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!

Re-'Czech'ing out Prague

For the long Easter weekend (because we live in Bavaria, so of course we had 2 extra days off work for public holidays) we decided to return to Prague.  Or like Noah likes to call it, the Disney World of European cities for tourists.  We can see why Prague often makes it on the top of ‘best European cities for travelers’ lists – it is full of charm, small enough to walk around, and easy to feel comfortable in.  Menus come in an average of 4 languages, and most employees in the shops and restaurants match that.  So while I tend to doubt how authentic of a ‘Czech’ experience you get there – that takes a backseat to being able to have an ‘easy’ vacation.

To get to Prague from Munich, DBahn has a non-stop coach bus for a pretty good price – only 29EUR one way/person.  Arriving a bit later than the scheduled ~4 hour trip (guess we weren’t the only ones from Munich who decided to spend Easter in Prague), we head back to Hotel Friday.  I think we should get some kind of discount at that place, because both my parents and my brother/wife have stayed there based on our recommendation.  And we still would suggest it – great location, though the breakfast has gone downhill some. 

 After unpacking, we decide that our first plan of attack is to find food.  I checked online for some tips, and located a ‘budget-friendly’ Himalayan Indian restaurant.  We arrive to a tiny place with 4 tables offering roughly 7 dishes from a plastic menu.  Perfect.  I don’t even know what I got except judged for adding nan bread to my meal (YES I know it comes with rice… I just really love bread), but it was delicious.  And really cheap. 

After dealing with priority 1, our stomachs, we were ready to wander the town.  The nice thing about going to a city we have been before is that we don’t feel any pressure to hit the main sights – because we already have!  Instead we can just do what we feel like with no rushing around. 

So on to priority 2 – Julie’s stomach.  Specifically – her almost 2 year craving for a trdelnik.  More specifically - from a bakery on a street that we don’t know the name of (the bakery or the street).  No worries – I was confident that my memory could get us back, and we knew the general direction.  And after a bit of wandering and a short scare that the bakery was replaced by a McDonalds (just one street off) – we found it!!  And this time I documented the name – Creperie U Kajetana.  With the trdelnik in hand, we headed up the street to some steps to sit and people watch – our favorite thing to do last time we were in Prague. 

View from our steps

Now that I was stuffed to the brim, I needed to do some more walking to feel better about myself.  Noah and I headed up the path to Prague Castle – not to go in, but to take in the views from up there. 

A random photo of Noah just to prove he was happy to be there too. 

The next day we started off by heading to the other side of the Vlatva River to climb the hills to the Petrin Lookout Tower (which looks like a small Eiffel Tower).  We don’t know how the views are if you go up the tower since the line was ridiculously long, but the views at the base are not very good.  The tower sits in a bit of a valley at the top of the hill, restricting you from seeing very far.  But – if you take the path down towards Prague Castle, you are rewarded with some very nice views of the city. 

We wandered back to Old Town Square for a nice ham lunch and to peruse the Easter markets that filled the place.  It reminded us of the German Christmas Markets in that while you have a lot of booths around the city, the variety is pretty slim – food, desserts, painted eggs (not that Germany has that), and various trinkets.  But it was nice to see, and we left with a few of the painted eggs. 

Our next stop was the John Lennon wall.  Based on photos we saw from the internet, it looked like a really neat wall full of graffiti art.  When we got there, we could tell that the graffiti had taken a different turn.  Instead of cool paintings of Beatles lyrics and art, it was full of people’s names and things like ‘Spring Break 2014’.  A bit disappointing, but what can you do.  Luckily we could still found John Lennon’s face, albeit with a moustache painted on. 

It was now about trdelnik’o’clock, so naturally we made our way back to our shop and steps.  Naturally. 

We decided to head up the Charles Bridge Tower to catch sunset, and hopefully some nice photos.  While the sunset itself wasn’t too magnificent (thanks clouds!), we still had some fun playing with long exposures.  That is, until the spotlights turned on to light up the tower we were in. 

Now it was about time for dinner, and we were contemplating what to eat.  After feeling each other out to see if the other would judge us, we settled on TGIFridays.  Yes, you read that right.  Good old TGIFridays – the all American chain.  And we had no qualms about it either.  Granted, if we were only in Europe for a week, I would feel pretty lame about eating at a place like that.  But with the exception of 2 weeks in the US, we have been stuck with European food for the last 28 months.  With that – we dug into our burgers and fries with relish. 

Don't judge us

Sunday we were ready to see the Jewish Quarter – something we didn’t do on our last trip due to Jewish holidays.  Since Saturdays they are always shut down to the public, and the Monday began another holiday, the crowds were MASSIVE.  Of course we were contributing to it too by being there.  Luckily we read something online that you could buy tickets at their information center, and we were able to by-pass lines that were easily 30+ minutes for a line with 2 people in it.  But we still had to wait in lines to get into the various buildings.  We saw the Spanish Synagogue (so beautiful), a building that had its walls covered in the victims of the Holocaust from the region (hard to capture the overwhelming-ness in photos… and it especially hit home when I found a victim with my own name….), and then made our way through the cemetery.  Even with all the crowds, it was worth it to finally see the Jewish Quarter. 

Hard to tell - but this is full of names.  There were so many walls just like this

The Weiss section, including a Julie

After our fill of crowds, we headed to the Letna Park.  We originally headed up to sit and enjoy the views from that perspective, but I realized I forgot to pack the sunscreen in the backpack.  Instead we found a skateboard park up there and a spot (in the shade) to watch guys try to master their tricks. 

The guy on the right did not land his jump

Before heading down, I decided to risk a bit of sunshine to get our photo with the bridges in the background. 

As you can probably guess, it was yet again time for a trdelnik. 

Us and our favorite steps (and me and my favorite food)

We figured we couldn’t go to Prague without at least walking around Prague Castle, and as the buildings themselves were closed, we thought dusk would be a good time to visit.  It was very nice to walk around the grounds with barely anyone there (the first time we got away from the main crowds).  

We missed both these spots last time - when the place is crowded, you often get funneled through the hotspots only

We ended the night walking around taking night photos, which means playing with long exposures and forcing Noah to pose for a gazillion pictures. 

Monday morning meant it was time to head back to Munich.  And since the rain had rolled in, it was perfect weather to cuddle up on the bus and watch movies as we made our way home.  After our second trip there, Prague still ranks as one of our favorite European cities and it wins the prize for being the most tourist-friendly and most accessible place to visit.  But most importantly, Praha is home of the Trdelniks!

Raising children in Germany

I have to say, I am a bit worried about German children.  Below I will give three main points on why we all should have cause for concern about the little Deutschers.

1.    Let me start with a little story.  Our friends Laura and Eddie were watching our dogs back when they lived here, and Eddie wanted to let the girls run around off-leash.  As he doesn’t know them well enough to trust them free just anywhere (smart man), he had the idea to take them to a fenced-in playground.  Yes, this is against the rules here in Germany. No, Eddie didn’t know it.  Lucky for all of us he was soon educated on the rule by a rule-abiding German.  You see, you might think that the bans on dogs in the play areas are due to kids crawling through poo, or ticks, or something along those lines.  But nope.  Eddie was told by this nice German that it is because, ‘die Kinder essen die Poopen’, aka, the kids EAT the poop.  What?!?!  I am pretty sure once I was old enough to walk around my own on a playground, I wasn’t grabbing dog shit and eating it (I am assuming the real little ones simply sit where they are put, not saying I ate the poo in my pre-mobility days).  But apparently this is a large concern for German children.  

2.    Next - found at Ikea.  When buying some under-bed storage containers, this sticker was attached to it.  What? I can’t store my small baby under the bed with my extra quilts and sheets?  What kind of country is this to limit my freedom like that?  Though seriously, it always is disconcerting that these warnings have to be on products, but I guess there are always people in the world that need to be told. 

3.    My favorite for last – the Babystation that is simply a microwave.  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE????  This is from the Pasing Arcaden (a mall nearby) food court.  Do Germans microwave their babies so often, they need public places to do this when they are away from home? 

So sure, Germans get Elterngeld (extra money just for having kids), and a year paid maternity leave, but do you really want to have a kid in Germany who eats poop, has to be worried about getting stored under the bed, and who you have to microwave on a regular basis?