SoJo Blog

If you ended up here...

2010-09-23T05:36:00.003-05:00

You are at our old blog! Visit the new one at http://sojoandco.com

Back to the Blogging World!

2008-05-15T23:14:00.003-05:00

Hi y'all...I'm sorry for our long absence. With the wedding rapidly approaching, I have had increasingly less time to sit around and dilly dally on the internet. (Also, I really like to say "dilly dally.") This post will serve to catch you all up with a slideshow of photos from mid March until the present. Enjoy, and stand by for another post this week. Seriously.

PS John is working on a new hosting site for our blog, so stay tuned for a completely new look. You will still be able to find us at the same address (sojoblog.com).

To Give Him a Piece of Home, She'd Mail Texas Dirt

2008-04-17T19:11:00.003-05:00

I was starting a happy blog about everything that has been going on lately, but I just got a phone call that changed my mind. I can't be happy and pretend like nothing is wrong today. A friend's husband called, and I was surprised to hear from him because usually I just talk to his wife. I asked how he was doing, and his response was "not so good." As soon as he mentioned his wife's brother, I knew what he was going to say. Her brother was a soldier deployed to Iraq. He was killed, and she had just been notified. I heard her crying in the background.

I want to help her and her family so badly. I want to make it better, and I know I can't. I just sat on the kitchen floor and cried. Perhaps it hit me harder than others, because it hits so close to home. In the midst of all this, I wanted to find something to be thankful for. And I am thankful that my friend has her husband in this time. Please pray for my friend and her family, as well as all troops at home and overseas.

A conversation about shopping...

2008-03-29T05:54:00.002-05:00

The other night, Sarah and I had a conversation that went something like this...

Sarah - "WHY ON EARTH DO PEOPLE THINK THAT IF I SHOP IN GERMANY I CAN GET REALLY COOL STUFF?"

Me - "I don't know honey, 'cause every thing you can get over here is the same as the stuff you can get in the states."

Sarah - "AND THE DOLLAR SUCKS SO EVERYTHING OVER THERE IS NEARLY TWICE AS EXPENSIVE!"

Me - "Yeah..."

Sarah - "I MEAN, WITH GLOBALIZATION OF THE ECONOMY, I CAN GO DOWN THE STREET HERE IN TEXAS AND BUY COOKIES THAT WERE MADE IN ITALY, OR ALL SORTS OF OTHER THINGS THAT ARE MADE IN OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE SWISS FURNITURE FROM IKEA... BESIDES THAT, NOTHING IS MADE IN THE U.S. ANYMORE!"

Me - "Yeah..."

Sarah - "IF I BUY THINGS OVER HERE RATHER THAN OVER THERE, WE SAVE LIKE 50% AND STILL GET THE SAME STUFF!"

Me - "I know..."

Sarah - "I JUST WISH PEOPLE WOULD STOP TELLING ME TO BUY STUFF OVER THERE BECAUSE I CAN GET COOLER STUFF. I CAN GET THE SAME STUFF OVER HERE! DO PEOPLE THINK GERMANY IS A MAGICAL LAND WITH STORES FULL OF MAGICAL FURNITURE WITH MAGICAL POWERS?"

OK, OK, so she didn't ask about furniture with magical powers, but that was the point... People think that somehow living in a different country allows for finding cooler stuff, but really we live in a very globalized economy where all the same stuff is available over here... Just thought this was a funny conversation.

-John

The First Nightmare

2008-03-20T10:24:00.003-05:00

I have had a handful of wedding-related dreams where something goes awry, but last night, I had my first full-fledged wedding nightmare.

We forgot my dress, so I had to wear a long black dress I wore to Alamo Heights' fall version of prom (Senior Party) for my senior year. Black? Really? We also forgot my bra. Uhhh....

I forgot someone was coming to do my make-up, so I did it myself and didn't have time to wash my face for her to do it when she arrived.

I forgot to blow dry my hair in the morning and just put it up in a clip while it was wet, which is my typical low-maintenance hairdo. I failed to remember that the hairstylist said I had to come with my hair dry, unstyled, unwashed the day of and without product in my hair before the wedding. She was unhappy that it was wet. Somehow it was static-y as well. I'm not sure how that works out. Suddenly, Leigh Ann was doing my hair. Leigh Ann, do you do hair?

My mom also forgot all the bags that are currently at the foot of my bed which contain my veil, the ring bearer's pillow, my garter, the guestbook pen, and many other wedding day items.

To top it all off, John and I had a fight the night before the wedding, and I wanted to talk to him before we had the ceremony, so someone was leading me to him in the church with my eyes closed. We talked some, but I don't remember the outcome. I might have remembered it, but thank goodness the home phone rang at this point and woke me up!

A Different Kind of Post.

2008-03-20T06:15:00.006-05:00

I know that we normally use this blog to keep everyone updated on what's going on in our lives, but I wanted to Share something else with everyone...

I just read an entry on an old friends blog that really knocked the breath out of me. All too often we worry about what is going to happen in the future. For Sarah and me this means concern about deployment, where I will be stationed, what will happen after I get out of the Army, what kinds of careers we will go into, what kind of house we will have, where we will live, and all of the other things that go along with the uncertainty of being in the Army. I get so caught up in what might happen in the future that I sometimes forget to faithful to where God has me at this moment. I think that it's too easy to forget that God has a plan for me in my present situation. God has a plan for Sarah and me, and it involves where we are currently. Even if where we are is not our "dream" or "calling", we are where we are for some purpose.

I think our lives should be a blank slate for God to write on. We need to be okay with whatever he wishes, because our plans may not be his.

I always hated the story of Job. I always thought it was because God didn't act the way that I wanted him to. I felt like God gave Job the short end of the stick. I realize now that I didn't like the story because I didn't like the way that Job responded. I wanted Job to do something about his situation! I wanted him to either curse God and die, like his friends (or was it his wife?) suggested, or take some action to fix his situation. I didn't like (and still struggle with) the idea of honoring God in the times he allows us to suffer. Its hard to see past our problems and see that God has a purpose for our suffering, our happiness, our boredom, and all the other moments of our life. Job lived in the present. He accepted his suffering as part of God's will. Who am I to question God's sovereignty? It is our job to honor the situation we are in, and follow God's will the best we can.

So all of you who might read this, take a moment today to think about why God has you in your current situation. What you have to learn and how you can grow and be faithful to where you currently are. I sure am.

It's Not Raining Men, but...

2008-03-18T19:20:00.003-05:00

Mud?

Really? It's raining mud? Apparently that's the story. Catherine and I just came out of a coffee shop in Olmos Park, and her white car was covered in reddish brown splatterings. It was raining, so we were confused. We got in the car, turned on the windshield wipers and examined the subsequent falling raindrops. They, too, contained the grainy red brown bits.

Confused, I called my mom, who informed me that dust from El Paso came through with this storm and so the forecast was calling for mud showers. How odd.

John Came to Texas!

2008-03-18T09:49:00.003-05:00

John came to Texas this past weekend, which was incredible. It was so great to be able to see him and share some of the wedding planning with him while making lots of visits to family and friends. John arrived Thursday night, and we went directly to Alamo Cafe with all his family (minus Catherine, Louie and Victoria). On Friday, we got breakfast at Las Palapas, stopped by Churchill so John could say hi to an old teacher, shopped for shoes, stopped by the tux place to get info, saw Emma and told her about being a flower girl and had her try on her dress, went to our menu tasting for the reception at Sunset Station (which also included a meeting talking about how we want the whole reception to go), drove to Austin, walked around downtown and got gelatto and a beer (at Pachugo and Hickory Street, respectively), ate dinner at Trudy's, watched LOST, and went to John's SURPRISE PARTY! I'm so glad the surprise party stayed a surprise and so many people were able to come and spend time with John. It was great, because John was pretty upset that none of his friends were answering their phones prior to that. :o)

Needless to say, we were both exhausted after Friday, but Saturday was another whirlwind day. We got breakfast at Magnolia, went shopping for hostess gifts at Central Market, had lunch at Docs, drove back to San Antonio and went to the engagement party for us thrown by his parents. The engagement party was very tiring but was also a lot of fun. I think we had a small taste of what our wedding day will be like. It was crazy...everyone wanted to talk to us!

Sunday we went to breakfast at Jim's and then went and picked out the tuxes for the wedding. We had lunch at Panera Bread with John's mom, Marcus and Sarah and then headed back to Austin. We got in just in time for 5 PM church and then headed to Kristen and Shay's afterward. We hung out for a bit and then went to dinner at Chipotle.

On Monday, we only had time to pack up, stop by Taco C for some tacos for John and head back to San Antonio and go straight to the airport. John flew from SA to Dallas and Dallas to Frankfurt. His SA flight was on time, but his Dallas flight was 5 hours late!!! From what I understand, the first plane arrived an hour and a half late because they didn't have personnel to bring it over from the hanger and then after the boarded and got ready for take off, they realized they were having engine troubles, so everyone got off the plane and they had to wait for a new one. They finally took off after 7:30, when their flight had been scheduled for 2:35. What a pain!

John is back safe and sound at the barracks now, though. We both had a whirlwind weekend, and now he's trying to readjust to German time.

Now that I have caught everyone up on this weekend, I'll share what everyone really goes for - the photos.

Julia's 1st Birthday!

2008-02-27T22:25:00.004-06:00

Sorry we have done such a poor job of updating this lately. Not much has changed, so I have not had much to say.

This past Saturday, my parents and I got to go to our reception venue and see it all set up for a wedding. It definitely gave me butterflies! I was really pleased with how the place looked all decked out for a wedding, and I know it will look wonderful on our day.

John will be here in two weeks for a few days, which will be very nice, but I know it will go by too fast. We have a lot to do including selecting a tux and choosing our menu/sampling the food (yum!).

Last weekend I went to San Antonio (as is the norm these days) for Julia's first birthday. I'll end with pictures from her birthday and her party. Enjoy!

Birthday Photos

2008-02-13T23:05:00.000-06:00

Voila!

Birthday Time

2008-02-12T00:43:00.001-06:00

With the help of family and friends, I had the best birthday I have had in a long time. Thanks, everyone!

Friday (my actual birthday), I decided to stay in Austin to celebrate with friends. We hosted an open house type party here at our apartment. I used the opportunity to try out several new recipes: a sweet fruit dip, Mexican 7-layer dip and some amazing chocolate-caramel-pecan cookies. Yum! I'm skipping ahead, though. My parents called right at midnight on Friday and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. John called when he got back from PT (around 1 am here) to wish me a happy birthday as well. For lunch, Andrew came and picked me up, and we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Hula Hut. Shortly after I got back, John had a box of Tiff's Treats sent to my apartment along with a birthday balloon. The cookies are SO tasty. They come warm! He sent two dozen cookies, 6 of each of these flavors: chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, sugar cookies and snickerdoodles. He also sent two HUGE chocolate chip brownies. Wow! We talked on the phone for our regular daily phone call, and he watched me open his other presents to me via webcam. He got me two books I have been wanting - one about music and the brain and the other is a National Geographic photos coffee table book. He also got me the BBC Planet Earth series...very exciting!!

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and cooking. My roommates helped out so much. They also made me a carrot cake! People started showing up to the party a little before 8. Way more people turned out than had RSVPed, so I was very surprised. The biggest surprise, however, was when my two friends who got married last July and live in Houston walked through our front door (!!!). I was incredibly surprised and so happy to see them. I can't believe they came all the way from Houston to see us. We had all been playing Catchphrase, but their arrival sent us all into a crazy welcome hugging frenzy, and we never got the Catchphrase going again. People hung out until well after midnight, and once I had settled down and gotten to bed, it was around 2:30 in the morning.

Andrew came over early the next morning (Saturday), and I made breakfast before we headed down to San Antonio for the rest of the weekend. I hung out with my family and opened a few surprise birthday gifts, which included two fabulous new cookbooks, one of the pitchers I registered for at Pottery Barn (love it!) and some cloth coasters. We met up with Jimmy, Molly, Will and Julia at Alamo Cafe for some dinner.

After dinner, we went to Bed Bath & Beyond, where I ended up deciding to change my registry at Dillard's over to BBB. I had no idea they had fine china, stemware and crystal at BBB! My mom, brother and I (my dad stayed in the car) spent the next 2 hours registering for china, cups, stemware, kitchenware and bath linens. I'm so glad to have that finished!

When we got home, I had a delicious half chocolate, half strawberry cake with my family, and then I went to Jim's (the diner) to meet my friend Morgan for coffee. She surprised me with two more gifts! She made a calendar using photos of John and me. She even wrote the days of our engagement party, rehearsal dinner, wedding day, honeymoon and our engagement anniversary on the calendar. She decorated May with a transparent overlay photo of the stained glass at the back of the church we're getting married in, which was an awesome touch as well. The other surprise was what she called a "wedding planner's survival kit." It includes 4 Dublin Dr. Peppers (the ones with Imperial Sugar), energizing jelly beans (they contain vitamins!), gum, Tums, ibuprofen, a rubber chicken (to be funny), Dr. Scholl's foot gels, a HUMONGOUS Hershey's chocolate bar, chewy oatmeal bars, a mini magic 8 ball "to make the hard decisions," a little notebook with a sweet personalized note, and a Relax wine bottle labeled "when all else fails." I LOVE it!

Again, thank you to everyone who made my birthday so special this year; it meant so much to me. (Oh and by the way, I'll post some birthday pictures soon!)

A Bit Behind in Blogging

2008-02-04T00:24:00.000-06:00

Sorry we have really fallen behind in the blogging world. Since I have been back, I feel like I have had nothing to do except run to wedding-related appointments, keep up with schoolwork, and keep my apartment clean. It has been exhausting, but it helps pass the time until John comes for his very short visit in March.

I need to be getting to bed soon, so I have to keep this short. I just wanted to update everyone on what has been done for the wedding thus far. (The following is why I haven't had very much free time...this was all done in the past 3 weeks.)

* meet with the coordinator at our venue and sign the contract
* meet with the minister at our church and discuss the ceremony
* find a baker and decide on bride's and groom's cake designs and flavorings
* meet with the venue coordinator (again) to go over menu options and floor plan
* meet with florist for initial consult and planning
* make THREE trips to the place we're getting our invitations...trip 3: get invitations, wedding book, and thank yous
* go wedding dress shopping
* find wedding dress and place order (!)
* go to bridal fair
* find someone to be an extra set of legs on the day of the wedding to help coordinate things
* meet with DJ and start looking at music format
* select a hairdresser and someone to do my make-up
* pick up save the date cards, stuff envelopes, address then and send them out
* create various guest lists for wedding-related events
* start and finish registries at Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma... our registry at Dillard's is ALMOST done. I just need to register for some towels and a casserole dish or two
* meet with florist again to discuss floor plan and centerpieces and cement flower and color choices

Ok, I think that's it. I really think planning a wedding should qualify a person to be a CEO.

My birthday is coming up on Friday, and I haven't been able to throw anything together. I have concentrated everything on wedding planning - yikes! I am thinking I will just do an open house type thing here at the apartment and just enjoy seeing friends. I haven't had time (surprisingly, haha) to see many people since I got back fro Germany, so this would be a nice opportunity.

I hope everyone had a good Superbowl Sunday. Yay Giants!

As things Progress

2008-01-28T08:39:00.000-06:00

Plans for the wedding are coming along quite nicely. I always wish I could help more being that I am stuck over here in Germany. I am looking forward to making my way to Texas in March for a few days of planning and Mexican food. I really want some good Mexican food! I have been researching Tuxedos and Sarah has been looking for her dress. She told me she ordered one, but won't show me a picture or anything because I am not supposed to find out what it looks like until she walks down the aisle. I'm sure she will look stunning.

In political news commentary... I'm sure we can all agree that seeing Hillary get Pummeled by Barack in South Carolina was AWESOME. The polls had predicted a 10 point win for Obama. Try almost triple that.

My sister Catherine and her husband Louie just got back from Playa Del Carmen, and they stayed at the same resort that Sarah and I are going to for our honeymoon. She posted some great pictures on her blog if you want to check it out. http://catherineandlouie.blogspot.com/

Well, I have wasted enough time at work... guess I better actually get something done.

PFC Owens... OUT.

One from John

2008-01-21T07:39:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone,

Though Sarah may no longer be 5324 miles from Austin, I unfortunately, still live on the other side of the world... Since Sarah left Germany to go back to Texas, I have been rather sad and mopey. I realized how well we work together and how much support we really give each other when I went to the grocery store and after wandering around for 2 hours left with Dr. Pepper and breakfast food. I need her her to help me! :-) I don't want to waste everyones time though with my endless complaining, so instead I thought a bit of commentary on the ongoing presidential race might be... I don't know... interesting? I know we normally use this blog to keep people informed about what is going on in our lives, but hey, just thought some commentary might be a nice change of pace.

Alright... So on the Republican side we have The Mormon, The Evangelical, The 9/11 guy, The guy who was once in the military, and the crazy guy who will never win... On the democratic side we have The Woman, The Black Dude, and a Wannabe John F Kennedy. The question that fits for almost all of these candidates is... "Is America really ready for 'X' to be the president?" Is America ready for a Mormon, a black man, a woman, an evangelical? How about we elect a extra-conservative Mormon black woman? We can just get all of the minority issues out of the way in 4 short years.

Now realistically, There are only about a few possible outcomes in the primaries, Hillary or Obama, and McCain, Huckabee or Guiliani. Now if you know me you know that I am personally an Obama fan, I believe that he is the only candidate with half a shot of re-uniting America. The country is so divided on issues that we can't get anything done. The right is further right then they have ever been, and the left is further left. We need someone who is the candidate of the great American middle; a candidate who can unite Washington and can get things done because of it.

Probable outcome? As usual, we will have to pick the lesser of two evils. Hillary or Huckabee. :-( I don't trust Clinton, she is way to much of a politico, and I don't trust Huckabee because he is too conservative to unite Americans which is what we really need. This whole situation makes me very sad.

OK... enough politcs... on to something much more funny. I guess its still kinda politics, but its funny nonetheless.

Back in Tejas (Paris Part 2 and Leaving Deutschland)

2008-01-16T10:34:00.000-06:00

Well I'm back home now...but I will get to that later in this post.

John and I forgot a really great story from the end of our Paris trip. After midnight on New Year's, we took the subway back home and all the cars were really crowded. I noticed this woman standing behind John with the most beautiful smile. I leaned over and asked (in French) if she spoke English. When she said yes, I told her that I thought she had a great smile, and she said she had been thinking the same thing about me. I don't know how it came up, but she said she was Swedish but lives in Paris. When she got off the car, I said "ha det bra!" (goodbye in Norwegian, but understandable to Swedes). She answered back with "ha det bra" as well.

Ok, so that wasn't the great story I originally reference, because the great story is ten times better than that. While all this was going on with the Swedish woman, all these French people (around our age) were jumping around next to us and singing in French. Soon, they noticed John and me and asked John what his name was. They then pleaded with him to sing everyone a song. I leaned over and told him to sing the Beautiful Girls song, so he did. Atfterwards, all those French kids started chanting "John! John! John!" and wanted him to sing another, so he sang Stand By Me. They cheered a LOT when he was done. It was so much fun. Like John said, when else is a whole subway car going to cheer your name?

I also wanted to write about the two days before I left (Friday and Saturday). I wanted to take John out for coffee on Friday night, so we headed to this little coffee shop we found a week or two ago right by the Schwetzingen castle. We were stopped at the door by bouncers!! They said we weren't dressed up enough ("too sporty" they said). Apparently the calm coffee house turns into a nightclub on the weekends. Weird! That wouldn't have been the calm evening grabbing coffee that we had envisioned even if we had gotten in. We tried to go again on Saturday afternoon, and it had returned to its normal coffee shop atmosphere. (Think about how weird it would be to go to a Starbucks on a Friday night and get denied entrance because you weren't dressed up enough, and inside, there was a big nightclub scene.) We decided to get a late lunch there, and I had the BEST sandwich. It was on top of a baguette (as in the bread wasn't sliced open) and had sliced tomatoes, zucchini, mozzarella cheese and oregano or some other spice. So tasty. IT figured that I would finally find something I liked to eat the DAY before I left.

My flight out was on Sunday at 2:10 PM. We got up early and left for the airport shortly before 11. We got into the check in area around noon, and there was a REALLY long line. We had wanted to get a leisurely lunch together after checking in, but because it took over an hour to get through the line, we had to eat a rushed lunch in order for me to make it through security to board my plane on time.

We said a very tearful goodbye, and I made my way through security. John didn't stay to see me through, because we agree that it's better to just say goodbye and go so we don't have to stand there watching the other person leaving. I cried my way through security and was worried that I had mascara all over my face. When I got to the man who stamped my passport, I asked him if I had mascara on my face. He didn't understand the word mascara, so I repeated "Do I have black on my face? I have been crying." He misunderstood and thought I told him he had black on his face from crying. While wiping his face, he replied, "Oh, no. Must be from stamp." I didn't laugh until after I'd passed him, but it was funny.

My flight time to Chicago was roughly 10 hours, but we sat on the runway for an hour before taking off because the fog was pretty bad that day. Unlike my flight to Germany, I had someone sitting directly next to me. It really cut down on the already tiny amount of room you get in coach. To make matters worse, my seat didn't recline. Bummer! There weren't any other seats to change to, either. I don't mean to complain too much about my flight, but I also have to mention the food they served. The lunch was ok, but dinner was a mushroom pizza. Mushrooms? Mushrooms?! Why serve something so many people don't like? After I scraped off a majority of the mushrooms, I discovered the bread was also terribly tough.
I guess I shouldn't have expected anything more from airline food though!

When I got to Chicago, I had to go through Customs, which took about an hour. I waited in line to get my passport stamped, then I had to pick up my luggage (two gigantic suitcases), drop off my Customs Declaration form and haul the suitcases to another room to be rechekced for my next flight. Then, I got on the O'Hare rail system and went to the terminal for my flight to Austin. Once there, I had to go through security AGAIN. Afterwards, I went to Chili's and enjoyed a nice long dinner while watching the Cowboys lose (not so nice). My layover in Chicago was about 4 hours, so I had some time to pass.

My flight to Austin left a little after 9:30 and felt like it took forever. I couldn't fall asleep even though I was very tired.

My roommates (all 3 of them) met me back in Austin and took me home. *sigh* I guess it's good to be home, but I sure wish John could have come too.

One last thing... 5324miles.blogspot.com will still work to get you to this blog, but we decided to make a permanent blog together. That blog will be at www.sojoblog.com. We might transfer completely away from this blog, but then again, we might not! We really want to find a format that will let us customize how the blog looks, so stay tuned!

Paris Part 2: Days 3-5

2008-01-11T14:00:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: This entry is very long. It recounts three very busy days in Paris. If you want to skip to the end to see the photos, I don't blame you. By all means, go ahead.

Thanks to John, I finally figured out what happened after we went to the Eiffel Tower. We initially tried to find an entrance to the subway, but we were very hungry and ended up stopping at what appeared to be a trendy yet inexpensive French restaurant. I ordered a chicken mozzarella panini and ended up with just that...toasted panini bread, completely unseasoned boiled chicken breast and mozzarella cheese. It wasn't good. I asked for mayo even though I'm not a mayo fan, and it helped enough to choke it down. John, still craving the duck, ordered a honey glazed duck breast and French onion soup (yes, again). The presentation of the duck was nice, too bad it still didn't taste good. When we got back close to our hotel, we decided to go by The Depot again, but we didn't stay long because we were pretty tired.

On Sunday (the 30th), we left our hotel with the intention to go straight to the Louvre, but when we came down from our room, we discovered a farmer's market/flea market type thing going on all down the street we were staying on (Rue de la Convention). We stopped and looked at various things and ended up buying some fresh strawberries. They were the tastiest strawberries I have had in YEARS. We saved about half of them until we took the subway to the Louvre. We ate the rest of them while sitting on the end of one of the fountains at the Louvre.

We thought the line to get into the Louvre was going to take forever, based upon our experience the previous night from the Eiffel Tower. Surprisingly, it only took 5-10 minutes to work our way inside. Because we had slept in, we knew we couldn't spend all day there. So we decided to just hit the highlights. We saw the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa, along with quite a few of Michaelangelo's statues.

After we left the Louvre, we hopped on the subway to Île de la Cité to see Notre Dame. When we arrived, the line was extraordinarily long, so we decided to just enjoy the facade. We walked from there over to Sainte-Chapelle. We decided to go there instead because the inside has ornate stained glass, and we wanted to see it while it was still daylight. While waiting in line, we were hungry, because we hadn't had lunch and it was about 3:00. John decided to run over to the sandwich shop on the corner. He ordered his sandwich (in French!) and waited while the guy at the counter toasted it. While it was in the oven a French man walked up and ordered the same sandwich. The guy behind the counter gave him John's sandwich. John ordered again, and it happened again... and again. Finally, John just decided that the man didn't want to serve an American and walked off. Which is just as well because I was nearing the front of the line to get into Sainte-Chapelle. The inside was gorgeous. All the walls were covered in stained glass, and each small small pane depicted a different story from the Bible.

When we were through, we went and got coffee and some sandwiches in the Saint Michel area. Afterwards, we took the subway to Saint Germain, which put us in the middle of a small Christmas market. We were also right by the oldest surviving church in Paris, the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We looked around the church and then went shopping in a nearby bookstore for a little bit before dinnertime. We had looked at eating dinner in the Saint Germain area and had picked out a restaurant called Le Procope for the evening.

We managed to get there right before the dinner rush and didn't have to wait very long for a table. Dinner itself, however, lasted three hours, which was not a bad thing. We ordered a half-sized bottle of wine, mineral water, and we both had the coq au vin for our entrée. Everything was delicious. I did have one small problem occur during dinner...my hair rubber band - suddenly and completely unprovoked by me - snapped. I realized this when my hair suddenly felt very loose; it had been up in a ponytail. In a moment of panic, I turned to the girl to my left, who I had heard speaking some English and asked if she had a rubber band I could use. She saved the day. Who says the French are rude? Ok, back to the meal... we decided to order dessert since we were having a nice dinner out. I got the profiteroles which are pastries filled with homemade ice cream and covered in a chocolate drizzle. John ordered the crepes flambéed in Grand Marnier. It also came with a shot of Grand Marnier as a digestif. Following dinner, we went next door to Le Pub Saint Germain.

The next day, New Year's Eve, we went to Sacré-Cœur which is a basilica located at the the highest point in Paris and is surrounded by the Montmartre district. While there, we enjoyed listening to a guy play the guitar on the stairs in front of the church. He had quite an audience. Once we went inside the church, we were amazed at how beautiful it was. We both wanted to take some time before leaving to sit in the pews and pray.

Our next mission was getting to the Café de Deux Moulins, which is the restaurant featured in the movie Amelie. The trek there took us through the red light district of Montmartre, where we saw Moulin Rouge. We were a bit grumpy by the time we made it to the café since we hadn't eaten and ended up giving up on eating there (it was crowded and smokey). I truly just wanted to get on the subway and go anywhere but there, and John agreed. We ended up getting off at a stop we always change trains at but had never gone above ground there. This put us up at Montparnasse. We were so hungry that we saw a sign for McDonald's and headed there without hesitation. It was quite a change from our fancy French meal the night before!

We went and bought some Champagne and baguettes before the shops closed. Later, we
had dinner at restaurant down the street from our hotel. Unfortunately it was only so-so, but our server was very nice. After dinner it was time to head to the Eiffel Tower for the countdown to 2008 and fireworks. We got there around 9:30 and got an exceptional seat on the stairs at the Place de Trocadero. We were literally directly in front of the Eiffel Tower with an unobstructed view of everything. We waited and waited and waited. At 11:58, there was still no sign of a countdown, but we were standing champagne in hand, ready to pop the cork and celebrate the new year. The Eiffel Tower started "sparkling" (via strobe lights) like it does on the hour every evening, so we figured maybe that was the one minute countdown. When nothing changed about four minutes later, we looked at each other, shrugged and said "Happy New Year?" No Fireworks...such a bummer. People set off their own fireworks here and there because there is no law against doing so, but there were no big city fireworks.

We headed over to the Champs-Élysées and were amazed at how many people had packed that wide, long street. There were broken champagne bottles everywhere. We had a good time enjoying the sights.

The next day we slept in and got ready to leave. With only a small aggravating incident at check out, we were on our way back to Germany.

If you have made it this far through the entry, I applaud you. You definitely deserve a gold star. Now for the fun part - photos!

Paris Part I: Days 1 & 2

2008-01-08T07:04:00.000-06:00

Sorry it took me a whole week to get a post from Paris up. Between being exhausted from our trip and trying to tie up some loose ends before I head back to Texas, we have been pretty swamped with stuff to do.

Paris was a lot of fun but not really what I had envisioned. Perhaps if we go back in the spring or summertime, it might be different. Something else I didn't expect?...the LINES! Oh my goodness, we had to wait to wait again to do almost anything. I will say, however, that people were a bit nicer than I had prepared myself for. Only a couple people were so snooty as to ignore us altogether purely based on the fact that we were Americans. We were even trying (really hard) to speak French. John didn't know any French before the trip and was amazing at picking it up. I only took a semester of French during my first semester in college (five and a half years ago!). Between the two of us, I think we did really well for ourselves.

Our first test was when we got off the train at the main station in Paris. We had to navigate where to go and how we should get to our hotel. It didn't take us long to find a subway map and locate the subway stop for our hotel. We plotted out our route from the main station and set out to find a way to buy tickets. We found these computers that dispense tickets, but everything was in French. Still, we managed to get our tickets fairly easily using the little knowledge we had of French, and we were on our way. We got to our hotel between 11:30 and midnight (our train got in around 11 PM), put our stuff down and headed back to a cafe/bar we passed when we came up from the subway.

We made two stops at this bar during our stay. I believe the place was called The Depot, but I could be wrong. It felt kind of Austin-y and was a nice place to relax...except for the smoke. That's another thing. There is smoking everywhere in Paris - even more than in Germany. I had a hard time with it since it gives me such bad headaches, but it definitely made me appreciate all the no smoking areas in the US. Speaking of, if you ask to be in a smoking section in the US (if the restaurant even has a smoking section), you are usually sent to a small room in the back of the restaurant. It's the complete opposite here. If you want the non-smoking section, you're in the small room in the back, and usually, there are still people smoking there too.

Anyway...the next day, we got up early and went to a little bakery right across from our hotel. I ordered as best I could in French, and we got two quiche Lorraines and two delicious glasses of orange juice. We then made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. The traffic circle that surrounds it is crazy, by the way! There don't appear to be any lanes - just a lot of crazy driving. At least that's what it looked like to me.

We didn't go up in the Arc de Triomphe but walked around the outside. It was pretty neat, and being able to look all the way down the Champs-Élysées was cool. From the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down the Champs-Élysées. There were a number of really expensive stores and nice cafes along the street. We never knew how expensive Cartier could be until we saw their watch and other jewelry displays in their front window. We only went in a few places - a few car stores (not dealerships...think showrooms), the GAP (I was trying to find a hair clip...never found one), Virgin Records Megastore and Louis Vuitton.

We stopped for lunch at a nice little cafe toward the end of the main part of the Champs-Élysées. I had the most fantastic ravioli, and John ordered French onion soup and what he thought was duck. Well, he ordered duck foie gras. Neither of us knew what foie gras was but decided the duck must be pretty good, because it was a bit pricey. When our food came, we thought we were missing the duck. I had my pasta, and John had his soup and some random plate with toast and a orange-ish paste (kind of like butter) on it. When no duck came, we concluded the paste thing must have duck in it. It wasn't until we got back to Germany and could look online that we found out that duck foie gras is duck "fat liver." Here's an explanation I took from Wikipedia: " Foie gras (French for 'fat liver') is 'the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened by gavage' (as defined by French law). Foie gras is one of the most popular delicacies in French cuisine and its flavour is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver. Foie gras can be sold whole, or prepared into mousse, parfait, or pâté (the lowest quality), and is typically served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as toast or steak." Eesh...I'm still getting nauseous thinking about it. I tried it and didn't think it was good, but I guess at least I tried it. Ew.

By the way, I just looked up what gavage is. I don't think John or I will be eating anything foie gras again. Gavage means feeding someone or something against their will. :o(

Ok, back to happier Parisian thoughts. After lunch, we decided to ride the ferris wheel. We're both very glad we did that. It provided great 360 degree views of Paris, and was definitely worth the money. As you can see in our picture slideshow below, we saw a lot of the major sights we later visited close-up while up in the ferris wheel.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, and we didn't want to run out of daylight, so we hurried to the Eiffel Tower...only to wait around 2.5 hours in line just to go up in the tower. During that time, we got very cold and it poured rain on us. Luckily, some very nice Italians in line behind us graciously lent us their extra umbrella during the downpour.

Going up in the Eiffel Tower was pretty neat, but it would definitely have been more enjoyable if we had done it in warmer weather. It was cold and extremely windy the higher we went up (of course). We went to both of the lower observation decks and the deck at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Both John and I were a little squeamish about the height. For once (truly once), I think I was a slight bit more adventurous, because I didn't have quite as much of an issue getting near the edge. I'm sure it wouldn't have been as easy if I didn't have John holding me by the back of my jacket, though!

My photos for the day end here, and unfortunately, I have a terrible memory, so I don't remember what else we did. I'll have to ask John later and get back to y'all on that.

Here's our slideshow for Paris Part I! Be sure to pay attention the the captions in the slideshow if you're not familiar with Paris. I tried to caption everything as best I could.

Bon Voyage!

2007-12-28T08:15:00.000-06:00

John and I are heading to the train station in a little over three hours to board a train bound for Paris! We are staying about 5 km from the Eiffel Tower and very close (I think 400 m or so) from a metro stop. Hopefully transportation will be fairly easy.

We went to the PX earlier today and I bought a French phrasebook to refresh me on my français. I also had to get another pair of gloves, because the ones I got from J. Crew JUST before I came here already have a big ol' hole in the thumb. :o(

While we were at the PX, I cashed in the gift card John gave me to buy a purse. I got a nice little tan Coach purse. I can't wait to show it off.

Oh my goodness...John and I are packing right now, and we just found the red scarf I've been missing for just about 2 months now. My mom just found me one to replace it...figures!

Before I go, here are some pictures from our walk around the Heidelberg Schloss and more from the Heidelberg Weihnactsmarkt.

We'll be back midday on the 1st with plenty of pictures and stories. Happy 2008!

$2000 and 1 new Recruit

2007-12-27T10:30:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! John here... So the army gives $2000 any service member, active or retired, who recruits someone to join... Looks like I will be getting my money soon! I got a recruit and man is she cute! Mr. Carter, I know you wanted her to go Air Force, but I mean really, you don't want your daughter to get sucked into a jet engine now do you? Besides... Look how cute she looks in ACU's! PARADE REST! This is the position of "Flirt with your Commander". Don't make this recruit angry... she might bite your nose off. I'd salute that! Just kidding about her joining the Army, but I did have fun seeing Sarah in my uniform... Too cute!

Christmas in Review

2007-12-26T12:53:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! John and I definitely did, even though we really missed home. We woke up late (10:30!) and opened our stockings. After that, I made an egg, sausage and cheese casserole and some coffee cake. We got ready for the day, ate breakfast (with a side of mimosas) and then opened presents. The rest of the day was spent talking to family and watching Christmas greats like A Christmas Story and The Santa Claus . :o) One of the presents John got me was Evan Almighty, and we settled down to watch that late last night.

Unfortunately, neither of us were feeling very good today. John had a sore throat and was home from work. I have just felt lethargic all day. It's only 8 PM, and I could easily go to sleep for the night right now. I need to be rested for tomorrow, because I have a lot to get ready before we leave for Paris on Friday.

We did get a bit of a surprise today -- about 1" of snow fell in the late morning/early afternoon. It was very pretty but also slippery! I didn't take any photos of the snow today, but these are from our snowfall that had accumulated by Christmas Eve.

We made snow angels!

I tried to capture some of the snow falling, but it's hard to capture white on white.

Here's our Christmas Eve dinner. We had twice baked potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberries, rolls, strawberry jello salad and champagne. It was delicious!

And finally, here we are before heading out to church:

We went to two church services on Christmas Eve. The first was at 7 PM and was held at the Episcopal Church on post. The service was WAY too long for a Christmas Eve service. It did not let out until 8:50. In all that time, they didn't have a sermon or even a homily. They did, however, have 5 LONG readings (oddly all about John the Baptist) each followed by a hymn.

The second service we went to was at 11 PM in Heidelberg at a German language Protestant church. When we were walking up, the bells in the steeple were ringing like crazy. They must have been ringing for at least 5 or 10 minutes. We think it was to announce the birth of Jesus.

The church itself was beautiful. It was ornate and sort of in a gothic style. The pews had a small candle at either end, and the organ was huge. The music during the service was fantastic. All the songs the choir sang were in English, but everything else was in German. At the end of the service, the pastor told us (in German) to go out into the holy night with our candles lit to be a light to the world. We walked all the way to John's car with our candles lit.

This video clip I posted below is the song the choir sang at the very beginning of the service. Both John and I really enjoyed it. This version is performed by the Oslo Gospel Choir.

I'll try to write again before we leave for Paris. Bye for now!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-24T18:26:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! We wanted to post a full length blog tonight complete with pictures of our day and of the beautiful white weather, but sadly, it got very late. We attended a German Church Service at 11:00pm and we didn't get home until 12:50. After doing the rest of our dishes from today's delicious Christmas dinner, it was 1:30am and just too late to make a long post. We will post more soon, but in the mean time, enjoy Christmas! We know we will!

-John and Sarah

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

2007-12-22T05:20:00.001-06:00

Just like the ones I never knew :o)

After a night of temperatures in the low to mid 20s and a lot of fog, we looked outside yesterday, and everything was rather frosty. This is what we saw:

These are the coolest little ice crystals I've ever seen.

These next couple of photos really don't capture how beautifully white everything was yesterday. I tried, but it's hard when there isn't much contrast since the sky is also white (very cloudy still).

Last night, we walked over to the Shopette, which is like a little convenience store on post. It's only two buildings down from where John lives. One our walk over there (around 5:45 PM), we realized it was snowing ever so lightly. It was the tiniest of snow flurries. When we woke up this morning, everything was even a little bit whiter...

Now I just hope it stays around for a couple more days!!

Our First Christmas

2007-12-21T09:15:00.000-06:00

Here are some photos of our Christmas tree, complete with a heart tree-topper made by my 3-year-old niece, Emma.

My friend Katy went to Norway a few months ago and sent John and me this heart ornament she made in an old iron works mill in Oslo.

My parents sent us this photo ornament. As you can probably tell, it doesn't have a photo of us in it yet...just some random strangers. I'll work on getting a photo of us for next year's tree. Oh, and the ornament is also a music box. It plays Pachelbel's Canon.

We bought this "Wilkommen" ornament at the Schwetzingen Christmas market.

And thank you all for all these gifts. We are really excited for Christmas morning!

Going to the Board

2007-12-20T07:29:00.000-06:00

John was selected to go to the Soldier of the Month Board, where soldiers must prepare a biography, a speech and answer questions on various Army-related topics. The soldiers are graded on all of these things plus their personal appearance (they wear their Class A uniforms to the board). For the past several days, I helped John study and prepare for the Board. He went before the Board yesterday morning, and he won! He is Soldier of the Month, which is pretty cool. He will have to go before the Board again when he gets back from his training in February for the Soldier of the Quarter Board. Anyway, I just wanted to post about that, because I'm really proud of him.

The other, completely unrelated story I have to tell today is about German food. I should have posted it in my previous entry, but I forgot. A week or two ago, John and I were coming back to the barracks, and as we drove on post, we got pulled over for an inspection. The German guard doing the inspection sparked up a conversation with us about food. We informed him that German food is not good, and he appeared to be rather shocked. He said there are lots of great places to eat like Brauhaus. John asked what kind of food is good to eat at Brauhaus, and the guard said "pig parts." Ew. How could he think "pig parts" are good food?! This is why we do not like German food. Pig parts should not be a part of every day's meal. He also let us know that he thinks Americans eat only fast food. John and I agree that most Germans (and probably Europeans in general) think Americans only really like fast food.

We have a theory about how this idea came about. If most Americans traveling in Germany are like John and me, they frequent McDonald's and Burger King, because the rest of the food is overpriced and not very good. Germans take note at the number of Americans at these establishments versus other restaurants and conclude that Americans only eat fast food. That's just our theory, of course.

One last thing. I'm sorry for all the typos in my last entry. I think I should have John read them over before I publish them...I'm always embarrassed by the silly errors I make. Oops!

K-town

2007-12-19T04:45:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, John and I headed to Kaiserslautern (known as K-town by the Americans), which is about an hour away, for a little day trip. Truly, we made this journey just because we heard there was a Chili's there. We were desperate for good American food, and we weren't disappointed...not at Chili's anyway.

The night before, we went with a few people from John's office to a bar on post for karaoke night. John got up and did a wonderful rendition of Boot Scootin' Boogie. Thankfully, no one forced me to sing. It would have been worse than that scene in My Best Friend's Wedding where Cameron Diaz sang karaoke.

Saturday, we headed out around noon in search of a rumored American-style Tex Mex restaurant. We found it on a street in K-town that caters to Americans. Signs and everything were in English -- we even saw a number of American flags! The restaurant was called Cantina Mexicana, and the interior did a good job of looking the part. The food, however, didn't taste the part. It was ok, but not for the price. My queso-topped shredded chicken enchiladas tasted like king ranch chicken. That sauce was definitely not queso. John's enchiladas verdes were at least a little spicy. We both got margaritas which were decent, but the bartender used table salt for the rims...not so bueno.

After lunch, we headed toward Ramstein Air Base. The Chili's was in the Enlisted Club on base. It was REALLY cool to be at such a big air base. I wanted to take pictures, but that's not really allowed. Ya know, security and whatnot.

We explored their huge BX (Base Exchange, which is kind of like a WalMart in that it has everything) and shared a small Cinnabon. We wanted to catch a movie, but they were showing This Christmas, which we saw last week. We drove around some more on a search for the Enlisted Club. Seriously, there weren't any signs anywhere for anything, so we drove in a lot of circles before finally finding it. It's funny, though, we weren't hungry when we found it. It was only about 5, and we had not eaten until about 2:30. We decided to head back to Kaiserslautern to explore their downtown.

Even though it was VERY cold, and I wasn't as prepared for walking around outside as I could have been, I am glad we did that. We ended up stumbling upon their Weihnachtsmarkt (by the way, Heidelberg has them beat on that), and we found a music stage where two guys were playing American music. We listened to them do a cover of Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." They also covered Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." By the end of that song, I think you could say my face was comfortably numb. The cold had really gotten to me. We headed back to the car and back to Ramstein for Chili's.

When we got there, there was a wait, so we went downstairs and tried our luck at the slot machines. I ended up winning $30! John lost $10, so we came out $20 on top. I'd say that's pretty good. When I won all that money, I had only placed a 3 cent bet, too!

We got a table pretty quickly, and we were so excited to get to eat Chili's that we ordered quite a bit. I don't regret any of it either! :o) We each ordered a presidente margarita, glass of water (yay it's free! you have to pay for water on the German economy...ugh) and skillet queso for an appetizer. I ordered the quesadilla explosion salad for my entree along with a coffee. John got the chipotle ranch blue cheese bacon burger and a Coke. It was all fantastic. The chips weren't the same as the ones they use in the states, but they sufficed. We also indulged when it came time for dessert, and we ordered the chocolate chip paradise pie.

We declared December 15, 2007 as eating day. It was fabulous.

And now, for a few pictures...

Schwetzingen Weihnachtsmarkt

2007-12-14T08:55:00.000-06:00

Finishing up my post about last weekend, I have a number of photos of the Schwetzingen Weihnactsmarkt to share. Just so you all understand, Schwetzingen is the small town we are nearest to, and Heidelberg, the other city Christmas market we went to, is about 10 minutes away.

Schwetzingen has an outdoor ice skating rink across from its market, so that's where these first several photos are from. The skating rink is also where John and I first tried glüwein. It's fun to people-watch there, because either the skaters are really good or they're just plain bad (like I would be), and eventually, those with less talent or practice will fall. On warmer days, like the day we were there this time, the ice was exceptionally slippery, because it was melting.

The rest of the photos were taken at a small concert at the Christmas market. Even though we were pretty cold (even considering the warmer weather), we decided to stay and watch a children's choir from a local church perform. We weren't familiar with most of the songs they sang - they must have been primarily traditional German Christmas songs. They sang one about the Christmas bakery (all in German) that is still in our heads.

The last of the photos were taken looking down the street on our walk back to the car. I had so many photos, that I decided to make a slideshow for this whole post instead of posting individually. Enjoy, and don't miss the video posted just below the slide show!!

I had to include this, too. It's a video (1 minute, 17 seconds long) of the very beginning of the children's concert. You can hear some German!

Heidelberg Weihnachtsmarkt

2007-12-10T09:10:00.000-06:00

I began this entry on Wednesday, but between Christmas shopping, getting groceries and other chores, I'm just getting around to posting this. I have a lot more to catch everyone up on, and John is working staff duty tonight (overnight), so I should have plenty of time to write. For now, however, I will just catch you up on the Heidelberg Christmas market.

Friday night, John and I decided to go out for dinner and also explore the Heidelberg Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market). We went to Cafe Xtra Blatt, which is the restaurant John took me to when we first explored the Hauptstrasse when I had just arrived in Germany. It was much more enjoyable this time, because I wasn't completely jet-lagged. We shared some pinot grigio, jalepeno poppers and a chicken fajita pizza. We have really been craving American food lately. The food here is really disappointing. Most of it is pretty bland, and nothing is very satisfying to the taste. Surprisingly, the jalepeno poppers weren't half bad. They had an extra layer of potato between the jalepeno and the fried coating, but that is to be expected. You can find potatoes and French fries EVERYWHERE. The pizza was also quite good. The barbeque sauce, fajita chicken, hollandaise sauce and onions gave the pizza the most taste of anything I think I have had in the past month. Yum.

After dinner, we explored the Chirstmas market. There are several areas around downtown with booths, and we spent most of our time in what seemed to be the main area. I think it was in the Universitatsplatz. There were some food vendors (mainly sausage, schnitzel, and potato-based things) and many beer and gluwein booths. John tried the blueberry gluwein, which I will admit does not taste as bad as the last one I tried, but I still wouldn't ever crave it. I was happy just having a plain ol' Pilsner.

We walked around to all the other booths, which mainly had tea, sweets, candles, scarves and other handmade things. I suppose there isn't much else to tell, so I'll let the photos do the talking.

This is across the street from one of the Christmas market areas in Heidelberg. Galeria Kaufhof, which you can also see in the photo, is a huge (as if you can't tell) department store.

Once we got to one of the bigger market areas, I took a video to show a 360 degree view of an area we were in:

I was happy to find this carousel. John and I ended our night at the Christmas market by taking a ride on it.

mittag surprise!

2007-12-03T07:18:00.000-06:00

Last week, John came home from work at lunchtime and had a surprise for me...flowers! There were 3 roses (1 red, 1 white and 1 pink/yellowish one) and 4 stargazer lilies all mixed in with baby's breath and some greenery. They were so pretty, and I was so proud of them that I took some quick snapshots.

I have a lot more to catch everyone up on. We hit up two of the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas markets) this weekend, so I have stories and photos to post. I will have to get to that tomorrow, because I need to use the rest of the afternoon for studying.

As for Sunday, we went to the Episcopal church on post and spent the rest of the day grocery shopping, cleaning and doing laundry. The church service was interesting...it was a rite II service, but they didn't do the Eucharistic prayer. They also didn't have a sermon. If they do church that way every week, it really doesn't make sense to me. There wasn't any indicator, though, that this was anything but normal for them. *shrug*

a belated Thanksgiving post

2007-11-29T03:59:00.000-06:00

John worked on Thanksgiving from 7:30 am until 7:30 am on Friday, so we postponed our celebration until Friday. We used the opportunity to cook together and coordinated dinner around the start of the UT v. A&M game, which kicked off around 9:30 pm here.

We didn't have a turkey, because that would have been pretty difficult to cook in the barracks, but we made everything else: sweet potatoes, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit salad, rolls, green bean casserole, cranberries and pumpkin pie.

The dinner was great, and despite the outcome of the game, we had fun. Enjoy our pictures!

on the way home, we stopped in Ulm

2007-11-28T06:32:00.001-06:00

John and I had made the decision to stop for lunch somewhere along the way back. The problem is that we did not have much of a choice of places on the way back, because we mainly just drove alongside small towns. Most of Germany is like this. However, on the way down to Garmisch, we drove through a town called Ulm that had looked pretty cool. On our way back, we decided to stop in Ulm for lunch. (We later found out we were really close to the Danube, which runs through Ulm and that Ulm was the birthplace of Albert Einstein. Pretty cool.)

When we exited the autobahn, we noticed a really tall steeple not too far from where we were. We decided to head in that direction. (We were also unsure of where we could eat. Most places are closed on Sundays in Germany.) We parked near the church's steeple and started walking in that direction. This is what we found:

The carousel is part of the Christmas market they were setting up. Most towns have Christmas markets. I'll write another post about those soon, because Schwetzingen's is about to open - I'll have a lot more information and photos then!

I don't think cameras were supposed to be taken inside, so I turned off the flash and snapped this one really quick down at my waist. I wish I could have photographed throughout - it was gorgeous.

It turns out this church has the tallest steeple in the world!! I think it's so cool that we just happened upon it.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the church, Ulm Münster (also called Ulm Cathedral):

"Ulm Münster is a Lutheran church, the tallest church in the world with a steeple measuring 161.53 m (530 ft) and containing 768 steps. Located in Ulm, Germany, it is a famous example of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture. After climbing to the top level at 143m there is a panoramic view of Ulm in Baden-Württemberg and Neu-Ulm in Bavaria and, in clear weather, a vista of the Alps from Säntis to the Zupspitze. The final stairwell to the top (known as the 3rd Gallery) is a tall, spiraling staircase that has barely enough room for one person. The church is not a cathedral in the proper sense as it has never been the seat of a bishop. This is indicated by the single steeple (where cathedrals generally possess two towers). The responsible bishop of the Evangelical Church in Germany resides in Stuttgart. Like the famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) - another building of the Gothic era - Ulm Cathedral was not completed until the 19th century."

We didn't know the background or anything about the church until we got home and looked it up, because everything inside was in German. It was neat to look around, though. Oh, and it was very cold. There wasn't any heating - we could see our breath even indoors. The sanctuary was beautiful. There were statues of Biblical figures all around, beautiful stained glass and large crucifixes (one of which was pretty intense).

The neatest thing we saw, though, was a prayer wall. It was a large bulletin board where people had written prayers on pieces of paper and attached them up all over the place. We saw prayers in at least 5 or 6 languages including Turkish and Arabic.

After our wonderful detour, we located a McDonald's (one of the few places open on a Sunday) to eat lunch. John is really good at being able to order in German, but the lady that was taking our order was incredibly rude. He started off saying (in German) "I'm sorry. My German isn't very good," and he proceeded to order. The lady then tried to ask him something, but I swear she didn't say it above a whisper. We couldn't hear her, and John leaned over and cupped his hand to his ear. She then turned around and yelled for help with the English-speaking customers. Rude. We were trying to order in German, and I know she could have understood him. Ugh. That still annoys me a little, and it's been over a week since it happened.

Speaking of ordering in German, I finally ordered something in German the other night. Before I said it, though, I had John tell it to me several times. I said "Zweimal Glüwein bitte," which means two glasses of mulled wine, please. By the way, I did NOT like the Glüwein, but John did. Lucky him...it really seems like it would keep me warm, but it tasted so gross.

Coming soon: a very late Thanksgiving post

Garmisch Part Zwei

2007-11-26T04:54:00.000-06:00

All right. I'm back to finish my previous post about our trip to Garmisch. Before I begin, John and I figured out something that happens to be one of the most ridiculous things that has ever happened to either of us. We were looking at a map and trying to trace our route back from Garmisch to Schwetzingen. The routes we were finding weren't making sense. We didn't recognize any of the city names. The only route that made sense...went through Austria! We actually drove for about 40 minutes through Austria and didn't know it. I feel jipped! If I'm going to go to Austria, I at least want to know about it. There wasn't even a sign saying something like "Willkommen nach Österreich!" or an equivalent when we got back to Germany. When you cross a STATE line in the States, there are signs all over welcomming you to a new state. Apparently when you cross a country's BORDER here, you get nothing. My trip to Austria was a sham.

So back to that whole Garmisch thing...

John and I exploring a main street in Garmisch.

Being ourselves...aka silly happy Texans

We went to a little Italian restaurant for lunch, and I had one of the best pizzas I have ever had. Mmmm I wish I could have eaten more of it, but it was huge. So was my beer...I think this is the first draught beer I have had while in Germany. Mine is on the left.

Don't they look like tusks?

Another shot of Garmisch:

We love the mountains!

When we got back to Edelweiss (the lodge), we decided to check out the hot tub. The view was amazing! We enjoyed relaxing in the hot tub for awhile and taking in the amazing view.

When we got back to our room, clouds were rolling in about halfway down the mountain. Again, very pretty...

We decided it was time we made a snowman. Unfortunately the face recognition feature on my camera did not recognize Frosty here and chose to focus on the mountain instead.

We wanted to go out for a celebratory dinner that night (Saturday) in honor of our engagement. John asked a man working at Edelweiss about his recommendations for local restaurants. The man sent us to a restaurant that I believe is called Werdenfelserhof. When we got there, the restaurant was full. Apparently, it is customary to sit down wherever there is a seat available, even if it's with another random group of people. We ended up at a table with 6-7 people all over the age of 70. Across from us was a table of three drunken Germans. One of them took off his shoe and walked around to nearby tables to show them something about it. We were laughing, because it was ridiculous. This brought the drunk young man's attention to us, and he started spouting out German. We just smiled and laughed and nodded. He could have said "I'm going to punch you" for all we know. He looked jolly when he said it, though, so I don't think he wanted to hurt us. :o)

Soon after the shoe incident, this table of drunkards ordered a life-size glass boot filled with beer. They called John over to their table and started coaxing him to take a gulp. See...here they are trying to brainwash him:

It looks ominous, doesn't it? Anyway, John decided he would just take a sip and not a gulp. It turns out they were playing their own little game. Whoever they could get to take the first gulp of the beer would have to pay for it. John insisted that because he sipped it instead of gulping that he was not held to these rules. Language barriers and the mens' inebriation prohibited their understanding of this. We eventually wandered back to our table to drink our colas. Yes...cola. Not coke...ugh. It's so called a coke.

Here we are with the big boot and crazy drunk Germans.

Our food was pretty gross, by the way. The menu was seriously something like 25 pages long, and it took us a LONG time to go through. It was overwhelming! Out of all 25 pages, all I could find to order were potato pancakes (think hashbrowns). They came with a side of applesauce I was supposed to smear over the top. They were pretty good, but not a great dinner...ya know? John's dinner was not so good. He ordered a steak cooked medium. It came out close to rare. Because we don't speak much German and the steak had sauce poured all over it, we figured it would be a pain to send it back to the kitchen. He ate as much of it as he could. That whole restaurant experience was quite the German adventure. When we got back to the lodge, we went down to one of the lodge restaurants and ordered a drink and shared a Snickers pie. That was yummy for sure.

Sunday morning, we checked out. This was the last view we had of our room, Mr. Frosty and the mountian:

Leaving town...

Bye Garmisch!!

I have another good story from the drive home, but this post has taken me well over an hour. It's quitting time for now. Check back soon!!

Finally... Garmisch!!

2007-11-24T15:47:00.000-06:00

Finally I'm getting around to posting about our trip to Garmisch. I'm going to leave out the part about John proposing to me because you already heard about that.

The five hour drive to Garmisch brought us in when it had been dark already for about 3 hours, so we really had no idea what our surroundings looked like. All we knew is that it was cold. The thermometer in the the car read -7 degrees Celsius which is about 19 degrees Fahrenheit. Just so you know, the whole time we were there the temperature hovered between that and just below freezing. BRR.

Saturday, we were going to tour Neuschwanstein Castle, but we decided against it because the tour ran from 7:30am until 5:30pm. (That time included an hour and a half ride on a bus each way.) Instead of the tour, we decided to take it easy and enjoy Garmisch. When we woke up, we were blown away by the view from our room. We couldn't see ANYTHING the night before. This is what our view looked like:

Disclaimer: I edited these the day we got back, but I am posting from John's computer with the unedited copies. Sorry :o(

Also, here are the remnants of our snowball fight that took place right after John asked me to marry him. I totally nailed John in the face with a snowball. It was awesome. Also, snow down your shirt is cold. That isn't so awesome...not that I speak from experience or anything.

This is the front of the lodge. Beautiful!!

Lots of snow! Pretty! And cold and wet...ew

We went out to explore the city and ended up walking around for a couple hours. Here are some of the things we saw:

This last photo will be it for tonight. It's already half past 11 here, and I have been a little under the weather today so it's time for bed. So for your final photo of the night here is John on a "cooowwwww-ch." He decided that was the name for it, and we were laughing about it for quite a bit.

I promise that I will finish this post about Garmisch tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-23T17:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! No, I haven't forgotten about blogging, but this week has been crazy. Between getting back from Garmisch, starting wedding planning, preparing for Thanksgiving and John working a 24-hour shift on Thanksgiving, I have been a little busy. I promise to post a good catch up post tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I have to get back to the UT game now. They're airing it live here, but it's super late (quarter past midnight). I hope the Horns pull it out...YAAAAAAY as I wrote that, Cosby ran a kick off back for a touchdown!!! (91 yards!) Hook 'em! There was a bunch of screaming and yelling just now in Germany :o)

So will you?

2007-11-18T13:59:00.000-06:00

John asked me to marry him!!! As you already know, this weekend we took a trip to the south of Germany. We stayed in Garmisch, which is a small town in the mountains, at a lodge called Edelweiss. We made the 5-hour drive Friday, setting out around 3. When we arrived at 8, we got checked in and hurried down to dinner because we were rather hungry. We had a fancy dinner at the lodge restaurant with steak and red wine.

After dinner, I was pretty stuffed and just in the mood to relax. We went back to the room and, being tired and stuffed from dinner, I promptly took off my shoes and laid down on the bed. John sat on the nightstand next to the bed and started telling me a story about a time while he was in basic training, he had a dream that he had asked me to marry him. He pulled out a letter about the dream, which he had written in basic training and saved until now, and read it to me. Then he asked me to sit up and moved over to the bed and sat down next to me. He told me that he loved me very much, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I don't really remember what he said exactly, but I do remember that at the end he couldn't even finish what he was saying... the question came out "so will you?" I was very giggly, but I said "of course," and I hugged him. Then John said "don't you want to see the ring?" and opened the box that he had been holding in his hand. He put it on me, and I thought it was beautiful.

A few minutes later, I glanced down at my hand and exclaimed "OH THAT'S WEIRD!" and immediately sat on my left hand. Two days later, however, I will say that I am definitely getting used to it. I really like the way it sparkles too.

I have a lot more to say about this weekend, but I figured this was enough for one night. I will write about our weekend adventures in another entry tomorrow. Now for the pictures people always ask to see!

out for the weekend

2007-11-16T05:14:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know that John and I are heading down to a lodge/resort near Garmisch for the weekend (in the Alps). I'll be sure to post photos and maybe even some video when we get back.

I heard through the grapevine that the Alps had some early snowfall this year, so maybe you will get to see some good snow photos when I get back. Haben Sie ein großes Wochenende! (Have a great weekend!)

powder and a short German lesson

2007-11-15T06:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday around 2:30 in the afternoon, I glanced out the window and realized it was (barely) snowing! I was so excited and wanted to go outside immediately, but I had a problem. I was wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants...not weather-appropriate. I spend about 10 seconds running around in circles trying to figure out how to fix this in the quickest way possible. I quickly grabbed some jeans, pulled on a sweatshirt and got my boots zipped up. I looked back outside, and surprise, the snow had stopped. I was bummed, so I went outside anyway. I think a flake or two fell on me, but I couldn't tell for sure.

This morning, when I got up (circa 6:10 am), there was a light dusting on the tops of cars, the roofs, etc., but it all disappeared rather quickly. A little more has fallen today, but nothing is sticking. Once there is something to really see, I will take pictures and post them.

Yesterday was pretty boring, so sorry I don't have much else to say. It's (in my opinion) hard to get around from where we are without a car - especially when John isn't around. I might try it sometime, but not yet. I had been in his room all day while he was at work, and when he got home, I really wanted to get out. We went to the barber so he could get a haircut and decided to stay out for dinner. I had actually been curious about the McDonald's over here. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in YEARS, so I don't really know what it's like in the States anymore, but the McDonald's I had here was very different. The decor definitely didn't seem like I was in a McDonald's. I'll have to go again and bring my camera. Forgive me for not realizing that a trip to McDonald's would be a photo op. :o)

Now for your German lesson. I didn't realize I didn't explain this, but it's definitely something I didn't know until John explained to me. The German character that looks like this ß is called an esset and makes a sound like a double s in English. Therefore, straße (street) is pronounced something like "strawssuh." I hope this helps!

Oooooh it's snowing for real....gotta go outside. Be back...

Ugh, ok...it was cold and more like ice than snow. Nevertheless, I took some photos:

Maybe if you click on the photo above you can see the streaks how ice/snow and how it was falling. I took it against the background of the black car to hopefully give it some contrast.
Pulled back a bit, you can see the weather is really nothing to speak of (other than cold).

One more photo to add, though. When John was home at lunch, he decided to take some random photos, including one of him with the camera down on the ground shooting straight up at him. I was just trying to watch the Lakers/Rockets game, and he came after me with the camera. Result:
All right. This post is already pretty long, but I did take two short (under 10-second) video clips of the ice/snow, so I'll leave you with those. Tschüß!

photos from Deutschland and one very tired Sarah

2007-11-13T01:33:00.000-06:00

Attempt #3 at posting these photos here...let's hope it works. (Slideshow at the bottom of the post. Sorry I don't know how to have it not start automatically, so you might jump in at a random point. It does let you pause and scroll through at your own pace, though -- just an FYI.)

Yesterday the sun was out - a rarity - so we took advantage and decided to venture out to Mannheim. Unfortunately, John isn't here right now to help me remember what all we did so I might have to fill in some of the details later.

We ate lunch at a place on post called Wingers. It was a burger place...oooh hold on, I don't have my contacts in but it looks kinda like snow out...gotta go look. Ok, I probably need to put my contacts in, but that's just some very cold rain. It might be borderline sleet. Ew. John got put on detail over by where the PX (post exchange...kinda like a Wal-Mart) is and said he would probably be working outside. How miserable!

Ok, so I was talking about lunch, but who really wants to hear about what I ate? (bacon ranch burger...) We drove around for awhile and I wanted to stop by a pond/part of the river (maybe?), because it looked somewhat like Town Lake. We went for a walk and saw quite a few other people out for walks. Apparently Germans are big on taking walks. A number of the photos I included in my slideshow are from the walk.

Afterward, we went for a drive up something that isn't quite a mountain, but I also wouldn't describe it as a hill. It's bigger than the hills in the Hill Country. So we went on a drive up this mountain-hill-thing in Heidelberg (I think?). A majority of the other photos are from this adventure. I'm sorry my photos don't do it justice at all, but I couldn't do too much skill-wise from the inside of John's car. The rest of the photos are pretty much all from a driving tour (again, from John's car) of Heidelberg.

I know I'm probably leaving out some key points, but that's all I've got for now. One last thing before I leave you to the slideshow - it was SO weird getting up today before yesterday was officially over in Texas. I got up at 11:00 CST. It's now 8:46 AM here, and I'm ready for a nap!

i went to IKEA in Germany because the one in Round Rock was too far

2007-11-10T14:11:00.000-06:00

Waking up today at 8:30 was very hard seeing as how thats 1:30 in Texas. I got up and had breakfast at my first non-American place since I've been here, Utz Bakery. I had a snake noodle, which is the literal English translation of the German for cinnamon roll. When we left it hit me again that I was in Germany. It's very, very gray here, especially today. Also, you don't see very many if any trucks, and everyone drives BMW, Mercedes, etc.

We then went to IKEA and on the way had to take the Autobahn. No me gusta. Through everything today I have tried to remember the words that John taught me, one of which is "eingang" which is entrance, which I learned at IKEA. IKEA is huge and they have to have arrows on the floor to direct you. Otherwise I would have been lost and probably still there right now.

After leaving IKEA we went to the hauptstrasse (main-street) in Heidelberg. On the way it started to drizzle/kind of rain. Which is apparently more common here than most people would probably prefer. We parked under the main part of the city which reminded me a lot of the underground stuff in Dallas. We walked down the street, and with all its twists, it ended up being a lot longer than I first thought. The street takes you all the way to a good viewing distance of the castle. On the way there, the rain got a bit worse plus we were already a bit wet and the wind picked up. So on the way back, my ears and even my forehead started to ache from the cold. I am relearning how to dress myself properly.

We went for lunch at Cafe Xtra-Blatt. Lunch is the main meal of the day and restaurant service isn't the same. Servers aren't trying to turn their tables as fast as possible. Anyway, for lunch, I had some green tea and decided to sample the potatoes and some chicken tenders. Afterwards we went shopping at the Commissary on post for groceries for the week. This was about 4:30 and it was already getting pretty dark out. With my internal clock all messed up it felt like bedtime.

The rest of my day involved movie watching and eating dinner so no German adventures to report. I have pictures from today but will have to get to posting them in the next couple days, so stay tuned.

Tschüß!

ich bin hier in Deutschland

2007-11-09T11:18:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone, just a quick note to let everyone know I got here ok. I haven't slept since before I wrote my last post, which was about 26 hours ago. It's about 6:30 PM here now, and I'm getting ready to eat dinner and then go to bed. It's been hard trying to stay awake today, but I was determined not to let myself sleep. This resulted in me nearly falling over a couple times. I felt like the earth was undulating beneath me. Apparently my stance showed it...John said I was swaying sometimes.

Tomorrow I will probably explore stuff some more. Today was kind of consumed by just trying not to sleep.

Other stuff: I got in to Frankfurt on time and at the very end of my 8.5 hour flight, I made a new friend. Figures that I'd be on a flight that long and not talk to anyone until I was deplaning.

The guy at customs looked like he absolutely hated his job. Seriously did not smile once...or even attempt to talk to me. Whatevvvvver.

John and I took the train from the airport on into Schwetzingen. I'm amazed by two contrasting thoughts: 1) German looks like someone just messed up typing a bunch of letters and 2) I actually understand some of this mess. (but just a little)

No, I haven't eaten German food yet. I was too tired, so I ate at Taco Bell. Yeah, whatever. I have 2.5 months to eat nasty sauerkraut so get over it.

Ok...pizza time. Byeeeeeeeeeee.

it's finally here

2007-11-08T09:57:00.000-06:00

After nearly 4 months of waiting, it's finally here. I am all packed and about to head to Best Buy for one last thing.

Warning: Ashley, Kim and Brett - you all will probably roll your eyes at me for this.

I decided against bringing my digital SLR (aka nice digital camera with interchangeable lenses). I would have had to carry it on, and I really didn't want to have to deal with/worry about it. Also, I didn't really want to lug it around on all our excursions on the chance that I might see something I want to photograph. Normally, I would go for this 100%, but with everything else I have to bring for 2.5 months of being away from home, eeeeeeh. So...I have a really crummy 3-4 year old Nikon Coolpix for my point-and-shoot digital camera. It was decent when it first came out, but by today's standards, is not very desirable. I had planned to buy a new one at some point anyway, so some point is today. I'm headed out to get the Canon Digital Elph SD870 IS. I know I could get it cheaper from B&H or Newegg.com, but I don't want to wait 2 weeks for it to ship to me.

Alright, so that's that. The other thing I wanted to note is commenting in here. I will read all your comments and reply to them here and there. However, this is a quick fyi (I just learned this). Once you post a comment, you won't get e-mail alerts about subsequent comments (related to yours or not) on the blog entry unless you click the little box underneath the comment area that says "E-mail follow up contents to [your email address]." You can also unsubscribe from that at any time by going back to the post and clicking the unsubscribe button.

THAT was interesting, I'm sure, but I wanted to get that out early in the blog. I need to get to Best Buy now. My parents will be here in less than an hour to go with Andrew and me to Hula Hut for lunch (I will definitely get the banana boat rangoon for dessert - yum!).

In case anyone is interested, here are my flight numbers:
American Airlines 1372 from Austin to Chicago O'Hare
and
American Airlines 84 from Chicago O'Hare to Frankfurt

I'll write again from Deutschland! Until then, tschuss!

the preparation is in full force

2007-11-04T21:14:00.000-06:00

I keep telling people I'm going to let them know how to look up my blog, but I figured I should write something in it first. Finally, I have a couple minutes tonight to write. I do need to get to bed here in the next 15 minutes or so though. I am trying to start the time adjustment a little bit early. I also have been up since 4:30 this morning in an attempt (which turned out to be successful) to catch the 6:05 am flight from Lawton, OK, instead of the 4:40 pm flight I was scheduled on.

Tomorrow is my game/movie night so I can say "see ya" to as many people as possible before I head out. I'm meeting my friend Kelli for lunch on Tuesday, and Tuesday night is our roommate (old and new) dinner at Curra's (love the avocado margaritas). Wednesday lunch and dinner are reserved for Andrew, and Thursday is for my parents and then they will take me to the airport. I leave Austin around 3:30 pm if I remember correctly. I fly to Chicago O'Hare and then on to Frankfurt.

Yup, this is all I can muster for tonight. I'm exhausted. I'll do my best to keep this updated, though. I figured creating a blog that could be read voluntarily would be a much better decision than constantly inundating everyone with e-mail updates.