Hi! I apologize for the long break- turns out I'm in a little over my head at work:) I am now teaching english, literature, and SCIENCE to the 4th grade as well as running the school paper. They had "National Apple Day" at the school the other day and as I stood there listening to an insane song about apples being sung by a bunch of german children I had a "how did I end up here" kind of moment. Never fear we still find plenty of time of travelling:) Most recently I went on family vacation with my family and we had a fantastic time!! My parents and Tim flew into Frankfurt and we got to show them our apartment and our town.

 

From Frankfurt we headed to Dresden- my dad is a HUGE World War II buff and we went to see the sites of the fire bombings. We went to the military history museum which has an enormous amount of WWII memorabilia and has an entire floor dedicated to that time period.

From there we took a tour of the VW factory which is made completely out of glass!

 

We stayed in an amazing hotel from the 1500s and even found a food store that sells American food!  So I stocked up on pop-tarts, mac and cheese and lucky charms so we're all set:)  More tomorrow (I promise) but I have to go frantically write lesson plans so I can continue to fool my boss into thinking I know what I'm doing.  LOVE

Well I finished my first week of work!  Now I know I have absolutely no experience teaching 4th grade, don't speak a word of german, and am a relative pushover when it comes to kids but I thought this job was going to be easy.  WRONG:)  It's going to be a really fun crazy challenge and I am determined to fake it til' I make it.  The teachers are awesome and come from everywhere for every different reason (husbands, boyfriends, study abroads that never left etc.) so I will have friends!!  woohoo!   The actual work part is going to be an ongoing struggle involving alot of internal screaming.

As for German, it's the most agressive, angry sounding language I have ever heard.  Little kids will ask me questions and it sounds like they're yelling.  And everyone, and I mean everyone speaks english.  It's pretty amazing but a little defeating when you practice- try out your german and they answer you in near perfect english.  A quote I like that I heard today is:  Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But shout it at them in German, because life is also terrifying and confusing.  That pretty much sums it up.

I've convinced Chris he wants to drive me to work every morning but am left to my own devices to navigate the train and subway home.  This has resulted in various hilarious (for Chris)/humiliating (for me) experiences.  The most recent is that for the past week ALL the escalators in the train stations have been broken.  I ride at relatively unpopular times and thought that maybe they just shut them down during the less busy times (Germans are eco-conscious nuts but more on that later).  So today I see a girl going to walk up the broken elevator instead of the staircase I was headed towards and she started moving.  The thing is on a sensor.  &%#*!  That little anecdote pretty much sums up life here right now- a feeling like you are constantly just not getting it.  But such is the expat experience and we are slowly but surely getting it. 

When you move out of an apartment in Germany you take your light fixtures, closets, kitchen appliances, and even kitchen appliances with you (don't ask me why).  We (meaning Chris) have figured out the electrical system to the extent that we now have overhead lighting in MOST rooms.  It's not pretty but oh so functional.   What little cooking I am capable of revolves around a microwave and we finally journeyed out to get the essentials in the way of appliances.  look famaliar? 

Well I hope everyone has a great weekend, my parents and brother are coming tomorrow and we are off on a European Roadtrip Adventure!!  I know what you're thinking- "you've been working for 8 days, surely you're due for a vacation"?  When you're right, you're right:)  LOVE

Oslo, Norway!

We have returned!  I hope the picture of Chris with his vacation beard isn't too distracting and you can continue reading:)  After a VERY early flight this morning we landed in Frankfurt and I have been doing laundry ever since:)  Norway was awesome but crazy expensive.  I literally don't know how anyone actually lives there- it's dark 9 months out of the year with freezing cold weather and tons of snow and lunch at McDonald's costs $30.  NUTS.  But for us it was in the 70's everyday and was beautiful.  We took an overnight ferry out of Copenhagen (they called it a ferry but it was really like a mini cruise) and got into Oslo the following morning. 

We explored Norway for the day- they have an Opera House that was designed to look like a glacier sliding into the ocean:

and an ice bar!

It was a -5 degree bar where anything was made out of ice!  The glasses, chairs, walls everything is made out of ice that they import in from Sweden.  They even have to make special drinks that can retain their flavor and not freeze.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the city and trying not to go broke:)

It's a beautiful city but I'm not sure I could live there year round- although I could totally be convinced to go back and check out the northern lights.  After our day in Oslo we headed off to the fjords!  Our adoring public (a.k.a. my dad) have been requesting more posts so I will try to make my posts more frequent than a weekly thing- we almost have a double digit following:)

Hope you guys are having a geat weekend!

Helsinki...not HelSTINKY

Hi Again!
Since we can't load pictures and the words aren't as good without the photos we thought we would skip ahead and tell you guys about our favorite port of our trip so far- Helsinki, Finland.   Our very special guest blogger today is none other than da da da dah...Mr. Chris Nealon!   We should start out by saying that our expectations going into Helsinki weren't that high given its reputation for being freezing cold (it is sunny aproximately 9 days out of the year) and being primarily known for it's vast timber forests and wildlife.  Considering I am scared of the dark and animals this wasn't what I thought was going to be the higlight of the trip.  But it was!!  We emerged from the ship bright and early (Chris would like me to emphasize EARLY) to a bright blue sky and warm breezes.  We were able to walk along the sea to the Market Square (they call it kauppatori)- (Finnish people drink the most coffee of anyone in the world- approximately 8-9 cups per day!), so we had to catch up (with alas not a starbucks in sight).  We had a latte and a cinnamon bun, quick stop at the tourist info booth where they fell all over themselves to help us and we were off.  We visited Senate Square,  Helsinki Cathedral, and the Uspeski Cathedral.  The best part by far was that we got to take a ferry across to the "fortress island of Finland" called Suomenlinna.  It was beautiful with plenty of scenic views of the harbor, cool canons scattered throughout, and awesome walking paths across the entire island.  And walk we did.  Chris loves interesting facts (much like Aunt Barbara) and our interesting fact for the day is that Finland is not in fact part of Scandanavia because unlike Denmark, Sweden, and Norway it is in no way connected to the Scandanavian peninsula.  Try telling a Finn that they live in Scandanavia and watch out for a punch in the nose:)  We will upload pics as soon as we can and are very jealous that we will be missing Erin, Noah, and I heard potentially Zach's week long trip to Long Island!  We will miss you guys and I will see you in Palm Beach!  We are off to Stockholm tomorrow and then on to Copenhagen and the fjords of Norway- stay tuned and LOVE times a million!

I was finally able to upload some pictures from Cinque Terra.  The first one was taken at the absolute peak of our hike en route from Monterosso to Vernazza.

This last one is just a little glimpse of the stairs and hiking involved in our climb.  I looked up the hikes rating in Lonely Planet and it said the terrain is "moderate".  I'm thinking of writing a strongly worded letter:)

After Cinque Terra it was on to Tuscany!!  I will get into Tuscany more in the next post but the super exciting thing that happened today is that my work visa came through!!  4 months of emails, translation of all of my diplomas (you know that paragraph of jibberish at the bottom of diplomas that noone ever reads?  well I had to pay someone PER WORD to translate that, 2 trips to the new york consulate, and I am down to my last scheduled fingerprint appointment 2 weeks from monday and I am a licensed teacher in Germany.  I'm so proud of this visa I just may frame it and hang it beside those diplomas:)   LOVE

Hi!  We have returned from Italy!  We road tripped from Frankfurt through Switzerland and straight through to Cinque Terra.  Poor Chris had been working alot leading up to the trip and I did all the planning.  Apparently I didn't do a very good PR job about where we were going because apparently I only told him we were going to a place where "there are five villages connected by a dirt road that you can hike".  Needless to say he was pleasantly surprised when he saw Cinque Terra:) 

During the entire year we avoid exercise whenever possible which is why it's terribly ironic that on vacation we always seem to pick the activities that require an extreme level of physical fitness and then spend the entire time during the activity swearing that this is a new leaf and you're just going to be amazed at how often I'm at the gym when we get home
(e.g. Piks Peak, Mt. Sinai etc.).  Well this trip was no different and we hiked the punishing trail from Monterosso to Vernazza which was beautiful but mainly consisted of switchbacks and steep uphill climbs.  The mudslides a couple of years ago destroyed alot of the trail but if you are super industrious and determined you can still hike the entire thing...we are not and one little piece was enough for us and we were ready for tons of pasta, proscuitto with melon, and gelato. For some reason my pictures won't load but I will keep working on it.    LOVE

Hi! We had a fabulous weekend at the Main Square Festival in Arras, France. We went mainly to see Pearl Jam but got to listen to other great music as well (namely Florence and the Machine who I realized I LOVE).   The festival was in a walled city in northern france and was pretty cool. 

Pearl Jam is about the only band/music that Chris and I can agree on so we were super pumped about seeing them, it's also hysterical to hear "Eddie Vedder" being chanted with thick french accents:)  We found our hotel after about 15 roundabouts in the middle of the night, it was a very white knuckle experience:)

On the way home we stopped at Luxembourg for the day.  Luxembourg is a very fancy and rich country (if you have tons of money and love to shop this is the country for you).  So instead we walked around and explored the place on foot -it was alot of fun and very hot.

I will leave you with the required "Chris sampling the local beer" picture.  Have a great weekend!

Hi! Well I will admit the July 4th in Germany is somewhat underwhelming. My brother Tim and his girlfriend Amy are in town and we spent the holiday eating pork chops and potato salad with no fireworks. If it wasn't for out sling box tv advertising fantastic sales at JCPenny and Old Navy we might have missed the holiday altogether. This is the week that I submitted the last of my working visa paperwork and will officially be able to legally work in a few weeks!! This visa has been such an enormous amount of work/hassle/source of pride that I plan on hanging it on our wall next to our diplomas and marriage license once I no longer have to carry it in my wallet and randomly gaze at it with smug satisfaction throughout the day. There has been a change in my work plans in that I will no longer be teaching kindergarten but rather 4th grade!! You can freak ou if you want, I know I am. The fact is that the school i will be working at ( the one with the 4th grade) has about 10 other American girl teachers that I could see myself being friends with so that's awesome. What's not awesome and incredibly frightening is that I a) have never been a classroom teacher and b) don't know the first thing about 4th grade. Wish me luck. But thar doesn't start until august and I plan on living in sweet denial until then. The next couple of days will be spent playing tour guide to Tim and Amy and then vacation:). Woohoo- if you are reading this please sign in and comment- I need followers people!! I miss you all back home especially since it's July 4th and I should be in long island eating toasted almond ice cream bars and kicking ass and taking names in cranium. Happy 4th of July!!

We have returned from Poland!  Chris' brother Jim lives in Krakow with his wife Ewa and their 2 daughters.  We had alot of fun exploring Old Town and spent alot of time just relaxing at the playground.  We taught the girls to play UNO ans Zotia discovered my Ipad:)  We're hoping to spend alot of time with them in the next year since we have missed them so much!

Today's post is brought to you by the letters F.M.L.  Everything has been peachy keen here in Germany and I will admit it was mildly insulting in the beginning the way we were labeled "ex-pats" and were pandered to with familiar places "there is a Starbucks 3 blocks that way and an H&M in the center of town".  I don't know about anyone else but I wanted an authentic German experience- show me the way to the schnitzel and pretzels and why yes I would just love to watch another soccer game.  That is until today when I got cocky about my comfort level and drove 30 minutes outside of Frankfurt to the Toys R' Us for our nieces in Poland who we are going to visit this weekend.  And then on the way home the GPS broke.  yes broke.  It told me "No SD card for navigation" and refused to produce a map.  I swear I almost threw up in the parking deck.  My sense of direction is terrible on a good day in a famaliar place (I have gone the wrong way on Route 10 in NJ many many times).  But now I'm in the middle of god knows where and I can't read the signs!!  IF I had a cell phone and IF I knew Chris' number at work and IF I could use a payphone in Germany and IF I could articulate where in gods name I was, Chris wouldn't be able to find me anyway because a) he's at work and b) I have our only car.  Germany didn't look quite so rosy while white knuckling it and stopping at every gas station back into Frankfurt to ask for directions.  2 hours later I was home.  I think I illegally parked, and apparently it's now 1995 and I am off to hand write directions from mapquest so that I can spring Chris from work.  If you need me I'll be at Starbucks.

Welcome back! Since we live in Frankfurt, we can get to most places in Europe by car in a day. I take the time the GPS tells me that it will take to get somewhere as a personal challenge:) So we spent last weekend in Belgium! Years ago I visited Bruges while backpacking and absolutely loved it so I was excited to get to go back sans hostel and super heavy backpack:) Bruges is a medieval city that was once a large trade center but lost it's waterway to the sea. So now it's a largely pedestrian city with cute little streets and loads of canals. It's touristy but awesome. Foodwise Belgium is known for it's beer, chocolate, waffles, french fries with dressing, and sprouts. I'm happy to say we sampled all of the above except for the sprouts (maybe next time...yuck). 

 

Our next stop was Leuven, home of the Stella Artois factory. Not a whole lot going on here except for a lot of beer making so if that's not your thing I would skip this (my adorable fellow traveler LOVES beer so we had to check it out). Our next stop was Ghent, a largely university town and patriotically very Flemish. Like Bruges it has a canal running through it and it has a medieval feel it.   We are big walkers and love strolling around new places so this was a fantastic time- unlike Germany many places were open on Sundays so we were able to eat (phew!). 

Our last stop was Brussels- home of the Belgian royal family and tons of Art Nouveau architecture (they are serious about their wrought iron work). It was a much bigger city than we anticipated and my favorite part was the Atomium which is a large monument that looks like an atom with each level dedicated to a belgian scientist- my brother would love this.

So that's our trip in a nutshell- auf wiedersehen!!

Welcome to the first entry of the first blog I've ever had!  Chris and I are going to be spending the next year in Deutschland and hope to use this as a way to stay in touch with friends and family while we are far from home.

It's been about two weeks since I got here and I think I'm still definitively in the "honeymoon" period of my expat experience.  I am excited about all the travel we plan to do while we are here in Frankfurt!   This picture was taken last weekend when Chris and I set out to explore the "Romantic Road", which is a route that runs north to south through Western Bavaria from Wurzburg (going to have to find a font that lets me put in the umlaut, the two dots over letters so for now imagine them over the /u/) and Fussen (again imagination) near the Austrian border.  We made it about halfway but the BEST part of the trip was that I got to try out the Autobahn!  I'm a natural:)  More tomorrow as I figure out the ins and outs of blogging and living abroad!