Trying out some new stuff

Just want to see what it looks like

We're home in 2 days!!

I can not believe this trip is almost over! It feels like we are just settling into to the rythm of being away! Where did the last 2 months go?
Yesterday the girls and played a little game of "I can't wait to..."
I can't wait to see my friends and family, of course! But that was true for all of us and it quickly digressed to Shannon wanting old Cheddar Cheese and Olivia dying for a decent cheese slice. We all want to drink milk that doesn't have that funny after taste and normal tasting butter. I can't wait to have REAL peanut butter!
I can't wait to sleep in my own bed. Here we have a King size bed and a twin duvet cover each and in T.O. we have a queen and only one duvet so things might get a little ugly.
I can't wait to go to a grocery store and know where everything is and WHAT everything is! Who knew I'd miss No Frills!?
I can't wait to use the phone. The only person I've talked to on the phone since we been here was Bruce and then a couple of receptionists for hotels!

Then we moved on to "I will miss..."

I will miss the cheese here. I think I've been ruined by the great cheese. I'm afraid there is no going back either. Odd about the cheese theme. Who knew the Fairleys were so passionate about cheese. Too bad the kids have not acquired a more sophisticated taste for it though. Oh well!
I will miss all the time with just the girls and Bruce. Although being so isolated has not been easy it has been an amazing time for our family.
I will miss Jen's and Uli. Carsten and Gabriella. J.M.
I will miss having the world at my doorstep. Europe is an amazing place to live as a visitor!

I hope we continue to...
I hope we keep the TV off. Not so hard here, it's all German language. It has been a great experiment for the girls to learn to amuse themselves by means other than the TV. Don't get me wrong we watched quite a few movies, we were by no means screen free! I'm pretty sure we would not have made it without the computer either.

Here they eat a big meal at lunch and then a smaller meal in the evening. Just cheese, bread, and veggies. I love eating that way. It works now but I think in February it might be allot harder to keep that up. Time will tell.
I hope to bring home some of the great recipes I have discovered here too. I think our picnic lunches for skiing are going to be allot better this year. Here's hoping!

Things I have learned...
I can't beleive how hard it is to live in a new land. I really appreciate how hard that is for immigrants. I never understood why people came to Canada to start a new life and then seemed to do everything in their power to make it just like where they came from. Now I totally get it!
When we went to Anne Franks house there was a video of her Father. He talked about how close he was to Anne. It is true, she adored him too. He warned parents that although they had a great relationship that after reading the diary he realized he had no idea what was going on in her mind. He really wanted to share with parents that we don't know what are kids are going through. That is something I've thought about allot since then.

This may be good-bye for now. The next couple of days will be crazy with packing and trying to fit in as much birthday festivites for Shannon as possible!

Auf Weidersehen, thank you for sharing this incredible journey with us.

Monday August 24, 2009

I can't believe we just spent our last weekend here! It seems that we've been gone for an eternity but it has gone by so fast. It's kinda like staying home with small kids!
Friday we stayed in!!!!! I'm not sure we've done that the whole trip. We had a big day on Saturday so we wanted to be well rested. At 8am Saturday morning we headed for Koln (Cologne to you non-Germans!) It is about an hour and a half north west of Ingelheim. The plan was that we were meeting J.M. for lunch and a bit of a tour of his town AND THEN we were going to a football (soccer to you) match! Bruce somehow organized us to have front row seats for the Koln Frankfurt game!!! This was Shannon's 11th birthday present.
J.M. works with Bruce. He is a French man living in Germany. We had dinner with him in Florence and then we met up with him again for dinner one night in Ingelheim. Great guy! After a very quick tour of the town and a lovely lunch we headed off to the stadium. Bruce wanted to arrive and hour early, I guess it's good to be prepared!

Good God!

It was absolute bedlam!!!

As we approached the neighbourhood of the stadium you could feel the buzz of the up coming game! The cars all had Koln red and white soccer paraphernalia, the biergartens were all full, literally people were spilling out into the streets. It was like when a Toronto teams wins the whole season, except this was an exhibition game at the beginning of the season. I'm pretty sure it didn't even count. At the best of times I can't follow the details of a sport. Throw in the language barrier and I have very little idea of what is going on!
It was pure hell just maneuvering our way to a distant parking lot and then hoofing it to the stadium. You buy cards and then use them at the concession stands. So although they keep the lines for food and drink down the whole process is crazy. Finally, beers in hand, we sat down to watch the game, or the crowd, I'm not sure which is more interesting!!!
The Koln stadium sits 50,000, BMO field in TO has 20,000 seats. One goal end is dedicated to Koln fans and they have these spectacular flags, huge flags that they wave. They are all cream, black and red. The slow movement of the waving flags against the agitated crowd is quite a sight!
The opposing team, Frankfurt, has a small section, yet equally as impressive, directly opposite of Koln's. There is a constant security presense around this area. Their team colors are also red, black and white. These people are crazy! At some stages the Frankfurt fans are all waving flags. One section has red, one white and one black. Very impressive. They also have a couple of huge flags, but nothing as impressive as the Koln ones. Both sets of fans are singing special songs, yelling chants and genereally making a ton of noise.
At one point a Frankfurt banner was knocked/torn down. I didn't see how it started but all hell broke loose. All of the sudden a ton of security guards poured out of the bowels of the stadium, it was pretty tense for a few minutes...
It was a great game that ended in a tie. The Frankfurt fans have their own exit that has a corridor of security officers that the fans go through so that neither teams fans have to interact! I've never seen anything like it!

Now we are rushing home to change, and Bruce and I are off to Carsten's 40th birthday party. Remember the family with the 3 English speaking daughters? Sara, the 13 year old, is babysitting the girls. It is her first babysitting job.

I can't forget to mention the fiasco it was finding the place. Poor Bruce, he doesn't get lost often, okay he NEVER getws lost, well almost never...It was great to meet some of Carten's friends. Okay we met one friend, Carsten's Mom, and Gabriella's son. No one else really spoke any English. It was great to meet them though. Once again the Germans have been so kind and generous to us. Sara needed to be home by 11pm so it was short but sweet!

Tomorrow will be our last Sunday in Ingelheim. I can't believe it!

We are heading home, well back to Germany, from the holiday!

There was much discussion about whether we should go to Munich for lunch on our way home or go to the Eagle's Nest, Hilter's mountain hide away. Finally we decided it would be way cooler to go to the Eagle's Nest!
Once again another spectacular drive through beautiful countryside. If I lived here I'd never get anything done I'd always be looking at the view! The mountain road up to the Eagle's Nest is so treacherous that they have specially designed buses that you have to take. They road is 6.5 kms long and 4 m wide and had to cover 800 m of altitude. There are 5 tunnels and then an elevator takes you last 124 m.
It was built as a 50th birthday present for Hitler and needed to be finished within a year. In it is a fireplace that was a present from Mussolini and a carpet from HIRO HITO, the emperor of Japan. The funny thing is once you get there it's really just set up as a restaurant with a fantastic view. You can go on a little tour, we chose not to, but that's about it. It's the trip up and back and the view!
Because we didn't do the tour we bought one of the guide books. It is fascinating getting the German perspective about Hitler. You can imagine they don't want to talk about that brief but deadly time in their history! The first line in the book mentions that the German Empire has existed for over 1000 years and the Nazi's were only in power for 12 years. The Nurnburg trials are mentioned too. The last line of the introduction states that the first article of their constitution is "The German folk vows to acknowledge absolute Human Rights for every community to have peace and justice throughout the world." The average German citizen even today is a victim of Hitler. It is incredible the damage that man is responsible for.

We arrived home at about 6pm ready for a quiet evening and early to bed. That was not to happen. There had been this sign in the hall of the apartment complex and we could decipher that there was some sort of party being held today but we didn't give it much thought. First we don't really know anybody here and our original plan was that we wouldn't be arriving home until tomorrow. The man who organized the party is someone from Bruce's work. Lovely man, who insisted that we joined the bbq. It was a great evening. There were two kids, 13 and 15 years old, that spoke a little bit of English that amused the girls and there were a couple of people who spoke a little English. People have been so warm and inviting to us. We didn't get the girls into bed until 11pm! Once again the feeling of dread comes over me as I think how hard it's going to be get these kids back into any kind of routine any time soon!

Sunday, the last day of Bruce's holiday, was blisteringly hot! After heading into Mainz, Olivia needed to conquer a slide there, long story! Bruce called Jen's and he told us about a beer garten next to a waterpark around the corner from where we were. Something for everyone! While we were enjoying our beer I got stung by a wasp! Ouch! It was much more surprising than painful. We then headed to Jen's an Oli's for a quick visit, which ended up with a dinner invitation, which being the moochers that we have turned into, we accepted! It wasn't painful enough to even mention...
The next day the girls and I headed off to a park and then to pick up some groceries, on the way home I was stung by another wasp! How weird is that? Clearly the Fairley curse has returned! The second sting was on my arm and has been really quite painful! We checked on the Internet to see what we should do and it said you didn't medical attention unless the inflamed area reached 10 inches. I maxed out at 8 inches yesterday afternoon. The first sting on my leg is now just a hideous bruise and the one on my arm is much less painful today! The concern for me is that I go to the hospital and try and tell them that I've been stung by a bee on my arm and then they translate that into 'please amputate my arm' I know that seems unlikely but you haven't seen the dinners that I thought I ordered compared to what I've received!!
The girls and I have now turned into those crazy annoying people who freak out every time a fly is around!

Never a dull moment!

We have discovered a water park that is about 2km from here. Walking distance! We went there yesterday and it was amazing. It has a wave pool with a current pool around it. A climbing wall, really quite cool. And a ginormous waterslide. We plan to head there this afternoon and then Bruce is going to meet us there after work. Olivia did mention yesterday that if Bruce had been there he would have been throwing them around and other fun stuff! Hmph!

8 days and counting!

It really was only a week holiday!!

We left the ice caves and headed back to our hotel and for a rest. We needed to watch the Sound of Music before we went on the tour the next day! I know, I know, not the coolest thing we've done but I feel confident that at the very least we'll be the coolest people on the bus!! We ended up taking a break in the 3 hour extravaganza that is the SOM, and went to a local Austrian restaurant in Eugendorf. It was fantastic. One of the things about eating out in a foreign language is you can't really ask for more veggies etc. I swear we're all going to come down with scurvy. Often Bruce just asks the waitress to recommend the restaurant's famous dish. A little risky but usually worth it! Bruce and I shared Spatzle which is a traditional Austrian/German cheese noodle dish. Their version of Mac & Cheese. Heavy to say the least but oh so good. Then we had their signature dish. It was amazing Zander (which we now know to be Pike, maybe Perch, it's a P fish)with Chantrels and tons on veggies. It was one of the best meals I've had on the trip, and that's saying something!! The girls have Vienna Chicken which the waitress assured us was the chicken version of wiener schnitzel. Well not quite, it was breaded but was bones in. A month ago that would have been a disaster, we would have had to cut it for them... They didn't even bat and eye! Now back to the hotel to finish the movie and have an early night!

The tour was amazing! They really do it up right. I enjoy all the tours because they give you an insight into the area that is impossible to get otherwise. Most Austrians and Germans have never even heard of the movie. There was a German version done not long before the Hollywood version called the Singing Von Trapps (something like that) and it was so long ago...
They take you to all the hot spots and give a little behind the scenes trivia. I gotta say sitting on a bus for a few hours as we travelled into the lakes region was welcomed by all the Fairley's after our exhausting day yesterday!
Our plan was then to spend our last afternoon and evening in Salzburg.

You'd think that sitting on a bus pretty much all morning would have given us the rest we needed, apparently not! The girls were exhausted. I must say I wasn't a bundle of energy myself! You must persevere though. We saw the town with new, Sound of Music eyes! They filmed all over Salzburg, especially the Do a Deer song. There was so much whining that in the name of preserving our sanity we decided to bite the bullet and take a horse drawn carriage ride!
The girls took turns "driving" and our host was this fascinating man who was developemently challenged and had clearly found the perfect profession. He shared these details about the town that you would never find out otherwise and he absolutely loved what he was doing. It was a joy to see.
With the girls somewhat revived we headed off to the biggest beer hall in Salzburg (a must-see as far as Bruce was concerned) where we had the greasiest selection of meats, not a veggie in sight. The girls inadvertantly tried squid. That was quite funny! Then we headed back to the hotel.

Bruce's vacation Wednesday August 12, 2009

I think we just drove straight to Salzburg but I gotta say it's not a week later as I write this and it's all a bit of blur!! Anyways we dumped our stuff at our cute little chalet style hotel and headed into Salzburg for dinner and the evening. We had a great dinner on a patio in the old town, then we just roamed around the city. Bruce and I had been there for an afternoon in March so we are familiar with the area. As usual Europe is full of suprizes though! Apparently Austrians are famous for how they love to dress up and go out. Well we were not disappointed! We ended up coming across the opera house just as everyone was arriving. Talk about an oppurtunity to people watch!!! The woman were either dressed to the nines, the outfits were fantastic! Or they were in traditional outfits, absolutely beautiful. It was like a red carpet event, paparazzi and all! Then we just headed through town and stumbled by these fantastic street musicians with the coolest instruments. They made the most beautiful sound. Then they played Ava Maria! That was one of the songs sung at our wedding! Magical!

I love Salzburg! What a great place. It is the perfect size, you can pretty much walk comfortably from one end to the other. It is touristy enough to have all the amenities yet still has a 'lost in time' kinda feel to it! Mozart was born there so there is a ton of stuff on him. It's a big area for chocolate too. They sell Mozart balls, Bruce and I seem to be the only ones that find the humor in everyone enjoying Mozart's balls!!! It's divided in two by a river. I love being on the water. There are mountain ranges in the distance! Really what's not to like?!
If you are a "Sound of Music" fan. It's like being on a movie set, more about that in a bit! And the food! I love Austrian food. Not as quite as meaty as German food and very kid friendly!
On Thursday morning we headed off to Werfen to see the Ice caves!!! After a beautiful drive through the area. The coutryside is full of big old fashion chalets with beautiful flowers in baskets overflowing the balconies. There is no way to explain how gorgeous the drives are to wherever we go. I swear if all we did was drive from place to place and never did anything it would still have been an amazing trip! We would have saved some cash too!
Anyways it's another one of those hair raising, crazy mountain drives. Bruce drives at break neck speeds up these tiny mountain, dare I say roads, I want to say paths with the glee of an 8 year old boy! The girls go from practically hanging out the windows devouring the view, to cowering and burying their heads in their knees! Usually by the end of the drive I've sucked it up enough to enjoy the scenery and have put to rest the thoughts of us all plummeting to our death!
Fianlly we're there! When I say there I mean we are in a parking lot about a 10-20 minute walk from the ticket booth, which is another 20 minute walk, all straight up hill, to the gondola, with is a 3 minute ride, literally straight up, then another 20minute walk to the cave entrance! Olivia seriously debated whether to take the gondola up or do the 90 minute walk. Since no one was willing or capable for that matter, Bruce had to drag her into the gondola with Shannon blocking her exit. I pretended I didn't know any of them! Within 30 seconds Olivia was marvelling at the view!!!!
One final walk and we are at the entrance of the largest ice cave in the world. Unbelievable! So now it's only 700 steps through the caves... It was truly amazing. We climbed all these rickety stairs with gas laterns held by about every 10th climber and the guide had magnesium that he would light to help us see the spectualar ice formations. Poor Shannon, clearly when they said wear warm clothing and appropriate shoes they didn't mean a hoody and rain jacket with a pair of Birk's and sport socks. She later told us she thought she was going to die of the cold in the caves and that she planned how to live her life after having had to have all of her toes amputated. Boy is she her mother's daughter! We all made it out alive and enjoyed a great Austrian lunch on the mountain top!

Bruce's vacation: part 2

It was pretty hot in Lake Garda while we were there. So on day 2 we had planned to rent a motorboat for the day. The high waves put a kibosh on that so we hit Sirmione for the morning. The focal point of the town in a beautiful castle but unlike France and Germany it isn't kept as a national treasure. As you cross the bridge into the castle grounds it is an exclusive shopping area also filled with souvenir shops, restaurants and ice-cream shops. It is like stepping back in time! A time when it was unbelievably crowded with 21st century tourists that is!!!

When you are in place like this every afternoon is spent lounging by the pool and then it's off for a late dinner. It is going to be hell getting these children back into a decent bedtime routine when we get back to T.O.!

On Tuesday it was a perfect day for taking a boat out. It is so funny here! In Germany it's all about the rules. Nothing is left unsaid and there is a process for everything.
In Italy when we are renting the boat there is a big sign saying that you do not need a license to drive their boats. Pretty much, just go for it! In the little training session they keep telling you how to avoid the police! Love it!

I think the day out on the boat was Bruce's favorite so far! He drove us (and so did Shannon and Olivia) around the lake. We anchored for lunch and had a swim near shore and then stopped in the middle of the lake and jumped out. It was amazing! A day none of us will forget very soon. With the mountains in the background going on forever, the sparkling water and the villages, towns, castles and forts along the coast it truly is paradise!

Our last night in Lake Garde we had a fab dinner in Sirmione and then it was to be a quick dip in the pool the next morning and off to Salzburg! All went according to plan right up until Lola completely fell apart and it took us over an hour just to get out of the Lake Garda area!!! I thought Bruce's head was going to pop off!
This whole trip has been sans maps, just Lola. That's all good except that when you have GPS you have a map CD. We have one for Germany and only major roads in the rest of Europe, that would have been perfect had we not being travelling so much. So every now and then Lola can't get us where we want to go. Sometimes she seems to improvise and more often than not she just throws up her hands and says we're "off road". Keeps things interesting, that's for sure!

Finally, and I mean finally we arrived in Eugendorf. A small town just north(?) of Salzburg, with much cheaper hotels. I'm flying blind here. Apparently there is a reason why hotels are cheaper here during this season. I'm pretty sure if we'd been wanting to spend time in the lakes region I picked the right hotel, sadly that wasn't what we were doing! Next time I know where to book. Oh well, I had booked a quad room, 1 king bed with two singles,(all in the name of not spending a Kings ransom...) something happened with the reservation and we ended up with an apartment. Translate to, we had our own bedroom! Yeah! I think I've taken quality time with the girls to new hieghts! A little time, even just sleeping, separated is very nice!

Must go, the girls are needing a game UNO, another one!