse that was not moving at all.  To everyone’s surprise Logan, who is not known for his talents throwing a ball, ended up winning and taking home the obnoxiously big orange stuffed dragon.  We then settled at our table in the Hippodrome tent, toasting our giant beers (and Ashley her water) and dancing on the benches for the rest of the evening. 

Nate rocking it in Rüdiger's old Lederhosen!

The following day we said goodbye to Nate and the four of us (Julie, myself, Logan, and Ashley) took off on our Scotland vacation.  We had a really great time spending quality time with my cousin and it was nice to learn more about the Hoff side of my family.  Thanks for coming Nate and good luck in medical school!

The lazy days of March

April brings our first visitors of the year, as well as the start of our spring and summer vacations.  And while we are both looking forward to the family and friends making their way to see us, as well as our getaways, it does mean that it will be harder for Noah and me to find time to lounge around the apartment.  Therefore, Noah and I have consciously decided to maintain a certain amount of laziness during these last few weekends in March.  That means that there isn’t too much to write about from the month of March, which is why I find myself with two days left scrambling to write something so that we maintain our self-imposed rule of having at least one entry a month.

One thing that has had some activity is Noah’s work.  He is now officially a manager of a team of 3 – and all three employees are German.  This means he is speaking the language more than ever, and his knowledge of German never ceases to amaze me.  Hard to believe that we both started at the same point – knowing nothing more than a few words like Ja/Nein, Bier, and Gesundheit.  Now he is managing people in this crazy language!!!!  Count me incredibly impressed.  Also – he had his first official yearly review which came with his first raise.  The downside is he has been finding himself away from home a bit more – between his Leadership Program (also all in German), a conference, and entertaining visiting business partners, I barely saw him at all last week!  But he is loving his role and the travel should calm down now, so I am nothing but happy for him.

The other ‘big’ thing for us is we were featured on the Foap website – this is the stock photo selling app that Noah and I joined early last year.  We’ve done pretty well – sold over 100 photos at $5 each.  Here is the linkto the interview.  I was thrilled to be featured – I sure have spent a lot of time on their app, and Noah has fun joining me in figuring out what might be a ‘Foap-able’ photo. 

Speaking of photography, Noah had the idea a few weeks ago to practice our night photography skills down at Lake Starnberg.  After dinner, we bundled up in our jackets and grabbed our gear and found a spot along the water to try to capture the stars.  While we didn’t get exactly what we wanted – still way too much light pollution from the towns around – we were able to take a couple of photos we are happy with. 

I also had the experience of seeing my first solar eclipse.  I was sitting in the living room on Friday the 20^th, when I noticed it became visibly darker.  I went to the window to see if any storm clouds were making their way to me, but the sky was perfectly clear.  That is when I remembered the day before my colleague telling me that there would be a partial solar eclipse on Friday, and when I checked the clock I saw that it was roughly the peak of the eclipse.  So I googled how to make a pinhole projector, and rigged up a few pieces of paper.  While my photos are terrible, I was excited to finally experience this. 

We wrapped this month up with a celebratory dinner at Rue Des Halles – our fancy French restaurant we like to visit once a year or so.  We were there to celebrate Noah’s first raise with his first ‘true’ job (or so I thought).  Apparently Noah also wanted to thank me for being so supportive with all his extra work lately.  He even had called ahead and asked if they offered anything special for the table, like flowers, and was told they don’t do that.  But they did say that they had ‘very nice’ red candles they could offer instead – so Noah accepted, not knowing really what to expect when we got to our table.  (I usually don't share this side of our relationship, but this turned out funny to me so I will).

When we arrived to the restaurant, nothing was standing out to me, so I remained clueless to Noah’s actions.  He finally couldn’t wait anymore for me to notice the ‘very nice’ red candle, and explained what he had done.  We both laughed pretty hard at the fact that this is what this French restaurant (aren't the French supposed to be the masters of romance) deemed romantic.  Every other table had a candle on it already (but not red!!!), so why take the effort to promote their red candle as this huge romantic gesture? 

Can you handle the romance??

That about wraps up the main anecdotes from our month of March.  While I loved having so many lazy days this month, I am definitely looking forward to people visiting and beginning our travels this year.

Our 3rd Germanniversary

Today marks our 3^rd Germanniversary!  This means we are continuing our annual tradition of looking back and reflecting on the top and bottom moments of our 3^rd year in Germany.

Here are the top moments of our 3^rd year in no particular order:

• Noah finally checking off ‘Go to the World Cup’ from his bucket list 
• Celebrating 10 years together (our first date was back in Austin, TX in September 2003)
• Making our 2nd trip back to the US in February, this time to see Julie’s brother get married
• All of our European travels, with our trip to Norway topping the list
• Noah perfecting his flour tortilla recipe so we have fresh flour tortillas regardless if anyone has visited from Texas recently
• All of the guests we hosted / family and friends we met in Europe this year (as we reached our 3^rd year, the amount of visitors decreased as most people came the first 2 years – so those who came, we really appreciated it!!!
• Discovering the photo app Foap, and selling over 80 photos for $5 each between both of us – one photo (pictured) even won a mission/$150!! 
• Finally spotting the bird (an owl) that we always knew was in Nymphenburg Park. For 3 years we always saw people looking at this one tree in the park/pointing binoculars or telephoto lenses at the tree.  We would always stop and look up too, but we never saw what they were looking at.  And we never cared enough to ask someone.  On January 1^st Julie finally spotted an owl – that was it!!!
• Julie discovering the American Burger Bar that is close to her work – a food truck selling cheap burgers ran by a guy from Philly 
  

And now the low moments (also in no particular order):

• Noah coming home from the World Cup with Traveler’s Tummy - it took him over a month to be back to 100%, but he doesn’t regret a single meal.
• Julie being sick over Thanksgiving, meaning she couldn’t eat any of the pies made to take to work
• Shortly after this, Rita got sick – meaning 4 days in a row we came home to diarrhea all over the rug (I had photos of the poo, but Noah said I should keep it classy)
• To continue the poo theme – there was a 2 week span where we stepped in dog poo 3 times (once Noah, once with shoes for Julie, once BAREFOOT on the beach for Julie)
• Having a few uptight folks around the neighborhood be jerks about the dogs.  As we HATE stepping in poo, we pick every last one up from our dogs.  But this doesn’t stop a few grumps from yelling at us to ‘pick it up’ – when they are peeing!  I just ask if they have a cup and walk away.
• The time Julie screwed up two different neighbors’ dogs…  Julie was walking Sadie and Rita before work and saw a little white dog wandering around the street and no one around.  She thought she recognized the dog from a certain house and picked it up and put it in their front yard.  A few houses down she noticed a front gate wide open, but just went home to leave for work.  The next day she realized that the 2^nd house had the same white dog in the front yard…. It was just the same breed as the neighbor down the street.  So instead of helping out, she 1) freaked a neighbor out when they opened their door to find their dog’s doppelganger out front and 2) freaked a neighbor out when they couldn’t find their dog in the front yard.  At least they sorted it out.
• Noah couldn’t repeat his Roche Tennis Tournament victory from 2013 – he dropped from 2^nd place to 20^th (out of 25).  To be fair to Noah – his prior year’s success made them seed him in the top tier (where last year he was in the middle tier).  This meant that he was the worst of the best, but that the middle and bottom tier players had more wins in their sections, leading them to be ranked higher than Noah.  Or so he says…. 
• Julie had a guy at Oktoberfest try to flick up her skirt to see up it when she stood on a table to dance (we were at Oktoberfest with Intel).  Julie immediately spun around to the jerk, and tore him a new asshole by demanding an apology, lecturing him on women’s rights, and kicking him out of the table behind her.  The rest of the night he came over 5 additional times to apologize again, and Julie’s coworkers were now a bit scared of her.  Noah thinks he peed himself a little.  And the joke’s on him: Julie always has shorts on under her dress, so he didn’t even get a peep.
• Julie discovering the American Burger Bar – a YEAR after it opened!  So many missed burger opportunities. 

Here’s to less shit and more good times for our 4^th year in Germany!