Regensburg Redux

Our second attempt at Regensburg turned out to be glorious - high 70s, clear sky, no wind.  We arrived at about 10:30 and decided the old stone bridge would be our first destination.  I suggested we walk along the Danube to get there and along the way we ran into a tour boat.  Carissa went up to the information booth and found out that the next tour was leaving in about 5 minutes so we paid and got on board.  We sat on the top deck and ordered some beverages.  We learned yesterday that Germans mix everything with sparkling water - the kids ordered Orangensaftschorle which is orange juice and sparkling water.  We had ordered this and Apfelschorle (Apple juice + sparkling water) many times without realizing what it was.  Carissa decided to share with the kids and I ordered a Thurn and Taxis Pils, which is a local brew owned by a German royal family (of the same name) known for European postal services in the 16th century as well as castle building.  This was not a great beer, actually tasted exactly like Miller Lite with a bitter finish.  Anyway, the boat tour was very nice, but it was hard to hear the tour guide over the loudspeaker as apparently everyone on board couldn't care less about the history of the town / river.  As a result, Carissa and I took turns getting up and standing next to the speaker and then walking back and relaying what had been said.

After the boat tour we made our way to the old stone bridge which was built 800 years ago and opened up international trade routes between Northern Europe and Venice.  As a result, Regensburg boomed and has been a hub for international commerce ever since.  Right next to the bridge on the river is also an 800 year old sausage factory that is still in business.  We got some for lunch and they were fantastic.

Really Old Bridge

Really Old Sausages

We followed that up by walking over to the Old Town Hall where Roman emperors (Regensburg used to be the northern most military post on the Danube of the Roman Empire) used to hold meetings.  Unfortunately you can only see the inside via a tour which was a couple hours off.  Too bad because apparently it has the original furniture that the emperors and their guests used.

Old Town Hall

After an ice cream stop and a shopping at a bookstore we wandered over back to the Cathedral to snap a few more pictures and tour the little museum next door.  It was housed in a much smaller but really beautiful sanctuary and contained all kinds of crucifixes, staffs, chalices, sculptures and paintings that the church had used in it's 600 year history.  Just down the street from there we accidentally found another incredible church, this one 1000 years old that is still active today.  Some of these old churches really have some spooky stuff - the tombs in this one of past bishops I thought were a little grim, but fun to see.

Church Museum

Bishops behind bars.  Finally?  ;)

We ended the day at a little street fair that we had seen while on the boat tour.  A little disappointing but we had some fresh cinnamon-sugar crepes that made the girls miss breakfast at Maria's and the kids got some new faces.  There are a couple things we still haven't seen in Regensburg - another sanctuary and the Thurn and Taxis castle, but after 6 hours on foot in the hot sun Dad was ready to go home.

Sunday we had a lazy morning and then went to the local pool.  We ran into our German neighbors and the kids had a great time with them.  At one point some of Lydia's friends from school showed up and Lydia spurned them for her new German speaking friends.  These two literally don't speak a word of English, but somehow it doesn't matter at all.  After the pool their mom Yvonne, invited us all over for coffee.  Carissa went with the kids while I went to the grocery store.  Upon leaving the grocery store on post I was reminded about the big Fussball match that I'm sad to say I didn't see a minute of.  The Germans had obviously won because columns of cars were flying down the streets waving German flags out the windows and honking their horns.  I am not missing the next one - there is a public viewing area in town where people gather to watch.  I'm hoping they win the whole thing just to see the reaction of the locals.

They call this the Walbad which apparently translates to Whale Bath.  I'm guessing because it's a large pool.  By the way, stay tuned for some German swimsuit styles....

This weekend we are heading outside of Germany for the first time to Prague.  My mom says it's one of her favorite places so we are pretty excited.  Hopefully the nice weather holds up.

A Kitchen, a Birthday and Father's Day

The temperature has dropped in a past 4 days - we're sitting at mostly overcast and high 50s, low 60s.  We had a pretty eventful weekend starting with our kitchen being delivered and installed.  The movers told us to expect them around 930 at our house because they were planning to pick up the kitchen in Amberg (about 40 min away) at around 8 am.  At 10 Carissa got a call from the colonel that the movers had just called and told him the truck broke down on the way so they were going to be late.  The colonel guessed that the truck breaking down actually meant they stopped for breakfast.  They finally got here at around 12:30 and the install was done at about 5:30.  What they had told us would be a half day job actually took the entire day, but at least they didn't try to charge us more.  The install went pretty smoothly with one exception.  We have a pretty large space above the counter where they were unable to hang a cabinet because the wall is hollow and can't support it.  There is also a hole from the plaster disintegrating in that space, so Carissa and I have to get a little creative to make that spot look a little better.  I think we are just fill the hole as best we can, paint over it and put up a little shelf with a plant or something on it to cover the wall.  Aside from that it's a huge upgrade and we are thrilled to finally have it in.  We also got our dining room table so no more eating on the coffee table sitting on the floor. 

Friday also was Elise's 9th birthday - we postponed the celebration until Saturday, but she did get to pick what she wanted for dinner and decided on the Tex-Mex place in town which is actually really good.  Saturday morning we got up and Elise opened her presents and then drove over to Weiden to their Farmer's market (Elise's choice).  It was a beautiful morning and we strolled along the street eating some sort of fried flower from a street vendor - delicious.  We picked up some rolls, musli and eggs and then stopped at a cafe for some coffee, tea, and bagel sandwiches.  Just as we were about to sit down these two little lap dogs at the table next to us got into quite the fight, rolling around and really going at it.  The owner was trying to pry them apart as they were crashing into adjacent chairs and tables.  At one point he lifted one up by the hind quarters while the other was dangling in the air, both dogs holding on to each other's faces by their teeth.  I tried to get a picture, but Carissa poo pooed that idea so I couldn't get a good one.  Finally he got them apart and thankfully left.

We hung out in the square for a couple more hours as the vendors closed up shop and then headed home.  After a little down time Elise's wanted to go bowling on post (she scored over 100 and beat dad) and then we came back home for frozen pizza's in the "new" oven.

Father's Day was nice as well.  I got a little stereo system for the house so I can play some music while I'm home and Carissa made a nice breakfast of eggs and pancakes.  Then we packed up and headed to Regensburg which is a beautiful medieval city about an hour away.  Since it was Sunday all the stores were closed but we visited St. Peter's Catherdral which is incredible.  600 years old and built in the French Gothic style.  We wandered around the huge sanctuary looking at the tombs of priests and little chapels and such.  After we had made our way around the inside Mass was starting up so we sat down and listened for about 15 minutes which was really cool.  Outside the weather was getting worse and we strolled on a little further, but then the rain forced us to turn back and head home.  We are going to head back there this Saturday when there is a little more action and hopefully the weather is nicer.

This week is the first week of summer vacation for the girls.  All 3 have VBS in the evening this week so Mom and Dad get a little kid free time to get some errands done or even better just enjoy the quiet.  Tomorrow we are supposed to get our phone and a internet.  Once we get that set up we need to set up some Skype dates with family and friends.

Teufelshoehle (Devil's Hole)

Weeks are starting to fly by, a good sign that we are getting into a routine.  The weather here has been great for the most part, sunny and in the 70s almost every day.  The last two days have been really windy though.  This past weekend we ventured out about 30 minutes away to a little town called Pottenstein.  I heard about it from our neighbor and it sounded like a fun little trip.  True to our experience so far, the 30 minutes turned into an hour as we hit some major road construction and had to take a detour.  It was a nice drive though, especially as we got closer to our destination and descended into a narrow and rocky valley. 

We heard that in Pottenstein there was a cave and a castle so drove we through the town looking for both and found neither.  Since by now it was lunch time we headed back to a restaurant we had seen driving in that  had a terrace above a little creek.  When we got there we realized that this was the cave we had heard about.  Somehow when we drove by the first time we didn't notice the gaping hole leading into the side of the hill right next to it.

We sat down to eat and the menu was completely in German.  We are going to need to pick up a menu reader, particularly for Carissa.  I can decipher some things with the little bit of German I learned in high school, but finding a vegetarian option between the schnitzels, wieners and wursts is a little more difficult.  I have to say to this point in our time here that I'm less than impressed with German cuisine.  It appears that all restaurants serve almost exactly the same items and I really can't eat that much sausage.  I'm also already tired of schnitzel.  Most of the dishes are extremely rich and filling too which really isn't what we typically eat.  Carissa ordered a spatzle dish that was gigantic and completely smothered in what looked like an incredibly rich and thick cream sauce.  Haaken liked it, Carissa did not.  I got a curry wurst which was pretty good, a lot like the bologna sausage with red sauce that my mom used to make except that it had curry powder sprinkled on top.  I managed to accidentally flip my sauce covered knife on to my cream colored shorts which was great.  Elise got spaghetti and Lyd got some weiners that were pretty charred and about the size of breakfast links.

The other thing we've noticed about German restaurants is they aren't very concerned about customer service.  Dishes don't come out at the same time, the waiters(resses) don't typically check on you, and they don't read the non-verbal cues that American servers pick up on (ie.  no one at the table is looking at the menu = we're ready to order; no one at the table is eating anymore = we're done eating; ; the plates are gone and we are just sitting here = we would like our bill).  Starting to get used to it, but it's a little annoying.  It's probably a good thing that the food isn't great because it's really expensive to eat out.

After eating we bought our tickets to the cave and waited for the tour to start.  Thankfully there was an English version - we just had to wait until the German version was done and everyone had left each stop for that version to begin.  Probably better because we were the only people that had kids on the tour.  It was an awesome cave, over a mile long, with some really cool stalactites/stalagmites.  We all loved it.

 Descending into the Devil's Hole - Ironically it's a constant 48 degrees

 13 years per millimeter for each of these

 150,000 years old!

Die Ausfahrt

After the cave we decided that instead of pushing the kids through nap we would cut out the castle tour and let them go on some alpine slides just down the street from the cave.  They were a lot of fun and pretty reasonable.  Since it's so close we decided to save the castle for another day and headed home.

When we got home we decided to hike on some trails that Carissa found while going out for a run in the woods behind our neighborhood.  There was a little nature trail with stations all along it that of course were in German so we didn't learn anything.  One of the stops was a really cool " Kathedrale der Natur" made out of branches.  We also found a nest of baby birds at another one of the stations.

Baby Birds - hopefully I didn't permanently blind them with the flash.

This week was the last week of school for the kids so it was pretty busy for them.  They had their field day the Friday before (Elise said it wasn't as good as Stonebridge's) and this week they had their class parties and then today the "Star Assembly" which they have each month I think to recognize outstanding students.  We were thrilled that both Elise and Lydia received Shining Stars for the past month.  They got to go up and get their certificate and get their picture taken with the principal.  Lydia also got lucky and had her name pulled out of a hat for a prize.

Tomorrow we finally get our kitchen appliances.  I'm praying everything goes smoothly because I'm sick of cooking on the hot plates and going to the grocery store everyday.  Also it would be nice to get some beer now that I've been here for a month and a half. :)

Carissa is getting used to her new job.  The Army Dental clinic does things a lot differently than private practice.  There is all this protocol and the charts are all done in pencil and paper instead of on the computer.  She says that the people she works with are nice and so are the patients - mostly soldiers.  It sounds like the dental health of the soldiers she has been seeing is horrible.  Lots of young kids in their early 20s with mouths full of cavities and tons of work needed.  It's pretty busy now because there are a lot of soldiers that are being deployed soon, but they can't go if they don't have their more serious dental work done.  Also, all of the Army dentists are leaving for one reason or another which means that the clinic will be down to the 3 contractors and one Army dentist that just arrived.  I think there were 6-8 general dentists when she started and they were busy then.  Overall it's going well though, and she's getting some experience doing some work she hasn't done in a long time which will be valuable when we get back.

Not sure what we are going to do this weekend.  Elise's birthday is tomorrow so we're kind of leaving it up to her.  Sounds like she wants to check out the farmer's market in Weiden but beyond that she's not sure.  Right now all three kids are over at a neighbors.  They have 2 girls about the same age as Elise and Lydia.  Neither speak any English, but apparently it doesn't matter.  They have hung out a couple times this past week with another girl from the neighborhood who speaks a little bit of English (not the one they met a couple weeks ago.)  It's been pretty fun to watch.  Hopefully they will pick up some German along the way.

That's probably enough for now.  I got a letter the other day from the phone company that we will be getting our phone and internet service next Tuesday which will be awesome.  The connection we have right now is horrible and not having a phone is really inconvenient.  Maybe once we get that I can post a little video or something.

Legoland

After a very long first month we finally decided to go out and do something fun.  Definitely not the grown-ups first choice, but the kids deserved to be spoiled for a day after what we had to put them through to get settled.  Saturday morning we jumped in the car and drove 2 and a half hours to Legoland.  It was a prefect day and the kids had a great time.  Lydia and Haaken rode their first roller coasters, we did the log ride, the girls got their face painted and Haaken got some new shades.  We stayed until close and then drove home.  Sunday we stayed home and went to the neighborhood park to try to meet some kids, but there wasn't anyone there except a really shy German boy who stayed for about two minutes and then left.  Scared off by the Ugly Americans I guess.

Monday the kids had school and then we went to the public pool.  I imagine once school is out we will be spending a fair amount of time there so I'm going to buy a season pass.  It's a pretty nice facility with a large pool with 2 diving boards and a high platform, a kids area, ping pong tables, minigolf, 5 volleyball courts.  They have a snack bar with burgers and pizza and ice cream although I'll probably bring our own food.

Yesterday we had a great day as we met a neighborhood girl that the kids will be able to hang out with.  She is a native German but her dad is American so she's bilingual which is awesome.  They played last night and have plans to play again tonight.  Hopefully this will lead to more friends in the neighborhood.  The girls have been very concerned about neighborhood friends since they have such great friends at home.  We met the mother and she was very nice to so maybe mom and dad will make some friends as well. 

We are starting to plan our first two trips - a long weekend in Prague over the 4th of July  and then Lake Como for a week toward the end of July.  Sounds like my mom may join us for that which will be great.  If anyone has been to either and has any recommendations we are all ears.

Legoland!

Junior Driving School

Lydia's first roller coaster

Face Painting

Haaken rockin' the Spiderman shades

Mom and Haaken at the neighborhood park

Moving In

*** This first part of this blog is lengthy and pretty boring.  It's mostly for Carissa and I to be able to look back on in the future.  The casual reader will probably want to skip to paragraph 7. ***

Over a week since I last blogged, been really busy lately.  Carissa had Thursday through Monday off and we pretty much spent the whole time running around.  Thursday I drove down to Vilseck (another town with an Army post that is affiliated with Graf's) to get my driver's license.  We found out about a week in that I had been driving illegally and that if I were to get caught I would've faced a year suspension of my license, or even worse, had I gotten in an accident, a 5 year suspension.  Since no one told us this and Carissa had to work, I continued driving when she wasn't around for another week and half because we really had no other choice.  Thank god I didn't get caught.  To get the license I had to take a two hour class followed by a 100 question test, which you have to get an 85 or better to pass.  Prior to leaving Carissa told me not to worry about studying because the guy that teaches the class tells you everything you need to know so of course I didn't study except for a little bit the night before.  The guy teaching my class was German and didn't cover everything so I got to relive what it felt like to take an Organic Chemistry test at Olaf.  I was literally sweating bullets trying to answer questions about how far I can legally park from railway crossings and roundabouts, how many meters I need to allow when I pass a bicyclist and other random tidbits.  Failing meant I had to wait another week to take the test, but luckily I'm a good guesser because I passed.

We followed that up by picking up the girls early from school to take them to Weiden for physicals that they didn't need but were required to get by the Army in order to participate in activities on post.  It turned into a 4 hour appointment and the doctor came to the conclusion that both Lydia and Haaken need to be seen by an optometrist to check their eyes.  We didn't think their testing methods were very good, so I'm canceling the appointment they made for us this Friday.  Lydia passed the vision test at school the next day anyway.

Friday we dropped off the girls at school and Haaken had his first day at his "school" which is a very nice facility.  We then headed to Weiden to pick up the van we rented and then to IKEA.  After getting three carts worth of IKEA merchandise for our house we headed home to pickup the kids, got caught in construction and a Nuremberg traffic jam and arrived 30 minutes late.  Thankfully the teachers were great about it, but we felt horribly.  We headed to the house, dropped off the IKEA haul, and then began picking up other furniture from around the area from locals that were selling their things on the internet.  I finally got back home at 10pm.

Saturday we had to return the rental car and then spent most of the day at the house trying to put all the IKEA furniture together and making trips to the PX to get more supplies for the house.  We also met the neighbor who is very nice.  He works on post doing logistics for the battle simulations they run on the ranges.  We haven't met his wife yet.  He brought over some temporary shrunks for us to hang our clothes in and he showed me where to dump our yard clippings in town.  Lydia also had a birthday party at the indoor park.

Sunday we spent the morning moving all our things out of the hotel and checking out.  We followed that by brunch at the DFAC (Dining Facility) and then had our first night in our new home.

Monday we took another trip to IKEA to return some things, pick up some more and let the kids pick out bedding, a rug and a lamp for their room.  This time we only had our little Accord and the trip home was pretty uncomfortable.  Through all of this "holiday" weekend the kids were great for the most part.  Hopefully we are now through the worst of it and life can start slowing down and becoming more enjoyable.


***Paragraph 7 ***


We are finally living in our house.  It's bigger than at least I expected before we came over to Germany.  I'm guessing it's because we are in a small town so rent is cheaper and there is more room for bigger homes.  We have three bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs and then a kitchen, pantry, dining room, and a spacious living room on the main level.  We have a cute little "L" shaped yard with about a 4' x 8' patio.  The yard is fenced and is lined with tall shrubs.  We also have a detached one car garage that has a little storage room on one end.  Since we were really under the gun to get a place to live, housing is very limited right now, and we haven't really been to any other homes, it's hard to judge on if we got a good deal or not.  From the small number of places Carissa was able to look at we think we did pretty well.  One of the downsides as I said before is we have no appliances at the moment.  We thought we had a free fridge lined up, but we found out last night that it's broken so we're out of luck there.  We bought a little double hot plate so we can at least boil water and we have a microwave.  We do have appliances lined up and will have them on June 18th along with our dining room table and chairs.  So for now we will limp along with what we have, try to find a mini fridge possibly, and continue eating our dinners on cushions around the IKEA coffee table.

First Dinner

One thing I didn't know before moving here is that they heat with oil.  In our basement we have two 2000L plastic tubs that hold the oil.  Our basement does not smell pleasant as a result and the smell gets into the main level if we open the basement door.  The laundry room is down there, but I would think the clothes would take on the smell of the oil.  It doesn't matter anyway because we don't have a washer or dryer so we will be taking our laundry to the laundromat.  The flooring isn't great either - pretty ugly linoleum - upstairs it's kind of an orangy pink and the stairs are some sort of stone tile that will probably result in a trip to the hospital if one of the kids take a spill.  Small complaints that we can live with though.  We should be quite comfortable here and have enough room for guests.  It's a nice quiet neighborhood and there seem to be kids around, we just haven't had a chance to walk around and meet anyone yet.  I did meet a guy at the recycling area outside our house that was quite the character.  My neighbor told me I would be sure to meet him - he is German and had just been to Florida.  He was very excited about how cheap the US is and kept randomly bringing up and even showing me receipts from his favorite places - Arby's, Golden Corral, Dollar Tree, etc.  Pretty interesting what he finds great about the US are some of the stores and restaurants I detest.

The weather here is still not great.  The last 3 days have been in the 50s and rainy.  The kids are doing well, although Elise had a couple weak moments today and told me she didn't know what was so great about Germany and wanted to go home.  All 3 of them are so tired just like mom and dad from all the running around the last 3 weeks, and I think it will be much better once we get out and have a little fun and meet some people.  This weekend is supposedly going to be nice so hopefully we can get outside.  We also are talking about trying to plan some trips.  It would be great if some of my globetrotting family and friends gave us some suggestions on the first things to see and do that the whole family would enjoy.  I would guess we will try to take 1 or 2 long weekend or week long trips this summer, but there are so many places to go it's hard to decide where to start.

Well I think that's it for now.  Two more days and it's the weekend!  Below are some more pics from the house. 

Kiddos on the couch

Kitchen

First night in new rooms

Living Room

Kids Corner