Finally... Garmisch!!

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!

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?

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

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

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

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

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!