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!