You know how all of us out here in the blogosphere have, ahem, secrets? The kind that we keep offline and to ourselves? I was having a conversation with my girl Momo last night, during which she said, “we think we know these people, but…do we??” (I paraphrased that, but you get the idea, right?) Well, I’ve got a secret, and I think it’s the perfect time to share it with you. First, a deep breath: Inhaaaaaale. Exhaaaaale. Okay, here goes: ©2010 Suburban Scrawl
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Go On Vacation To Germany With Me, At Your Leisure!
Well, sort of. Here’s my roundup of Germany posts, all in one place, along with a badge you can grab, if you’d like, to display on your blog! Resize, whatever. (If you link back to this post, even better. If not? I still adore you.) The best part? You don’t even need a passport. Here we go: Gemütlichkeit (Hospitality) Apparently I Should Be Eating More Marshmallows (about grocery shopping in Germany) Above God and Everybody (The Zugspitze) Bursting At The Seams, I Had To Put One Elsewhere (Link to my Music Mamas post about German music) These Walls Were Made For Walkin’ (Our Visit to Rothenburg ob der Tauber) Germany…
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Random Thoughts and Pictures: German Style (Or, “I Guess It’ll Have To Go Here”)
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. (Is that really true? Do all good things really have to come to an end? I suspect not.) If you are still reading this after so many days of my blogging about my family trip to Germany, I owe you a huge thanks for sticking around. I feel like the annoying relative who showed up unannounced with five thousand slides from her summer vacation, and you were held hostage without so much as a bathroom break. In all, I’ve done (including this one) eighteen posts about my trip since I returned home. (I was gone for eight days, including travel!) You…
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On Crazy Kings and Reenactments
While in Germany we spent an entire day (the day after going to the Zugspitze) taking in three of the dreamy castles of King Ludwig II. We started in Füssen, at Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was originally the home of Ludwig II’s parents, and then became his when they died. I didn’t get a really great picture of the entire castle, probably because I wasn’t flying over it in a helicopter, but you’ll get the idea. I took a few pictures outside on the grounds, because unfortunately you can’t take pictures inside any of the castles, with a couple of exceptions (I’ll get to one in a minute). We only had…
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The East-West German Pepsi Challenge of 2010
After the seriousness of yesterday’s post, I thought it would be a good idea to post something a little, err, lighter today. One of the things on the schedule during our Germany visit was something Kat set up as a surprise for us: the Pepsi Challenge 2010. I think she remembered seeing how much fun we had with our Kit Kat Taste Test of 2006 and thought we’d enjoy doing a challenge in which we had to identify the East German cola. (She was right: we had a blast!) She told us that she “imported them” from East Germany, meaning she went to the store near her parents’ house on…
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So These Four Jews Go To Germany…
While on our wonderful family vacation in Germany, we had three Jewish experiences (two were planned; one was not) which I thought deserved mention in their own post. We first visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, which is completely different from saying that we visited Dachau. When the four of us were leaving Kat and Holger’s house to make the visit there, they made sure to tell us that though the area is known for this horrible piece of the Holocaust, the town of Dachau is a lovely place and we should make sure to visit the Altstadt there, since we’d be in the area. (Check out the website…
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Do You Like Cars? Germany’s Got ‘Em!
The car we rented in Germany happened to be a BMW. It was very, very expensive: not because it was a BMW but because the insurance we had to carry on it for the week was outrageously priced, but mandatory. (On that topic, I think when we go back someday, we will only rent a car for the days we intend to drive to the Alps. The public transportation system in Munich ROCKS and it’s way cheaper than a car rental!) It would have been a luxury for us to rent a BMW in the States; over there, they were a dime a dozen. (Hello, Bayerische Motoren Werke/BAVARIAN Motor Works?…
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Personality Plus
The younger boy cracks me up. Usually. During the last couple of many months, he has been acting the part of a very normal teenager: spending lots of time in his room and not so much with us, attached to one of many technology items (sometimes more than one at at time) we have in the house. We’ve had to make major efforts to have actual discussions that delve deeper than: “How was your day?” “Good.” …and it’s not always easy to find that time, what with four of us running in different directions most of the time. When we can pin him down, though–like at the dinner table, for…
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Shop Til You Stop!
Naturally, part of any vacation is finding cool places to shop and buy souvenirs. We were actually pretty controlled on the spending while in Europe, probably buying waaaay less than the average tourist. But browsing was still fun. We bought lots of postcards to send to Julesie (she collects them) and for the older boy to send to his girlfriend. In downtown Munich, we found this totally cool store called Kare. If money was no object and my luggage weight didn’t matter, I could’ve spent hours (and hundreds of Euros) in there. I loved it! I’ll let the pictures tell the story of how fun this place is. This picture…
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Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit, Der Gemütlichkeit
Before I begin my post, I want to send greetings to Kat’s father, who has been following my Germany posts with the help of Google Translate. Hallo Kat’s Vati/Vater/Papa! I hope to meet you on my next visit! When I say “Beverages in Germany”, you think…beer. And you’d be right, but I’ll get to that in a minute. There were other beverages that were consumed and enjoyed very much on this trip to Bavaria, too. (Did I mention that I don’t drink beer?) One day while shopping in downtown Munich, we were pleased to happen upon the Coke Zero Street Team, because we were parched. Free Coke Zero for everyone!…