The Twins First Taste of Travel - Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Week 26

The weeks have been flying for us. Recently we drove to the Czech Republic to attempt camping, but found the season is over. We did get to stay in a lovely hotel at the base of some pinnacle like stone structures, which had us keep guessing how they were formed. This was perfect for our morning walk in the dark, which Osu loved. After a nice breakfast we headed back through some beautiful fall colored valleys towards home.

As for me and the girls, we have been doing well. I still have quite a bit of energy and we have been doing a lot around the house. We have been sorting out baby clothes and putting together other little parts for the nursery. We have almost completed the décor and finally do have the girls’ names up over their beds. Osu doesn’t help much, but he does like to lay on the rug in the girls’ room.

Our outside garden was dug up this weekend to prepare it for winter and next year. Our indoor garden is growing well and we have a lot of veggies to look forward to over the winter. Nate has been doing a lot of work on the garden and it looks great.

I do not feel as large as I look in my side views, which is great, as I have a lot of growing left for these last 3 months.

Drive Thru Italy - Pictures from our 10 Day Journey

I love Italy. The country has so many different experiences to offer and so many different faces it can show its guests. In Italy’s Südtirol, you’re as likely to hear German spoken as you are Italian. Likewise, you’re just as apt to find a plate of spaghetti bolognese as you are a plate containing jägerschnitzel and frites. That’s the Italian Alps for you. A mix of cultures and people that hold steadfast to their roots and traditions, even if it is seemingly a mixture from different countries. The state boundaries in the Alps have changed frequently throughout history, but the people living in the Alps didn’t necessarily change with them.

As you move down Italy’s Autostrada 22 and further south, things definitely do become more distinctly Italian. Stop in a few towns along the way, however, and you’ll notice some differences between the people. Verona, although a good-sized city, has a small town feel where the people are friendly and seem more laid back. In contrast, Florence has a much more cosmopolitan feel, where fashion, no matter how God-awful it looks, is worn with gusto and conversations between friends sound like two enemies ready to go to blows. I think a simpler way to put this is that the young people of Florence are just really, really in to themselves – and it’s damn entertaining to watch!

Since I’m running short on time, I’ll just get straight to the pictures.  Click on the underlined portion to go directly to the Flickr gallery for the pictures.

Rosskopf, Italy - an afternoon of skiing.  This is right over the Austro/Italian border.  Dawn, Jef, and I hiked this area last summer also.

               

Kronplatz, Italy - skiing with the ski club in the Italian Alps
 

       

Alta Badia / Sella Ronda, Italy - The Italian Dolomites.  This area was amazingly gorgeous!

     

Verona, Italy - We only spent one night here.  I wish we could have stayed one day longer.  A great city.

     

Florence, Italy - Dawn, Osu, and I feel that Florence is a bit overrated.  It definitely is more of a museum city rather than a walking around city.  Scooters, cars, trucks, bikes - you name it - they are everywhere!  Traffic 'laws' seem only to be suggested instead of hard and fast rules.  Still, a beautiful city!  We planned on spending four nights here, but cut our stay short two nights so we could spend more time in Siena.  That was a good choice on our part!

      

Pisa, Italy - Yep, had to go see the Leaning Tower.....and, it was better than expected!

      

Siena, Italy - I'm glad we made the choice to spend more time here.  The city is nice, but you can see it all in one day.  What is special about the place is the surrounding hill towns only an hour or so away.

      

Towns Surrounding Siena

       

Now, it's time to start working on the high-quality photos and posters from this trip.  I have a lot of material to go through, but am really looking forward to it!  Until then!

Italy, a Drive-Thru

Nate's been itching for some skiing, so we decided to join the ski club and head to the Dolomites in Italy. It was a three day weekend, but we decided to extend it for the rest of that week, since I had a TON of overtime.

We headed out early Friday to ski at Rosskopf, Italy and then drive down to the town we'd stay with the club. We skied Kronplatz and around Alta Badia. Nate even took me into some powder, which was a lot of fun! i'm looking forward to more of that, although this year we may be out of snow.

After three and a half days of skiing, we were off to Verona. Romeo and Juliet, the Arena and Dante. We wandered around for some good photos in the morning and evenings, gotta get the good light. We made sure to see Juliet's balcony, passed Romeo's house, and Nate went into the Arena. Turns out not everyone likes dogs. Other than the short time there, it was a nice city. Pretty sites and much quieter than some of the other ciites we stopped.

We left Verona for Florence. Very excited to be in another large Italian city, we were thinking like Rome, or at least I was. Quite different. Not as many cool sites outside, but not bad. We saw David, Florence from high above in the catherdral's campanile, tower, and the bridge was really cool. Florence was going to be our home station for four nights, however, the overpopulation of scooters going thorugh EVERY square made it not so homey. I don't think we made it much more than 36 hours. Two night and we had already made plans for the rest of our stay in Siena.

On our way to Siena we had to drive through Pisa. It's not on the way, but it would be out of the way on any other trip, so we had to do it. Osu even felt compelled to hold up the tower as well, which all the asians thought was funny and they took pictures of us. Funny thing, as we sat down to eat a quick lunch before heading to Siena, a man from Ghana (?) came to sellus crap. He wanted to make friends first and made some connection to Germany. Then he gave us two little statue trinket things, and asked for a donation. We paid him off just to get him away form our table; I'm sure the way of many other tourists. The funny part is that Osu barked at him the entire time, as he does not like darker people, or old people.

The road to Siena from there was either the Autostrada or a drive through the hills. We chose the hills, as driving in Italy isn't always the most fun thing to do. Getting cut off is only half the battle, most is trying to not be sideswiped as you're driving defensively. Nate did an awesome job!

We passed through several small hilltop towns in Tuscany. It was sunny each day, so the landscape was wonderful to enjoy. A few stops had to be made for pictures, and we found a few towns to return to if there was time. One being Volterra.

We spent some time wandering Siena the first night, getting most of the town down. Areas were scouted for our morning sunrise, followed by next best shots and scounting eveing shots. As we finished up pictures and touring Siena, we planned for returning to Volterra and a few other towns along the way. We got up early the next morning to watch the sun rise over Monteriggioni, then Colle di Val d'Elsa, Volterra, and San Gimignano. All very cool cities, neat views and some had awesome towers and alleys to wander through.

By the end of our ten days, we were pretty spent. We went o bed around 7:30pm on Saturday night and got up at 3:15 Sunday morning for our long drive home. We beat most of the scary Italians, although we were pretty sure some of those other guys out on the road had been up all night. We got home by 1pm and were happy to get back in our groove.

Very fun trip, next time we'll probably fly into Naples and rent a car to drive around the rest of the boot. driving that far south would take quite some time, plus those crazy Italians all over the place.

Having a wee bit of fun the day after Christmas

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas!  Dawn, Osu, and I had a great time in Dresden.  We now have a new favorite Christmas Market!  The Dresden markets were even better than we had heard and we really enjoyed exploring the different ones around the city.  We were a little surprised when we arrived in Dresden on the 23rd that there wasn't more snow in the city.  What little snow there was was dirty and rotten and not too appealing.  However, on Christmas Eve night, a new storm rolled in, ensuring that we would wake up Christmas morning to a new blanket of white.  We had a great walk around the old part of the city on Christmas morning, but didn't stick around for too long.  I knew that the drive home was going to take longer than usual due to the still falling snow.  My fears were realized when the drive that would usually take only 2.5 hours turned in to a 5+ hour ordeal.  It really wasn't too bad, just slow due to the condition of the Autobahn. 
Pictures from Dresden

On the 26th, we all decided to go have a little fun in the snow.  Here is a short video showing what we did.  (the video might take a bit of time to load - be patient!)



The original video can be found HERE

A bit of a different Christmas

First of all, we'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  We wish we could be with everyone at this time of year.  That is one of the hard things about living overseas - being away from family and friends during the holidays.  Heck, we have a big enough place now - how about you all come over and stay with us next year :) 

This Christmas, we are taking it pretty easy.  This morning we are leaving for Dresden and are staying for two nights in this fantastic city.  We only decided on this plan late last week, having heard from numerous people that the Dresden Christmas market is THE market to go to in Germany.  We actually hear this about a lot of the different markets around the country (and in France and Italy and Austria), but too many people have told us too many times now that Dresden truly is one of the special ones.  We've been to the Nurnberg Christkindlmarkt - more than a couple of times.  We did Rothenburg ob der Tauber last weekend.  We've been to Hexannager and the Regensburg markets, Salzburg, and numerous other small markets around our area.  They are all great!  But, Dresden is one we really want to check out.  When we asked each other "if you could only go to one more market, which one would it be", we both answered "Dresden".  

So, Dresden it is.  We're really looking forward to it!  We'll be returning home on Christmas day with plans to take it easy, eat a lot of food, and watch a lot of movies.  It sounds delightful to me!

Merry Christmas!

(All of the Christmas Posters I've created this year can be found HERE)

Pictures - 2010 Favorites

It's finally done.  I've gone through the thousands and thousands of pictures (something like 22,000....) that I took over the last 12 months and plucked out my favorite ones.  I know that I am still way behind on posting up pictures from the many trips we took over the year, and it will still be some time before I get to those.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this set of pictures.  It was fun going back through them all.  Wow, we did a lot over this past year and definitely kept busy!

To see the full set, click HERE.  A few samples below.

Jef, Dawn, and Osu above the Mer De Glace in Chamonix, France

Dawn and Osu in Dresden

Dawn in St. Anton, Austria

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