Arriving in Austria

The trip to Austria was supposed to take 6 1/2 hours.  The drive through Germany isn't very exciting and its the longest part of the trip.  There are a lot of fields and windmills.  Windmills used to be fascinating, and every time I saw some I'd point out the window and yell like a little kid, "look at the windmills!!".  But now I've seen enough that windmills are windmills and they get old after a while.  Same with cows and horses.

When we take long car drives we like to get Burger King for lunch.  Its one of the increasing number of fast food chains in Germany, but we only get it on road trips.  Its okay... but Bob loves it.  So around lunch time we decided to find a Burger King.  The GPS said there was one only 2km off the highway....

25 minutes later we were in a strange town full of one-way streets.  Somehow we managed to drive off the streets all together and found ourselves in the middle of a pedestrian plaza surrounded by pedestrians (who wouldn't get out of the way for the car that wasn't supposed to be there) and streets marked with "do not enter" signs.  The GPS was going crazy. "Turn left on... Turn right... contin... left... turn... make a u-turn??"  To make matters worse we somehow managed to attract a cop car... AND we never found the Burger King.

We did see a really pretty church though.

And we finally found our way back to the highway... only to see a sign for a rest stop with a Burger King just a few minutes later... 

The nice part about driving to Austria was that the boring part through Germany (and the exciting detour) took just as long as it said it would.  It was only once we got to Munich (which is pretty close to the border) that we encountered the ridiculous amount of traffic as all the other cars from Germany (and Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic and even the Netherlands) piled onto the same highway to get to the ski resorts.

Fortunately, Munich is close enough to the Alps that we started seeing snow-capped peaks.  

Even though the last hour and a half of the drive took us three and a half hours, it was beautiful and we were excited so we didn't mind much.

I'm pretty sure there weren't even real traffic jams.  There were just a bunch of signs that  said traffic jam (stau in German) and every time the cars passed under one, everyone slowed to a crawl until they forgot the sign and sped up again... 

Notice we are before the sign.  No traffic.  Notice the traffic backed up immediately AFTER the sign.

We also got to drive through some sweet tunnels.

This is us IN the tunnel... 

And finally, we knew we were almost there when we passed under this ridiculous gondola.

Notice there are no posts.  The crazy thing starts ground level and goes on just cables up half the mountain.
We did NOT ride in that one.

**NOTE:  Due to the lack of internet in our apartment, these posts are dated according to when they happened... even though I'm posting them all right now, from Dresden.  Sorry!

Austria Trip, Austria Trip, Austria Trip...

For those of you out there who love to travel, I don't know what's wrong with you!  Maybe I need lessons or something, but it never fails... a few days before any impending vacation, I flip out.

The days prior to any vacation look like this:

"What is our hotel going to be like? Do we need our own towels? Is there a coffee machine?"
"How does the bus work?  How late does it run? What if I can't figure out how to get places?"
"What is there to do there?  How much does it cost? How long does it take??"
"What is there to eat? What food should I bring? What clothes do I pack?"

And an hour later I'm sitting in front of the computer with 10 browser windows open, each with at least 5 tabs, trying to find every site on the internet with information about the place I'm going.

I sit and make a list of all the things we need to do, how much they cost, where they are, how to get there, why it's cool.

Then I take that list and try to make a schedule- not just a general schedule- down to the minute.

And still, as I'm traveling to my destination, I have my pen out and I'm scribbling things in the margins and crossing things out.

When I get there, I go to the tourist office, find all their information, make another list, make another schedule, cross-reference it with the first schedule, and finally... I'm ready for the vacation.

EXCEPT... I forgot thing 1 and thing 2, which I immediately must find a store to purchase in case they are needed.  AND, its colder/warmer than I thought, so all those clothes I packed, well, they aren't going to do any good because I will wear the same thing every day so that by the time I return home I will stink.  ALSO, I didn't realize that half the things on my list actually don't fit into the schedule because it takes longer to get to the places than I thought or their opening times have changed but they didn't put it on the website.

SO...

I might as well have not done any of the prep-work because we pretty much wing it once we're there... finding things to do as we walk past them or because some other tourist mentions them to us.  I shouldn't have packed a suitcase because I only wear what I had on when I arrived and bought any other necessities, AND, I've already ruined my schedule with so many scribbles and foldings and unfoldings and somehow dropping  it in a puddle that even if I wanted to use it, it's useless.

Why, then, do I continue to torture myself?  Maybe it's the thought that eventually, all that work is going to pay off... Maybe it's because in the back of my mind, my subconscious doesn't like to travel and is trying to put me off of planning any more trips... Maybe I'm just crazy...


Saturday we leave for Austria.

At this moment, I have already made my first list and my first schedule, and revised them twice.  I have a map with so many stars and circles and highlighted things that I don't even know what's what.  There is a pile the size of Mt. Everest in my guest room of stuff we need to bring.  I will go shopping today to buy everything else that is on my 3 page list of stuff we need to bring and don't have yet.

Tomorrow I will pack everything, think that I forgot some items that are checked off on my 10 page list (but maybe I checked them off by accident), unpack everything, repack everything, decide on a few more things to bring (which will require me to unpack and repack again so that everything fits into my allotted number of bags), and make a list of all the things I need to remember to do before we leave (like take out the trash and turn off the lights).

Saturday I will wake up and inevitably feel the need to unpack and repack one more time, just to make sure we have everything.  We will leave and follow my "things to do before we leave check off list" but I will feel like I left the stove on and have to come back in to check.  Then we will start driving, but I will forget something really important like my sunglasses and we will have to turn around and come back to get them.  Then we'll leave again, but I'll feel like I didn't lock the door and I'll have to go back and check.

I will probably spend the whole vacation staring out of my apartment window at the Alps.  Maybe I will venture onto the ski slopes.  But after all that planning, I just need a relaxing vacation!!

T is for Tiger and also Tux, Austria

Regrettfully, this may be my last Animal Alphabet page for a while.  We are planning a ski trip for next week to the Austrian Alps!!  There's a lot of preparation involved since we have to tune up the snowboards, pack all our gear and clothes, plan our meals for the week, buy lots of food and snacks and drinks, and research where it is, exactly, that we are going...

SO, here is "T is for Tiger".

In case you are interested in where we are going next week (which you very well may not be, in which case I totally grant you permission to stop reading here) this is where it is:

We have this really cute apartment here- a very helpful site as it is all in German, but at least there's a nice picture.

We're skiing (snowboarding actually, but "snowboard vacation" doesn't sound nearly as cool as "ski vacation" or even in German, "ski urlaub") at Tux.  There are also lots of other cool things to do there like a 5km sledding run, ice skating, cave exploration and even a fireworks show.

It should be pretty awesome...

Alligator Cake: Success

After only 4 hours...

Alligator cake!

What? No Cake Mix?

I happen to love cake.  Birthday cake specifically... not that I would refuse other types of cake, its just that birthday cakes are my favorite.  They have to be the round ones, two layers, that you cut into wedges.  Those are the best.  And none of those store-made ones, they have to be homemade.  But not really homemade, homemade from a box.  Like Pillsbury, or Duncan Hines, or Betty Crocker.  With that frosting that comes in the little round canisters.  Those types of cake are the best.

Early this week, I was commissioned to make a birthday cake for one of our friends.

hopefully it will be a cute alligator cake.
This alligator is a little scary.

"No problem!"  I thought.  "I'll just take out my handy-dandy cake mix and some oil and a couple eggs, mix it up, throw it in the oven, and smack some frosting on there."
Oh- says Bob- and can you make it in the shape of an alligator?
"Okay, a little trickier, but I'm an artist, sure!"



I knew that one of the grocery stores here had American products so I went to check it out.  For a mere 12 Euros, ($16.20) I could buy the only type of cake mix they had (carrot) and a canister of frosting (which would totally NOT cover an entire alligator- make that 3 canisters of frosting for a total of $31).  I don't think so.

So yesterday I spent hours slaving over the hot... um... oven... and made two batches of strawberry cake from scratch.  Not perfect, but I think I did alright for my first attempt at cake from scratch.  Stupid German oven didn't cook very evenly, but the important thing is that they taste good- which they do (I had to test to make sure it wasn't poisonous.

So today... frost cake to look like an alligator with homemade lime-creamcheese frosting... pictures coming soon!

Cats and Mice

Yesterday I finished yet another alphabet book page.  M is for Mice.  I'm not sure I like this one as much because two mice have to make the letter M.  I tried what felt like a bazillion ways to make just one mouse look like an m, but I just couldn't do it (well, can't is a strong word- I could have done it but it would have looked stupid (pardon my use of the "s" word)).

You might wonder what else I do with my days here besides working on alphabet book pages.  You may also wonder why it is that I post only one alphabet page every other day or so.  What is it I do here??

I have realized that a good part of my day

(after...

-walking 77 miles to the gym and working out amidst smelly Germans, all over the age of 68 who want to be my friend but who I can only understand, at best, 50% of the time

-walking back those 77 miles - and its uphill both ways

-buying groceries - often at two or more stores since the store I buy my cheap vegetables at doesn't carry edible meat and/or toothpaste and would never have advil because it's a dangerous drug and you need to ask at the counter at the pharmacy for it so they can see you're over 18 and won't abuse it...

-cleaning the house, which takes approximately 4 times as long as it might in the US due to inferior cleaning products

-and making dinner - again, 4 times as long because I have to churn the butter, grow the herbs and make any sort of sauce, breadcrumb, or other typically pre-packaged food myself... 

only to find that by the time I've completed my daily tasks, Bob has been home for half an hour, already messed up my cleaning, has finished the dinner it took hours to prepare and is waiting for me to finish washing the dishes so we can relax because he's been working all day**)

is spent being a chair.

Yeah, that thing that looks like a zipper is my sweatshirt, and yes the cat is on my lap, which for all intensive purposes is a chair.  My cat also likes to sleep on unoccupied chairs.  Just not as much.

Fortunately, while being a chair, I can do other useful things, like surf the web or edit photos or scan alphabet book pages, or write blog posts... which is what I'm doing now while being a chair.  Fantastic.

**For the sake of emphasizing my point I may have slightly over exaggerated a few details.  The gym is NOT 77 miles away, its only 1.  And Bob is actually a very nice guy who picks up things I forget at the store on his way home from work, sometimes helps make dinner and almost half the time puts away the dishes after I wash them.  He also knows that being a hausfrau is a full time, demanding, tiring and often times boring job and if he ever mentions that it isn't work, isn't as hard as the work he does, doesn't take as much time and effort as I say it does, or any other comments that even suggest being a hausfrau is not a full-time laborious job, I will get on the first plane out of here and go home to my mom.  Hasn't happened yet...
Oh, and he's not that messy.

H is for...

While sitting around last Friday after the internet stopped working, I found plenty of time for making Alphabet book pages.  My most recent are for the letter H.  Its one of those letters that need two animals because there aren't any animals that start with H in both languages.  Okay, I lie.  Hamster starts with H in both languages.  But how would I make a hamster look like the letter h?  Its like a round ball of fur.  Maybe if hamster started with O...

Anyway, H is for hare...

And also hund.  I won't translate that because if you can't tell by looking at the picture, I should give up all hopes of alphabet book making right now...

No Internet!?!? AND a flood??

Our internet was on the fritz since the last posting, but we finally have it up and running again thanks to a fabulous German-speaking friend who was able to call the internet company for us.

If you've ever had to call the internet or cable company in English you know that it can be a crazy hassle.

"Can I put you on hold?"
"Let me transfer you to..."
"Have you tried...?"
"Ok, open the cover of the box, press the green button, switch all the cables, turn the black lever, snip all of the wires.  Is it working now?"

...and 3 hours later they have to set up an appointment to come to your house between the hours of 7am and 10pm three weeks from today.

I didn't think I could handle that in German.

Thankfully, the internet providers here are apparently much easier to deal with (aside from the holding time of almost an hour in which they charge .19 Euros a minute).

In other news, due to the crazy amount of snow the Czech Republic got in December and the ridiculously warm temperatures lately, the river (the Elbe) is flooding.

This is near the bridge that crosses from Altstadt to Neustadt.  Yes, that is a ticket booth for boat tours (which are obviously inaccessible right now) which is halfway filled with water.

This is a street.  See the stoplights?  And where it turns right to go into the tunnel?

We walked from our house to the Blue Bridge on Sunday to check out the river along the way.  When we got there our favorite restaurant had all these sandbags out to keep their basement from flooding.  On the bright side, we got to see a lot of swans :)

O is for Orangutan

Orangutan is a strange word because it sounds like it should have a "g" at the end.  Regardless, they are pretty cool animals.  They're the best monkeys to watch at zoos because they're so playful... except for the older males- they just look really sad to me.

Here is the latest alphabet book page!

V is for Vulture

V is for Vulture.  Vultures are pretty vicious animals.  Well, maybe not super vicious unless something is lying dead in the road, but they're always pretty ugly, and vicious or not, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to hang out next to one for very long.

That being said, it was quite a challenge to make a friendly looking vulture.  Kind of like alligators.  Alligators are scary.  It was also difficult to make "A is for Alligator" look happy and friendly.  Though not as hard as V is for Vulture.

So here he is.

He definitely doesn't look scary.  Maybe a little scared though... or surprised?

C is for Chameleon

As you may have seen in yesterday's post, I'm making pretty good progress on alphabet letters.  C for Chameleon is now finished.  If you count the letters that have doubles (due to the fact that the German language and the English language are not, in fact, the same...) I am now... 1/4 done! 

Hmm... I was sort of hoping for halfway... it looks like a lot of letters hanging in my window... oh well... back to work... 

Definitely my favorite so far...

 

My Cat Watzke: Budding Artist

Sometimes when I stay home all day, I might as well not even be here for the amount of attention my cats pay me.  Other days, anytime I even so much as appear to be sitting down (bending down to get laundry out of the drier definitely counts!) I have a cat jumping up to sit on me.  And some days I feel like I have dogs instead of cats as I'm constantly followed around.  Its nice to have company!

Yesterday, I was working on my alphabet book and Watzke decided he wanted to sit on my lap- which wasn't very convenient as I kept getting up and down or dropping water on him by accident.  So he found a comfortable spot here:

He was very interested in everything I was doing.  After eating some paint, and drinking some dirty water (blech!!) he decided on the paintbrush as a suitable toy for playing with for a while.  Maybe tomorrow I can teach him how to paint :)

More Time for Artwork

After I finally managed to get all the Christmas stuff put away and the house cleaned and back in order, I felt at a loss of things to do.  The weather warmed up and all the snow melted, I didn't have any presents to buy or cookies to bake, nothing to wrap... not even Christmas music to listen to.  Which made me decide to do things productive.  New Year's Resolution #1: Make more artwork.

First I started out by uploading a lot of my artwork to another site like Imagekind (artsonia for grown-ups) called Artwanted.  You can see my online portfolio here.  There's not a ton of artwork on there yet, but I'll get there.

I also took out all my animal alphabet book making supplies and started drawing and painting.  My last letter was R for Rhino way back in the beginning of November.  I thought I might have forgotten what I was doing, but I think R wie Ratte turned out pretty well:

Why two Rs?  Because Rhino in German is nashorn which does not start with R.  But, I really like Rhinos and wanted one in my book, so R for Rhino, R wie Ratte. 

Cats by Kris - A Calendar (Finally!)

So, its just about a week late, but after all the craziness of Christmas and packing up all the Christmas stuff, I've finally uploaded my calendar to lulu.com.

Remember back in December I made an awesome calendar as a super surprise present for my mom for Christmas?  Since it was so much work, I decided that other people should be able to get one too!

So here it is...

Guten Rutsch!

or in English... good sliding!  Doesn't make much sense?  I didn't think so either, until it was explained to me that the wish is for good or easy sliding into the new year with good health, good fortune and good friends (and family of course!)  After learning this, I admit I may have gone a little overboard in wishing people "good sliding!!"

We celebrated the New Year with a bang.  Or rather, about 5 million bangs.  Dresden on Sylvester (or New Year's Eve) is wild!!

We started out the evening calmly with a fondue dinner at our German friends' house.  We drank bellinis and watched the funniest show ever- "Dinner for One".  Apparently all Germans watch this show every single year on Sylvester.  It was so funny that it will definitely be a new tradition in my house!

You MUST watch this!!



We went downtown (so we pretty much walked out our door) for the New Year's Eve fireworks celebration at about 11 and it was already crazy!

People are allowed to set off fireworks in Dresden just for December 31, and it appeared that everyone was!  I was a little worried that someone was going to blow a hand off or catch someone on fire, but for all the explosions around us, no one got hurt!

We met a nice couple from Frankfurt (I learned from my German teacher today that Sylvester is the only time Germans are nice to other people) and shared some champagne.  They were nice enough to take our picture:

At midnight everyone went crazy!!  There was a fireworks show put on by the city and EVERYONE was shooting off their own fireworks!  I have never seen or heard so many fireworks from so many different directions for such a long time in my whole life.  I'm so glad we were here to experience it!!

Best wishes for a fantastic New Year to all my friends in all the places you are!  I miss my NH, NY, VA and TX friends and hope to see you soon, and am thankful that I have all my Dresden friends here!