Polish Pottery

On Wednesday I took a trip with a seasoned "Polish Pottery Buyer" to Boleslawiec, Poland.  The little town is famous for their handmade, hand-painted pottery, which is a little sturdier than most European pottery and is decorated with beautiful geometric designs.

I've been wanting to go to Poland for the pottery since I got here because I've heard so many stories about how awesome it is and how cheap the pottery is to buy.

Well, it wasn't that cheap, but I still made out pretty well on my one-day shopping spree.  I mean, when is the next time I'll ever be in Boleslawiec, Poland, right??

all the awesome stuff I bought!!

In other news, since I only have 19 days left in Dresden (yikes!), I'm going to try to start publishing posts on my new blog since "Miss Kris in Germany" won't really fit once I get back home.  To read about how I feel about the construction that is now taking place in my building, click here.

Mallorca, Spain

This weekend, we took our last vacation outside of Germany.  It was awesome, but a little sad at the same time...

Mallorca is an island off the coast of Spain and for us, it was pretty much a beach vacation- the three S's : Sun, Sand, and Sleeping.  Of course there were other fun things that didn't start with S too.  Like frozen drinks, the pool, and a sweet mini-golf course.  But more on that later.

We decided to call our trip to Mallorca our honeymoon since we never really took one.  In a way, I guess our whole year in Germany has kind of been like an extended honeymoon... but in my book, honeymoons don't include washing dishes, doing laundry, or making dinner.  So this was it.

I won't write a detailed play-by-play of our trip, but I'll highlight some of the most awesome things (there's only so much "and then we went to the pool" you can take).

We arrived early Thursday morning to an overcast sky :(.

We were too early to check in, so we had to carry around a lot of our stuff (the baggage room didn't seem to safe...).  But as soon as the sun came out and we were lying on the beach, we were happy as clams.

When we did get our room, it was fabulous- on the top floor of the hotel with a balcony overlooking the sea!

For the most part, we spent our time lounging under palm umbrellas on the beach

swimming in the sea, lounging by the pool,

swimming in the pool, drinking fantastic frozen drinks while people watching, eating, and relaxing.


Saturday, we went into the city of Palma de Mallorca to do some touristy sight-seeing.  The best part was Poble Espanyol.  It was a small walled village with reconstructions of architecture from all over Spain.  It was like taking a two week vacation through Spain in just two hours with NO TRAVELING!

Arriving back in the center of the city, we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the Guards in front of this awesome cathedral!

That evening, we went to the awesomest mini-golf place with fantastic food.  It was the House of Katmandu and was probably the coolest building for a mini-golf/restaurant to be housed in EVER.

Sunday was the day to get in all the things we'd missed so far.

We took out a paddle boat and paddled around the mini-island in the inlet

And even went to the fish spa to get the dead skin eaten off our feet!!

it tickled.  A LOT.

We were both sad that we had to leave, but it was an awesome last trip in Europe (at least for a while!).

A Saturday at...

You guessed it, our favorite bier garten!

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as nice as forecasted- it was a little cool and partly cloudy, BUT I have to say, I'd much rather it be cooler than hotter, so I wasn't complaining.

On our way to the bier garten, we saw a parade- the start of Deutcher Evangelical Kirchentag which starts on Wednesday.  It's a big festival that's held in a different city each year- this year in Dresden.

Once we arrived at the bier garten, we realized they're going all out for this celebration.  We might just have to check it out.

The beginnings of a stage and bleachers

Covering a giant cross

We spent the day relaxing in the semi-sunshine with our friends.

My 6 year old friend picked this bouquet of flowers, beautifully arranged in the imported coors light can

Bob practiced his building skills on some ponies

and the guys got thoroughly involved in a silly game called fox-tail that they take WAY too seriously

Transportation Museum

Spring is the time for visitors in Dresden.  The tourists are all out taking pictures, my mom came to visit, Bob's parents are here, and a bunch of other people we know are in town.

Yesterday I went with one of our friends and her kids to the Transportation Museum.

They had all sorts of types of transportation- some life size and some models- everything from cars to ships to planes, old and new.

It was really cool to see everything, and while I could tell what was old and what was new, most of the signs were in German, and even though my German is a lot better than it used to be, it was too much work to try to translate everything.

So... I leave you with... pictures.

Back in Dresden

We arrived back in Dresden and took it easy on Monday night- traveling is exhuasting!

Tuesday we took a day trip to Freiberg, about an hour away, to see the cute town and visit Schloß Freudenstein.  The castle houses a museum of minerals.  Like millions of rocks with crystals.  It was pretty incredible to walk through, though I'm not sure how some of the visitors were taking the time to read every label.

A tower as we entered Freiberg

some rocks glow in black light!

so many rocks!

Yesterday we squeezed in some last minute shopping before I had to bring my mom to the airport.

AND... today I'm in a funk.  I'm a little sad to not be in Dubrovnik by the sea, and a little sad not to have permanent company, and really upset as I realized today that in exactly TWO MONTHS I will be boarding a plane with my kitties to go back to the US for good :(

So that concludes my "frowny face" post for today.  Maybe I'll feel better after I get rolling on planning our last few trips...

But to end on a happy note, in Freiberg we saw some baby ducks.  AWWWWWWW!

Dubrovnik: Lokrum

Saturday morning we got up early (at 5am!) to see the sunrise.  Unfortunately, even though the guy working the front desk at the hotel said that we could see the sunrise from our balcony if we looked left at 5, he was wrong.  We never would have been able to see the sun, and even though dawn was at 5, the sun didn't even rise until almost 6!  But the sky was still pretty anyway.

After a quick early morning nap, we ate a good breakfast and walked down through the old city to the port.  We hopped on a boat to the island of Lokrum, a green island with lots of trees and paths, no cars, a monastery and a fortress.

This boat ride was much quicker than the ride to Cavtat, and in 15 minutes we were roaming the island.  The first thing we heard was a bunch of squaking- the island was filled with peacocks!

Feeding a peacock

After feeding the peacocks and taking lots of pictures, we stopped at the "Dead Sea," a cute little "lake" in the middle of the island with cool sea water.

Then it was on to the rocky coast for some climbing and awesome views of Dubrovnik.

We walked through the botanical garden and saw the monastery.

Before heading back to the "beach" for lunch, we climbed a giant hill up to the fortress for the best views of Dubrovnik and the Croatian coast.

Looking down the hill

We were exhausted after trekking around the island, and after lunch it was nice to relax on the boat ride back to the city.

Almost back to the city!

At the hotel, the weather was nice and toasty, so I decided to take a swim.  It was FREEZING!! but refreshing... in a really cold kind of way...

We headed back to the city for our last roam around Dubrovnik and found dinner at the Taj Mahal, which unlike the name suggests, was actually a pretty authentic Croatian restaurant.  We had "bureks," a traditional pastry filled with meat, spinach, potatoes or cheese (we got some of each).  Our evening wouldn't have been complete without ice cream and some photos of the seaside at night.

Taj Mahal

The port and coast

It was a great last day in Dubrovnik.