germany day 3.....

day 3 started out bad. (day 2 was included in the day 1 post)

i was sick all night, so waking up was slow and painful. but i was lucky, even though i was in a foreign country, where i don't speak the language, in a house full of semi-strangers, in a bathroom where the toilets don't flush like ours (seriously, they don't, its sometimes a challenge when going to the bathroom in germany to figure out just what/where to press to flush, i should have taken pictures....), i had packed load of medicine that i thought i would never need (but needed) and the house i was in, belonged to a doctor. not that i was going to wake him up at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 am when i was awake....

so after i was drug out of bed and force-fed and reminded several times that everyone else felt just fine and wanted to go out and run around germany, i was up and ready to face the day....er...the afternoon. the doctor, hans' uncle (onkel hans) took my pulse and declared me ready to leave the house.

thankfully my illness was self-limiting and the only big drawback to the day was the constant rain. this was annoying and cold and made it difficult to take pictures, plus when i'm not feeling 100%, i'm not really into taking photos, but i have a few of my day....

we got on the train and headed to Nurnberg (pretend the u has two dots above it) or you can write it Nuremberg (the american way). the train is fun, really fun and MUCH better than driving in germany. hans' cousin Alex is living in Nuremberg, going to med-tech school (just like me! she's one of my 4 fave girl cousins hans has) but she had a little time to run us around the city and show us what she could in the pouring rain.

to get to her place, we ended up in a very large train-ish station. which is difficult to explain because i can't remember the exact name of it and i can't remember if we switched trains or if we just got on the subway or uban (pretend there is two lil dots above that u too).

first i notice that i have my own lounge....(um...yeah...my initials are DB!)

then i notice i have my own museum! (yeah, looks like museum in german is museum.)



ooooh! check it out, i'm that way!

turns out, DB is just the train/subway company thingy.....my initials are on every train station and every train (except the super fast BOB trains) and every subway, at least that i saw.

this is the subway......i'd never been on or seen a subway before. not all of them are decorated like this with the orange and white, some are yellow, some are done with really cool murals and such. but i only took a picture of this one. sorry.

we visited alex's apartment, had some yummy snacks and then headed out on the town.

now, here's the first of many, many food photos....i ate my way through germany. seriously, there was a huge amount of food over there and i tried to eat it all. or at least most of it. and i took photos....to show you (rub it in) all the good/weird food i ate.

this was like a jelly filled donut, covered in powdered sugar. it was HEAVEN...first off, the donut part was not donut-ty, it was not yucky, greasy or overly sugary. the jelly....oh....man.....it is hans and i's fave, its a really smooth, yummy rose hip jelly. we've bought and eaten this jelly in a previous trip, we've requested this jelly from evi when she went to germany and we brought back some of it for us too, this time. so now imagine that your favorite jelly in the whole world was in a yummy donut, covered in powered sugar.....

yeah, you'd look something like this. if you didn't share one with your husband so you could cut it in half and take pictures of it and then eat another one but have to share it because you shared the first one AND you already ate a yummy cake (kuchen, pronounced like coo-ken) that aunt isabella (tante isabella) made. like i said, i ATE my way through germany. and then walked it off....well...some.....

this is a church in Nuremberg. i can't remember what church though. a really cool looking one. see the tiny people? it was huge! we couldn't go inside this one, there was a service and then later it was closed. but the outside was pretty sweet.

this is the view from the castle in Nuremberg. the castle (which we walked around but not in) was built on a giant rock, so it is up higher than the rest of the city, hence, the views. see the church in the back ground? (maybe mid-ground)

here's a picture that shows you lots of apartment buildings....people live like chickens over there! but how else to do you cram so many people in such a little space? and the cobblestone streets. most of the streets/sidewalks are cobblestone, especially in the 'older' parts of town. this is neat, fun to see and walk on but i saw some girls wearing heels on this, i couldn't even imagine!!!



and finally, i leave you with a dessert....hans' onkle took us to a steakhouse. we ate Argentinian beef. it was good, but i didn't take a picture. instead i took a picture of the dessert that hans and i shared. this was battered, then deep fried, slices of apples with ice cream. mmmm.....it was so freaking good! oh and of course, it would be german if it was drizzled with chocolate.

germany, day 1 (and why i've been 'gone' for so long)

i'm sorry that i haven't blogged for a while, although, this time i'd like to think that i have some sort of lame excuse. i went to germany for 2 weeks. the week or so before i spent getting ready and the weeks after, i've spent playing catch up. of course i also had to spend a weekend with my parents going to some photography lectures and things of that nature too.

so, i've decided to blog my trip, day by day and include photos. i hope this is exciting for you!





day 1-2


it ends up being two days, but you are awake for most of it, so it really feels like just one giant day.


we got to the airport with no problems, checked our luggage and went through security. easy as pie. we got to our gate with plenty of time to sit, relax, get something to drink and catch our flight. the gate attendants asked us if we were going to SLC and then promptly shuffled us onto the flight that was already boarded, so that we'd have no issues with the stormy weather by waiting for our flight. we thought that this was great, no waiting and we'd have plenty of time in SLC to catch our next flight and even get some breakfast.


when we are almost ready to board our flight from SLC to atlanta, they delay us...and delay.....and delay.... because of a valve that is broken on the plane. we run out of time, we know that we are going to miss our next connection, so hans spends a whole bunch of time getting us re-routed. we end up getting a flight from SLC directly to Paris and then onto Munich. only problem, we have to wait in the airport for HOURS. we spent a totally of 10 (yes, 10!!!) hours in the SLC airport. when we get on the plane to paris, hans and i aren't sitting together, it gets delayed because of some issue with the toilets not being empty, it is an 11 hour plus flight, with tons of turbulence and a very loud screaming baby. blech.


the paris airport is lame. trust me. go ahead and fly TO paris, just never fly THROUGH paris.


we make it to munich, get our luggage (it all showed up!) and meet evi (hans' mom). she ended up in munich quite a bit ahead of us, because of the plane issue, so she already had a rental car. and on our way to the car, i learned a new german word! if you ever want to know how to say 'booger' in german, it is said 'popel' (pronounced like opal with a 'p'). so there is a funny joke about a 'popel' driving and 'opal' (a brand of car) and wouldn't you know what our rental car is? yup, an opal....we were boogers the entire time!


we head to hans' uncle and aunt's house. while we are driving i see this:

for those of you who don't know, Fischer, is my maiden name. i thought this was funny. i told hans that he should have changed his last name instead!

when we get there we eat dinner (see, its a crazy long 2 days!!) watch a movie, well, i think i slept through part of it and went to bed before the sad ending (i'd seen it before and knew what happened). ahhh....bed.......