Wine!!!

Most people don't really think of Germany as a wine country. I mean, let's face it, when you think of wine countries you immediately think of Italy, France, US (California) but Germany doesn't usually come up. However, Germany produces just as much wine as they do Beer and in the southwest of Germany, wine is king.

Today, we traveled to Würzburg which is about 1 1/2 hours East of Weinheim and found that some of the best (But not necessarily the most widely known) wine is produced here. Franconian wine is regarded by German's as the country's best wine, but it is not commonly sold outside of Germany. (Franconia is the region of Germany where Würzburg is located)

The addition to the uniqueness of the wine, the wine bottles themselves are unlike normal wine bottles. The wine from this region is bottled in flat, circular bottles instead of traditional wine bottles. In fact, the bottles are protected by European Union law and only wine producers in this region are allowed to use these bottles.

The wine itself is very good - it is very dry wine with oaky tones. It is very different from the Rieslings that Germany is commonly known for.

This is a picture of the wine bottle -

New videos!!!

Ok, so we haven't posted any videos in quite awhile, mainly because I lost - or temporarily misplaced - the cable to connect the camera to my computer. Wouldn't you know it, it was in the last place that I put it... (hardy har har har).

Anyway, we have video of him from about July on. I think that because of the way I posted them, they go from newest to oldest. Hope you all enjoy.

Nathan learning to jump

In this video Nathan learned to jump (this just happened tonight). I was trying to see something on the top of the book shelf and jumped. The second Nate saw me do that it was like Monkey see, Monkey do - and he started jumping. Cutest thing ever because most of the time his feet don't leave the floor!

Also, there is this new commercial on TV for an HP printer. Towards the end of the song you hear "aye aye aye" for maybe 1 second. Now, the moment that the commercial comes on, all Nathan does is start yelling AYE AYE AYE... So funny!

Nathan singing the Bumblebee song

So Nathan absolutely loves to sing this Bumblebee song that Stephanie taught him. I tried getting him on video making this hilarious face when he gets to the part where you say "Owww it stung me!" Unfortunately each time we get out the camera, he doesn't do it. I get a decent one towards the end though. He has the squishing part down pat though.

Walking in Daddy's Shoes

Looks like Nathan wants to be just like daddy!

Playing with a white T-Shirt at 18mos

Just some funny footage of Nathan

Nathan Learning New Words at 17 mos

Ok, this one really took place at 17 mos. Also, about halfway through Nate learns how to take off his pants... Such an exhibitionist!

Nathan in the laundry Basket at 15 mos

I made a mistake on the intro - this is Nate in Jul at 15 months.

Switzerland and the Herbstmesse

Hi everyone! Yes, it has been yet another 2 months since we last posted anything on our blog - sorry for being such slackers. Since we last posted a lot has happened, naturally. We have been to the doctor a few times and have a couple of pictures of the new baby. I will let Stephanie create a post on this topic with the pictures. But in general, everything is going smoothly and the baby appears to be growing nicely in it's little oven.

It has been a pretty busy couple of months. The summer ended and winter began pretty much simultaneously. I mean, one day it was in the 60's - 70's and the next it was like 32. The temperatures have been pretty cold since then and it is a shame because the trees never really went through a transition. As it turns out, the past couple of days while we were out of town was about the only days where there was color in the forest. Now most of the trees have shed their leaves and we are preparing for the long winter.

The past couple of weeks have been particularly busy. Last week I had to make a week-long business trip to Basel, Switzerland. It just so happened that they were having their annual Autumn Festival (Herbstmesse) that week, so I thought it would be nice if Stephanie and Nate come along. The pictures above are from their trip to Basel! So, with the whole family packed up, we headed to Switzerland. This was the first trip Stephanie and Nathan had made to Switzerland. They spent the time while I was at work wondering around the city visiting the festival and the Zoo! They only spent 1 night with me in Switzerland and while I was sad to see them go, I did sleep much better the subsequent nights!

Although I was working the majority of the time that I was in Basel, I did have some time to get out and enjoy the festival as well. On Thursday night I went along with a few colleagues from work to teh festival. One of them was a good friend of mine from Indianapolis who is also over here for the project. We had a good time walking around the town and enjoying the rides. I will have to post pictures from the ride we rode later - it was insane! I also had the chance to try Indian food for the first time.

Here is a link to all the photos

next up.... Italy!

We're still here....

So, we admit, we have been pretty bad about keeping up on the blog. I think that this was the overwhelming response that we received in Evansville during our home visit.

Since we have been home we haven't really had time to get settled back in. Stephanie's sister and her boyfriend flew over to visit the Friday after we returned and we have enjoyed showing them around our area. They picked a great time to visit too because there has been a festival going on just about every day that they have been here. I think that they have the perception that all we do is have festivals, drink beer, and eat sausage every day.

Earlier last week, we were in the back yard and Ryan discovered some strange little animals roaming around our backyard. It turns out that we have a family of hedgehogs living under our shed! They are the cutest little things. There are 4 babies and a mom. They seem to be harmless and non-aggressive. If you walk up to them, they just freeze and curl up in a ball. I haven't touched one yet, they look pretty intimidating even though I have been told that they are not like a porcupine.

Here are some pictured that I took of them. It will be interesting to see how long they stick around. We will try to do much better about keeping up on our blog with at least a weekly entry. Hope everyone is doing OK.

Nathan Dancing

Not much to say about this post. We woke up this morning and Nathan felt like dancing. Thought you all would enjoy...

Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses

I thought that everyone might enjoy this clip. Isn't he so adorable!

Rouen!

Suffice it to say, Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. We drive to Rouen to check into our second hotel after leaving the beaches of Normandy. As we arrived in Rouen, without the aid of modern navigation or a decent map of the city, we had quite a difficult time finding the city center and our hotel. Once we were in the greater Rouen area we lost all sense of direction with its winding roads. We had absolutely no idea where we were.


Being the patient soul that I am, I became frustrated very quickly because I had no idea where I was, what direction to go, and none of the streets had street signs, so even if I had a map I would be completely incapable of locating myself on it. So, I did what ever guy dreads to do... I stopped at a convenience store in the middle of a strange city in France and asked for help. It turns out that we were not so far off. The Hotel was located just about a 1/4 of a mile away. So I got back in the car with my bearings straight and headed toward the hotel. Now it is about 8:00 at night and the sun is at just the right angle that I am doing well enough to see the road in front of me with the glare from my windshield. That 1/4 of a mile ended up taking another 45 minutes to navigate after missed turn upon missed turn.



This is why Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. At this point, my BP is through the roof and I am 2 seconds from getting back on the highway and heading to the one place I know how to get to... HOME! Instead, Stephanie does her best to calm me down and we find the street that we were looking for. It turns out that our hotel is actually very conveniently located if I just knew where I was going, or if I had a GPS.

After the experience at the hotel the night before, my expectations were not very high for this place. After checking in, the receptionist instructed us that we have to go back outside and down the road to the 1st door past the restaurant. I am thinking... here we go again. When we get up to our room I am pleasantly surprised. The room is quite nice, very clean, and one heck of a bargain for 80 bucks a night. Plus the view from our window was spectacular (see the bottom right photo of the cathedral lit up at night). We even got to enjoy a little music from the restaurant below. A little band was playing great musical selections like the Macarena until all hours of the night... seriously.



I had never really heard of Rouen until Stephanie brought it up a week before our trip. It turns out that it has quite some history. Rouen is the capital city of the Normandy region. In the late 1300's the city was hit hard by the bubonic plague and the majority of its inhabitants were wiped out. The city has an incredible number of cathedrals all within a short walking distance of one another. I am not talking small churches either, but rather huge cathedrals. Here are a few pictures of the ones we visited:



































In addition to the impressive cathedrals, Rouen is very well known for its well preserved half-timbered buildings. It is quite impressive to look at these buildings that have endured some 6-700 years. You can tell the years are really beginning to wear on them though because some of the main support beams are starting to bow. The atmosphere with these buildings, the cobbled stone roads, and the lack of automobiles in the city center really makes you feel like you are walking down the streets in the 1400's.

As we continued on our walking tour, one of the points of interest was a courtyard of what is now an art school. The courtyard was used in the 1300's to pile bodies that had died from the plague. To really give the courtyard an erie feeling, the townspeople had carved signs of death in the wooden beams. It kind of felt like the scene of a horror movie.

To end our walking tour we went to the location that Rouen is most well know for - the site at which Joan of Arc was tied to a stake and burned alive for heresy. In the 1400's Joan of Arc led the French to several victories during the Hundred Years War. Her actions during this time led to the coronation of King Charles the 7th. However, some Duke in France had already claimed the thrown, so to undermine the legitimacy of King Charles' rule, he denounced Joan of Arc as a heretic and had her burned at the stake. Today there is a memorial at the site where she was burned and a church has been built in her name.

Continued from below (Read that post first)

... I just realized that the timing of this post is perfect because today, June 6th, is the 65th anniversary of the landings at Normandy.

To continue from below, after leaving Bayeux we headed up to Utah Beach. It is difficult to explain the feeling that you have when you arrive at this location and you are walking on ground that has so much historical significance. The beaches today are quite beautiful and serene. Today Utah beach is essentially a quiet beach front that reminds me a lot of an East Coast beach in the US. Below is a picture of the entrance to the beach. The only building in the area is a museum that has some left over War memorabilia and a memorial to the troops that landed there (also pictured below)

After leaving Utah beach, we drove about 10 miles or so to a section of the coast line that is ideally situated between Utah beach and Omaha Beach. The location is called Ponte du Hoc. It was here that that Germans had built a number of fortifications and placed huge cannons that could reach both Utah and Omaha beaches. Both Stephanie and I really found this site interesting because it has been very well preserved since the war. The land is filled with craters from the bombings and many of the German installations are still in tact. Below is a picture of Stephanie standing in one of the craters and a picture of one of the fortifications. This particular location was not very well protected by the Nazis during the invasion becasue it is situated on a rocky cliffs and they thought that there was no way the Allied forces would attempt to scale the cliffs. In fact, a small group of 90 Army Rangers did just that and were able to take control.

Continuing on our tour of Normandy, we left Ponte du Hoc and arrived at Omaha Beach. Today, Omaha Beach is a residential area. The day we went it was a little chilly with a breeze, but the water was still quite warm, so Nathan got to experience his first steps in the ocean. We spent the time just walking up and down the beach and letting Nathan play in the water. From the ocean looking inland it is easy to imagine the obstacles that the troops must have had when they landed. The beach itself is probably about the depth of 2 football fields and the advantage that the Nazis had on top of the hills explains why more than 500 troops were killed in the first 5 minutes of the invasion.

Our last stop on the beaches of Normandy was the American Memorial Cemetary. The cemetary is situated on a cliff on the edge of Omaha beach. Here it really hits you the price that was paid to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Stepping onto the grounds you immediately see rows and rows of crosses each a burial ground for the men and women that gave their lives. It was of course a very somber moment. It was cut short though because at this point, Nathan had pretty much had all of the sight seeing that he could handle and began to lose it. We decided to let all of the people pay their respects in quite, so we packed it up and headed to the next hotel.

Up next.... Rouen!

Beaches of Normandy

Things around the Baylor household have been pretty busy lately with Sean working crazy hours and Stephanie keeping up with Nathan, so we apologize for not keeping our blog updated. 2 weekends ago Sean had an extended weekend so we decided to take a nice roadtrip to Northern France and the Beaches of Normandy! It turned out to be a little longer of a drive than we expected but a great experience nonetheless. We decided to make a couple of stops along the way becasue Nathan usually starts to lose it around the 3 hour mark in the car. So we stopped in a town called Reims just across the German boarder. There was not much to see in this town, but they had a beautiful cathedral where we learned that all of the Kings of France were crowned after the 1800s. Like most of the towns and cathedrials in France, this one was mostly destroyed in WWII. They rebuilt the church, but all of the stained glass was lost.

We only stayed in Reims long enough to see the church and stretch our legs, then it was time to get back in the car and make the long haul to Caen where we would stay for the night. On our way, we ended up taking a wrong exit and without a GPS system had to use a map to fugure out how to make it the rest of the way using back roads. Somehow, after spending an extra hour or two winding through small French towns and back roads we made it to Caen. I should mention at this point that Stephanie planned the entire trip including booking the hotels and she did so the cost effective way. However, once we arrived to our hotel in Caen we quickly realized why it was only 48 Euro a night. Even by Motel 6 standards, this hotel was quite a sight. However, after driving all day we welcomed the bed - however, neither of us could build up enough courage to use the shower.

The next day we awoke after only a decent night's sleep and headed out for Bayeux, France a little town that is minutes from all of the beaches. Bayeux, like just about every other French town had a beautiful Cathedral at its center. The town itself if absolutely beautiful. The buildings in the entire area do not look like they have changed since the war. They are all made of grey stone and as you are walking around you really feel as though you are taken back in history. Below are some pictures of the city and the church in Bayeux.

I think I hit a limit for this post....

Mother's Day

Sorry we haven't added a post recently. We have been busy with the every day things. It is amazing how fast time is going these days! Sean has also been working quite a bit. But the end is near so we are focusing on the good and not the bad!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. My family is so good to me. I woke up to muffins, but not just any muffins. Chocolate muffins! Does my husband know me or what?! I also got flowers and a framed photo of me and Nate. Look at that picture up in the left hand corner. That is my world. Those two boys make me so happy!

After we ate breakfast and played around the house we went for an adventure in our downtown. The city we live in is so amazing. There is so much to do and see here that every time we go out, we see something new. This day we decided to go to one of the castles. The picture of the castle from downtown Weinheim is on the right and a picture of downtown Weinheim from the castle is in the middle.

It was so amazing to walk around this shell of a castle. The courtyard has been turned into an outdoor restaurant that we will have to take advantage of soon. There is one tower left that you can climb up into. The stairs to get up there were so narrow! Sean was so nervous coming down those stairs with Nate. There was nothing to hold onto so if you fell....well let's not think about that!! It was a great experience.

After we left the castle we went to eat at an Italian cafe that every time we pass we see these amazing looking pizzas. It was so yummy!! Nathan liked it too which was good! All in all it was a great Mother's Day. I am so lucky to be a mommy.

Today we decided to take a bike ride to our town center as the weather was perfect. We decided to take the scenic route through the mountain which turned out to be a great idea once we made it to the top, but getting there was quite a challenge. We had a great view into the valley from the top as you can see in the picture above! Once we got to the town center we found that we were not the only people that decided to enjoy the nice weather as the entire town was packed. In the town square each restaurant had seating outside their entrance and there was not a seat to be had.

We enjoyed some time in the Schlosspark (translated castle park). The town does a really great job of keeping up the grounds and planing flowers everywhere. It is still just so surreal that this is our home now. Check out the rest of our pictures on our photobucket page here.

Nathan's 1st Birthday!

It is official. Nathan is 1. Where did the time go?

Planning for this party actually started about 3 weeks ago with a conversation about cake. Here in Germany they don't have bakeries that have birthday cakes like in the US. They also don't have boxed cake mixes either. We all know that I am not a cooking genuis by any means so needless to say I was a little nervous about making a cake from scratch. We were talking about this over dinner one night with our good friends, the Urbanski family. And God love them, they found a Betty Crocker cake mix AND frosting while on a trip to Amsterdam. What would we do without these wonderful, thoughtful people! We cannot thank them enough for their generosity!


After getting the cake mix and reading the directions I realized we needed vegetable oil for the mix. I know what you are thinking, so what is the big deal? Just go buy some! Not so easy my friends!! They don't just have regular vegetable oil here! Noooo, we have sunflower, Raps seed oil, and any other kind of oil you can think of!! It took Sean's office, Drew Urbanksi, and Wikipedia to finally find out what oil we needed. The cake turned out great and we congratualted ourselves on the correct guess in oil. Ahhh the small things! :)


While Sean was at work I was busy making the cake and decorating the house. I decorated the dining room with balloons and gummie bears hanging from the celing. Nathan took one look at the balloons and started a temper tantrum because he wanted to rip them from the celing. Trying to reason with a 1 year old and tell him no, those are for decoration and not play is impossible.


The big moment arrived and Nathan got to dig into the cake. He loved it!! I can't believe he is such a big boy! We are sorry that not everyone could be here to enjoy this wonderful day with us, but we hope the pictures and video help ease some sadness. We love you all and think of you every day.

Here is the link to the new pictures: http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g46/snerb722/Nathans%201st%20Birthday/

Enjoy the video!

Heidelberg and Paris

We have been so busy taking in the sights around Europe the past two weeks! We are so lucky to have this opportunity so we are definitely taking advantage of it!

Last weekend we visited a town in Germany named Heidelberg. It was only a 20 minute trip from our house, but it is a beautiful town with an amazing castle. We spent the day walking down a street filled with cafes and shops. It was a warm Saturday so there were a lot of people!
The main reason we wanted to visit Heidelberg was to see the awesome castle. We didn't quite know where we were going so we took the long way up the mountain but it was well worth it because the view was amazing. However, the hike was pretty much straight up. Which isn't bad but we were literally pushing Nate's stroller with our arms straight up. Once we saw the castle though we realized it was well worth it! The castle was originally built in 1214AD but throughout the years and wars it has undergone many rebuilds and damage. You can check out more history of the castle by clicking here.

After we visited the castle we had lunch at a street cafe where we could relax and Nate could people watch. A group of saxophone street performers provided some awesome background music. After we got done eating Nate and I went to dance to the music. He was so cute! There were some tourists that actually took his picture while he was dancing! He is a total ladies man!

You can see all of our pictures from our trip to Heidelberg here on our photobucket page.

After lunch we went to the Body Worlds exhibit. Sean was lucky enough to see this exhibit when he studied abroad in Italy while in college. It was, well, an interesting experience. Body Worlds is an exhibit where the "artist" uses donated bodies and plasticates them (turns the body into plastic). Then the bodies are put into different poses or the skin is removed so you can see the skeletal structure. I won't go into much more detail but if you want to know more you can go to the website bodyworlds.com.

One of the great things about Germany is that they have a lot of national holidays. Sean had Good Friday and the day after Easter off. Because we had a four day weekend we decided to take a trip to Paris! I can't even begin to describe how amazing it feels to just say...hmm.. I think we'll go to Paris for the weekend! The night before we left we realized our navigation system only had maps for Germany and our Garmin didn't have maps for Europe either. So, I wrote all the directions by hand and on a wing and prayer, we left the next morning for a 5 hour trip to Paris.

There are no words to describe how scary and unorganized Paris traffic is! There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the layout of the road nor are there any traffic lines to tell you what lane you are in! Motorcycles zoom in and out of traffic and in between cars and I can't believe we didn't hit any of them! We were doing pretty good on directions until we came to a round-about we later named "The Circle of Death" because it is just like herding cattle. We were supposed to take the 4th exit once we were on the Circle of Death, but there was no way to tell which exit was which! We had to get on the Circle of Death four times before we found the right exit!! We somehow managed to find our hotel through it all, but of course, there was no where to park! Sean dropped Nate and I off at the hotel and went on a search to find a parking spot. He finally found one but it was a parking spot where you had to pay. And just our luck, we couldn't use our credit card to pay! So we just left and hoped we didn't get a ticket. We didn't :-)

We walked all over Paris! We went to the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph, Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame. Everything was beautiful. Pictures don't do justice to the amazing history and art that are everywhere in Paris. We tried to do our best with our pictures. We took 160 pictures in Paris alone! Nate was amzing during our trip. He wanted out of the car after four hours but other than that, he did very well. It is too bad that he will not remember any of this experience in Paris. How lucky is he!?

Here is the link to our pictures. On the left hand side under Albums if you click on back to snerb722 you can also look at the pictures from Heidelberg. I didn't put any captions on the pictures yet. I will when I can, there are just sooo many! Enjoy!!

http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g46/snerb722/Paris/

Grass feels funny

Spring has finally arrived! After a month of rain and cold weather, the sun does exist in Germany! Nathan and I decided to go outside and play in our backyard. He really hasn't played outside since he learned how to walk so this was a new experience for him. When he fell he didn't quite like the feel of the grass on his hands. I laughed so hard I cried! Luckily he has gotten over his phobia of grass and LOVES to play outside! He likes to pull the grass and bring you little pieces of it to put in your hands. We spend most of our day playing outside. Enjoy the video!

Our Debit Card Adventures and Big Boy Nate!

Before I begin I just wanted to say hello to my Grandma! Welcome to the Internet! I am so happy you are able to read about our adventures and see pictures of Nathan.

This week we started trying to teach Nathan how to eat like a big boy. We have been giving him food on a plate and slowly teaching him not to throw the plate on the floor or food off the plate. So far we are doing okay. We are also trying to teach him how to feed himself with a fork and spoon. The fork and spoon end up being toys. It is much faster to eat with our fingers!! He loves mixed veggies. but for some reason will only eat green beans if they are by themselves and not part of the vegggie mix. If he gets a green bean, he takes it out of him mouth with a yucky face and throws it on the floor! Tonight we had meatloaf for dinner and he LOVED it!! He also loves any kind of fruit. Of course...just like mommy! His favorite is fresh apples.

I had an interesting birthday last Saturday. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes! We still need some things for our house so we thought we would go to IKEA, have some lunch and do some shopping. We finally have our ATM cards, or EC Cards like they say here in Germany. We have our PIN numbers but Nathan got ahold of the mail and ripped the pins from the card number it belonged to so we had no idea which PIN went with each card. We go to the cafeteria at IKEA and try to pay with our cards. Both PIN numbers are denied. Sean then tries to go to the ATM at IKEA and comes back looking like he was going to hit something or somebody. The ATM machine ate his card!! We scrape together some change and pay for our food and decide that after we eat, we will go to our bank (20 mins away) and use my card to withdrawal some money. So we go to our bank, I put my card in....THE ATM EATS MY CARD TOO!!! Now we have no way of getting money and no cash on hand. We give up and go home. It turns out that our cards were locked due to a mail mix up and now we won't get them back until someone cleans out the ATMs and mail them to us. Who knows when that will be.

After this experience I have decided that our motto so far in Germany is: The only way to learn something is to do it wrong the first time. Eventually we will get the hang of things.

Have a wonderful day!

Not much new around here

We don't really have much to report since our last post. We have basically been trying to wade through the piles of stuff that the movers unpacked and left where ever they could find space throughout our house. Stephanie has successfully cleared out the majority of the things in the kitchen and we can now see our counterspace. Our dining room table is next.

We did want to say that we are disappointed in the number of comments left on our posts. Feel free to leave comments, we would love to hear from all of you!

A few random thougths about Germany thus far:

It has been a big adjustment to go from a culture driven by credit cards to a culture where no one takes credit cards.

If you are going to visit, don't think about coming until late Spring. The weather right now is miserable.

Hand signals are universal - all of them!

America should really consider removing the speed limit on interstates

Germans are much more environmentally conscious than Americans. They consider the environmental impact of everything they buy, even a coffee maker.

Gas is expensive. We currently pay approximately $5.00 a gallon.

Germans love their cars. I am pretty sure that just about everyone owns a Porsche

There are 5 major food groups in Germany - Bread, Meat, Cheese, Coffee, and Beer!

Germans are much more kid friendly - they love to stop and play with Nathan

Germans are much more concerned with the functionality of an item than its form.

When you buy/rent a home in Germany, be prepared to purchase lighting fixtures for every room in the house, don't be suprised if there is nothing in the kitchen (including counters and cabnets), and there is no such thing as air conditioning (we are still waiting to see how this plays out this summer).

Germans have not yet discovered ice... if you order a drink expect to get it warm.

That is all for now. Hope everyone is doing well. LEAVE A COMMENT!

bye

Our stuff has arrived!

Sorry, no new pictures for this post! I (Sean) just thought that I would share with everyone our interesting experience yesterday when our sea shipment finally arrived. The day we have been waiting for since we arrived in Germany had finally come. When we arrived at our house at 7:45 in the morning Monday morning, the container with our things was already in front of our house (and our neighbors' houses on either side of us!). One thing we have definitely learned about the German culture is that everyone, even the cable guy, is punctual!

The movers just started pulling boxes and furniture all wrapped in brown paper off of the truck and piling it in our house. Before they had even arrived Stephanie and I had wondered how they were going to get our office desk in the house as the top of it is too long and wide for our doors. The answer would become a common theme that day - it was shoved through a window!

The movers continued to unload the truck and the look on their faces when they took our King and Queen size beds off the truck was priceless. Immediately I was thinking "uh oh!" Their eyes were the size of golf balls. Before I continue, let me backtrack about 2 months to our trip over here to look for a house. In all of the hotels that we stayed at, we couldn't understand why all of the mattresses were composed of two twin size mattresses. Well, yesterday we found out. Simply put, American beds are not made for European houses. Before they attempted to get the mattresses in the house, they first tried to get the sofas in the house. Since we had an extra sofa and loveseat, we asked the movers to take the sofa up to our bedroom (on the 3rd floor of our 3 story house). They knew right away that they were going to have to find another way to get it onto the 2nd floor as it would not fit through the stairwell from the main floor. Of course how did they get it to the 2nd floor? Hurl it through the window on the 2nd floor of course! I wish I had taken pictures - or Stephanie anyway, I was helping.

Once we had a system down, we thought we would use it to get the mattresses upstairs. Getting them onto the 2nd floor, was not too difficult. However, once on the 2nd floor, the movers began trying to get a square peg to fit into a round hole. The analogy is almost literal too. Our stairwell is a spiral stairwell. So after about 5 minutes of pushing and shoving the movers were starting to give up until I kept hollering at them to bend the bed and squish it any way they could to get it up the stairway. In the end, our bed made it and I must say that last night was the best night's sleep I have had in quite some time.

Tschüß from Germany!

Sommertagszug, a tradition that will never exist in America!

Today Nathan, Stephanie, and I went to the town center for a festival like we have never seen before. Each year, right around the beginning of spring most towns in our area have a festival to end, or rather KILL winter! I say kill because all of the town children from the area "kindergartens" (daycares) parade through the town carrying skewers with gigantic pretzels and eggs on them headed to the town square to set a 20 foot tall snowman on fire. I have tried to learn more about the tradition of the Sommertagszug, but everything I have found on the internet is in German and suffice it to say, my German is not any better than when we left the US. The part that I found particularly interesting about this event is that people were crowded around, no more than 20 feet from where the snowman is set ablaze. It was very much a unique experience. You can find all of the pictures from our trip on my photobucket account here:

http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g46/snerb722/Sommertagszug%202009/

Our first full week

Our first full week as German citizens was full of meetings and planning. I know it had to have been hard for Sean because he started working four days after we arrived. I will make him write about his new job some time this week.

We have a relocation agent that has been helping us with all the logistics of moving to Germany. His name is Matthias and he is awesome! He speaks very good English and has a great sense of humor. He is also very knowledgable which is good too. Oh and the best part...he is a fan of Grey's Anatomy! Needless to say he and I hit it off. Can you see it? Me and Matthias sitting in the front seat talking about plots and characters and Sean shaking his head in the backseat?? Oh yea!

The most important meeting we had was to set up our bank accounts. Unlike the US, no one here takes credit cards! They only take EZ cards which are just like our check cards. Credit here is very limited. You can get a credit card, but your entire balance is taken out of your checking account at the end of the month. Don't have enough money to cover it? Too bad! And Germans only get paid once a month. So Sean will not get paid until the END of March! There must be quite a bit of budgeting over here! Just like pretty much everything so far, we have learned the hard way about no credit cards. On our first Saturday here we went to buy our washing machine and dryer. We had everything ordered, set up our delivery, and got ready to pay. Can you imagine our faces when they said, nope sory, no credit! Grrrr.

Matthias also went with me to set up a new cell phone. I am so glad he did because he found this amazing deal for me. I guess not all iPhones are alike. The German SIM card is not compatible with my US phone so I had to buy a new phone. Matthias was looking though some ads and turns out they were offering a special for a 3G iPhone for 1.00!! I got a new phone with my same plan for only 1.00! Pretty good!!!! Of course with such a great deal, they had no phones available so I had to go the next day (by myself!!) to pick it up. Nate and I did great taking the train all by ourselves and picking it up. I can't begin to describe how awesome it was to have interent again. I felt so lost without it. Isn't that sad??

On Thursday we finally got the keys to our house. It was an amazing feeling knowing we could finally begin to settle in. We were starting to go a little stir crazy in our hotel room. Of course there is nothing in our house but it is OUR house. The air shipment came in on Friday so it wasn't long until there were boxes everywhere. Our air shipment wasn't very big but it had all of our kitchen stuff, Nate's bed, and our clothes. Getting our clothes was great because Sean forgot to pack a pair of jeans in the suitcases so he didn't have any jeans. We had to buy jeans at WalMart before we left the US and the front belt loop broke. He walked around a few days with a broken belt loop.

The first week was really a blur and even now sitting here writing about it, I can't believe how fast it went. We learned so much in just 5 days. But there always has to be that learning curve I guess.

Thanks for the comments and I will post more tomorrow. Love you all!

These are pictures from our new house. The one is the front of our house. We just live in the one side, on the right, 23/1. The other picture is the view from Nathan's room. This is bascially our front yard. All you wine lovers out there, you better come visit! There are wineries everywhere! Then of course there is the picture of Nathan. This is his idea of helping us unpack. It is hard to get mad at such a cutie pie.