Stateside!

On May 3rd, Greg and I landed at Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and Nail Emporium. In other words, we moved back to the USA!

Our first week was spent visiting my family, who we hadn't seen in three years. After that, we drove out to Texas to visit Greg's family before starting a two week road trip of the Southwest. It was nice getting to visit everyone and enjoy some time visiting a lot of the sights that we told ourselves we would explore while living in Colorado, but never made it.

I'll share some information about our road trip soon. Even though we moved back to the US, we're still impatiently waiting to receive all of our stuff from Germany. We're going on month three without furniture and it's getting old quickly.

Taken our last weekend in Germany

Surprise!

...The surprise being that I am updating the blog.

Middle Rhine Valley in October.

Obviously, I haven't taken the time to update this with the second half of our Norway trip or any of the adventures we've done since then.

Since August, we've enjoyed our last fall living in Germany, our last Christmas markets, a short trip to France, a visit from Greg's sister and brother in law, an ill-fated "ski" holiday to the unusually warm Alps and a recent trip to London. Now, we're gearing up to say goodbye to Germany, and (more importantly) the Army, for good.

Partnachklamm

I recently found out that I was accepted into one of the three grad school programs I applied to. I am still waiting to hear from one sometime in the next few weeks and another has invited me for an interview in February which I am debating whether or not I want to attend. I'm feeling pretty confident, though, because the one program I was accepted into is probably the most selective, only admitting 8-10 students per year.

Greg has started preparing for his upcoming job hunt and is feeling very positive about the end of his military career. We're ready to move on with our lives. There are a lot of things that we are going to miss about Europe, but we can always come back in the future if we would like.

Tower Bridge

We're debating about whether or not we will do any more traveling in our last few months here. There are a few more places we would like to visit, but may not make it to all of them. And, ultimately, that's okay. We've had a lot of fun in the past 3 years but we're ready to focus on our next stage of life: building careers that we value and enjoy.

What will happen to this blog? Well, depending on where I decide to go to grad school, there may still be some extensive travel in our future. In the meantime, I should probably just focus on updating all of the fun things we've done before we return stateside!

Konigssee, Bavaria

In June, we decided to enjoy the great outdoors by taking a trip to one of the most scenic locations in Germany, Konigssee.

This is actually Obersee

Konigssee is located in Berchtesgadener Land, a national park in the Bavarian Alps on the Austrian border. Konigssee is best known for a few things. First, the close proximity to the Eagle's Nest which encourages a lot of visitors with interest in WWII history. Secondly, the famous "horn echo" which occurs when a horn is blown from a certain spot on the lake, causing an echo throughout the Alps which sounds like a symphony of horns playing. Finally, the beautiful views and amazing hikes through practically untouched Alps speckled with traditional wooden buildings and milk cows. German travel websites are covered with picturesque Bavarian scenes from Konigssee and the surrounding area.

Our main reason for making the trip was to enjoy a hike in the mountains, which we hadn't gotten to do since we lived in Colorado. On Friday afternoon, we packed up Augustus and the Jeep and set out for the southern-most portion of Germany. Unfortunately, we didn't get out fast enough to avoid traffic, so our road trip took almost 3 hours longer than anticipated. When we got to our hotel, the staff had gone to bed, so they left our key at the desk with a welcome note.

The next morning, we got up early to catch one of the earlier boats out. Konigssee can only be crossed on a particular kind of electric boat. No other vehicles are allowed on or near the lake to preserve it's crystal clear water. There are only two different stops to get off of from the boat and you pay by how far you plan to go. Each boat stops at a particular point to blow the trumpet in order to hear the echo.

On the day we went, it was soaking wet and pretty cold outside. We dressed Augustus in his best hoodie, put on our thickest rain coats and took a seat on the boat next to a group of British college kids. They all sort of laughed at Augustus cuddled up asleep in Greg's lap the whole trip. He barely noticed the trumpet playing, which, due to the weather, was pretty anticlimactic. The echo didn't have the same triumphant effect in the pouring rain, but it was still kind of cool. There is a famous chuch on the water which is where most people exited, but we stayed on until Salet which is the trail head for a path to Obersee and the Rothbach waterfall, the tallest in Germany.

Obersee is only a short and easy walk from the Salet port, maybe 10 or 15 minutes. However, there is a longer trail which leads along the edge of Obersee and through the mountains until it reaches a cottage which sells fresh milk. If you continue to follow the trail, it ends at the Rothbach waterfall. Despite the rain, we decided to hike it. We weren't totally prepared for that much hiking. Because of the weather, we assumed we wouldn't want to spend that much time outdoors so we didn't dress for the occasion. We ended up hiking several miles anyway.

Augustus was awesome. He only got tired and had to be carried for a short period, and I think it was more so because he was so wet and not because he was necessarily tired. He climbed up the steps carved into the rocks and carefully approached the cows blocking the path to see if he could venture forward. We even saw the British kids later in the hike who mentioned how good he was as hiking.

We stopped at the milk cottage and got some beer. It kind of grosses me out that people were stopping to get luke warm milk while hiking. Augustus got cold from all the rain so we had to wrap him up in Greg's hoodie to dry him off. The views were absolutely beautiful and worth the walk. After a short break, we decided to walk towards the waterfall before heading back to the boat. We didn't walk all the way down the waterfall trail, but instead stopped and allowed Augustus to run around for a little while in the cow pasture. He was interested in the cows, but not enough to attempt to approach them.

Luckily, the hike back was much more dry and the boat much less crowded. Augustus was so exhausted that he curled up in a nest he made in Greg's hoody and fell asleep. All of the Germans were watching him and laughing as he dug his way up under it to sleep "under the covers." This was definitely the longest hike he's taken since we moved to Germany.

Once off the boat, we dropped Augustus at the hotel to rest and ate an amazing Bavarian dinner on the water overlooking the lake. It was a nice end to the trip. At the hotel, we learned that it was a common practice for travelers in the area to return to their hotel at night for dinner. Most of the hotel guests did this. They even reserved a table for each of the hotel guests. We decided to go down to the restaurant for beer and cake.

There were more things that I had wanted to do in that area before we returned, but the weather was so bad that it wasn't worth it. There is a cable car that you could take to the top of a mountain overlooking the lake, but we didn't bother since the clouds were so low that you couldn't even see to the top of the mountains. There wouldn't have been much to see. We didn't go to the Eagle's Nest because we didn't have much interest. We considered stopping through Salzburg, Austria, on our way back, but I forgot to bring our passports so we didn't.

We most likely won't make it back down that direction again unless we try to go snowboarding in the area this winter. The drive to Bavaria/Austria is miserably slow. The scenery is certainly beautiful but that's pretty much all we are interested in around that area. I don't have any huge desire to visit Munich especially after realizing that Oktoberfest can be had in just about any city, but with less tourists and a smaller crowd. Maybe we will return to Garmisch at some point if we have time.

Strasbourg, France and Other Forgotten Local Trips

When we first moved to Germany, I thought I would document every single thing we did and every single trip we took. Then, after visiting a lot of places, I've gotten pretty lazy.

We've decided to try to visit a new place at least every other weekend. We hope to continue that trend through summer as it will probably be our last full summer in Europe. So far, we have done a lot of traveling both near and far since May!

Several weekends ago, we took a trip to Strasbourg, France. Strasbourg is the home of the United Nations headquarters and is located in the Alsace region of France which has traded hands multiple times through history between France and Germany. The inhabitants of Alsace now speak both French and German with a very distinctive accent... or so I'm told.

Strasbourg was a beautiful city which is only 2 hours from our house. It's actually how I imagined most German cities would look before we moved here. The buildings seem to mimic the Bavarian architecture with their own extremely intricate markings which made them look much more artistic and, well, French. I actually told Greg that I think the most beautiful building I've ever seen was in Strasbourg. He didn't completely agree with that sentiment, but did comment that the architecture was more unique than in Germany.

We didn't do a whole lot in Strasbourg other than walk around and eat. The food was great and the town was beautiful, which was good enough for a day trip. It's also fun to be able to say that we can drive to France for a day from our house.

I love this picture of Greg.
(Obviously, this is not the day that it rained)

Twice in the past few months, we've driven up to Bozerwolf off-road park a little over an hour from our house to take the Jeep off-roading. Once, we camped out overnight for Jeep Topless day, which was unfortunately far too cold and rainy to actually take the top off of the Jeep. This was our first European camping experience. It is mostly illegal to go backpack camping here in Germany, so we have to plan out a campsite in advance.

Each weekend we've been in town, we've attending at least one festival in our local area. Wine festivals are just beginning in the Rhine-Main region and we are more than happy to attend. Our own local wine festival won't start until next month, so we have several more weekends to enjoy the festivities in our area. Germans definitely love to party outdoors in the summer!

Finally, we've also taken two bigger trips, one to hike in Bavaria at Konigsee, and another to Rome, Italy with a minor detour to the Naples area to visit the ruins of Pompeii. I'm already working on those posts, so bare with me as I slowly catch up on our adventures!

Backlog Blog

I promise that I have not forgotten about this blog. I have lots of day trips to update about but haven't had the time or energy to do it. This weekend we should have plenty of down time which should allow me to do some blogging! Until then, here is a cute picture of Augustus in a hoody.

Fasching 2015: The Drunken Debauchery Continues

Last year, I posted a little bit about Fasching. To recap, Fasching is the German equivalent of Carnival or Mardi Gras. It starts the Friday before Ash Wednesday and lasts until the Tuesday before. (Fat Tuesday if you were raised Catholic). Western parts of Germany with heavy Catholic influence throw the biggest Fasching or Fasnacht parties. The word for the celebration depends on where in Germany you live. Some areas will still call it Carnival, particularly if they have heavy French influence.

The idea behind Fasching/Fasnacht/Carnival is that your sins are forgiven prior to the start of the Lent season. So, you have one last weekend to "live it up" before focusing on the Lent season. Since Catholic religion is hardly practiced any more in Germany, the party is less about the religious ideas behind Lent and more of another excuse to throw a nice party.

One of the main components of Fasching is dressing up like a "fool." Whereas Carnival in Venice brings about the image of extravagantly dressed masked party guests, you can pretty much dress however you like for Fasching. The most common costumes are head-to-toe animal outfits complete with hoods. This is probably partially because of the cold, wet weather in February in Germany. I wanted to dress up as a cow, but the store did not have my size costume. Instead, Greg convinced me to dress up as Princess Leia since he was going as Darth Vader.

We live within easy walking distance of our city's downtown area. However, before we could make it to the party, we had to walk through our very American neighborhood dressed like Star Wars characters. Can I just take this moment to comment: Americans do not know how to have fun. Seriously. We know how to ruin otherwise fun things.

None of the other Americans walking to the parade were dressed. We got a lot of crazy looks at first. Once we crossed from our American neighborhood into "real" Germany, all of the Germans were dressed up and partying. We actually got a lot of great comments from them. Small kids would yell "Leia" and wave. The girls at the beer stand scolded Greg for not dressing up as Hans Solo. We made a lot of random German friends for the day. They taught us the "correct" way to take shots from their little bottles of plum flavored vodka and how to sing along to polka music. By 9 pm, we were so exhausted we walked home and fell right to sleep. Our original plan was to attend the parade in the town across the river from us the following day, but we decided to stay home.

There are a few things that I will miss about Germany when we leave, and one of them is the sense of community here that just doesn't exist in the states. The idea of throwing a "town party" in the streets would never happen in America. Bonding with someone over a similar costume is something that would probably only occur at a college bar on Halloween. Germans have a reputation for being unfriendly, which can occasionally be true, but they are wonderfully inviting to all outsiders at social events. If you try your best to belong, they'll try their best to accept you. Most importantly, they know how to have fun while keeping it safe and acceptable for people of all ages.

Long Weekend: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

I apologize for the delay in updating about our most recent trip.

'Tis the Season: Christmas Markets in Germany 2014

Nuremberg Market

One major adjustment you have to make when you move to Germany is accepting the fact that winter is miserable and feels like it will never end. I usually love winter, but Germany will ruin it for you. The sun comes up around 9 AM and sets about 4 PM. You're entire day of sun light is spent at work, in an office. That is, of course, if the sun even does make it's appearance from behind the thick, deep clouds that are a permanent fixture in the sky from October to April. Every single day, it rains at least a little. Sometimes it mists the entire day or alternates soft, steady rain. Snow is even more rare than sunlight, even though the wet air makes it feel cold enough to snow. If you have seasonal depression or a vitamin D deficiency, Germany is not a place that you would enjoy living.

Luckily, Christmas markets help make the start of winter a little more bearable. I wrote about the markets last year as well. They get talked up a lot by Americans in Germany. I won't lie, they really aren't anything too special. Most of them sell the same things and most of what they sell is crafts or Christmas decorations. The only redeeming factor that makes you want to visit them all is the food and drinks. Gluhwein (mulled wine) is a staple of all of the markets and each one will have different regional varieties. Some are fruit flavored like apfel (apple) or kirsch (cherry). Most are just red or white. You can also get non-alcoholic varieties. Other than the Christmas decor and gluhwein, the markets are pretty similar to any other festival in Germany.

Christmas market in our town.

Berlin: ICE Trains and Beer Festivals

Fair warning, even though this was a short trip to Berlin, this will probably be a very long and detailed post. On Monday, I found a flier at the gym advertising the Berlin International Beer Festival this weekend. Since we've never been to Berlin, we figured this may be the best time to make a trip over to the east. The next day, we booked train tickets and a hotel. So, this was definitely a more spontaneous trip than we usually take. Aside from my trip via ICE train to Nuremberg to visit Greg when he was at training, this was our first long distance train adventure. There were a lot of bumps in the road along the way, but we made it there and had a pretty awesome time on our mini vacation.

Backpacking in Baumholder Fraunberg

Before I post about Berlin, I have a few other things to cover. Greg and I have been slowly accumulating all of the supplies needed to take a nice long weekend backpacking trip. REI is probably happy to add us to their membership list. Two weekends ago, we decided to try out ort equipment more locally by taking a day trip backpacking through a forest reserve area near Baumholder. On a previous trip, we stumbled onto this place on accident when we parked along the trail head to adjust our GPS. A sign we parked next to held pamphlets explaining the highlights of the trail. I kept the pamphlet just in case we decided to come out that way again.

Day Trip: Worms, Germany

One of the cool things about living in Europe is getting to go do and see some of the less popular or less "touristy" things. I can almost promise that no one has ever said they wanted to go to Germany so that they could visit Worms, but it was only a short drive for us to see. Worms was the (arguable) birthplace of the Lutheran Church and is the location of the oldest remaining Jewish cemetery in Europe. Neither of these things probably attract all that many visitors, but I have to make a very honest confession. I love cemeteries. At one point when I was a kid, I begged my dad to take me to Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. While I can't remember much about the Louvre or Versailles from my trip to Paris in high school, I can still recall exactly what I was wearing when we went to Cimetière du Père Lachaise and how disappointed I was when we couldn't go into the catacombs. I've been to Bonaventure in Savannah multiple times for ghost tours when I lived nearby and was even excited to find out there was a private family cemetery behind my house in Augusta. I know, this whole paragraph comes across extremely creepy. Some people like the beach, other people like cemeteries... right?

Day Trip: Idar-Oberstein & Gemstone Mines

Last Saturday was a beautiful day to go Jeep-ing, so Greg planned for us to take a trip out to Idar-Oberstein. Greg frequently makes trips to another military base further west of us that requires him to drive through several small towns. That's how he discovered Idar-Oberstein, the capital of gemstone mining in Germany. It also happens to have the only gemstone mines in Europe open to the public. When we were dating, it became somewhat of a tradition of ours to collect gemstones from different places we visited, so it was fitting that we visit the Steinkaulenberg gemstone mine while living in Germany.

Did I mention there is a church built directly into the side of the mountain?

Day Trip: Triberg & the Black Forest

It's been a pretty busy week in our home! One of Greg's friends from growing up and his wife came to visit for the week while they were touring Germany. Last weekend was a "4 day", so it gave us all time to hang out before I went back to work. Greg took the week off to show his friends around for a few extra days.

Most of the day trips we took were to places Greg and I had already visited before. The only exception was Saturday, when we took the Jeep down to Triberg in the heart of the Black Forest.

Day Trip: Cochem and Reichsburg, Germany

In the past few weeks, it finally getting sunny and warm outside! This glimpse of spring time sadly did not last long before it started raining every single day. Of course, in a month it will be burning hot and neither our house nor work have air conditioning, so we have to enjoy the weather before it turns miserable again. Several weekends ago, we drove to Cochem with some friends of ours to get out of the house and explore somewhere new.

Day Trip: Idstein Spring Festival

For the past two weeks, it's been unusually sunny, warm and beautiful here. This weekend, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. On Saturday, we got caught in the middle of a hail storm, something I have never witnessed outside of Colorado. When I say "hail storm", I don't mean the typical strong thunderstorm with accompanying hail that was more common in the southeast, I mean that it went from being sunny and calm to 30 mph wind gusts with pea sized hail stones (no rain) within 5 minutes. We just so happened to be leaving the store with a car load of groceries when it started. I always assumed the reasoning for the hail storms in Colorado was due to the high altitude and inability for the hail to melt into rain before hitting the ground, but that wouldn't explain why it suddenly hailed here. Welcome to springtime in Germany, I guess. It was obviously the best weekend possible to take a trip to a Spring festival a few towns away.

Local: Fasching (or Fasnacht Day) 2014

I remember when I was very young living in Pennsylvania and "celebrating" Fasnacht Day. For my non-German-American readers, Fasnacht Day is better known as Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Carnival or, more simply put, the day before Lent begins. A fasnacht is like the German equivalent of a King's Cake, for lack of better comparison. It's a huge, fatty doughnut possibly made out of potatos. As a kid, I don't remember doing anything for Fasnacht Day other than acknowledging it. I'm not sure if I've ever actually had a fasnacht, but I would probably take a whoppie pie from an Amish bakery before a fasnacht anyway.

A few months ago, we were over at our friend's house flipping through a catalog about happenings in our area when I saw an advertisement for a Fasching cruise. I immediately asked if Fasching was the same as Fasnacht Day, and no one seemed to know what I was even talking about. Turns out, Fasching is basically the German Carnival and Faschnut Day is, of course, still the Tuesday before Lent right in the middle of the Fasching celebration.

Fasching is basically a giant, week long party here in Germany. Most of it involves dressing up in costumes (like Halloween), parades, heavy drinking and breaking glass all over the streets. Occasionally, you'll also see young men trying to persuade women to kiss them, but mostly it's just drunken craziness in costumes. Yet somehow, it's also relatively family friendly.

2 Year Anniversary: Trier, Germany

Sunday was our 2 year wedding anniversary! I must say, the second year was much more stressful and trying than our first year. Actually, despite Greg being deployed for most of it, our first year of marriage was a cakewalk compared to this past year. Hopefully year three will be a little more quiet!

Thinking Happy Thoughts

Some days, living in Germany just really, really sucks. I'd like to think of a more eloquent way to put it, but there just isn't one.

Greg was assigned today to a month long duty in January that requires him to be within 3 hours of post at all times. It wouldn't be so bad if, you know, I hadn't already booked and paid for a 4 day snowboarding vacation in Garmisch for MLKJ weekend. I get it, the unexpected is part of "army life", but that doesn't make it any less irritating. Plus, from the second you step off the plane in Germany, everyone is telling you how you need to go travel. Then, the second you do attempt to travel, the Army makes other plans. We almost didn't get to go to Switzerland because of his school and now we probably won't be going snowboarding again this winter between his extra duties and my new job.


Instead of being frustrated, I'm going to attempt to be positive and think of all the good things we have going on right now. Today, we custom ordered a 2014 Jeep Rubicon X from ENCS. While Greg was still in Afghanistan, he expressed a desire to trade his car in for a Jeep again. Most of you know, when we met, Greg had recently bought a Rubicon and managed to win his first date with me by offering to take me for a ride in it. I know, it sounds incredibly cheesy looking back, but I'm sure girls have fallen for worse things than that. After moving to Colorado, Greg traded his Rubicon in for his GTI which he's loved, but also outgrew. We were planning on trading his GTI for another Jeep when he returned from deployment last year, but changed our minds when Greg received orders to Germany. Having a VW in Germany seemed like a much better idea than a huge Jeep. For that reason, we left my Jeep Sport with my Dad in Georgia and only shipped his GTI.
After spending a few months here, we started to rethink our decision. Sure, the GTI is great for small parking garages, but it's also quickly depreciating in value and our financial situation is not permanent. Right now, we both have good paying jobs with benefits, very few bills and disposable income. That very well may not be the case when we return to America, and we know it. We have always talked about eventually getting a larger sized Jeep as a "family" car and realized that we're better off taking on a car payment while we can still afford it. Will the Jeep possibly be a little inconvenient here in Germany? Probably, but we know our situation here is not permanent and we still have the "beater" BMW we bought when we got here. Ultimately, we decided to buy the Jeep because we want it for the future and would like to be able to pay it off before we leave Germany.
Because it was ordered from the factory, we won't get to pick it up for a few more months when it comes to port in northern Germany. Once we get it, I'll have plenty of pictures to post!

Today, I also got a letter in the mail from the 4 year old Nepalese girl I sponsor through a charitable organization. I've sent her a few letters and gotten some updates from her caregivers, but this was the first letter I received from her. It was just a very simple page allowing her to circle pictures that showed things she like to do and eat. Even so, it helped to put a smile on my face this afternoon.

She drew me a flower.

Greg completed his GoPro compilation from Zermatt which you can view here. I tried in vain to link it directly into the blog entry, but it wouldn't work properly. Fair warning, it gets really loud after the first song.


We may be taking a day trip close by this weekend to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. Since Greg can't leave the 3 hour radius, we'll probably visit Trier, a city in western Germany known for his Roman history. Others around here have told us that it's a cute city to visit with a lot of interesting things to see, so we're hoping it will be worth the drive!

Christmas Markets

Let me start this post with some necessary disclosure: We don't celebrate Christmas.

Actually, we don't really celebrate holidays at all. Greg grew up primarily celebrating Jewish holidays and I hate holidays for personal reasons. I don't talk about religion, so we'll keep this short and sweet.


A lot of people we met here told us that their favorite part of living in Germany was the Christmas Markets. Basically, a Christmas Market is the exact same thing as the festivals they have from Spring until Fall except they serve gluhwein instead of beer. Gluhwein is essentially just mulled wine. It comes in red, white and apple, as well as some other regional types. (Greg swears they all taste like Tamiflu, which I don't understand because I thought Tamiflu was only available to adults in capsules...?) We both agree that apple is the best of the bunch, but is still basically just hard spiced apple cider. You could probably get the same experience from warming up some Strongbow.

Our first Christmas Market experience was last weekend in our town. We met some friends down there and it was a pretty good time. Christmas markets, unlike the festivals of summertime, are more similar to craft fairs. There are a lot of vendors selling overpriced trinkets. I'm okay with admitting that I am extremely cheap and would never partake in buying things other than food at a Christmas market. The food, however, is pretty similar to anything that you'll get at any festival all over Germany. We had, you guessed it, bratwurst with curry ketchup on a roll. They were serving lamb wurst the night we went, which was a nice change of pace. They were also selling potato pancakes with applesauce which we had to get since we didn't make latkes at all this year. Aside from that, we drank some gluhwein, hung out with some friends and walked home. Pretty average festival night.

This weekend, we went to nearby Frankfurt for their Christmas market which was massive. However, it was the exact same ordeal, just different scenery. Same booths and trinkets, same food, same giant crowd. It was a fun time but honestly, I'm totally unimpressed with the whole Christmas market thing. I'm actually shocked that people find Christmas markets to be the most enjoyable part of Germany. The weirdest part to me is that people around here actually go around visiting different town's Christmas markets all through December. I can understand going to the local ones within your area, but I wouldn't be willing to take a trip from where we live to say, Munich, just to go to a Christmas market. No thank you. I could get the same trinkets and bratwurst here within the three major cities in my area.

Basically, Christmas markets can be fun for the experience of drinking outdoors, but we weren't impressed by them at all. Festivals in the summer are much more enjoyable for us because they are less focused on purchasing things and more on enjoying yourselves. The festivals we went to during the warmer months typically had entertainment, rides for children and a greater variety of foods and drinks. However, it may be that others find so much enjoyment in Christmas markets because they have an over-all love of Christmastime in general, but that's obviously not us.


Next week, we plan to skip out on the Christmas market scene in order to spend money somewhere that I'd much rather: Ikea. Back in Colorado, Greg had a nice locker at work to store all of his Army nonsense. Since we've moved here, his Army stuff has slowly spilled from our tiny closet, to our bedroom, to our spare bedroom and is now taking up all of our storage space. My goal before going back to work full time is to organize our mess and hopefully get rid of some of the junk we've accumulated. I know I haven't officially announced it, but I will be finally going back to work full time very soon. Once I have the paperwork in hand and details about my start date, I'll give more information on my new position. I will go ahead and say that I am VERY excited to go back to work doing something that I love.

Greg did light the candles for Hanukkah one night this year, but sadly no latkes.

Nuremberg and Our First Train Experience

I have been a miserably bad blogger recently. I currently have at least 3 posts saved as drafts that I have yet to finish. I'd like to say that I have been busy lately, but that's not entirely true. Although I have been somewhat more busy over all, I also had enough free time to binge watch all of Dexter on Netflix last weekend and feel horrible about myself afterwords. One of these days, I may just pick up a hobby that doesn't involve my computer.

Anyway, Greg left several weeks ago to play Army at a school in Bavaria. He's nearly done and has been very proud of himself for everything he's accomplished, so we decided to have some fun this weekend while he was off. We decided to head to Nuremberg!