Re-acquainted with "Home"

You can always tell when real life is is much too fun because your internet world suffers. Sorry Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, work, and -yes- even you dear blog. Being back home in the USA has proved to be all-consuming. Going on art walks with friends we haven't seen in over a year, playing Taboo with family (guess what my Father-in-Law was trying to get me to say with "cum fish"), eating steaks the size of our head....it's been Americana. We hadn't realized how much we'd missed it.

Trip at Warp Speed

USA, USA, USA - An Expat Return home

We're back!

Back in the land of big coffees, big American breakfasts, big cars, vast lands, Mexican food, livestock, childhood friends, homesteads, driving, BBQs, Oscars, TV, and FREEDOM. We are back in American & couldn't be happier.

747!

Our visit to the Museums of Paris

During our trip to Paris in December, we got all cultured. We did this (primarily) through buying the Museum Pass and going museum crazy.

We are museum lovers and prefer to visit a museum over & over, slowly absorbing the incomprehensible displays of grace and beauty BUT a week long trip to Paris only affords a precious hour or two in each place. Even then we missed some must-sees. We're sorry. This action packed museum itinerary was exhaustively carried out over 2 days and was so incredibly worth it.

Foucault pendulum

A glimpse at some greatness.

First stop:

Panthéon

This was the major landmark by our airbnb apartment. Located in the Latin Quarter in Paris, it is a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens such as Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. Modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, the building is known for Foucault's pendulum a simple device conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. While it had long been known that the Earth rotated, the introduction of the Foucault pendulum in 1851 was the first simple proof of the rotation in an easy-to-see experiment.

"Germans sure know how to Blow Shit Up"

My dad recently joined Facebook (which is all kinds of funny) and the title of this post is the comment he left on this video of Berlin's New Years. Well played Daddio.

It's true, Berlin's Silvester celebration is not only like nothing I've ever seen before, but like nothing I've ever even seen in my dreams. It's madness. It's excitement incarnate. It's magic. I've written about it 1, 2, 3 times before, but this year was the best of them all.

This year we hurried back from Paris on December 31st to enjoy our 3rd New Years in Berlin, this time with our Berlin friends that actually stayed in town. We ended up on a rooftop for midnight and I can say - without hesitation - this was the best New Years celebration I have ever enjoyed.

We're Going Home!

We have been teasing our friends & family with plans for a Seattle visit for months now. Now the rumors can die as we have something even better:

Plane tickets!

We are flying to NYC for the first time and will fit in as much hot dog/pizza/bagel/deli eating, Broadway shows, comedy, art and pictures as possible. I've got a happy little NYC Pinterest board together gathering all the info of things I want to see & do (please feel free to give us tips, we're flying blind). No joke, we're excited. 

Egads - We're Moving Again

I've always liked moving. I guess that makes me a bit of an anomaly. But I like getting rid of all the old things, re-organizing, and making a new Home.

What I do not like, what I am completely and totally over, is looking for a new place. When we moved to Berlin in 2007, we stayed in a total of 2 sublets. It was a relatively inexpensive and pain free experience, so when we returned to Berlin in 2009 it made sense for us to look for sublets again. We have now lived in 6 apartments, been ripped off, and been rejected in our application for our own apartment because we are foreigners. We're tired, so very tired, of this whole apartment debacle. I loathe thinking about how much time, energy, stress, and money we have spent on it.

10 Things we Didn't Know about Paris

Rocking some 'stache for France

 1. People smiled! I can't even explain how this lightened our already luminous moods. While the stereotype of Germans being cold and humorless is far from totally true, they don't smile much, especially in the blustery NE corner. The first time we went to London was after a month in Berlin and there too we felt the friendly vibe we didn't realize was missing in our Berlin lives. Obviously this is just our experience, but we always laugh when people talk about how unfriendly the Londoners are or about the rudeness of the French. 

Vienna: Much more than a little Sausage

Ian & I were excited to return to Vienna as we have been there several time and indulged in the cafe culture, oohhhed & ahhed at Stephansdom, and ate and ate and ate. But returning with the parents this time, we realized we actually hadn't spent much time in this Austrian wonder. In our usual whirlwind fashion of travel we had been here on our way elsewhere, but only actually stayed for 1 or 2 nights. This was an egregious error that needed correcting and we couldn't have been happier with our latest experience.

As always, what follows are our highly unscientific, capricious ratings of "The City of Dreams" (home to Sigmund Freud).

Vienna Ratings:

 

It's just not quite Christmas without Family

Doesn't it always seem like warp speed toward Christmas, followed by an utter melt down in January? With our trip to Paris, harrowing apartment hunt, and plans to return home, it's easy to forget about the German Christmas magic that swept us off our feet not so long ago.

Here are the pictures of Christmas I didn't share in our Christmas Advent Calendar Count - Down

glühwein

Disneyland...in Paris!

We had an epic time the last time we went to Disneyland in California. Both of us had been as kids (Ian went many times as his family is Disney obsessed) but our first trip together was during our 1 year anniversary (Married - yea!). We road tripped all the way to SoCal- visiting fam AND to visit the "Happiest Place on Earth". And we were deliriously happy. A week before Halloween, the place was decorated like never before and lines were almost non-existent. We rode every ride in the place in one day and rode some of our favorites back-to-back, gleefully getting off a ride only to run right back on.  Best. Disney. Trip. Ever!