6 blogs in 1 for the month of May

As the month of May draws to an end, I realize that we have completely ignored the blog the past 30 days.  On one hand – we haven’t done anything particularly special worth dedicating an entire blog post to.  But on the other hand - we have yet to skip an entire month of blog writing since we moved here.  On that note – this won’t be the most interesting blog entry written so far, but at least we will have some memory to look back on for this month.

One thing we (maybe a bit more me) did this month – take lots of photos.  One reason is I am obsessed with a new app – Foap – where people can sell their own pictures as stock images.  So far Noah and I have sold 15 photos at $5 each.  Honestly the thrill of getting the email saying a photo has sold is way disproportionate to the fact that I only made $5.  Whatever – now Noah and I can each say we have ‘published’ our photos for money.  We also like to joke that the whole family (us and the pups) are now models since some of the sold photos includes us.  The point of this is to explain why, exactly, this post will be full of photos of the ‘mundane’ activities too.

Moving on – one thing Noah and I finally did was to go out into the countryside a bit to photograph the beautiful fields of rapeseed.  It is hard to believe that this is only 30 minutes from our house!  Technically this was the last weekend in April, but I will throw this in since I love some of these pictures. 

The first official weekend in May was spent updating our cheap 100EUR Ikea ‘dog’ couch.  We call it the dog couch since technically we bought it for the dogs.  Specifically so they have a way to jump up into the bay window and stare out the windows like a couple of cats.  I have decided I needed an update to the living room if we will be here a few more years, and this includes changing the color scheme.  Instead of red/black, I wanted to lighten the living room up to a blue/yellow combo.  This included turning the white/cream dog couch yellow with the wonderful help of Aunt Ellen and her trusty sewing machine/staple gun.  I think the three of us did a pretty dang good job! 

Before and After.  I even made the pillowcases (with Ellen's help, of course)!

The next two big projects that we (ok this time, more Noah) have been tackling in May are working to replicate 2 important food items that are a bit harder to create.  Noah is a great cook, but up until now we have been dependent on Texan visitors for our flour tortilla source, and have utterly failed at replicating a good homemade pizza.  After a handful of batches, Noah has perfected a delicious tortilla recipe (since there are no Texan visitors on the horizon), and we are still working on our pizza recipe.  Though we both learned that a pizza stone is a KEY component in better homemade pizzas. 

Our social outing of the month was to hit up Frühlingsfest with some of our Penzberg pals. This year we had 2 tables reserved, which made it all more comfortable than last year (when we had everyone crammed into just the one).  It was a fun night even though it was incredibly hot inside the tent (which explains the sweaty photo of me on the right). 

The big event of our May (and has been since 2010) is our wedding anniversary.  This year we celebrated our 4^th by going to a delicious French restaurant, Rue des Halles.  We followed this by driving down to Lake Starnberg with the dogs late at night with hopes of catching some of the potentially huge, first ever, Camelopardalid meteor shower.  That ended up being a bust in that 1) the predicted high activity would have been 8am the next day German time, and 2) nothing really happened anyways.  Regardless, it was nice to lie out on a dock and stargaze with my favorite person ever and our two favorite dogs.  

 

Now I will end this random May blog with a bunch of some super cute (in my opinion) photos of the girls on the yellow rug/couch.  Plus you can see them post-haircut - they are both so much smaller without all their usual fur.  And the main reason that there are more of Sadie than Rita – Sadie sits and isn’t bothered by the camera.  Rita runs away. 

Time to run!

A Weiss/Steffens Family Christmas!

This year Noah and I hosted our first family holiday event in Germany (we used to host Thanksgiving in Phoenix, but the last one was over 2 years ago).  We figured there is no point starting small – we invited our family from both sides!  My parents and Noah’s brother/sister-in-law all flew in from Texas, and Noah’s mother flew in from San Francisco.  We had a fun-filled 2 weeks planned for them.  And since we saw so much and did so much, Noah and I decided that the visit deserves 3 individual blogs.  I was tasked with writing the first blog which takes us up to Christmas Day. 

My artsy photograph of our Christmas tree using the bokeh technique

The first to arrive were my folks – landing Thursday the 19^th.  Since they always suffer badly from jet lag, they were off for their naps right after I ate lunch (they were full from their ‘cheese and snot sandwiches’ on the plane – straight quote from Gary).  While they were sleeping, I prepared the Steffens’ family traditional Christmas cookie dough.  Once they returned fresh faced (but still jet lagged), I enlisted their help to roll and cut and decorate the cookies.  This is the first time Gary has had a hand in helping, and his Christmas pick-axe was just lovely.  Too bad he ate it before we had a chance for a photo.  Unfortunately they would have to wait until the next day to see Noah, as he was off at his work’s Christmas party and didn’t come home until after 11pm.  Way too late for 2 oldies who are still on Texas time.

Noah left early the next morning to meet his mother at the airport.  An hour or so after her plane landed, I received a frantic call from Noah saying he must have lost his mother (before the trip even started!) – everyone else from her plane already made their way out of security and he had seen no sign of Margie!  I reminded him that I had the same freak-out a few weeks ago with our last visitors, and it turned out they were delayed from lost luggage.  30 minutes later Noah updated me that it wasn’t lost luggage – just damaged luggage – and his mom was finally out of security.  One new suitcase and a few hours later they were finally on their way to the apartment. 

Since our last two guests (Seth and Marty) were set to arrive later that evening, we took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping.  After determining that the cost of a turkey at Galeria Kaufhof was just ridiculous (~10 EUR per pound!), we all piled into our new Honda Jazz to search for a turkey at the Pasing Arcaden (mall).  This isn’t as crazy as it sounds – there are actually 2 grocery stores attached to the shopping mall.  And of course we managed to park in the underground lot on the complete opposite side of where the Hit grocery store is located.  That’s ok – it provided some good exercise for those world travelers.  After locating a much more reasonably priced frozen turkey and some other essentials, we begin the trek back through the entire mall to the car.  Only Sandy wanted to get some photos of the lovely Christmas décor in the mall.  As I waited behind with her so she could snap a few photos, I see a woman and her dog walk by.  The dog proceeds to take a giant, runny dump just 2 feet from us.  And the poor woman had nothing to clean it up with!  I felt so bad for her – luckily I haven’t had that happen in public with our dogs, but Rita did once barf in a restaurant.  I handed her some red poop bags and a package of tissues, and wished her luck.  Sandy and I ran to catch up with the others (and leave the nasty smell behind).  Side note: I have successfully talked about dog poop in 2 consecutive blogs.  Winning! 

The photo taken right before the dog poo incident

A few hours later Aunt Ellen and Uncle Rüdiger arrived at the apartment with Seth and Marty in tow – but with 1 bag less than they started out with.  One of their bags was left in Austin!  I am not sure why the majority of our visitors in December have all had bag problems (3 issues with 3 different airlines) – must be something to do with the holidays.  Anyways, we kept the evening low key and called it an early night to let everyone get their sleep. 

Saturday morning we were ready to finally venture into the city and check out these Christmas markets Noah and I had been talking about.  We piled into the public transportation and started the downtown market tour with the main attraction– the Christkindlmarkt at Marienplatz. 

Next stop on the market tour – the Weihnachtsmarkt in der Residenz.  This one is one of our favorites – it is naturally smaller as it has to fit within one of the courtyards of the Residence, and they have the much coveted Baumstriezel!  It is a Hungarian pastry (they call it Kürtőskalács – though in English we can just say Chimney Cake) that is essentially a sweet bread dough that is wrapped around a metal cylinder and baked as you watch.  You then can choose a topping that they will roll the hot pastry in – my recommendation is the cinnamon and sugar (Zimt Zucker).  I might have made a mistake in introducing my mother to this as she spent the rest of the time in Munich looking for more of them (she successfully found many in Budapest – I think her tally was 3… one for each night we were there). 

After a lunch of sausages and Baumstriezel, we made our way to the Middle Age Christmas market (Der Mittelaltermarkt auf dem Wittelsbacherplatz) – a first for Noah and I.  As there are so many Christmas markets in town (even one at the airport), we prefer to not see every single one each year.  It can become rather tedious and monotonous if you see too many at once, as they all pretty much have similar things.  The Middle Age market one reminded me of a tiny Renaissance Festival, but with a Christmas flare.  Lots of handmade goods out of leather, bark, glass, etc.  I found some nice glass snowflake ornaments myself. 

After everyone had their fill of shopping for the day (or at least Noah, myself, and the parents did – Seth and Marty would stay on to replenish some items missing in her lost luggage), the group headed up to the top of the Neues Rathaus at Marienplatz (via elevator, thank you very much).  We were treated to a lovely 360 view of the city, and in the distance we could even make out the outline of the Alps. 

Sunday morning was an early one for Seth and Noah – they were gone by 7am to take the first train of the day to hit the slopes in Garmisch.  The rest of us slept for a few hours longer and reached Garmisch Classic (and the brothers) for lunch.  The two snowboarders met us at the bottom of the lifts and we all took the gondola up the mountain (Margie’s first time riding a Gondola in her life!) to eat at the Garmischer-Haus restaurant. 

After taking in the food and the views, we left the boys to finish their runs.  We checked out the town and (of course) their Christmas market. 

We all met up again to take the train back to town for a nice dinner of stew and birthday cake.  Technically, my mother’s birthday was the next day, but I had made a giant 4-tiered monstrosity that would never come close to being finished unless we started it ASAP.  We went ahead and pretended anyways and sang Happy Birthday a day early.  Though don’t tell the German’s!  They find it to be horrible luck if you tell someone happy birthday early… but no one can tell me what exactly happens! 

 

The story behind HORST – Noah and I were looking for cake toppers and found name candles.  Of course they don’t have Sandy, or any name with a Y.  Noah’s idea was to by ‘Astrid’ and ‘Andreas’ to have the letters for Sandra.  Mine was to just buy ‘Horst’ and convince her that was German for Sandy.  After a quick email to my brother for a tie-breaking vote, Horst it was!  And she did believe that Horst meant Sandy… until I started laughing and told her it is just a random man’s name.

Monday brought my mom’s real 60^th birthday.  We celebrated by hitting up Tollwood – yet another Christmas market, but this one is more on the hippy/earthy side.  Plus lots of drinking options beyond regular old Glühwein.  Mom and I found a winter hat and scarf, and Seth and Noah bought coordinating ‘bff brother’ belts, or something like that. 

For dinner we celebrated at our favorite Greek restaurant Poseidon, where we had way too much food and were given a free bottle of Greek wine per couple.  Needless to say we now have 4 bottles of wine at our apartment.  We celebrated again with a small candle in the shape of a birthday cake, and headed home to eat the real stuff. 

By Christmas Eve we were ready to have an easy day.  Since the weather was nice, we took the S-bahn down to Lake Starnberg with the dogs.  We had a nice walk around part of the lake, and Marty was able to find her a nice rock to take back to her dad (it’s their thing apparently). 

Christmas morning started with Noah (I joined a bit later) in the kitchen making our traditional Steffens’ Danish Ebelskivers.  Slowly the others woke up, and we all feasted on the thousands (or at least it felt that way) of little balls of dough dipped in granulated sugar. 

There was no time for Noah and I to sit as we were coordinating the Christmas dinner of Turkey, homemade yeast rolls (that wanted to take over the kitchen, they rose so much), homemade ginger cranberry sauce (that was actually leftover from Thanksgiving….), au gratin potatoes, and green beans.  Thank goodness we had access to our upstairs neighbors’ oven – but even then it was hard to have everything ready at the same time. 

We were able to take one mid-day break to open presents.  I think my favorites were the antlers for the dogs (thanks Ellen and Rüdiger) – they reminded us of the dog from the Grinch.  Sadie just glared at me when I made her wear them, and Rita actually froze.  She lost the ability to move with those on her head!  My precious babies. 

After presents, we all squeezed into our little kitchen for our Christmas feast.  My dad found an amazing dry brine recipe that I would 100% recommend.  It was honestly the best turkey I ever had – even the white meat was super moist and delicious!  So of course, Gary took all the credit for how the bird came out. 

Dessert came in the form of an apple pie we baked the day before (thankfully, as I have no idea how we would have found time on Christmas day).  It was off to bed early for us all though, as we had to get up the next day for our next segment/blog: Budapest!

Glückliches neues Jahr!

As the year winds down, Noah and I finally took time off with NO travelling!  After a whirlwind year of sightseeing, it’s been really wonderful having almost two weeks off work with no real plans.  So how did we pass the time between Christmas and now?  A good 4 solid days went into this:

Yep, that is a 5,000 piece puzzle (technically 5,040… we did the math).  Sadie now uses this as a nice spot to relax. 

Besides puzzling with either Home Alone or Kevin Allein zu Haus (the German version that plays on TV) on the television, we also made it to Tollwood with Ellen and Rüdiger to see a Finnish-inspired Czech circus, Slapstick Sonata.  It was definitely interesting, as you can probably imagine.  After the show, we dragged them out in the rain over to the Bavaria statue to try to get some photos of the Tollwood festival, but instead we only ended up with a good one of Bavaria.

On Christmas day, after spending the morning trying to recreate our Danish Ebelskivers without American buttermilk, we went over to Ellen and Rüdiger’s for a lovely Christmas dinner.  She made a venison stew, which was a real treat neither of us had tasted before.  It really is great having family in town for the holidays – especially when the town is thousands of miles from where you grew up.

Friday we were met with some unexpected visitors – a friend of ours we met in Arizona but who is also from Texas and went to UT.  Jennifer and her family are touring Europe, and decided to make a quick visit (really quick – I’m talking 5 hours total) to Munich.  And since we had no plans for the week, we were gladly available to be their tour guides for the afternoon.  

Yesterday the pups got a late Christmas present when Ellen and Rüdiger drove us out to Bernried at Starnberger See.  First we stopped at Wilhelmina Busch’s Castle Höhenried.  She was the co-heiress of the American Anheuser-Busch beer company.  She clearly lived well, and her estate is absolutely gorgeous.  Now it is home to a heart clinic, but her beautiful house remains separate - probably used for events.

Next stop – Bernrieder Park!  This was also owned by Wilhelmina Busch’s, and left to the public after her death.  All I can say to that is danke!  

And with that we will ring in the New Year tonight with the family – nothing too big, but then again that is how we wanted it for our vacation at home.  Happy New Year Y'all!

Scott's Visit

We often say if we had more friends and family living closer, we might just stay in Germany forever- this being the part we miss most from back home.  It is no surprise then that we get really excited to have visitors from home.  Having guests distracts us from that feeling of being different and reminds us we have accomplished a lot since coming here.  Plus guests give us an excuse to get off our butts and go out and explore the city!  Therefore, we were really glad to have Scott, my childhood best friend, here to visit for one week!

Scott arrived on a Saturday morning and is the first person I have ever seen defeat jetlag (including our three attempts at it).  I’m not sure what it his secret, but perhaps not sleeping at all on the flight over here was the key.  His flight was delayed an hour which kept us from racing across town to catch the Munich TSV 1860’s season opening soccer game.  No problem, instead we started the city tour early. 

After an obligatory lunch stop for Döner Kebap (future guests take note) we walked the tourist trail through the city center.  Every time we visit the city it gives that same feeling one gets when returning to their elementary school, the place just feels smaller and smaller.  It seems like it used to take 4 hours to walk through Munich, now it feels like 30 minutes.  After Scott wore us out (still without sleep for something like 20 hours), we rested up at home with some Olympics on the TV.  I must say the German coverage was not nearly as exciting because the German athletes are not ALWAYS winning like the US.  That, and probably because the coverage was in German!  We capped the night off with a giant beer and pretzel at our local Hirschgarten (future guests take note, again).

On the following cloudy Sunday morning, we gambled that the weather would clear up and went out to Lake Starnberg for a swim.  Smart move because we the sun came out just as we arrived, and we beat the crowds.  Being in the Olympic spirit, Scott and I played water polo while Julie just floated away in her toddler size, “Dora the Explorer” looking floatie.   However, playing water polo led us amateurs into swallowing a bunch of lake water, which I found to be more unpleasant than salt water because the earthy taste lingers for hours.  Bring a toothbrush next time.

We returned home in the afternoon and Scott and I took the 20-minute bike ride up to Olympic Park, which was hosting their summer festival.  This is the perfect bike ride in my opinion (future guests, your itinerary is being written right here).  Coincidently, this marks the one-year anniversary where Julie and I came to Munich for our interviews and then escaped to the festival to contemplate our future lives over carnival food.  

Scott and I had a bratwurst, went up the Olympic tower, and spent 30 minutes touring the park festivities before a dark, dark storm rolled in.  And there we were, like our childhood all over again, riding bikes through the rain.  This was one of the biggest storms I have seen in Munich, and we were forced to take cover under a nearby apartment building.  Not to let their lunch plans be spoiled, a family sharing our shelter decided to have their picnic right there on the cement ground next to us.  Eventually it cleared enough to safely ride back home.  We reached the edge of the storm to find a perfectly sunny day waiting us at home.  We ended the evening with another trip to the biergarten and more Olympics.

On Monday we (without Julie who had to work, and without the dogs because the hike was too difficult) went out to hike an Alp.  We were delayed in our departure though because it seemed Rita might have seriously injured her leg.  I’m not sure what happened, but she was in pain and unable to fully walk on one back leg (in hindsight perhaps a bee sting or minor sprain).  Eventually she seemed like she would be ok, and since our vet was only open 4-6 pm, we couldn’t do much now (some things really do shut down here in the summer break).  

We hiked the peak of Wendelstein, a place Julie recommended after her work’s team builder there.  We knew we were limited on time because of Rita and the vet so we set a pretty brisk pace.  Initially the plan was to hike a bit up and then turn around to get home.  The weather was perfect and we were making such good time we just hiked all the way to the top with 3,000 foot elevation gain in 2.5 hours.  The best part about hiking up mountains in Bavaria is that awaiting you at the top is a beer hut.  So we enjoyed the beer we worked so hard for and some incredible views before taking the gondola back down to the bottom.  This is probably my favorite and most memorable hike I have ever taken (if only because most hikes don’t end in beer).  See for yourself:

Scott spent the rest of the week on his own before returning home.  Unfortunately, I do have to work sometimes. But we accomplished a lot in three days.  Come see for yourself what you can do here in a long weekend, if only you can beat the jetlag.  We looooove having visitors!