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!