Local: Rheingau Wine Festival

Today marks the last day of one of the biggest festivals in our city. Rheingau is an area of Germany around the Rhine river known for it's Riesling. I'm not a fan of Riesling because I think it's entirely too sweet, but considering we live in an area known for a particularly wine, it felt necessary to go to the fest.

When I try to describe German festivals to friends or relatives back in America, it's almost impossible. In America, a festival is generally more of a craft fair dedicated to selling random overpriced homemade trinkets in a park or maybe based around a parade. Food served at an American festival is mostly deep fried sweets of some kind that cost about 20 cents to make and are sold for closer to $5. In America, everything is catered towards families and festivals are usually overly "kid-friendly" in that they often center around some sort of entertainment for children, are completely alcohol-free and end by 7 pm. I've never heard of anyone between the ages of 12-40 being excited about going to a festival in America. And why would they? American festivals are boring.

In Germany, when a town is having a festival, it's typically positioned right in the downtown of the city and often requires closing down several main streets for days or weeks on end. Vendors will be out most of the day and pretty much all night. German festivals are almost always centered around food and drinking. Whole squares and streets will be filled with tables and surrounded by places to buy fresh made wurst, pasta, pizza and kettle cooked chips. In certain areas, you can sit and be served like a giant outdoor restaurant. There will usually be a stage with a band covering some American music with thick German accents. Children are welcome and free to play in the open grassy areas, but you won't always find much entertainment for them. Some festivals will have areas with fair rides, but not always. People go all out for these events, too. You'll usually see them dressed as if they are attending a wedding or church service while they're maneuvering through the huge crowds of people who turn up for the fest. When you show up in jeans and a t-shirt, everyone knows you're American.

I don't think Americans can wrap their heads around the concept of German festivals for a vast number of reasons. The main one being that this kind of event would probably be in some way illegal in America. People drinking and smoking in public around small children seems outrageous in the States. Closing businesses for what's deemed as a "party" is practically scandalous. One person would complain because it was too loud or not safe enough, and the whole event would be cancelled. Americans aren't taught to control themselves. They don't teach their children how to behave in what is deemed as adult situations. We cause this separation in having a family and enjoying yourself. I remember living near Savannah, Georgia in college and every year when St. Patrick's Day came around, Savannah's streets became flooded with drunk college students partying along the river to the point of throwing up or blacking out. There were areas of the city sectioned off as almost a "family friendly" zone. You could take your kids to one area of the city to have their faces painted and ride a little green train in a circle or you could go down to River Street and drunkenly throw up into a dyed green river (so long as you weren't double-fisting, because that's still illegal). There's no middle ground. Festivals, especially ones dedicated to a particular kind of alcohol, will never work in American culture, so we have to enjoy them in Europe while we can. As I've heard others here say, "Americans would take something wonderful and ruin it."

Aside from the wine fest, we ventured out even a little more by getting sushi. It seems ridiculous that we would consider that venturing out, but ordering food is always a terrifying experience for us. I've picked up on enough words to know when something is beef or pork and I know how to recognize if a dish is made with salmon or tuna rather than shellfish. That seemed reason enough to try ordering sushi! It wasn't a total disaster, but it didn't go very well either. We thought we were going to a place that a friend recommended which was more English friendly, but we were wrong. After lots of pointing and confusion, we got something that we didn't mean to order from a very sweet waitress who was trying her best to please us. So, we ate it and felt like idiots for not being able to communicate better. I've picked up a little bit of German, but I doubt I'll ever feel fully comfortable walking into a restaurant and ordering food.

In other news, being back to work has been great. In February, I'll be starting a program to become a certified lactation consultant. I wish I could be working full time rather than part-time, but anything helps at this point. I'm happy to be able to keep my skills up and continue to learn new things while also living abroad. We are definitely much luckier than most!

From CO to TX to GA

It's been 16 days now since Greg and I landed in Germany and moved into a hotel. It's not looking like we'll be getting a place to live any time soon, which apparently we should be thrilled about. Supposedly, we're going to end up getting enough cash in TLA (temporary live allowance) to pay for a car and we're spending the hottest months of the year living in the only place in the area with air conditioning. Did I tell you how much I miss our apartment in Colorado?

View of Colorado Springs last night we were there

Anyway, before jumping on a transcontinental flight, Greg and I spent a month visiting our families. This was probably the longest visit either of us has had with our families since Greg joined the Army and since I went away to college. However, this was definitely the longest time we've ever spent with each other's families.

After the mover's packed up our things and we said a tearful goodbye to the place we've spent our whole married life, we set out for Texas where Greg spent most of his childhood. Since Greg still had to drop off his car in Dallas to be shipped, I drove my Jeep and he followed behind in his car. This was my third cross-country trip in my Jeep. The first was right after Greg left for deployment and I drove it back to Georgia. The second was the day after I graduated from college and packed that sucker down with all my belongings (and Augustus, of course) set out to my new home in Colorado. This third trip was not as upsetting as the first, but still not as exciting as the second. I hope to never drive a 2-door Wrangler with a lift kit from one side of the country to the other again.

We spent a little less than 2 weeks in Texas. Since each side of Greg's family lives in a different city in Texas, we went on an extreme road trip crossing all over the state to visit his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Because I only met most of his family once at our wedding, it was nice to get to know everyone better and spend some quality time together. It would have been awesome to spend more than a day with each side of the family, but we were pressed for time to see everyone we could.

After visiting his extended family, Greg and I went back to his parent's house to spend the rest of our time in Texas with this mom, dad, two sisters and brother-in-law. In case you all might have forgotten, this was the same period of time that strong storms and tornadoes were consistently ripping through Oklahoma and northern Texas. We narrowly missed hiding in bathrooms as a tornado ripped through an area just a few miles from Greg's parent's home while we were visiting family in Austin. Luckily, everyone was safe!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of visiting Texas because I took all of them on my Diana which I haven't developed the film from just yet.  While we were there, we visited the Fort Worth stockyards for the first time, ate some famous donuts and bar-b-que and spend a day canoeing on the Brazos. Mostly, we spent quality time with family until it was time to say goodbye and continue our road trip to Georgia.

My immediate family all live in the suburbs of Atlanta relatively close to each other while all of my extended family still live mostly in Pennsylvania. While in Georgia, we stayed very busy with my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law and nephews and nieces. My dad's house is just a short drive to both of my sister's homes so we made the rounds visiting everyone. I can't say there was a single day in which we were at a loss of things to do. We climbed Stone Mountain, had cook-outs, went out downtown, played with my sister's four children under the age of five, ate at every awesome restaurant in the area, went on a guided fishing tour and spent a day at the aquarium. Luckily, we also made time to visit with my best friend from growing up and his new wife.

It was great to get to see and spend time with everyone. Greg had barely met several of my family members until then and even I hadn't had much contact with everyone since moving. Actually, this was the first time I got to meet my 9-month old twin nephews! I was able to be there when my oldest nephew and niece we born, but the twins weren't born until shortly after I moved to Colorado. They've all grown up so much that it reminded me how much I'm going to miss being in Germany for three years. Not just with the kids, but with my whole family. Mind you, even when we lived stateside I didn't visit hardly at all, but that fact of knowing that you can't visit is pretty hard. At least we got to all really enjoy quality time together for about 2 weeks before leaving. And I didn't even cry nearly as much this time as I did before driving out to Colorado.

I'll leave you with some pictures from the Georgia Aquarium, biggest in the world!

You all notice that line to the far right side of all of my pictures? Yep, my Canon is done for. I really had no intention of replacing it any time soon until I noticed all of these pictures were marked with that white line of death.

I'm a horrible blogger thus far. Since we've gotten here, we've gone to two festivals and explored both of the cities we are closest to. We've also passed our driver's tests, eaten way too much fast-food and been super depressed over our endless lack of permanent housing. This upcoming week, Greg will be busy at work so hopefully I'll have some time to update. Once Greg's car gets here, we already have out first day trip planned to Cologne!