germany day 7

day 7.....

was one of those days.

we woke up to this......snow....lots of snow.....lots of snow falling from the sky......




it was like christmas everywhere......




but what do you expect from the country that invented christmas....i mean, just look at all those christmas trees, no wonder!

but despite the nasty weather, we decided to take a trip to Schloss Linderhof. which just happens to be a castle. its a little one, but it still is a castle. in fact, its the only castle in which king ludwig built, finished and actually got to live in.

you aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside. such a bummer. so i can only show you pictures of the outside, in the snow.



here's the castle. that's the whole thing! see those people, they are standing right next to the castle waiting to get in. most people think of a castle as being excessively large. i think this one makes up for size with everything inside it and the grounds around it. apparently there are some really amazing gardens and fountains and such all around this castle. but in the winter, there are just piles of snow. so if you'd like the full experience, go in the summer.





this dude is on top of the castle. check out that detail! i mean, everyone knows who's castle it was, but unfortunately for the artists who built it, they just don't get the credit they deserve.




check out this carving....its so beautiful! (and bonus, boobs!) come on, what would a trip to europe be without some boobs? this won't be the first pic of boobs....

see? but this one is just one boob. because, well, i'm not sure why you'd just have one boob hanging out of your dress... either way, boobs are beautiful, even if we don't display them as prominently here in the states.

babies are always a favorite. actually are these considered cherubs? either way, too cute and so artistic! i mean, the detail is amazing...and its a white building with an amateur photographer taking pictures in the snow! so you know the detail has to be there, otherwise it wouldn't have shown up at all in the photos!

this guy has a tough job. i mean, just look at him! his face looked the most pained, that's why he got his photo taken.

ok, one more statue. this one is my favorite. (i could have shown you all of the statues on the castle but then you wouldn't need to go over to germany and see it for yourself.) so what exactly is he doing with his hand?

hey! that's not very friendly! crazy germans, show us boobs and then flip us the bird. (ok, so technically he's probably not flipping the bird. his other fingers have just 'conveniently' broke off and that one stayed. but it is funny!)

speaking of birds. check out this cute lil guy. he was trying to get out of the snow.

and this guy too! i have no idea what this bird was there for. but it was a great way to get hans to smile. and check out that snow! i mean, it is really coming down! it was not so great for the camera. i attempted to hold an umbrella over the camera, but it takes two hands to shoot, so you really only have a shoulder and your head to hold the umbrella. i recommend an assistant.

here's a cute pond. there were swans at the other end of it. swans are the royal symbol in germany, i think. well, at least that's the impression that i got.

this is a hotel near the castle. i didn't go inside but i had to include it because this is what i think of when i think of germany. this style of architecture. and maybe the snow.



i mean, if someone showed you this photo and asked where it was taken, wouldn't you say germany? could there be any other place that this represents? well, to me, this is germany.

and look how much it is snowing! but i do love the way this building looks. even if you have to squint through all the snow to see it.

the rest of the day wasn't nearly as cool as schloss linderhof. (schloss = castle)

germany day 7 & 8 part 1....

day 7 and 8 were spent doing various things, but one of the things i did was take lots and lots of pictures of Caesar. caesar is a german shepard. of course, in germany they call them shepard dogs, not germany shepards. it cracks me up. but that's just me. dogs don't get complexes like people when you take their photo, so they are easy targets for people like me. plus, onkel franco asked me to. i'm not sure if i got any that he liked, but it was fun and probably was good practice for me.

meet caesar, he's a cutie. and actually he lives in italy. so technically, he's not german....

look how sweet he is....he was like a big teddy bear....

and look how cute...hairy little feet...

he was very comfortable in the snow....

hans played with him, by tossing him snowballs...caesar loved it...and i thought this was a neat action shot....

but this one is even better....he was really good at catching....

and this is what caesar would look like, right before he ripped your face off.....i even think it would be all blurry like that....

just kidding. he'd never do that.

i hope.

(blogger isn't working with me on formatting tonight, so sorry about the lack of spaces...)

germany interrupted again....

yesterday was the 4th of july and while i know everyone is dying to see more photos of germany, i just have to share my fireworks pic.

i'm only going to share one. my favorite one. i think it is super-duper awesome.

we just watched everyone else's fireworks from our house. we watched from our living room, from our screened in porch, from our balcony (when we were snapping pics) and from our bed. the fireworks when until midnight here. it seemed that many people traveled outside the state to bring in the biggest and the best. hans and i were just glad to have so many to watch. (and that our house didn't burn down.)

there are probably 100 ways to get photos of fireworks, i went with this method. its too bad the 4th of july only comes once a year. because i feel like i could be a professional fireworks photographer and be happy the rest of my life. it was just so much fun.

i'm really proud of this one. what do you think? sweet, huh? (maybe i don't want to know if you think that it sucks.)

i took a whole bunch of pics....a bunch! and i think i have several to pick from that are good, but this one was my fav when i went through them this morning.

hope everyone had a good 4th!!!

(oh...and just an FYI....this is without major photo-shopping! (i only took out a couple really loud noisy spots) how cool is that!)

germany day 6....

day 6

we slept in. we were just so tired from the day before, that we took it easy and didn't rush.

we had lunch with oma and opa (grandma and grandpa).

i had the brook trout...this was so yummy...and really beautifully presented. i didn't eat the red hot peppers though!

we played cards with Tante Petra. i was busy playing, so no pics....

we wandered around O'gau (Oberammergau) in the rain. i didn't want to get my camera wet...

and then Tante Baerbi and Onkel Franco came up from italy. Baerbi made us an amazing dinner that included fresh buffalo mozzarella....so fresh that it was still warm when she bought it that morning! no pics to share, sorry....

sorry day 6 wasn't very exciting, at least it was easy to blog about!

germany day 5.....

....so we've been back from germany for months and months and months...and after being sick and getting better and being sick and being sick and having surgery and being sick....i'm FINALLY feeling pretty darn good! but with feeling better, you have to play catch up on everything you've been neglecting....and it seems that blogging gets neglected the most....

so, if you are interested in our germany trip still....feel free to read on, if not, just skip this post and hope i have something more interesting to write about later....

day 5

we got up and headed out of Ammerthal and to the 'german ranch'. (before we left the states i googled and searched and emailed people in germany to try and find a german angus ranch that was somewhere near where we were going to be.) one of them wrote back and were more than happy to have us stop by.

not only do they ranch, but they have a hotel, restaurant and sell their beef to local places....lots of work!

this is what we saw on right outside of the town the ranch was near. seriously....it looks spooky....people live CLOSE to this thing! well, too close for me!



we got to check out a bunch of cows....notice how their cows are in a shelter? they baby their cows a whole lot more than we do here. i think they put their cows in at night, every night...but they don't run 100's and 100's of cows either.


the babies are cute there too!


even a ranch dog. i think there was two running around....


we chatted...well, i should say that they chatted. most germans speak really, really good english but they get nervous. so there was a lot of german spoken. i think that evi learned more about ranching from having to translate than she knew from talking with hans. but that is kind of the way ranching is here, people just expect you to know things. i like to explain things to people. every time i talk to my grandma, i explain what we do, how we do it and why we do it. mostly because everything is new to me and i like to know things. so i explain them to my grandma and she really likes it because she's never been on a ranch and all of the terminology is new to her too.


this is a great photo to show you a little of germany...notice the sky, this might have been the best weather we had. and the semi in the background, a very rare sight in germany....and flat...here anyways, i'll have more pictures of mountains for you later. :)

these girls were curious...they even licked me....

i thought they had such cute faces....to me, a cute face is an important trait in cattle, especially females. no one wants bully looking cows!


this is one of his fields where a few of his cows were and one big bull. flat, flat....nice soil...not rocky like ours.


oh yeah...i know you've all been waiting for this....after we were done looking at the cows, we went back to their restaurant to chat. this is what they served us as a snack....holy moly...it was so amazing! i finished mine and our host promptly got up and got me another....i could have had a third, but i declined. it was soooooo good.....his wife made them. nothing beats homemade yummy-ness in germany.


and then after our chats and photos, we left....drove past the creepy nuclear power plant and saw this. it was just too crazy to pass up, so we stopped and snapped some pics. i think it was an artist's sculpture garden, but it just looked like a radioactive accident. i would have got the nuclear plant in the background, but there were trees in the way.

storks! they must have already dropped the babies off....

here's my favorite sign we found in germany....frog crossing. so apparently, they put up these signs to warn people of the migrating frogs. (squished frogs are slippery??) and once they really start migrating, they put up a little frog fence to keep them from crossing the road. then someone come by and picks up the frogs on one side and puts them on the other side of the road, all safe and sound. there was no fence yet and no frogs but the sign totally cracked me up.

finally, we made it to O'gau. visited with the grandparents, stuck our stuff in the house we were staying at and went to grab some grub.

and here's a cell phone pic to prove that i didn't just eat dessert the whole time. but check out this salad....veggies, a little lettuce (not the crappy iceberg) and a little dressing. you don't get to choose your dressing, but it was yummy. germans don't eat a ton of fruits and veggies, but they sure know to stay away from piles of iceberg!