Christmas market time!

Germany is famous for its Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkt). The history of Christmas markets in this region goes back to the late middle ages.  Just about every town in Germany has some sort of Christmas market and they are a BIG deal, very fun and basically a great excuse to drink Glühwein (hot mulled wine) and eat giant spicy hot dogs in a festive outdoor market.  The best markets are in the bigger cities, like Ulm.  They basically run daily for the whole month of December until Christmas.  There are tons of open-air stalls with Christmas decorations, handmade crafts, and seasonal food.  Our first Christmas market was in the nearby town of Ulm.  Many of der Junge's colleagues live in this town as it is a bigger town than ours but within an hour commuting distance.

So much fun!

So we initially had great plans to visit the famous Nuremberg and Munich markets, but alas, due to the Kiwi Fiasco in Cologne, we scrapped the plans. New plan is to get to the Stuttgart market!

Look for the post to follow!

A big little reason to give Thanks!

We have exciting news to share that we have a brand new little nephew!

Happy Birthday and welcome to the world little guy!

Cologne (aka, Kiwi is not invited on any more trips)

So this is not a happy post unfortunately.

Our trip to Cologne was a big expensive disappointment. Not by the fault of Cologne, in truth it seemed a pretty cool city, but for Kiwi....

(turns out her separation anxiety is a bigger issue than we realized)

Suffice to say,

we got to see the train station.

the hotel.

the Dom Cathedral (across from our hotel).

and the Europcar Rental office. (to end our trip early...)

the beautiful, historic Dom hotel

our room

bathroom

if we only knew!

Dom Cathedral

Losses: 

Portable dog crate

the Dom Hotel's television remote control 

Tickets to the Kölner Haie 

Nonrefundable room (for check out a day early)

Nonrefundable train tickets 

Lessons learned... no more Kiwi trips and lots more training

Oh well!!!

Roman Holiday!

Finally! Our long-anticipated trip to Italy... an entire week in the "Eternal City" 

Buongiorno Roma!  

Zurich

Kiwi and I travelled by ourselves (my first time navigating the confusing train system without der Junge! aah!) from our town via train and 2 transfers and 5 hours later we finally arrived in Zurich. Where we met up with these two strapping young Alpine men...

visit to the Friseurin

aka, my first haircut since I arrived in February...

so for me, getting a haircut can be a little scary... I have had some real disasters in my past with some pretty awful haircuts...

and that is when I could speak the language of the hairstylist!

Well, unfortunately I missed my opportunity while in the US.  So despite warnings that I would end up with a mullet (there are a shocking number of Europeans sporting mullet hairstyles, it does nothing to alleviate hairstylist fears!), I decided that I had to do it, and so I did, I got a haircut in Germany!

and it turned out pretty cute, if I do say...  I brought in a picture of Heidi Klum (pictures = 1,000 words right? and she has a beautiful hairstyle and she's German so I thought maybe I would get some bonus points? :) So the picture did help and it wasn't so bad... I could basically communicate with the picture and hand gestures in place of poor language ability. I guess now I don't need to wait so long!

haircut! hallelujah!

Atlanta trip ~ my brother's wedding!

We flew back to the US, to Atlanta, for my little brother's wedding! It was the most beautiful wedding.  I'm thrilled for my brother and so happy to have a new sister, especially one as great as she is! She was a beautiful bride and my little brother looked all grown up and so handsome!  They got married on the back lawn of a lovely house near the beautiful historic Marietta square. The reception dinner catered at the house had the most amazing Southern food. Below are pics taken by their wedding photographer. It was a lovely wedding and they are a beautiful couple!  Congratulations to A & K! (it's so hard to write this without saying their names!)