Happy Thanksgiving from Germany!

Happy Thanksgiving from Germany! I hope everyone had a Happy Turkey Day! Brian and I had a 'traditional' Thanksgiving dinner here in Bonn tonight. We had Brian's co-worker, Daniel, over for a turkey dinner so it wasn't just us. I was able to make turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, gravy, rolls, and apple pie here in Bonn. It was a great dinner! The picture above is of Brian carving the turkey. The only thing it was missing was family. We miss everybody at home. It wasn't the same today, especially since Brian worked all day.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We leave tomorrow morning for Athens, Greece. I can't wait for a new adventure.

Let it Snow!

To all of those people who told me it NEVER snows in Bonn, I'd like you to take a look at this picture. Haha! I know it's not much snow, but there's definitely about an inch on the ground. Maybe people were right that it doesn't snow often in Bonn though. We actually saw quite a few adults throwing snow balls last night. It was pretty funny. :) It was nice to have the first snow fall though. It puts me in the mood for the Holidays.

Brian made it back safely to Germany on Saturday. His luggage was lost again (they lost it in Augusta last Monday), but luckily found after a few hours of waiting. Between Nick and Brian, I think they would win an award for airlines losing your bags. Brian and I had a relaxing weekend. We walked around the Christmas markets, bought a Christmas tree, and watched a few movies that he brought back from the States.

I hope everyone is getting ready for Thanksgiving this week! I'm sure the Haglund's are soaking up the sun in Hawaii. I wish we were there! I hope the VanAsperen's are helping mom get everything ready for Thursday...I wish I could help! I also hope Dave had a wonderful birthday!

Christmas Markets

The only positive thing about not being in the States for Thanksgiving (besides no football) is being in a country where the Christmas celebrations begin on November 21st! There's no waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up a tree or to start listening to Christmas music. It all starts today in Bonn. The picture above is of one of the many plazas in Bonn. Vendors set up little wooden shacks to sell Christmas goods. They include everything from cookies and warm wines to ornaments and Christmas gifts. Today the smell of pine trees, cinnamon, and gingerbread fill the air and the sounds of Christmas melodies consume the streets. Downtown is filled with lights hanging everywhere and Christmas decorations in all of the store windows. It's such a pleasant time to be in Germany.

Thanksgiving will be a little lonely on Thursday. I plan to try and find a turkey to cook and have a few sides, but not much since it's just us two. But don't feel too bad for us, we leave Friday morning to Athens, Greece! We're spending three nights there. I'm so excited to see a new place!
Brian returns tomorrow morning from Texas. His conference went well. I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoys the holiday! I miss you all!!

Dusseldorf

Brian and I had a pretty slow weekend, but did manage to make it out in Dusseldorf on Friday night. Our friend, Stephan, was celebrating the completion of his thesis, so we decided to join his celebration. Dusseldorf is a pretty exciting town. We didn't do any sightseeing, but enjoyed the nightlife! Dusseldorf is different from Bonn. Bonn is a very casual city. It's rare to see people out on the weekends in dresses or suits. In Dusseldorf I felt a little under dressed. Many of the women were in dresses or nice outfits and the men were actually wearing suits and ties. It's funny to see such a difference in style only 70km away.

Brian left for the airport at 6am this morning. He has his TLP conference this week in Fort Worth, TX. It will be a pretty lonely week, but since his manager will be attending the conference as well, it will give me a pretty busy week of watching her children. I've still been watching her kids about 4 days a week. I don't have any exciting plans for this week, but Brian and I do have a fun Thanksgiving planned. We head to Athens, Greece on Friday, November 28th for a 3 night vacation. Since Brian doesn't get Thanksgiving off here, we're leaving Friday morning and returning Monday afternoon. I'm really looking forward to seeing a new place!

Family in Germany!

Lacy, Brian's cousin, arrived on October 28th! (sorry for not updating this until now...) We've had a lot of fun over the last two weeks. We traveled to Cologne; Amsterdam, Netherlands (for Halloween); and Brussels, Belgium.


The picture above is Brian and Lacy on her first night here. We sampled beer from a local brewery and ate traditional German cuisine. Lacy and I did some sightseeing around Bonn over the next few days while she was here.

This is a picture of Lacy and me on the University of Bonn grounds. We had some great weather and were able to see all of the sights in Bonn! After doing lots of sightseeing in the city, we decided to really get to know the culture of the city by going to a show. Lacy is an actor so she definitely wanted to experience Theater in Germany. Unfortunately, the show we attended was horrible! Haha! We obviously couldn't understand it, but it had no action. We're still not sure what the show was about, but we did understand that it was four people in business suits standing and talking in only one room....needless to say, we left after 30 minutes!

On the 31st, 7 of us went to Amsterdam to celebrate Halloween. We didn't dress up (since no one does or celebrates Halloween in Europe), but we had a lot of fun! We walked around the city, went to several bars, and really had a great time!

On the 3rd, Lacy and I went to Brussels. This city was amazing. It is a mix between old and new. I really didn't expect to see so many skyscrapers next to super old buildings. We did a lot of sightseeing and walked around the whole city. We of course sampled Belgium beer and ate waffles! :) I'm excited to go back when Marie and Nick are here. The picture above is of the plaza in Brussels.

On Friday, Brian's Dad, Randy, arrived in Bonn. We had such an amazing time with him. His co-worker lives very close to us. We met up with him on Saturday morning for a German breakfast at his home. Then he took us all over the area to experience Germany tourists rarely see. We went to two towns that still had the town walls around them. We also went to the vineyards and sampled some of the local wine. Then we ended our tour in a village to see the bonfires and torch designs in the hills. We had such a great time! I'm going to miss having family around!