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!!

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!

The Wonderful German Alps

This last Saturday I awoke to the sun shining through the window.  I immediately hopped out of bed, found Noah already awake in the living room, and insisted that we must go do something! 

After some initial thinking, we decided to check out Höllentalklamm – a gorge down in Grainau.  Now, it was a bit iffy trying to figure out if it would even be open.  There is no set closure date listed online – just that sometime in late October it closes for the winter.  Well, it was November 1^st, and the sun was out, the weather was warm, and we figured – what the heck.  Let’s go check it out.  The worst that would happen is we would have a bit of a hike and have to turn around.

We pack up the car with the dogs and some snacks and some sunscreen, and begin our drive south to the Alps. 

As we make our turn off towards Grainau, I see the brown-colored tourist road sign that says ‘Höllentalklamm’, and underneath it a smaller red sign that says ‘geschlossen’.  Closed.  Well – that was lucky!  We didn’t even have to make it to Grainau to see if the gorge was open or not.  Ok – time for Plan B.  We are in Garmisch, had plans to check out a gorge… what about our old friend Partnachklamm?

We turn the car around and head over to the Olympic Ski Jump center, where the short hike to Partnachklamm begins.  As we are heading down the path towards the entrance, we see that we are far from the only ones that had the idea to spend this gorgeous Saturday doing the exact same thing.  I guess the incredibly packed parking lot was the first clue. Noah and I both have decided that neither of us really wants to take the dogs through this narrow cliff trail with so many other people - except neither of us wants to tell the other one that we have changed our minds.  So instead we both take our time with the dogs, letting people pass us by, and focus on taking some photos of the autumn colors.  

In my mind, I have decided that I wanted to at least check out the bridge that crosses the river – especially since it is before the payment point (after that, you are stuck with the crowds maneuvering through the narrow passage).  We bypass the line of people waiting to pay, and head up the path to the bridge.  Here we pause to take photos and learn that neither of us wants to go in the paid section.  So what to do instead? 

As we are pondering our next move, we realize that on the other end of the bridge is a free path upwards towards the top of the cliff.  And it is essentially clear of all people.  Bingo! 

2 happy dogs and examples of the trail we were on

We make our way gradually higher and higher along the path, only having to leash up the girls a handful of times as people pass us heading down.  Neither of us has a clue where this trail takes us, so after a bit of time hiking I suggest that we might want to turn around to head back.  Thankfully Noah suggests checking out what is behind the curve of the cliff to see what is out there.  Then we can turn around. 

If we had listened to me, we would have missed the bridge that crosses the entire gorge!  We would have turned around right before the main attraction!  Here we find the ‘crowds’ – 7 other hikers that have also gathered on the bridge to look down into the gorge. 

In the top of the photo on the right, you can make out the 'paid' trail cut into the cliff

Now that we felt satisfied that we saw what there was to see, we were ready to backtrack to the parking lot for our next activity of the day – taking the gondola up to the top of Eckbauer Mountain.  I have to give our two dogs a lot of credit here – the gondola fits just two people (one on each side) and is completely open from your waist up.  But those two dogs have learned to trust that we are taking them somewhere awesome, and they nervously sat by our feet in the tiny, swaying gondola. 

It is only our shadows, but you can get an idea of the size of the gondola

The views were lovely, at least for Noah and me

Once we reached the top and freed the dogs, it was like they hadn’t spent the last 10 minutes confined to a small terrifying space.  We walked up to the top of the hill and warmed ourselves in the sun and ate our snacks – us humans sticking to oranges and chips, the dogs excitingly eating as much deer excrement as possible before heeding to our yelling. 

While the views were lovely – the sun was at the wrong angle to get any nice photos of the mountains.  So after our small break, we began following a trail that led away from the restaurant/gondola area and towards where I expected to find good views of the sunny side of the mountains.  I wasn’t disappointed. 

With this lovely lighting, how could we pass up opportunities to photograph our two favorite subjects??? 

First we get the solo shots

Then them together

Then we run them!

With daylight savings over, the sun sets rather early now.  So before we were ready, it was time to leave our alpine oasis and start the journey back home.  We loaded two very happy and exhausted pups into the back seat and followed the other day-trippers back towards the city.  Until next time!