Week Eleven: Heidelberg!

Okay. So. Monday. Roadtrip! Huzzah! Day trip, really, but we went to Heidelberg. Heidelberg is a really old university city. Apparently, royalty used to live here. This being Europe, that actually no longer impresses me.

How sad is that? Jaded to the fact that royalty once stood upon-

Okay, so that was never that impressive. Most dead people aren't. I mean, seriously? They are dead. So we're on our way to Heidelberg. We cross a really big river, possible the Rhine, as we were in the Rhine Valley at the time.

The 'Rh' really should be replaced by a 'W' by the way. If you want to see vineyards full of grapes for wine, come to the Rhineland. They stretch for miles are are truly a beautiful site. If a bit confusing what with the flat bushes and such.

Either way it was tons of fun, and ended up in a new came that the littlest and I came up with. It has no name, so now I dub it... the 'name-everything-in-sight' game. It's very self explanatory. The goal is to name everything in sight. The worn corn was mentioned a lot. Most amusing is when there was a break in the corn for long grass, normally with bales of hay in it. This resulted in a confusing shout of 'Hay!' Homonyms are tricky things. Because the littlest would shout hay and I'd turn to see what she wanted.

We kept this up for fifteen minutes. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my father's life. Had he and the others merely joined in, they would have had as much fun as we did. Though the game sounds ridiculously stupid, it's actually tons of fun.

Anyway....

So. German parking.

Yeah. The streets were originally meant for horses people. There is little to no street side parking. Do not make me laugh. I have soda at hand and my poor computer has enough problems as it is. This means an underground garage and walking across town to the castle. That's not a big deal, and there was a lot to see along the way.

Then it was up the hill to the castle! Yay! The hill was pretty steep by the way, which was kind of amusing. I had a lot of fun watching my family slowly climb behind me. I stopped often. They didn't keep up. I didn't think I was going that fast, but. Eh.

Anyway, the view from the castle was absolutely amazing. By that, I mean that I haven't seen such a beautiful sight in ages. Heidelberg lies along the Necker River on both sides of its banks. It's really old and wasn't destroyed in the World Wars at all apparently. In otherwords, this is a piteresque European city that looks like it ought to be in a...darn it, I will not get thrown right back into the 'I'm in a movie' phase of being in Europe. But it is that gorgeous.

The castle itself is highly interesting. The inside was closed to the public for something or another. Probably renovations, or support work like many castles tend to have going on fairly constantly. From some pictures in a guide book it's gorgeous, however the outside was beautiful enough for me. Between the view and the coliseum style wall with statues of his 'ancestors' I was highly impressed. All the names were rendered in Latin of course, which made reading them fun. Another display had statues of other famous beings. I noticed David of the bible, Hercules, Justice, the Virgin Mary and a host of other mythological and biblical characters. They seem to go hand in hand in this town, as there is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding Baby Hercules. I kid you not. I thought it was Jesus, but apparently, it was Hercules. The things you learn.

Apparently, the castle is the home to the world's largest wine barrel also. It's about three stories high, has a small 'dance floor' on top and is held inside the cellar. There's a second large barrel that is small, but also in the cellar and probably at least 15 feet high. Do you think they were compensating? Maybe they just liked wine a lot. Who knows?

Inside the castle is also a museum of pharmacies and their history. Odd, but not too bad. It was generally okay. I didn't actually find this that interesting, except that Bayer, which is still around, apparently invented aspirin in 1909. That means the heads of that company are fairly intelligent.

So after our examination of the castle was complete, one of my goals in life was partially fulfilled, as we rode a train down the mountain. Okay, so it was more like a pulley operated train than anything else. I kid you not. It apparently goes all he way up the mountain, but that was higher than the castle. We only found this out when we were on our next stop...the ferry! That's right we rode a ferry up and down the Necker river, though we didn't go through the locks to the upper part of the river, and it was raining, the the top most deck was closed.

But that didn't matter. The view was still gorgeous and as we went up and down the river we saw so many beautiful sights that a girl can't help but be happy. I loved it. We saw parts of the local university, the most interesting mansions I've ever seen, and went under two or three bridges. Graffiti in Germany remains a beautiful and elaborate form of art that I find I don't really mind. Someone had created a graffiti mural. It was beautiful and had kayakers, birds, and so much else as a part of it.

I loved it.

So afterward, we headed home, but it was the end of a beautiful and wonderful day. I wouldn't mind going to Heidelberg again, and spending more time at the castle. Maybe they'll even let us inside?

One Final Byte: Rain is a constant companion in this country.

Week Ten: The Birds

Week Ten: Birds

Okay, so not much happened this week, other than discovering that my swimsuit and swan dives just down mix. Oops! But there is something still to discuss. Birds.

No really! You haven't seen a bird until youve seen a German bird. It's like...huge. The bird here are either small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, or as big as my forearm. Like there's magpies.

Everyone knows about magpies. They're the ones that like shiny things and will take them if they spot them and add them to their little nest. There have been stories about magpies.

Let me tell you, before, I thought magpies were tiny bird. The palm size ones. Oh heck no!

It's a monster! It's sea-gull size, and not those wimpy little parking lot seagulls wither. It's basically the size of a cat. This is not a joke. Magpies are huge black and white words that I imagine a certain yorkie-poo I know running away from. I would run from it!

It's not just the magpies. I'm not certain whether the black birds are crows or ravens, but they are equally huge. It's like god super sized the German birds.

Mind you, there are smaller birds too. Small brown ones with pointed wing tips that are like arrows when they fly. I don't know what these are, but I'm pretty certain they have horrible eyesight. Why do I think this? Well.

There's this bird.

It's not very bright bird.

And there's this door.

It's a sliding glass door.

It's smudged, and has fingerprints and scratches.

It is not a windex door.

And every two weeks, this small brown bird flies right into it, without fail. Once it flew inside and back out again in shock. The sound made? CLUNG! Yes, I am serious. CLUNG!

It's fun to be in the room when the bird does that, but I can't imagine that the bird much enjoys it. Though I still think it's kind of funny.

So, there you have it. German birds. Either big, terrifying, and cat sized, or small and slightly stupid.

Also, as a side note, the town I live in has no stray dogs, but it does have half a dozen exceeding clever stray cats that like to use our yard as a street. And the birds avoid these cats, every the really huge ones. This makes me feel somewhat better about myself.

One Final Byte: I would never ever mess with a magpie.

Week Nine: Independence Day Holiday

Week Nine: End of Month Two Holiday?

How to start, how to start? This past week has been so eventful, I had to jot down notes! Only a word or two, and not even full sentences, but I filled up a page. Okay, so hm. Well, okay. Yeah, I don't know.

Okay, so first off, most of this week was fairly boring. Other than a jaunt out to the pool not much happened...until Monday! On Monday, we left the house about as early as our family leaves for anything. That is, an hour later than we swore we would. Vacations huh?

Where were we going?

Europa!

(That's a theme park by the way.)

Europa is kinda of like Disney excellent without the characters. It exists solely as a theme park, and while they have 'princesses' and a mouse mascot...it's got nothing on Disney. However it has a lot of the same types of rides with the same types of themes.

The Epcot center space mountain ride was there. No joke. I was amused by the similarities. Anyway, we were there for seven hours and had a blast! It rocked, though the fourteen-year-old and I kept getting in the line for the wrong ride.

This resulted, amusingly enough, on me going on a huge roller coast with a giant drop and at one point I was completely sideways. Did I mention that my feet weren't long enough to touch the floor of the roller coaster cart? No? Because they weren't, and I was terrified and could barely walk at the end. The man next to me thought it was hilarious. It was like I had sea legs and was trying to walk on land! Apparently even coming out I looked frightened.

And yet I loved every second of it.

Amusingly, there are never picture of me on a roller coaster doing the whole hand in the air thing. The terrify me but at so much fun I can't help myself. Though that was not the one I was looking for. The one I was looking for was much calmer.

So after a long day at the park, we headed to a European hotel. Now, I have heard horror stories from Americans about European hotels. They're too small, they're cramped, they lack in this and that.

I don't know I liked it. The beds were not as wide as an American twin sized bed. In fact, there was one 'twin' bed pushed against a wall, and two twin beds pushed together to form a larger one. The room was slightly smaller, but didn't feel it, because the beds weren't behemoths. The TV, which worked just fine, was small, maybe a 12" TV.

The complimentary soap and shampoo came in liquid form ina dispenser attached to the wall, so there was no taking it home with you. Oh, and you were expected to scrub the toilet bowl if you made a mess of it. There was what we would call a wardrobe, but they call a schrank, and in it was a small safe. No fridge, microwave, coffee pot or dresser.

So it was smaller, and there was less. But it was all perfectly fine to me. And breakfast was included with your room at this particular hotel/restaurant. If there hadn't been a restaurant attached however, there probably wouldn't have been a complimentary breakfast.

So after getting fast to sleep and waking up the next day, we put the blankets back how we found them. (folded and sideways. Huh?) After having gotten everything together, and eaten breakfast, it was discovered..I had left the room key. In my suitcase. In my room.

Oops! So we had to be let in to grab our things. We found the key pretty quickly, and we were off!

Onwards, to Treiberg, two hours away and home to the House of 1000 Clocks! It is an apt name. There were tons of hand made clocks there, the wood hand carved, and the vaste majority of them were cuckoo clocks of course. They were all quite gorgeous. But the fun part fo that day was the hike to the end of the town to see the waterfall.

I should like to note that just walk through the city was a hike in and of itself, as it lies in the foothills of the Alps, which are roughly the size of the Appalachian mountain in the US. The foothills are, that is. They are Very Large, and also Very Gorgeous, and we were right in the heart of the Black Forest, which made it all so much better.

I know you've heard of the Black Forest. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and an assortment of other Grimm Fairy Tales were based in this Forest. It's named because in parts, the sunlight doesn't penetrate the canopy of leaves. This is highly believable. I suspect if there hadn't have been a hiking trail, where the trees had been cut down, that where we were would have been just as dark.

So we hiked up to see the waterfall, and by up, I do mean up. About a mile's worth of steep trail. We lost the step mother about half the way through, and the fourteen-year-old kept up...though she stopped an awful lot. Meanwhile, myself and the littlest forged ahead! There was no stopping us, until we came to the end, and would have had to pay more to go higher.

Daddy, who had been hanging back with the fourteen-year-old refused. Oh okay. So we went back down, and began to trip home.

Oh there's so much else I could say. Like Europa's mouse mascot crept me out. I'm not certain why. Perhaps because it wasn't Mickey? And that I loved the drive through the Black Forest to get to Treiberg, because it reminded me of where I grew up and the Rocky Mountains all at the same time. It was gorgeous. And we say a pink bus on the way, tons of cows and horses, and so many things.

We traveled over the Rhine and over the Maine. We saw so many sights and so many things, but if I include them all, then I'll never finish the blog. Who knows, maybe next week I'll cover some of what else I saw too.

We'll see!

One Final Byte: Next time, we are so bringing a picnic basket.

Week Eight: Fairs and the Flintstones.

Oh wow, what a week! It's been one adventure after another, and some of them peril-fraught and resulting in injuries! For instance, on Friday, while helping my littlest sister unpack, I ended up injuring my back bad enough that I couldn't go into work! I could barely stand, let alone walk, and not without considerable pain.

On Saturday, much recovered, if still hurting some, we went to a medieval market. This is, in essence, a Renn Faire. I love Renn Faires! It was an absolute blast, the jousting, an amusing competition between different knights, and several horribly mismatched horses. What am I talking about you ask?

Well, you had a thoroughbred up there, a draft horse, a pony, an arabian horse and...one made fo wood, on wheels, with two men dragging it. I kid you not. It was hilarious, because this was supposed to be the 'bad' knight. I couldn't understand a word they were saying, as it was all in German, but I didn't need to. It was great fun all the same.

There was, of course, food and goodies there as well, and lots of people dressed up, cause in costume you get in for free, like at most Renn faires. From vikings to medieval maidens, to one tiny dragon toddler, there were a great many costumes.

I think the entire family had fun there, and I ended up buying a handflower, which is a ring connected by chain to a bracelet and is quite pretty. We all enjoyed ourselves quite a bit, but had to go home early due to the fourteen-year-old's injury. She was trying to walk on stilts. I would have been satisfied if I could just stand on them, which I couldn't but she was trying to walk. Then she fell, and landed very badly. She even left a small dent.

Well, she sprained her ankle, so couldn't walk. She got to be pretty could at hopping though, and her new name is Hopper. Or Gimpy. Hopper is more fun, and reminds me of Thumper.

So we went home and relaxed. The next day I had work, and got sent home after about two hours for nearly fainting in the drive thru. Perhaps I'm not quite ready to return yet. That was highly embarassing. I mean, really self, that's not a good thing at all. I'm just fine now so no worries.

So, on Tuesday, my dad took the littlest to work. I'm sure they had a great time doing something ro another, but I didn't really ask. It's just good that they spent time together. When my dad got home, we all got ready for fun!

That's right....

Bumper bowling!

Let me tell you, I suck at regular bowling. I mean, I make eight year olds look great, and I know, because the littlest beat me. I could probably make a five year old look like a pro. But bumper bowling? Bumper bowling!

It doesn't matter on bumper bowling, because I am so much better there. I still suck, but that doesn't matter because you have bumpers, and you know what bumpers are used for? Bouncing. And there is very little more fun in bowling than bouncing the bowling ball off of the bumpers.

I had a blast! The played 80s and 90s music, so there was, yes, singing along to it. And they didn't play the stupid 90s teenybopper music, which made me happy, because so many places are....family friendly means teeny bopper right?

Does not! Don't lie! Get the teeny bopper music away. I'm not a small child to actually enjoy it. For that matter I didn't enjoy it when I was a small child.

I remember a friend with some celebs face on her shirt once in elementary. Oh was she ever proud of it. Yeah, our friendship had a rocky slide down from pretty much that point Littler me called the shirt, and the singer on it, stupid, after cluelessly asking who it was, and why on earth was she wearing a man on her stomach?

I....still don't get that. Why would anyone wear a celebrity on their stomach? Or their chest, or back, or anywhere really? Seems a bit silly. Always has. Much like teeny bopper music, which brings me right back around to the excellent time I had bowling!

It was the littlest, the middlest and me along with my dad of course, bowling and having fun! There was drama, there were Twinkletoes Flintstone impressions! There were really bad dances lead up to the toss!

All in all it was a hilarious gut busting time full of fun. The littlest apparently enjoys having more than one bowling balls, by the way. It meant that frequently, we'd find a matching bowling ball for ourselves as well, and we kept having to put it back.

One Final Byte: Little sisters are dangerous when armed with toys.

Week Seven: Power Outages, Sisters, and Birthdays

Power Outages, Sisters, and Birthdays

This has been an eventful week! You really don't think a week's been eventful unless something huge has happened normally, but writing this blog has shown me I live an adventure filled life, if nothing else.

This week, everything saved itself up for Tuesday (And Wednesday-morning). I've noticed it has a tendency to save itself up for Tuesdays. They seem to be something special in the week. Now, I would start on last Wednesday, except I can't, because then my end would be my beginning and that is just confusing. So I suppose I should start on some point last week (I still don't know exactly) which was my little sister's 14th birthday. I had work, so couldn't celebrate with her, but I did manage to celebrate with her on Tuesday.

We hung out together, and for once didn't argue once, though there was a lot of playful pushing. We didn't even get on each other's nerves, which considering us is somewhat of a miracle. I suspect the minor emergency the two of us had in the middle certainly helped!

We started the day out hanging out of course. We had planned for about a week to just have a day on the base together. Head to the movies and I'd buy her a book, then we'd eat at burger king. Beyond that, we'd wander around the mall, possibly swim suit sizing for her.

Well, we bought the tickets, then I went to go buy a cell phone. At the bx, you have to show your ID to buy things. I couldn't find mine. I searched my purse and it was gone. We traced our steps-except for going back to the theater.

In a panic, we raced a mile away to the car. Not there, we resolved to first watch the movie, then had to run back. Amazingly we made it all of one minute before the movie was supposed to start...and the movie started late of course.

Still, we had made it! And when I went to ask, hopefully, if someone had turned in an ID card, yes, the theater had it. Emergency averted.

What movie did we watch? Hanna! Would I watch it again: Oh yes!

Hanna was truly excellent, and had me on the edge of my seat, laughing, heartbroken, and wondering. It's better than some books I've read, which from me is high praise, and I'd love to read it one day as a proper book and not a movie turned into a book. There is a distinct difference.

Why was losing my ID card such a big deal. Well, I work on base. And without the ID card, not only can I buy nothing, I cannot get on base, so I cannot, you know, get to work. This Is A Bad Thing. Plus they can demand your ID card at any time, and if you don't get it, there are some Serious Consequences.

So after the movie, we went to go buy the book. Of course the sister bought Rainbow Valley (She loves Anne of Green Gables books.), and something by Nicholas Sparks. After that we ate out at her favorite fast food joint, and hung out a while more, buying our dad something for Father's Day.

But Father's Day was Sunday! You protest mentally as you read the above. Well yes, I counter, but Daddy was TDY. That means He was Temporarily Deployed something-that-starts-with-a-Y-and-means-Elsewhere. He was in America to be exact at some sort of thing that I don't know a single thing about. When he returned, he brought back my littlest sister with him! They arrived back this morning, and is why I couldn't start out with the fact that he was TDY, and wow has getting to and from work been interesting the past ten days. I owe a huge thanks to my co-workers for being so very wonderful.

It was an adventure! Because I had to wait on my co-workers some nights, there were times I didn't get back home until 2 am. I get off at 11.30, but only if my ride is there to pick me up, and when your ride is working also...

Well, let's just say it was full of fun times, and I got to discover how much of a team my shift really is. We've got each others backs!

I haven't seen my littlest sister in years, so I'm totally going to spend time with her this week. She's a little PC gamer as far as I can tell so far.. I may be grossly wrong, but she is pretty awesome, either way.

Oh! And you're probably wondering why the blog is out a couple of hours later than normal? Well it's been storming like crazy here, and this town's power goes out at least once, for a few minutes, in Every Single Thunderstorm. It's interesting, if nothing else, dealing with the power outages that occur so often. I have to reset my clock constantly.

One Final Byte: June is not a warm month here sadly.

Week Six: They are Real! (And Wine)

Week Six: They are Real! (And Wine)

I've had a pretty fun week here! My travel is fairly limited by work of course, but beyond that I've had a lot of fun. No need to travel far to get the culture when you live in a foreign country! Let's see. The first most exciting thing this week threw me squarely back into 'This must be a movie!' mode. Who here has seen Mary Poppins?

All of you, I should hope! It's an excellent movie, and it comes in book form too, as I understand it. Now here's a better question: Who here has not seen a chimney sweep?

We all loved Bert, and let me tell you, I have met a chimney sweep! Mind you, we don't have a chimney here, but once a year, a chimney sweep visits every German household. We pay ten dollars a month to cover this once a year visit, and his whole job is to come in and check the heating.

Well, there's something up with our heater apparently. So I get to see a chimney sweep, not once, but twice this year! Twice!

I am very excited. I cannot wait for the second visit. It does help that our chimney sweep is very nice, and very cute.

Let's see...next happened a wine tasting, which was much more fun and a lot less drunk than I thought it would be. In our area of Germany, mostly white wine is made, though there's red wine made too. I got to try eight types of wine, and I think there may be a second wine tasting in the future, where I actually buy some wine.

It was a lot of fun, even for the non-drinking under the legal age sister of mine. She had tons of fun watching after two little kids, and is going to make a great baby sitter I can tell. I had lots of fun watching the presentation and talking with our guests afterward.

Mind you, I hated every single second of preparing for a bunch of strange people I don't know coming over, but in the end it turned out alright. Still very awkward, but alright.

We tried seven types of wine, learned about the process, and how wines are graded. This all being German wine...I only know the meaning in German! Sorry guys.

The wine we tried was from 2008-2009, and was all produced at the vineyard it was grown at. All of them were white wine except for one, a blush. This particular winery apparently prefers making sweeter wine. Then again, white wine is normally sweeter!

We did learn that the sweetness, like the alcohol content, all depends on how it is produced, not necessarily what it came from. There was on halfdry, which was good, one medium, which I liked, two mild, and three sweets. They were all very good, and in the end, my dad, step-mom, and I determined which ones we liked the best and bought enough wine to last a very long time.

We also learned that wine is best when it is younger than 15 years old, and that it takes experience to actually enjoy older wines. Once it is in the bottle, it no longer ferments, but after about 10-15 years the taste begins to change.

At the end of the wine tasting, we all had a particularly delicious treat, if we wanted. After beign warned that it was extremely sweet, we were allowed perhaps a shot full of ice wine.

Mmmm, delicious. I loved it, and yes, that is one of the bottles we bought. It's an amazing wine, and one I hope to have on my next birthday, though then I'll buy my own bottle!

One Final Byte: Sisters fight and adore together, to parents' horror.

Week Five: The Importance of Good Shoes and Fun Windows

Okay, so I admit, not much happened this week. I didn't even look around town! To be fair, it was my first week of work and my shoes sucked.

What's that have to do with the price of rice in China you ask? Well, it's simple. My feet hurt too much to walk around town. Read closely, and don’t' skip a word.

I had old black non-slips from an old job. I should have known better as there were no insole inserts in them, but I went with the flow, and figured that I'd get new shoes with my paycheck. I came in on an odd week, which seems usual for me, so it would be a three week period before I got paid, but eh, three weeks isn't long.

Oh. Oh was I ever wrong. Three weeks is a really, really long time when your shoes deserve to be burned.

At the end of the first day, I was okay, I suppose. My feet hurt, but I had just been on them for eight hours, so thought nothing of it. The second day my feet hurt more, and I figured I just wasn't in the swing of things yet as I tried to stand from the chair I had collapsed in...and couldn't.

The third day was, well. Two hours in and I was in a lot more pain than I should have been. By the end of shift it physically hurt to walk or stand, and the next morning, when I woke up I couldn't walk for several hours. This is a bad, bad thing.

I had two more days of work, yeah? I can't just not show up. So my dad agrees to buy me new shoes, and I hope that solves the problem.

I go to work that evening, as I have the night shift, in my new shoes. I come home around about midnight, and I'm just fine.

Lesson learned people: New job, new shoes. Your old shoes are worn out and will hate on your feet so much. So. Much. Other than that, not much has happened, though I continue to be fascinated by the windows here.

I want these windows in the house I will one day own. Why, you ask?

Well, all the American windows I know of either go up and down, or they slide to the left or the right. I'm sorry, but my windows deserve to have options. German windows have these options. I kid you not.

My bedroom windows can tilt to open at the top, and is that not the coolest thing ever? There's a reason it's the top too. When it rains here, you can have your window open and not worry about your things getting soaked. And trust me, you want your windows open as much as possible here. Air circulation in German houses in non existent, so that musty old closed up house smell comes quick.

They can also hinge open and swing in to the right. So they open all the way, none of this half the window nonsense you get otherwise. The entire pane of glass opens up.

Now admittedly, I have do-dads (and Robert E Lee) on my window ledges, so there's no opening it that way. But I have get fun doing this with my long bathroom window and trying to touch the roses on the other side. My arm isn't long enough, and I'm pretty sure the neighbors must think I'm nuts now.

But the roses are just out of reach, so I have to keep trying!

One Final Byte: The weather can not decide if its summer.