Vacation!

Off to Palermo and the beach. See y'all in a week!

Day Trip

Off to Venice, ciao!

Le Rhone

In France we stayed a stone's throw from the Rhone river. There's something about rivers running right through the middle of big cities that I fall in love with. I feel like it's natures way of saying, "You needed me to start this city and now I'm not leaving." The rivers are like your crazy rich aunt that put you through college. Even though you paid her back 5 years ago you just can't shake her. She keeps calling. Keeps showing up. And deep down, you hope she never stops.
But you'd never tell her that.

AND WE'RE BACK!

I have pictures again! It's going to take me a bit to sort through them all, but I'll update as I do. Here's Hubs and baby brother-in-law Chris from Munich this weekend. We were in the Hofbrauhaus (sp?). It's fuzzy but I love it. Just like I love pictures.

YES! PICTURES!

p.s. Isn't my husband the handsomest man you've ever seen?

Munchin, jawohl?

I am currently waiting patiently (as patiently as one bouncing in her seat can wait) for the memory card reader that my parents are sending me to get here. I want to show you my pictures. I WANT WANT WANT to. I’m expecting to get the memory card reader this week. I cannot wait. CANNOT.

Did all my American loves have a fireworky fourth of July?

We (Hubs, me and Hub’s baby brother Chris) drove to Munich. I had my first hostel experience. I have been living in Europe for 3 years and have never stayed in or gone near or thought about a hostel. It just was never an option for Hubs and I because we both have jobs and B&B’s aren’t expensive and that scary movie came out and I didn’t have communal bathrooms in college.

First let me clarify the term “hostel experience.” I did not actually STAY in a hostel. I just went to happy hour in 2 of them and drank an undisclosed amount of 1 euro beers. Good German beers. I think I’m in love.

I am starting my deployment plans. Hubs is deploying again, but only for a year this time. Last time my goals were to get a job (got one) and pay off our student loans (did that) and survive. Making one of your goals to just survive is setting the bar pretty low. I don’t want to just SURVIVE the deployment I want to thrive this time. I want to take my childless self as many places as I can go and take pictures and journal and draw and hear other people’s stories.

Segue time: And you know who stays in hostels? Other people. People with stories. Stories I want to hear and that I can write down in my notebook.

Funny inexperienced traveler story at my baby-brother’s-in-law expense:

Hubs and I are sitting in our hotel room waiting for Chris meet us. We had just finished watching FISH TANK at the Munchin Film Festival. Christ wanted ice cream and said he’d be right up. He comes in eating a prepackaged ice cream bar and says: I think I just paid some random guy for my ice cream.

HUBS: What?

CHRIS: Yeah, there was this guy sitting at a table and he got up to take my money after I got the ice cream out of the freezer. So I gave him the euro fifty and he went back to his seat where everyone at the table started laughing.

We left the hotel and walked by the café that sold the ice cream. Everyone that worked there was wearing and all black uniform.

CHRIS: That guy definitely had a red t-shirt on. I got robbed.

VBS Quote of the DAY

For today's VBSQOTD:

Teacher: Shout out something that you are afraid of.

Kid 1: Snakes!
Kid 2: Dangerous monsters!
Kid 3: Diabetes!

German Crepes and Double Knots

It’s been almost a week since I last posted and I have so much to tell you, my loves. Let’s start with bullet points then break it down to the longest, most pictureless post ever.

x Dusseldorf is my new location lover.
x I have pictures but you can’t see any of them (and neither can I.)
x La Bella Figura
x VBS

Moving onwardly: Dusseldorkin

I want to be a Dusseldorfer. I want to wake up in my house in the old town and hop on my bike down to the market on the Rhine river and eat a crepe for breakfast from the stand that looks like a red truck. (Oh, yes. They have crepes in Dusseldorf, delicious crepes.) Then I want to go to work doing whatever it is that I do while speaking fluent German, of course. For lunch, I’ll meet my husband at a local favorite. Eat schnitzel with fries and a big tall beer. (Beer in Dusseldorf at a restaurant is cheaper than water by almost half!) Back to work, then end the day with a stroll through town. Maybe a beer at the worlds longest bar. Talk to some fellow Dusseldorfers (who are SO NICE and NICE and I LOVE THEM.)

The other thing about Dusseldorf that sold me completely? They have a Dunkin’ Donuts in the train station. DD is my not so secret lover. They have great coffee and delicious doughnuts. If the only condition to getting a D ‘n D on post was that I had to scrub the potties every day with my very own toothbrush, I would seriously consider it. Since American luxuries such as these don’t come around for me, ever, (unless I go to Dusseldorf) I ate a big ol’DD doughnut. I do not regret it to this day. In fact, I wish I’d eaten two. Then I would have told my BetterU about the doughnuts and still not have felt bad.

I took pictures in Dusseldorf. OH, I took loads of them. I took one of the cutest road sign I’ve ever seen (a mamma sign person holding a kid sign person’s hand. It was a hand holding zone. Hubs and I followed the law.) I took some of the river side market and a big Camden County school bus they had there. I took some of the Rhine and some pretty hot air balloons that were being blown up on the other side of the river. I took some of our beers. I took some of the heavy weight fight we went to. I even took a picture of a shop that’s named after my best friend, Laurel, to send to her. I would like to share these with you very much. But my computer had decided that it doesn’t like anything plugged into its USB outlets. So. I was going to upload the pictures at work to share, but the Army now HATES external drives of any kind because terrorists live there. I think.

The book I took to read on the airplane is La Bella Figura by Beppe Severgnini. So far I’m really into it. It’s a commentary on the Italian lifestyle, written by an ACTUAL Italian. None of this, “I’m an American that went to Italy for a little and am now an expert and will write a book,” nonsense. Hope to post a review soon.

VBS has started this week. (If you don’t know what VBS is read about it on Joshilyn Jackson’s blog.) I’m a volunteer and lead a group of 10 kids around to all the different activities. Yesterday we were learning about Moses and the burning bush. We were sitting around a “burning” bush when a voice said, “Take off your shoes. This is holy ground.”

The voice waited a moment. Then it began speaking again. A kid yelled out, “Hold it, Moses! I got laces in DOUBLE KNOTS!”