Heading Overseas

Berlin, Germany

Sarah — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:54:16 +0000

Our Thanksgiving trip this year was to Berlin. They’re currently having a photography exhibit at galleries all over the city, and George had a few he wanted to get to. We decided to drive instead of flying (George drove the whole way up). In retrospect, not a wise choice. There was quite a bit of construction that was frustrating, in addition to the roughly six hours of driving. But we made it to our hotel (Hotel Berlin south of the Tiergarten) and parked the car. After checking in and putting our stuff in our room, we went to the hotel bar for a couple drinks to unwind from the long drive. The hotel is very cool, kinda retro, 60s style. Our room was large, even by American standards. After our drinks, we ventured out for some dinner. We had a Lonely Planet guidebook, and one of the places it recommended in the area of our hotel was a Thai place called Edd’s. It took us a little while to find it (and a detour into a Calumet photography store). It wasn’t open yet when we got there, so we ducked into a little pub next door for a couple beers until Edd’s opened. The pub we went into was German, but the bartender was Russian, as was the radio station playing. I love how eclectic Berlin is!

After our two beers, we got a table in Edd’s and ordered spring rolls and chicken with peanut sauce for appetizers. The chicken was something like satay and was really well done. The sauce was just spicy enough without burning my mouth. The spring rolls were tasty, but much smaller than we’re used to. Then dinner arrived. George had a chicken dish with a spicy sauce, and I had crispy duck breast. Mine was absolutely fantastic. The sauce was kind of like a hoisin: brown, not-quite-sweet, delicate. The duck was perfectly cooked and still crispy under the sauce. It had red peppers, snow peas, and alfalfa sprouts and totally rocked. Any time we ever get to Berlin, we’ll be going to Edd’s, and we’ll both be ordering that duck.

We started back toward the hotel after dinner, but it was still kind of early, so we ducked into Bar am Lützowplatz. It’s got a very narrow frontage, but stretches quite a way back, providing for a long bar down one side and stools down the other, with several tables in the back. We had a couple drinks and hung out there for a bit, then retired to our hotel room since it had been a long day.

Friday we got a couple of coffees and croissants at a little place across the street from our hotel, then took a taxi to the Pergamonmuseum, which was the one thing I really wanted to see in Berlin. This museum has a very large Babylonian, Persian, and Turkish collection, including the Ishtar Gate and the Market Gate of Miletus, the main exhibits I wanted to see. I’ve never been in a museum with intact structures on display like that. It was a truly awesome experience to stand before these gates and look way up to the top, then to walk through them. I tried to imagine them in situ, with the rest of their respective cities surrounding them. The museum has models of each as they think they would have looked. They would have been incredibly impressive in their time.

After the museum, I mapped the photo exhibits George wanted to see and we started for the nearest one. Before we got there, we found another exhibit that wasn’t on his list, but it was advertised as street photography, which is what George is interested in. We went to a restaurant across the street for some lunch, then went to the exhibit. It was interesting, with some really good celebrity portraits (Milla Jovovich, Julianne Moore, and Robin Penn were the best), but it wasn’t really what either of us consider “street” photography. All the pictures were staged.

After a bit of a walk, we found the next exhibit, which was by a photographer of rock musicians. This exhibit didn’t really seem to have much of a coherent theme, other than being mostly portraits of rockers, but there were images of equipment thrown in, so we couldn’t really find one theme for the entire collection.

We started off to the next gallery, but it was so cold we ducked into a pub called the Village Voice to warm up. There was a small photo collection on display here, too, and this collection was truly street photography. We were drinking our schwarzbier (black beer) and consulting our maps for our next move when the man at the next table asked if he could help us navigate. We wound up sitting there for more than three hours, talking to Rolf, a native of Berlin. It was one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had. He’s in his 40s, so grew up in a divided Berlin. We got such a unique perspective on life in Berlin at that time. The bar we were sitting in was in East Berlin. It was just amazing to think about all the history around us, and the monumental changes that neighborhood had undergone in the past 20 years. It was almost surreal for George, who joined the US military when there was still a wall, still a Communist East Berlin, to be sitting in a pub on the east side, drinking a beer.

By the time the three of us left the pub and we parted from our new friend, it was dark, and we were overdue for dinner. Rolf had recommended a neighborhood near our hotel, so we took a cab back down there and found an Indian restaurant that looked full, always a good sign for a restaurant, so we gave it a shot. George had lamb vindaloo, and I had tandoori chicken, and we split garlic naan. When we ordered, George asked if they had mango lassi, and the waiter’s face lit up to hear someone ask for a traditional Indian drink that wasn’t on the menu. Of course they made him a mango lassi. It was the first time I’d really enjoyed an Indian meal. My tandoori chicken wasn’t just the usual red-spiced chicken baked in a tandoori oven; it had a tomato-based sauce with crisp vegetables, too. After that great meal, we were ready for the hotel and sleep.

Saturday morning was just the drive home, which I took until a bit north of Frankfurt, then George brought us the rest of the way. We will most certainly be returning to Berlin…but in much warmer weather, and we’ll fly.

My painting

Sarah — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:51:11 +0000

George took a picture of my birthday present after we hung it up today so we could share it. It is by Chérifa Bounab-Wexler and is multi-media, with ink, paint, paper, etc. all combined beautifully into this gorgeous image. We bought it at Carré d’Artistes in Strasbourg, France.

Painting

I’m an awful blogger

Sarah — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 12:58:04 +0000

Cannstatter Volksfest, Mark II
Okay, so since the last post, about TWO MONTHS ago, we’ve done some travelling. We enjoyed our first trip to the Cannstatter Volksfest with the Tannenbaum Ski Club so much that we went back down the following weekend with another Tannenbaumer, Ken. The three of us didn’t have tent tickets, so we just wandered around the fest grounds, enjoying the sights, atmosphere, food, bier, and spent some time in a small biergarten tent. It was a completely different experience from the week before, and was just as much fun.

Wetzlar, Germany
A couple weeks after that, George and I drove to Wetzlar, the small town northeast of Frankfurt where the Leica camera was born. It’s a pretty town in a river valley, and we had a beautiful day for wandering around it. Other than the Leica history, though, there’s not a whole lot happening in the town, so it’s not really a tourist draw.

Strasbourg, France
We went to Strasbourg, the capital of the Alsace region. Unlike Metz, there was no military objective in Strasbourg, so it was spared during WWII, leaving the altstadt (old town) area largely intact. It was the first city we’ve been in where the entire alstadt is half-timbered buildings and narrow cobbled streets. It’s a truly beautiful city and has surpassed Metz as our favorite in France. Unfortunately, it was freakishly overcast and dark that day – not terribly conducive to photography.

A relative finally visits!
Last week, my cousin Rachel was here. She was in Villseck, Germany, visiting a friend, then took the train here to Kaiserslautern. We picked her up at the train station Monday night. Tuesday, she and I hung around downtown K-Town, meeting George and some coworkers for lunch. Wednesday, Rachel and I went to our neighborhood metzgerei (butcher shop) to pick up a schweineroll for dinner that night, then we went to Metz for several hours. We stopped at the Cora supermarket on the way back and got some wine, baguettes, and dessert, then picked George up from work. We had a really great evening drinking wine and eating Boursin (herbed cheese spread) and crackers while dinner cooked and music played. George took Thursday and Friday off, and the three of us went to Strasbourg Thursday. It was chilly, but just as beautiful as the first time we were there. As we wandered around, we found ourselves on a street we’d been on the first time we visited the city, where there’s an art gallery (Carré d’Artistes). In our first visit, I’d found an artist there I really liked, but I couldn’t decide on a painting, and wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that much money on one. This time, it seemed like it was fate that drew us to the same gallery. George found an abstract painting he really liked (and it looks fabulous in our living room, where we’ll surround it with prints of his black and white photography), and I found a painting I love by the same artist to whose work I’d been drawn the first time, Chérifa Bounab-Wexler, so we bought both, with frames. We got a later start leaving the city than we wanted and had to hurry back to K-Town to meet a couple friends for dinner at Hotel Idyll for my birthday. The schnitzel there is the best George and I have had anywhere in Germany. Friday, we all slept in a bit, then Rachel and I took a last little walk around Erfenbach before I drove her to the train station.

Volunteer of the Quarter

Sarah — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:32:14 +0000

Last Thursday, George and I attended an appreciation luncheon for the US Army Garrison Kaiserslautern Fiscal Year 2010 Volunteers of the Quarter. I had initially thought it was just a USO thing, but it turns out it’s across all volunteer organizations within the Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC). I was awarded for my work with the USO’s United Through Reading program. I was very honored, and very touched that George spent his lunch hour supporting me. He’s the best, isn’t he?

USO Group

Sarah with her certificate

Cannstatter Volksfest – Mark I

Sarah — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:31:03 +0000

Like last year, we went to the Volksfest in Stuttgart with the Tannenbaum Ski Club (25-26 Sept). This year I was also the Assistant Trip Captain, which means I helped sign people up for the trip, collect their money, organize the room list, and communicate changes to the tour company. I also helped pick up some of the food for the bus ride and organize things on the bus.

Our hotel this year (Hotel Spahr) was very close to the fest grounds, walking distance or two train stops at one euro per person each way. We got checked into our hotel and a group of us headed off to find a Thai restaurant for lunch. George and I and two women waited for another couple who wanted to go too, so we were behind the main part of the group. When we got to the Thai place, we discovered it was closed. I called the other group and they were looking for another Thai place. Our group decided to go back to a Greek place we’d passed on the walk there and it was a good decision. When the six of us sat down, the proprietor brought us a round of Ouzo shots, on the house! The food was pretty good too, and we sat there for quite a while, chatting. Then we went back to the hotel to change clothes and head to the fest grounds.

Like last year, we had a great time down there, although it rained most of the day Saturday (we went down Saturday morning, not Friday evening, like last year). Unlike last year, we were in the Schwaben Welt tent, not Zum Wasenwirt. George and I had gone to the Schwaben Welt tent Friday night last year with a few other people, and liked the layout of the tent better, and the chicken was definitely much better there. So we were super excited that we had tickets for that tent this year. And it didn’t disappoint us! We had great tables near the stage, and the chicken was just as good as we remembered it. And this year, we were both in traditional Bayrischer (Bavarian) dress: George in lederhosen, and me in a dirndl.

Sunday morning we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, then loaded up the bus, Laura and I ensuring that everything was set with the hotel, and had an uneventful drive back to K-Town. Great weekend!

Great afternoon near home

Sarah — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 16:33:47 +0000

We didn’t travel this weekend, just stayed around town. Today we went downtown to try to get some more good pics of the Kaiserbrünnen, the fountain in the altstadt, but it wasn’t running today. So we went into Cafe 15 instead and had a snack; I had hot chocolate (the best we’ve had in Europe) and a cinnamon & sugar crepe, and George had a coffee and a couple slices of marble cake. It was all yummy. Then we walked over to Extra Blatt and sat in the old, worn leather sofa and each had a beer. When we left Extra Blatt, we heard string music. There was a string trio playing on the corner of the square, kids from the nearby music school probably, with a bass, cello, and violin. They were really good, too. We stood there for a while listening to them, then I dropped three euro in the open violin case. We sat down at Brauhaus Am Markt nearby for another beer each, where we could still hear the trio. They even played a version of Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean”, quite well, too. George ordered currywurst (he can’t help it when we go there, even though it’s huge and we were already kinda full). I helped him with the salad and fries and had another beer. It was a completely beautiful afternoon, weather-wise, company-wise, and scenery-wise. Come visit us and see!

Dublin, Ireland

Sarah — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:08:46 +0000

Saturday
Since we had a three-day weekend for Labor Day, we spent the weekend with a few friends in Dublin. I got up at 4:45 so I could shower and be done in the bathroom before getting George up so we could both be ready by 6:45, when Jenn and John showed up to carpool to the airport. We picked up Liz in Landstuhl, then drove to the Frankfurt-Hahn airport for a Ryanair flight to Dublin. This was George and my second flight on Ryanair, so we had some idea what to expect this time. We didn’t expect that, once we’d all boarded the plane, they’d tell us that the brakes weren’t working and we’d have to switch planes. Better to switch than stay on that one, though! The plane we were on had three seats on each side, so George and I shared our row with a native Belfast resident. We spent the entire flight getting an in-depth demo of his MacBook Pro…which I think we may end up buying now. We also got his card so we can try to keep in touch with him.

We took a bus from the Dublin airport to our hotel (Blooms), which was pretty much right in the middle of the Temple Bar District. We got checked in (although our room wasn’t ready, so we left our suitcase in Jenn and John’s room) and walked a few blocks away to O’Neill’s on Suffolk Street, where we met Lorcan, a friend of Jenn and John from Ramstein Ski Patrol. Lorcan lives about an hour outside of Dublin now, so he agreed to be our tour guide, in exchange for pints of Guinness. We had a late lunch at O’Neill’s (which was quite good) then walked to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour. The tour was interesting, but the highlight was getting to pull our own “perfect” pints…and then, of course, drink them! I’d never really liked the Guinness I’d tried in the States, but I tried George’s pint at O’Neill’s and it was so much better than anything I’d had in the States that I’m now a convert. And we have certificates to prove that we know how to pull the Perfect Pint.

After the Guinness tour, we went to a pub where Lorcan thought there’d be live music, but they’ve moved their music back a bit. So we had a pint there and headed back to the Temple Bar District. George and I finally got our hotel room while the rest went to a pub called Mulligan’s. After we got our stuff in our room, we went over to the pub for a pint. It was around 10:00 when we finished (local time – one hour behind K-Town time) and we were tired from getting up early and travelling, so we called it a night.

Sunday
We got up quite a bit later than the previous morning and went to the hotel restaurant for their full Irish breakfast buffet: fried and scrambled eggs, bangers (sausages), Irish bacon, fried tomatoes, hashbrowns, and tea. It was good, although not quite as good as the English breakfasts we had at our B&B in York. After breakfast, we walked to Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is located. This is an Irish hand-copied set of the four books of the Old Testament. Of course, you can only see the open pages of the books, and they only have two of the four volumes on display. But the rooms leading up to the books themselves were full of blown-up images of some of the pages and information on the era, methods of creation, and other info about the set. It was a bit disappointing not to be able to see more of them, but I’d rather they were conserved. The second story of the building housing the Book of Kells display is called the Long Room; it’s a very high, very long library. The floor, walls, columns, ceiling, and shelves are all wood. It’s impressive to stand in that space, which is filled with books. George and I found a guide and asked how many books are in the collection. He said there’s 200,000 dating from the late 14th century to the early 19th century, and they’re all in active circulation. Monday through Friday, any member of the public can go to the reading room at one end of the Long Room and request one of the books. A member of the staff then goes into the stacks and retrieves the requested volume for viewing within the reading room. George and I will definitely be visiting the reading room the next time we visit Dublin.

After leaving Trinity College, some of us were hungry so we walked down through Temple Bar and settled at the Temple Bar, oddly enough. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, just an ordinary pub. But inside, it’s more like parts of three or four buildings connected by small outdoor patios with seating everywhere. It was a convoluted, interesting space. We had a couple pints each (Guinness, of course) and sandwiches, which were quite good.

Lorcan met us at the pub and then we all walked to the old Jameson distillery. They don’t make Jameson’s in Dublin anymore, which disappointed George, but they gave a good tour. It was guided and a bit more informative than the Guinness tour. At the end, we each got a glass of Jameson whiskey, either straight up, on the rocks, with ginger ale, or with cranberry juice. I’m not a whiskey or scotch drinker, but I rather liked it in the cranberry juice. George, John, and Jenn all volunteered to be tasters, so they and several others each got a sample of Jameson’s, Johnny Walker Black Label, and Jack Daniel’s. The unanimous decision was that Jameson’s was the best. I tried some of each of George’s when they were done, and I have to agree that the Jameson’s was the smoothest. The tasters all got certificates.

Lorcan then took us to a pub called the Cobblestone, another neighborhood pub out of the tourist area. There were musicians in there, just taking turns playing or singing a cappella whenever the mood struck them. From a couple shows I’d seen about Ireland, that struck me as very Irish. It was very cool. The next time George and I visit Dublin, we want to find one of those pubs and just sit for a couple hours and listen. Lorcan had to leave then, so the rest of us started back for the Temple Bar District. We were walking along the sidewalk, and suddenly a delicious smell caught all of us at nearly the same time. We all stopped dead and followed our noses back to a little Indian take-out place and ordered the special. It came with a crunchy nan-type bread that we ate as we walked back to our hotel, where we ate the rest of the meal. We couldn’t find Liz after we ate, so the other four of us decided to go back to O’Neill’s because it was close, and the walk (or stumble) back to the hotel was downhill.

George ordered a round of Guinness for the four of us and I carried the first two back to the table. George brought the other two and I started to slide around the table to sit down. My thigh bumped the corner of the table, and one of the pints went over, spilling across the table…and drenching Jenn and getting quite a bit on John, too. I felt like such a clumsy heel. Everybody told me it was okay, but if you’ve ever spilled a completely full pint of Guinness (sacrilege!) on someone, you’ll know how I felt. At least we were just a few blocks from the hotel, so Jenn went back to change. I didn’t want to drink the third pint, because I’d spilled mine, but George and John both told me to go ahead. I still felt like a heel.

After Jenn got back, I got her another pint and was very careful to get it on the table and get seated without causing any more damage. We’d all been sitting there for just a little bit when one of the guys from a large group next to us told us that we might as well pull our table over and join them. So we did. Gotta love the Irish! It was a large multi-national group, with a couple guys from New Zealand, a couple people from France, a guy from Spain, and a few Irish. The guy who initially invited us to join them spent most of the rest of the night talking to us and he was a riot! Jenn and I were laughing so hard a couple times, I could barely breathe. I was wearing this T-shirt from Think Geek with a geek love poem on it, and we tried to explain to this guy (who is a scuba instructor and knows nothing about computer programming) what it meant. We finally settled for telling him computers run on magic. The evening was a great way to cap off a great weekend, and we can’t wait to go back!

Horses and Cars Part I

Sarah — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:24:37 +0000

Saturday we went down to Zweibrücken for the Autumn Festival and Horse Days. Zweibrücken has its own breed, named after the city itself. I’d had no idea of that fact until we saw the festival listed in the schedule in the USO magazine. There wasn’t much going on when we were down there, but we got to see a show of mares and colts. They were very cute, especially when they took the colts off halter in the show ring and they’d kick and buck around while following mamma. We had both cameras, so I got to take some shots, too. George also got his hair cut while we were there, at Take Hair Off You. She did such a good job, that’s where we’ll be going the next time he needs a trim. We got a couple beers and some flammkuchen while we were there, then headed back to K-Town, where there was an antique car show going on.

Yesterday was also a great day. We had brunch, then took the iPod radio out on the back patio with some beers for a while and enjoyed the breeze, some Colin Hay, and each other’s company. I made spinach and bacon quiche for dinner, with a bit of wine, then we watched some movies and had some chocolate cake. All in all, it was a good, quiet weekend.

Horses and Cars Part II

Sarah — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:24:15 +0000

Saarburg and other stuff

Sarah — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:34:00 +0000

We went to the town of Saarburg, Germany, about a week ago, on the recommendation of someone from the USO. It’s on the Saar river, and in fact, a branch of the river runs right through the middle of town, creating a rather impressive waterfall. There’s lots of cafes and restaurants around the waterfall, and a bridge over it. The part of the river above the fall looks like a Dutch canal. It was only about an hour and a half drive up there, through national parkland. I’m surprised more people around here don’t know about it. It was a very pretty spot to spend an afternoon.

Last Saturday was the Tannenbaum Ski Club’s annual membership picnic. Since I’m the treasurer this season, George and I were there early to help set up, and stayed afterwards to help clean up. It made for a long day, but we both enjoyed it. The weather cooperated beautifully, not hot at all, and the rain held off. We had a really good turnout as a result, and signed up over 100 members! Next Wednesday, 25 Aug, is the TSC Pizza Party. Hopefully it will go just as well. George had his new Leica X1 digital camera there (as well as the Canon), but it was actually a bit dark under all the trees, so he didn’t get any good shots.

Monday I picked George up for lunch and we went to the restaurant at the Hotel Idyll, where he’d eaten twice before. They have, by far, the very best schnitzel we’ve had in this country. He had rahmschnitzel and I had jaegerschintzel. They were both excellent, and huge portions (two schnitzels for each of us). We split a large bowl of spaetzle, too, but we couldn’t eat all of it because we were so full. We didn’t have much for dinner that night, just some left-over pasta salad from the TSC picnic, because we were still full!