Lots and lots of Snow!

Before I get to talking about my trip to Rome, I thought I'd share some pictures of all the snow that was dumped on us in the last couple of weeks.  My landlords said this is the worst winter and the most snow we've had for thirty years.  What a nice introduction to a German winter I received.  I would have preferred being broken in slowly.  Oh well. :)  Thank goodness for winter tires or I would be sliding all over the roads.

backyard

backyard

Looking out my front window

Right outside my front door

Bernkastle Christmas Market

I recently went to the Christmas Market in Bernkastle which is about thirty to forty five minutes away.  (Going to Christmas Markets is the thing to do around here at this time of year.)  Most people go to the Christmas Market just to get the Gluchwein (warm wine).  I do not indulge, I don't like wine.  Oh well.

Bernkastle is along the Mosel river and there is an actual castle at the top of a hill next to the river.  It's a gorgeous town and lots of quaint little shops.  For this trip I actually brought Blitz with me since he had just gotten over his vaccination scare and I didn't want to leave him home alone.  I put his little blue jacket on and he looked so cute. :)

It was a little rainy at first but it stopped (thank goodness) and we had a good time looking at all the booths, getting hot chocolate, walking the cobblestones streets (it hurts to walk on those after awhile by the way), stopping at a pub for a break, and finally meeting up with other friends to have dinner at an Indian restaurant there in town.  Yes, I ate Indian food, go figure.  It was good.  Here are some pics.

This is a living Christmas calendar, like the ones where you open the doors to find chocolate.

This depicts the German Christmas tradition where Santa comes to bring gifts for the good kids, but the guy on the left comes and takes the bad kids away, if you look close you can see the legs of a child hanging from the sack.

The thing to get are Nativity sets and you will find displays everywhere.  Want to buy one?  Take your pick of the thousands of different styles you can find at the Christmas markets.

That's all for now, next stop....Rome, Italy.

Doggie Crisis and Phone/Internet Frustration

Well, last Friday and Monday were not a fun days.  To start off, Friday I took Blitz to the veterinarian on base to get some shots he needed in order to be able to go into a local kennel while I go to Rome for Christmas.  He got two shots and one vaccination they put in his nose and things seem to be fine.  While I was sitting waiting for the final paperwork to get done all of the sudden where Blitz was sitting on the floor was a pile of pee.  Now he doesn't normally just pee on the floor like that, especially when just sitting somewhere, but it didn't concern me yet.  After paying we walked outside and he was walking slowly and stiffly (they said he would be drowsy) and I asked him to go potty outside.  He was walking more and more stiffly and then all of the sudden he threw up a lot (not normal for him).  I immediately took him back inside to the vet and they took him in the back. 

I waited for about 15 minutes and they came out and told me that Blitz had an allergic reaction to one of the vaccinations (there's no way to tell which one) and that they had him on oxygen and a benadryl and steroids I.V.  Freak out time.  So I waited and waited to see that he was o.k.  About an hour later they came out and said they had taken him off the oxygen and I.V. but wanted him to stay another 20 minutes or so to make sure he would be o.k. without them.  Well he was, but they gave me a whole bunch of things to look out for and gave me some Benadryl pills to give him for the next five days.  From now on, we will have to pre-treat him with Benadryl before he gets any vaccination to keep this from happening again.  I go back in 30 days for another vaccination and hopefully this doesn't happen again because it freaked me out.  Poor baby.

I went to Bernkastle for their Christmas Market Sunday and took Blitz with me (I'll write about that next).

Monday I took my final day off to wait for Telekom to come and install the phone and Internet.  They said they would come between 0800 and 1600.  By 1500 they still hadn't come so I asked my landlady if she would call them (they only speak German) and they said we still have an hour, we'll be there.  Fine.  At 1530 we both saw a little car come up to the house but he never rang the doorbell and never came in.  Two minutes later the car left.  We called again.  They said they had been there and the work was done.  If it wasn't working it would work by 1830.  So I waited till then, still nothing.  My landlord came home and he tried it too and tried his own phone at the actual source where the line comes in, no signal.  My landlady called again Tuesday and Wednesday and they keep saying they'll come by but they haven't.  Today is Wednesday, they said they'll be there between 1200 and 1600.  We'll see.  I'm getting frustrated because I wasted a day off and I haven't had a decent conversation (more than 2-3 minutes) with any family since October because it's $2 a minute on the cell phone and it's extremely hard to not have Internet at my house because I do my Master's classes online.  This has been the only frustrating thing so far about Germany I have encountered.  Luckily I'm not the only one, all the teachers here said they had some problem or other with getting phone or Internet.  Come on Germany!

Valkenburg Christmas Market

This past weekend I went on an ITT tour to the Valkenburg Christmas Market in Holland.  It was about a two hour bus ride, so not too bad.  Once we arrived though we had quite a bit of a walk to get to the little town of Valkenburg and the Velvet Caves where the Christmas Market was.  I nearly slipped and fell several times in my leather-bottomed shoes (which is why one of the purchases I made there were real snow boots).

The theme of the market was Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Throughout the caves there are decorations that have to do with the Christmas Carol story.  It was very cool and not too crowded until around the time I was done, which was good.  I got a lot of good things for very cheap prices.  I also stopped at cafe inside the caves and had some hot chocolate and a waffle.  They don't provide syrup for waffles like we use in America, but it was still really good.  It was nice to just sit and watch the people go by.  It was also a little bit disconcerting because I happened to be sitting in front of a display and people were stopping to take pictures.  Oh well, they can watch me eat if they want to. :)

Well there was still a lot of time before the bus left so I walked around the town a little bit and looked into some shops but soon got tired because the stuff I bought at the market were getting heavy.  I decided to stop at a cafe near where the walkway back to the bus was and discovered our tour escort in there.  I sat with her and had some hot chocolate and some apple strudel while we talked.  We had a great time.

We decided to go walk around the town some more and we stopped at a store where I bought my real snow boots.  Finally it was dinner time so we decided on one of the many restaurants and had a light dinner of pea soup with a ham and cheese sandwich.  It was very good.

Finally it was time to go back to the bus and head home.  The walk back was harder with all the stuff I was carrying (lots of steps to climb), but it was worth it.  Here's a picture of how I have to bundle up to stay warm around here.

Thanksgiving in Portugal Day Three

Today it was warmer and sunnier and we got up a little earlier.  We went down to Sintra and did some more shopping.  Sintra is full of beautiful, narrow, windy streets.

Sorry it's sideways :)

Then we drove through the back streets toward Cascais and saw some huge homes and beautiful roads.  Drivers are crazy around here though, they think they're the only ones on the road and who cares about anyone else.

Once in Cascais, we went to an English pub (of all places) and had steak on a stone.  It was delicious.  Then we walked a little through the town.  Next we headed to Boca do Inferno on the coast.  It's a place where during high tide or rough seas the waves slam into a ceiling-less cave and spouts the water (kind of like Hawaii's blowhole).  Unfortunately the waves were calm, but it was beautiful.

Well this is the end of my adventure in Portugal.  Tomorrow morning, early, I fly back to Germany via Madrid.  When I got back, it was to discover we had our first snow and there was about four to five inches of snow all over my car that I had to remove before driving.  That wasn't fun.

Thanksgiving in Portugal Day Two

Today, Ray and Penny let me sleep in (a little too long).  Once we got going we headed first to Belem to see the Discoverer's Monument (very cool).  It was cold and windy so it was hard to stay outside and enjoy it, so I just took some quick pictures and then headed inside to the gift store to get a little book that explained who each of the explorers on monument were and what they did.

Next we headed to the Jeronimo's Monastery and looked in the church where a famous Portugese poet was buried as well as Vasco da Gama, a famous discoverer is buried. 

Then we went to the main area where they serve pasteis de Belem, some famous pasteries that the monks created so many years ago.  Ray says you haven't been to Portugal until you've had one of these.  They were very good and the place was very crowded, but service was quick.

Then Ray and Penny drove me through downtown Lisbon to have a look and showed me the university where they teach English classes at.  We ended up at the very huge Colombo Mall.  We looked through some stores and then they were gracious enough to let me watch the new Harry Potter movie while they stayed at the mall and shopped and relaxed.  Portugese movie experience:  assigned seats and halfway through the movie it stops for an intermission.  Weird.

Thanksgiving in Portugal Day One

For Thanksgiving this year I went to Lisbon, Portugal to spend the holiday with my second cousins, Ray and Penny, who have lived there the past three years.  At first I was going to fly into Porto and then take a train down to Lisbon but a week before I was due to leave I got an email that my flight was cancelled because of strikes in Portugal.  So no flights or anything on the day I was planning to get there.  So I changed my plans.  I had to fly one airline into Madrid on Wednesday and stayed the night.  I didn't see anything of Madrid, I got there late afternoon and was not brave enough to try and take the Metro to the center of town by myself.  So I just walked a few blocks to find something to eat and then returned to the Ibis Hotel I was staying at right near the airport. I realized then that I had forgotten my camera.  Of all the things to forget!

The next morning I took the shuttle to the airport and got on a different airline to fly to Lisbon where Ray and Penny picked me up.  We drove immediately to Obidos, a medeival town that has lots of little shops and an ancient wall you can walk on.  Penny is a great shopper, but Ray pooped out about half way through.  I bought a few things, a wall hanging and some Christmas linen.  We had a light lunch of soup and bread at a place they've never tried before.  Boy, that soup was really good.  Here are some pictures of the town.  I had to borrow Penny's camera and then they downloaded the pictures onto a CD for me.

Very popular all over Portugal are the myriad of pottery styles.  Penny and Ray collect certain patterns.  At this point I don't have anywhere to put such things so I didn't purchase any.

After we were done at Obidos we headed to friends of Ray and Penny's for Thanksgiving dinner.  There were nine adults and two children there so it was quite a crowd and wonderful food.  Penny's sweet potato dish is to die for.  It was nice to meet their friends, have a nice meal, and spend the first holiday away from home with family.  We got home around 10:30, early by Portugese standards, but I was tired.  Ray and Penny allowed me to use their phone to call home and say Happy Thanksgiving to family, that was great.