this is a personal blog for the express purpose of keeping in touch with my friends. as a personal blog, i like to post my experiences and opinions exactly as they are. i understand that not everyone will always agree with me. and that's okay. i do, however, expect a certain level of respect here - especially from people who don't actually know me. i am more than happy to allow everyone to read my blog. but if you have never actually met me, do not make assumptions about the kind of person i am based on a couple dozen blog posts. and if you are going to make assumptions about me, then certainly do not post rude comments containing those assumptions. if you have your own blog and want to write what you think of me on said blog, be my guest; that is your space to do with as you please. but do not come on here and post comments about me on my own blog. it is ridiculously uncalled for. so please, fabio, continue to read my blog. continue to read all about my trip to europe and, especially, all about my time in rome. but if you leave any more rude comments, you can bet all of your friends one million dollars that i will come back and delete every single one. because leaving rude comments on the blog of someone you don't know is the definition of "uncool."

there is a very pretty flowering tree that grows here in north carolina. i am not sure what kind of tree it is, but the closest thing i could find to it online is the kwanzan flowering cherry tree. no matter what kind of tree it is, it is truly beautiful. it flowers very early in spring with large, pink blossoms. the most gorgeous one i have seen here in hickory belongs to someone in our neighborhood. in march, as we were heading out to the beach, i had dave pull over so i could take a few pictures of it. now, i took these before my camera was fixed, so i had to brighten them up quite a bit. the colors aren't as vibrant as they were in real life, but i think you'll still get a good idea of how very pretty this tree is. enjoy!

so, for valentine's day when dave and i were first dating, he got me this little beanie baby that was a teddy bear praying on it's knees. he said that, because he was always begging for forgiveness, the teddy bear (named "thirty") would be his begging proxy and constantly apologize to me on dave's behalf until dave turned 30. well, dave turns 30 on october 12. so for christmas, he got me this huge new teddy bear, resembling thirty, to take up the task beginning october 13. i told him this new bear, being rather large, should last him until he turned 95, so i named the snuggly little fellow "ninety-five" or "neefer" for short.

we were a little worried that chaucer would like neefer too much and see him as the largest, most incredible toy he had ever been given. lucky for us, chaucer is a very smart dog and quickly learned neefer belonged to me. i absolutely love snuggling my big, new teddy bear and often use him as a giant pillow when watching tv and movies. i am not, however, sure who enjoys snuggling neefer more - me or chaucer. often, we will come into the back room or into the bedroom to find chaucer snuggled up with the big teddy bear looking truly pathetic. just a few weeks ago, he really turned it up.

we had been watching tv and, since i was sitting up, neefer was just chillin' next to me. after an hour or so, i looked down and just about died. chaucer was all types of snuggled up and was completely out. of course, we had absolutely no choice but to take a picture.



as if that wasn't bad enough, here's picture number two :


i mean, how ridiculous is that??? and i promise you we did NOT put him in that position. he crawled right under neefer and did it all himself. it's really not fair that we have a little boy this adorable. it really, honestly, truly should be illegal.

so, yesterday was a very...er...eventful day. not one of my finest. i was feeling pretty crappy, so dave told me i should watch "saturday night live." it was the season finale on saturday and i hadn't watched it yet. so i plopped down in front of the couch and turned it on. oh man, it was wonderful. two of my favorites were:

1. tom hanks, as himself, on "celebrity jeopardy." this could have been a huge flop, but he didn't hold back at all and totally nailed it. awesome.


2. the return of the fabulous sisters from the finger lakes on "the lawrence welk show." one word: yeeeeeeees.


just what i needed to pick me up. :D

25 March 09

After a lovely final day in Frankfurt, I woke up this morning with both sadness and anticipation. The anticipation was kicked up a knotch when w stepped outside into the freezing cold. If that wasn’t good enough, it started snowing as we waited for the train – I think Europe was kicking me out!

After the train ride and a quick hop on the S-Bahn, Michelle and me bid Stewart adieu and rode up the escalator to the airport. It took forever to find the American Airlines ticket gate (the kiosks are set up rather oddly at that airport), but we asked at one of the information booths and eventually made it. After getting asked a bunch of random questions regarding my bag and batteries (?), I got my ticket and we headed down to the exit station. I bid Michelle and very fond farewell, finally got a second stamp in my passport, stepped through security quick and waited at the gate.

I took the liberty of buying myself some mini version of the cookies we had my first night in Frankfurt, just to give myself one last yummy taste of Europe. I thought I would be much more sad as I sat and waited, but all I was really dreading was 11 hours on a plane with my knee. I was trying to prepare myself for the pain...and the boredom.

It was finally time to board and I gathered my stuff to go. When I got to my seat, I found I was sitting next to a really big dude; not fat, just super tall and thickly built. Needless to say, I was less than excited – and for good reason. The whole time he kept spreading his legs out so his left leg was past the edge of my seat, totally encroaching on my leg room. I kept having to fake shift in my seat, so I would knock his leg back over to his side. Then there was his coat, which kept finding it’s way under my seat instead of his. While there was much more leg room in this plane than the plane on the way to Barcelona, I had a metal box taking up half of my space, so I was not letting him take any more space. I mean, I felt bad for him because he was a big guy and obviously uncomfortable, but he should have requested an exit row...I mean, really. I must say, however, I was glad I was sitting next to him and not in front of him, as he kept putting his arms on top of the head rest of the seat in front of him and laying his head on his arms. The guy in front kept squirming, trying to get him to stop leaning on his seat, but he finally gave up on being nice and slammed his back into seat - my neighbor finally got the hint...though after about half the flight, he tried again.

As for myself, I really was much more comfortable than on the flight out. I could stretch my legs out fully, so my knee didn’t hurt too bad. They also had much better entertainment. Each seat had it’s own video monitor, and they had about one dozen free movies you could watch, as well as TV shows and games. I watched “Yes Man,” “Bolt,” “Valkyrie,” “Bedtime Stories” and an episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” I also played some Tetris, solitaire, poker and sudoku. The trip seemed to go much faster. As fast as it went, however, there really isn’t any way to make a now 12-hour plane ride go “fast.” Every time I finished a movie, I looked at my watch and thought, “Holy crap. We still have that much time left?!” Painful.

I did get to see some cool stuff. My favorite part of the flight was flying over the ocean near Greenland and Canada. I could the oceanic ice, and it was seriously cool. I saw masses of pure white chunks, huge land-mass-sized chunks, and then some thin pieces near the border where you could see the ocean through the ice. I’ve never been that far north before and seen ice like that – it was really, really neat.

Finally, I looked at my watch and saw it was time for us to start landing. Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to be losing any altitude. Just then, the captain came on and told us the Detroit airport was backed up because it had closed for a couple of hours due to thunderstorms. So we were stuck circling Detroit for another hour. We finally landed and deboarded after THIRTEEN HOURS on that plane. Ouch.

After going through the passport check and customs (who, by the way, could not believe I didn’t have any checked bags), I went to see if I had missed my connection. We were two hours late, so I thought I must have missed it, but I hadn’t! Everything was running really late because of the storms, so I made it with time to spare. Hallelujah! I went to the gate and found chaos. There were three flight worth of people backed up and waiting for their planes to leave from that gate. I stood off to the side where most people for my flight were, when I heard a few ladies behind me discussing their “long” flights – 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours... I turned around and said, “Well, I just got off a 13-hour flight from Germany. I win!” They all laughed and were like, “Glad I’m not you!” Amen. :)

We finally boarded, and I was lucky to sit next to a woman who was traveling with her little Sheltie, Macayla. She was heading to an agility competition in Charlotte. Macayla was such a sweetie and so well behaved. She curled up under the seat and snoozed the entire way. I totally wanted to crawl under the seat and snuggle up with her. I knew I was only a few hours away from Chaucer, and it made me miss him more than ever! In talking to the lady, she told me about her other dogs and their crazy names. My favorite was her dog who had the registered name, Going Postal, and the call name, Newman. I just about died when she told me. So clever!

The flight was pretty quick (then again, after 13 hours, anything would have seemed quick). When we landed, I was jumping out of my skin to get off that plane and see my boys. Of course, our concourse was all the way at the end of the airport. With the flight to Charlotte, my knee had started killing me, so it took quite a while for me to hobble down to the airport exit. I finally got outside and, after having walked right by our car, I heard Davey’s sweet voice behind me. We had a big hug and kiss, then I walked back to the car to smother my little boy with kisses. I tried to film Chaucer’s reaction on seeing me, but it was too dark. Just take my word for it that he was sooooooooooo happy to see me! I got in, he smothered me with kisses, then curled up on my lap and fell alseep like everything was once again right with the world. *sigh* How I missed him.

We stopped at Cook Out for food, then rushed home. I got inside, threw on my PJs and passed out. I was trying to say my prayers, but I kept falling asleep after every fifth word or so, so I just said “sorry” and gave up. I have never fallen asleep that fast. I was out. It was about 12:30 when I finally got to bed, which was 6:30 for me. I slept until 12:45 the next afternoon. You would think I would feel better after twelve hours of sleep, but I totally feel like I got hit by a bus. The next day, Dave played hookey from school and we went to Charlotte. We went to the Mint Museums, which were really nice, and ate at Smokey Bones. We had wanted to catch a movie or something, but I just couldn’t make it. I got ten hours of sleep that night, and eleven hours the next night. Finally, Sunday morning, after another nine hours of sleep, I woke up feeling quite refreshed. I’m thinking I’ll be totally normal by Tuesday. *fingers crossed*

Oh – I almost forgot – I have the best hubby! He knew I would be bushwhacked by the trip, so he got me the “Twilight” DVD and a pack of golden Oreos. I love him.


Now that I’m home, everything has changed. America is so boring. Where are the bakeries, pastry shops and gelaterias? Where are the old cathedrals and churches and houses? Where are the piazzas and squares? Where is the public transportation and why doesn’t anyone walk outside? It is such a different culture here. Everything is closed off. Everyone has closed curtains, closed doors, yards with fences, special community entrances. Everything says “keep out.” In Europe, the curtains and doors are open, fences don’t exist and everyone gathers in the piazzas to sit and talk – together. Travel is so cheap, you could visit your relatives every weekend if they live in the same country, and every month if they live in Europe. Everything is built to bring people together. (Well, at least in the places we visited – I guess I shouldn’t speak for all of Europe.) I just love that. I mean, America isn’t horrible – it just isn’t as...inviting.

But I supposed I’ll just have to do what I can to make my America as European as possible...until I can go back. :D

So, to wrap up my amazing adventure, here’s a brief list of some of my favorites:
Favorite Pastry: Cinnamon Bun thing, Reichelsheim
Favorite Meal: Taglioni Bolognese at Al Bacco, Venice
Favorite Gelato: Tie between my first scoops at RivaReno and the tartufo in Rome
Favorite Sight in Barcelona: Sagrada Familia and Barceloneta Beach
Favorite Sight in Athens: Temple of Hephaestus and Temple of Olympian Zeus
Favorite Sight in Milan: Teatro alla Scala and Cimitero Monumentale
Favorite Sight in Venice: Basilica di San Marco and Burano Island
Favorite Sight in Rome: Colosseum
Favorite Sight in Frankfurt: Rhine River and Reichelsheim houses
Favorite Cathedral: Basilica di San Marco, Venice
Favorite Rooftop View: Temple de Sagrat Cor, Barcelona
Favorite Overall Sight: Temple of Hephaestus, Athens
Favorite City: To visit, Venice – to live, Milan
Favorite Country: Italy
The One Place I Must Go Back To: Milan, so I can go to the opera at La Scala

And that's it. That's my incredible European journey. I will have one more picture for you later. I wanted to post a pic of all of my souveniers, but my camera is currently in Illinois being fixed. When I get it back, I'll take a snapshot so you can see my super cute purse and such. :) But that will be it. I really wish I could keep writing about it forever and ever, so I could relive it every day. Lucky for you, I know it would eventually get boring to everyone else, so I'll refrain. Just don't be surprised if little Europe references pop up in a lot of my posts - I can't help it! It really was the trip of a lifetime. *sigh*

And now, back to reality.

24 March 09

After a super cozy night of sleep, I woke up refreshed and ready to go. After getting dressed and reluctantly putting my stinky shoes back on, the three of us headed out. We first went into “town” and got breakfast in a little bakery where I had the most delicious pastry ever! It looked just like a cinnamon bun, but it had a chocolate filling – it was FANTASTIC!

As we left the apartment, I saw this American flag waving down the street. I didn't think much of it at first, but then I was like, "Wait a minute - I'm in Germany!" Crazy, crazy:


Me eating my delectable breakfast pastry:


After our little breakfast we walked around Reichelsheim. We saw the church, some darling houses, the “river,” and the witch tower. Then we headed to the tiny, cold train stop to head into Frankfurt.

Stewart and Michelle in front of the church in Reichelsheim:


A few of the houses in Reichelsheim. I swear they're made of gingerbread:




The river in Reichelsheim. Stewart was taking the second picture and must have been being his usual funny self. :)



A random field outside of Reichelsheim as we rode the train into Frankfurt:


We got into Frankfurt, rode the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, and went to the zoo. We saw some really cool animals! Right when we walked into the zoo, we saw some lions toward the back of their cage.

The lions:



Then we moved on to the tiger enclosure. As we got there, we saw a tiger pacing right in front of the viewing window. While we were taking our pictures, the tiger laid down right in front of the window and started licking himself. There were a couple of German kids next to us and they could not get over it. They kept giggling uncontrollably and yelling, “Er macht seinen penis sauber!” (He’s cleaning his penis!”) It was the most hysterical thing ever. I was just dying. So funny.

Here's the tiger licking himself:


And here's the tiger behaving like a perfect gentleman:



In the back of the enclosure, the female tiger was sitting by the water looking like she was ready to pounce something. I loved this shot with her reflection:


From the tigers we went to the nocturnal house where we saw some really cool animals, though I don’t remember any of their names. My favorite was this little white desert fox, but his enclosure was too dark to get a picture. He was so cute though! They also had sea otters there and they were so playful and adorable! We watched them for a long time. After the otters, we saw chimps, monkeys, rhinos, giraffes...everything but elephants. I loved it.

A collage of some of the animals. Click on it to view it larger:


We got really lucky in the nocturnal enclosures, because they were feeding the animals. To feed them, they had to turn on the lights; otherwise, we never would have gotten any pictures. Here's a shot of one of the keepers feeding the sloth. (Jim P. would be so jealous...):


A video of one of the cute, little nocturnal animals trying to climb his rock:


A video of the hilarious sea otters:


A cool yellow monkey:


This gorgeous male peacock was just chillin' near the sidewalk:




Another collage of the animals. Click on it to view it larger:


In the monkey cage, we saw this new mommy with some serious feeders:


We also saw these two monkeys who were play fighting. They were unbelievably fast! As you play this video, pay attention to the monkey on the right - he swings to the left, then darts back right. Crazy!


There was also this little Marcell monkey (as in Ross's monkey on "Friends"). Notice how the handle of his cage is lifted out? Yeah...he did that. Sneaky monkey.


I fell in love with this chimp. All of the other chimps were hanging out together, but he was just sitting near the window looking pathetic and cute:


We ran into Mr. Peacock again and he showed off his plume for us:


I love giraffes and, though it was too cold for them to be outside, they had several giraffes in an indoor enclosure. When we walked in they were all eating. Here's a video clip of them, with the cutest little baby giraffe chomping away:


Here's a nice shot Stewart took of Michelle and me before we left:


After the zoo we went to this cool restaurant called Vapianos. It’s Italian, and they have all of these different stations where you order your food and then they make it right in front of you. I had spaghetti pomodoro (I know, I’m a broken record). I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but it was really, really good – like, better than a few plates I had in Italy! I also got the chocolate cake, but it wasn’t really good at all. So disappointing. Oh well, I just washed it down with my fourteenth glass of water...seriously, I was SO thirsty.

From lunch we saw the Frankfurt cathedral. In the square outside there were two men having a serious argument (why do we attract the crazies?!). It was a little frightening, but we just kept on going. You had to pay to get into the cathedral, so we just took pictures of the outside.

The Frankfurt cathedral:


From the cathedral we went back to Reichelsheim. We first stopped at the grocery store again so I could get a whole lot of German chocolates and candy for Davey’s Easter basket. After the store we came back to the apartment to take one final picture.

Here are the three of us in front of Stewart and Michelle's apartment. Aren't we just a happy, little family?:


I took a shower, packed and helped Michelle make Donauvelle – a chocolatey German dessert. After we finished we got to eat it while watching “Ocean’s Eleven.” It was so yummy! Now we’re finishing up the movie and it will be off to bed soon.

I can’t believe this is my last night in Europe. This whole time it has felt like I’ve been here for so long, but now it feels like I just got here. I so love Europe – I don’t want to go back to boring America. I just want Davey and Chaucer to fly over here and we can all be European together. We could move to an apartment in Milan and make friends with all of the other little doggies. How great would that be?! As it is, I supposed I’ll have to “settle” for snuggling my little boys in warm, sunny North Carolina. *sigh*

Well, it has been an amazing trip, so I certainly can’t complain. Though I am definitely not looking forward to my looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong flight tomorrow.

23 March 09

Another early morning. We woke up at 3:40 – ouch. We got our smelly selves dressed and headed to the shuttle stop at the train station. And by “smelly,” I mean really smelly. You see, the hostel was supposed to have towels available to rent, but they didn’t. Neither of us had showered since the night before we left Venice. How gross is that? It was to the point where I was starting to smell myself – you know that’s not good...

But anyway, back to the shuttle. Online it says to catch the bus three hours before your flight. There were only two morning shuttles, 4:30 and 6:30, so we opted for the 4:30 bus because we knew we would need more than 30 minutes to check in and go through security. When we got to the shuttle ticket window, the lady told us we were really early and should catch the 6:30 instead. She suggested we go back to our hostel. We were like, “We’re here. We’re awake. Give us the stupid tickets. What do you care?” We got the tickets, got on the bus and were at the airport like 20 minutes later. We had to wait to check in, then we had to fend off two line jumpers after waiting in said line for like twenty minutes (what is wrong with people in Rome??). Our flight was with Ryan Air, and they are super strict about your carry-on luggage. You are only allowed one piece, and they measure it and weigh it. I was a little worried about the weight of my bag, but I made it through with 3kg to spare. Woo woo! We waited at our gate while we ate breakfast, boarded the plane and flew off to Germany.

When we got into Germany, we had to go through customs because they were looking for a terrorist...creepy. I was pissed though, because they still didn’t even stamp my passport. I want more stamps! :( We had some time to kill before catching our bus to Köln, so we got some lunch and then walked over to the bus stop. It was a nice bus ride, the bus was super smooth. As a bonus, we passed a bunch of signs for Bad Kreuznach – my family lived there before I was born or, as my mother likes to say, “before you were even a thought.” We also got to ride on the autobahn, though we didn’t go that fast since we were on a bus.

We finally made it to Köln and met Stewart at the bus station. It was such a happy reunion – he was just beaming to see his darling wife again. So cute! We walked around the station for a bit and got a pretzel (warm and super yummy).

The train station had some interesting decorations, including this gnome garden - complete with drunken German gnome:



And then there was this charming little statue:


After enoying the excellent German humor, we headed over to the Kölner Dom. It was very large and quite pretty, but it was also freeeeeeezing so we didn’t admire it outside for too long.

Here are a few pictures taken from the side of the Dom directly outside the train station. It was overcast, rainy and kind of dark, so these pictures aren't great:




Here are three pictures of the front. The square surrounding the cathedral is small, so it was impossible to get a full shot:




The inside was quite interesting. The ceiling was sooooo tall. There wasn't much decoration in the chapel itself, except for at the back where there were several crypts. But the height of it was just so impressive.

Here's an experimental shot from very low to the floor looking up:


The long chapel area:


There are a ton of stained glass windows, but half of them were blown out during World War II. Since they can’t really replicate the original scenes, they just put interesting patterns in the broken windows. So, on the bottom half, you have these lovely, old, traditional stained glass windows, but right above it you have these new, technicolor windows. It’s kind of cool.

One of the lower traditional windows:


One of the bombed-out windows:


There was also this large gold chest covered in jewels. It apparently houses the bones of the Magi. It was surrounded by a glass box, and the whole box was inside a gated portion of the church, so you couldn’t get a very good look at it, but it still looked beautiful.

One side of the golden shrine:


After the cathedral, we bought our tickets back to Frankfurt and grabbed a Streuselthaler, a yummy sugar-shock treat. Then we hopped on the train and are currently cruising down the Rhine. There are so many cool castles sprinkled throughout the hills along the river. Stewart, the Fulbright scholar, told us that Germany used to be hundred of little states, each with their own princes who needed their own castles. Cool, huh? He is so smart: s-m-r-t. ;) The train was going pretty fast, so it was hard to get a good picture, but I managed to get a few okay shots.

Two cute towns along the Rhine River:



A pretty hill justting into the water:


Two of the castle we saw:



And a cute pic of Stewart and Michelle. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous...I missed my honey so badly!


I have been very impressed with how German everything is. The houses have the steep roofs and slim windows, gable fronts, Bavarian shingles – it’s very cool. Well, we’re almost to Frankfurt, so I’ll update you when we get to Reichelsheim.

So we got to Reichelsheim and went to Stewart and Michelle’s apartment to drop off our stuff. It is so cute, and much bigger than I thought – it’s a really nice place. We took a quick rest, then headed out in the rain (just a sprinkle) to the grocery store to pick up dinner. It was so funny to shop in that grocery store. Everything had these German names, there was like 1/4 shelf of chicken and beef and everything else was a pork product, there were all types of cheese and wurst – it was really cool. It totally made me feel like I was in a different country. I just wandered around the store looking at all of the cool ingredients and fun names.

After the store we walked home. Then I took a shower. I can’t even begin to express how AMAZING that shower felt. After four days without a shower, I felt soooooooo disgusting. I’ve been camping for over a week without a shower, but I never felt as dirty as I did after four days of unwashed city filth. I must have been in the shower for at least thirty minutes. I washed my face twice, my hair twice, my body three times and my feet like twenty times. Then I just stood in the water for a bit enjoying the warmth. I finally got out, combed my hair, brushed my teeth (just to complete the clean feeling), put on my PJs and went out to have dinner. I literally cannot express how good it felt to be clean. It was like being reborn or something.

For dinner we had a super yummy salad with lettuce, cucumber, balken-kassen (a feta-like cheese), chicken and dressing. We also had garlic bread. It was so light and fresh - it tasted so delectable. We sat on the couch eating and watched “The Emporer’s New Groove” – love that movie. For a treat we had these really yummy chocolate-covered biscuit cookies. I was bundled up in a blankey and, after my third cookie, I drifted off to sleep. Unfortunately, my clothes were still in the wash (it had been like an hour), so I had to get up thirty minutes later when they finished to hang them up. It was the longest load of wash ever, but it got my clothes nice and clean - even my socks!

After hanging my clothes, I crawled back into bed, snuggled under the cocoon of my feather blanket and slept until morning.