The View Has Indeed Changed!

Greetings All!

This past weekend we made the move to our new locale in Ursulapoppenricht (yes, it's a mouthful).  We have actually managed to get a lot done in the last few days, although a lot of work yet remains until the pictures are hung, shelves are stocked, and things are organized.  Slowly but surely, things are getting accomplished, however. 

The picture at the top of the page was taken from the office/workout room in the new house.  We don't really have a front porch anymore, so I figured the most interesting view would make the best banner for this page.  Yes, that is a train that passes the house, but luckily, it is not a commuter line.  I've noticed that the train comes by two to three times a day, and also luckily, not at horrific hours.  You may also notice that we have no neighbors on this side of the house - just fields of corn, rapeseed plants and some other unidentified green stuff.  It's quiet (except for the train passing a few times a day), peaceful, and a nice change from the 'city life' of Parsberg. 

We'll start to update this blog a little more often as we get further settled in.  Finally, things are starting to calm down for us.  It's a nice change!

The view from our front porch will be changing very soon

Unfortunately, that view won't be as scenic as the castle from our current yard, but we are both very excited about the move! Yes, it's finally happening. On October 1st, the movers come to haul our stuff 53.2 kilometers to the north. I've been alluding to the fact that a move might be imminent for the past couple of months, but I haven't been very forthcoming as to why. Basically, I am not renewing my government work contract and will be free from the constraints of a cubicle, 12 demanding bosses, irrational work demands, and performing tasks that I have found boring and unchallenging for the past 10 plus years. Instead, I will be doing my art, photography, writing, and web work fulltime from home. I have a few solid things in the bag right now, but also have 1,000 other ideas to implement and try out. I am really looking forward to these new challenges and opportunities!

As for Dawn, she has renewed her contract and will continue working at her current position where she is very well-liked and is doing a great job. The best part of all this is that she will no longer have to make the one hour slog each way to work every day. Instead, a 20 minute, very easy drive, will put her at the front door of her office. No more 4:30am alarms, no more getting home at 6:30pm after a long day, no more cramming in workouts and exercise in to her already busy schedule. We are both looking forward to her having much more free time after the move.

I will update our situation a bit more in the days to come - and when I'm more coherent. The last month of travel and work has left me a little thin on energy! The remaining weeks of September will not provide any respite either. We'll get through it, however, and very much look forward to kicking back in our new digs and enjoying our new lives starting in October. Yes, things are looking up!

In the rush of things, I almost forgot about.....Amsterdam

Once things settle down in a month or two or three, I'll sit down and actually write a bit about our trips we have taken this summer.  I 'think' I've got some interesting things to say about each place we've been.  If not, it will at least give me something to do when the inevitable shit weather of October/November hits Germany.  As for now, free time just doesn't exist.  We leave for the States on Sunday, spending a week in Chicago and then a week in Minnesota.  We're really looking forward to the trips.  Upon our return to Euroland, we immediately depart the next weekend for Chamonix, France.  The next weekend, Jef and I will be doing a CPR class.  The weekend after that is our anniversery weekend which Dawn and I will be spending in the Neuschwanstein area of Germany.  After that, it's down to Berchtesgaden for the weekend.  We may even try to fit in a trip to Oktoberfest somewhere in there.  So, yes, it's going to be a busy five or six weeks for us coming up!  I can't complain one bit, though.

So, on to Amsterdam.  I'll keep this very brief - I LOVE that city!  Is that brief enough for you?  Great, so how about some pictures...... :)

Our penthouse apartment in A-dam.  Yes, that is Jef sleeping.  Dawn and I had the loft above.  This apartment was awesome!  However, getting up to it was not easy!  Five flights of very twisty stairs in an old canal house.... not easy with luggage.

         

(L)  Canal houses in central A-dam  (R) Jef checking out the view from our kitchen window

         

(L) Dawn on the water taxi  (R)  Tour boat makes a turn on to the Amstel River Canal

A lot more pictures from this trip can be found HERE

and..... I almost forgot - a few 'people' pictures from the Italy trip

I don't just take scenery shots.  Okay, so a good portion of my shots usually are landscapes and scenery, but I also like to point my camera at people as well.  Two of my favorite subjects to shoot in Italy - Dawn and Jef.  A few fun pictures that I'd like to share.

1) Dawn Above Manarola, Italy  2)  Jef in Levanto, Italy  3)  Dawn and Jef cooking dinner in the Val di Fleres, Italy  4)  Walking along the harbor in Vernazza, Italy

More can be found HERE

A Few More Pictures from our Trip to Italy

The poor weather this past weekend gave me a chance to go through more of my backlogged photos taken on trips earlier this summer.  Slowly, but surely, I'm getting through them all.  Below are some various pictures taken while on our trip to Cinque Terre, Italy at the beginning of July.  Besides staying along the Italian Riveria, we also spent a couple of days in the Alps of Italy in the Brenner Pass region.  I really liked this area.  Although busy with tourists, it was tame compared to a lot of places in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.  I'd really like to go back to this area in the future to do a bit more exploring.  There are also a few pictures from Mutters, Austria, where we stayed the first night of the trip on the way down to Tuscany, and I've included a link to some pictures from Mittenwald, Germany, where we stopped on our drive back home.  Here are the links to each set: 

Colle Isarco, Italy (Brenner Alps)
Mutters, Austria
Mittenwald, Germany

More Pictures from Italy

I've finally finished with the pictures of the five towns in Cinque Terre plus the city of Levanto which is just north of the Cinque Terre Region.  I still have some other pictures to go through from the trip (mainly people pics) but should be done with those this weekend.  I also have a lot of pictures left to go through from the Brenner Pass region in the Italian Alps.  We stopped there for two nights on our way back to Germany after Cinque Terre.  It will be a while before I get to making any posters from the pictures I took on this trip.  I did get some really nice ones that will work very well for the art pieces, however! 

To see the full set of pictures for each town, click on the name of the town below.  I've also included a couple of my favorites from each town on this page.

Manarola

         

Corniglia

         

Vernazza

         

Monterosso

         

Levanto

         

Finally - Some Pictures from Italy!

It's taken me some time, but I'm finally going through the pictures from our trip to the Cinque Terre region of Italy.  Currently, I only have the pictures for Riomaggiore posted on my Flickr site.  I am about halfway through the pictures taken in Manarola, the next town up from Rio.  I've organized the pictures by town as it makes it a bit easier to manage the more than 1,400 pictures I took when they are broken down in to categories.  I'm hoping to get Manarola and Vernazza finished tonight and should have the remaining towns done by the end of the week.  After that, it's on to the Amsterdam pictures and then the pictures from last weeks camping trip to Garmisch.  I highly doubt I'll get through these all before we leave for the States in a week and a half, but I'll get what I can posted!  Besides these bigger trips, I also have hundreds of pictures to go through from local trips we've taken over the past month or so.  So many pictures, so little time!

Here are a few of my favorites from Riomaggiore, the town we stayed in while in Cinque Terre:

View from above Rio, looking towards the mountains of Tuscany:

The boat harbor in Rio

Sunset Pictures

The entire set for Riomaggiore can be found HERE