Baden-Baden and Surprise!

The snow has been falling here in Bavaria pretty thickly which makes for interesting driving, fun in the snow, and lots of brownies. Here at the Melone house we're doing the last few loads of laundry so we can start packing to head out the door at 0300 (that's 3 am) on Monday morning to catch our flight. But! As I promised, I wanted to do a couple of more updates on the trips we've had. I realize that this has kinda become a travel blog, but I feel that it's appropriate because some of the things that we do--mainly the hiking--isn't talked about in any English travel book or website. Plus, I want to encourage everyone to take a trip to Europe and visit us in Germany sometime while we're here. So start saving to come and visit!

Baden-Baden
One Thursday mid-morning while Matt is at work, I get a text from him asking for the address of a hotel that we'll be staying at that weekend. Now, that's a completely normal request if you've talked about going on a trip and decided on a hotel, but we hadn't. That text was my notification that we had a 4-day weekend, so in about 3 minutes, after looking in a Rick Steves guide to Germany, I decided that this city called Baden-Baden (literally Baths-Baths) in the Black Forest sounded cool. I looked up on Venere.com some hotels, got the cheapest good-looking one, and sent that address. Yes, this is how our vacation planning usually goes.

So after I sent the address I did a little bit of research, trying to find out if we could hike through the Black Forest and such. Of course, there are loads of trails, but probably the coolest part of Baden-Baden is that it has two public baths. One is a modern "bath" where people walk around in bathing-suites and such, and the other is an Roman-Irish bath where people walk around without their bathing-suits. Well, according to Rick Steves, the nude bath was the awesomer of the two, so naturally, we decided, hesitantly, to do that one.

With this little bit of planning, we leave on Saturday morning for Baden-Baden, armed with my computer and our portable internet to make the final tweeks on our trip after we got there. We got to our hotel, which happened to be the 4-star Batschari Hotel for ridiculously cheap, and were so excited when we saw that it really WAS a 4-star hotel (unlike other "4-star" hotels)! The only hitch was that it was all under construction, but what did we care when our room was completely intact and came with an apologetic basket of fruit and bottle of Champagne? What a deal!

We spent the first evening in and got some good sleep. The next day we got our hiking clothes on and went to the information center to try and get a map of the trails. We saw a great map on the wall, and the same was for sale for only 2 EUR, but of course nobody was working the desk. So, I took a picture of the map and we used that as our guideline for the rest of the trip. We saw a picture of castle ruines on the map and decided that we'd try to make our way towards them.

On our way to the Information Center. Such an adorable little town!

This gorgeous building is the Tourist Information Center.

A gate along the way. You can imagine it in a Harry Potter movie where the flower might shrink back into itself to unlock the gate and open, and then grow again to lock it after you passed through.

Baden-Baden, because it is so close to the French border, has architecture that is more French than German. We enjoyed the change of pace as we walked through the city to get to the outskirts where the trails started.

A great time of year for a hike. We thought a medieval horse and carriage might come up that right trail at any moment.

The Castle Yburg ruins.

It got really windy and cold as we got to the top, so we just snapped a few pictures and started hiking back. After getting caught in the rain, and taking a much longer way back than we thought, we finally got back to our room, showered, and made our way to the baths.

The baths are absolutely wonderful. It's a 3-hour experience with about 18 different stages of showers, pools of all temperature, dry saunas, hot saunas, brush massages to slough the last 5 years of dead skin off, a lotion station, resting rooms (where it's dark, warm, and they wrap you in blankets!), and lastly, a reading room full of National Geographic magazines. Ah, it was so amazing and we just can't wait to get back. Oh, and about the nudity...everyone was completely normal. Though there were an unbalanced amount of overweight older men there. But everyone kept their eyes to themselves which made for a very peaceful and enjoyable experience.

Surprise!
So, I told you I had a surprise, and you might have already scrolled down far enough to see it, but with a new job, we need a new car. We looked around for a while, but all in all, with the incredible deals we get because we're military and in Europe, the best deal just seemed to be to buy a MINI Cooper for me. Woot! I am so uber excited and can't wait until it comes. I designed it on miniusa.com, and this is the graphic that it came up with:

My beautiful car!

It should be getting here sometime in February, so I'll be sure to post pictures when it gets here. Vroom Vroom!

Travels and Parties!

So...how's everyone doing? I hope great! And me? Well, let's just pretend I somehow was unable to get on blogger to post what's been going on these last couple of months. But now I'm back! I'll give you the quick and dirty right here: Matt's back, he's wonderful, we love to cook delicious things together, he'll likely be home for around two years before the next deployment, it's snowed a couple of times, my job starts January 19th (woot!), we'll be in Orlando from the 15th to the 26th, and then in San Francisco from the 26th to the 1st, we've had three overnight trips to different places, been to a few Christmas Markets (Weinachtmaerkte), we threw an early Christmas feast for our friends that are PCSing (moving) soon, a Thanksgiving feast for some of Matt's single friends, and a little surprise that I'm going to share later.

All of this is very interesting, but of course, the bits that require photos are the snow, trips, parties, and the surprise. Alas, somehow the pictures I took of the parties got lost. I have no idea and am in fact quite stumped as to where they could have gone, so at least for these parties you won't get to see the wonderful fun and decorations we had. And since there’s a lot of pictures, and stories to go with all of them, I’m going to split this up into a few posts so you don’t have as much to read all at once, and so I don’t go mad trying to organize a huge post.

Snow

Since our little town isn’t as exotic as, say, Cinderella’s castle, I decided to put these pictures first. The town is absolutely gorgeous when it’s all white, and it really feels like a winter wonderland here. The first day of the snow we went on a run (Jonathan, Trent & Nat, you know which one I’m talking about) and just felt like we were in a magical land. Honestly, I thought Mr. Tumnus would come running along any second with his packages and umbrella.

View from our upstairs window

Of course, the Glockenturm. All beautiful with snow!

Leuchtenberg
All overe Germany on the Autobahns, there are these brown attraction signs. Most of these signs describe something in the area that takes 10-30 minutes to get to. One in particular had caught my eye on my few trips to Prague. In the picture was this idyllic castle sitting on top of a hill. But more than that, after you saw the sign and thought it very idyllic, you would look to your left (if traveling east) and see exactly what was pictured on the sign. It was the proverbial City on a Hill! Luckily, I had my parents with me on one of these drives and she was able to write down the name of the place so I could go look it up later.

When Matt got back from Iraq, we got all excited about exploring and traveling, and I thought of this place and another castle as an easy trip because they're just about an hour away. So, we went off to visit Leuchtenberg (the "eu" in it is said like the "oi" in "oil," and the "ch" said like a "k," so it's said "LOIK-ten-berg").

View from right off the Autobahn 6.

We had to drive and walk around a little bit before it opened, but when it did, it was so much to walk around the inside. The castle is in ruins, not in a bad way, I just mean that some of the stories/floors are missing, and other than the chapel, all of the original roofs are gone. One part in particular that I enjoyed was that from the bolts you could see in the walls and ground, you could see that it was set up to host modern-day parties. Wouldn't it be great to have a cocktail party or benefit in a castle?

This is us at the top of the castle (see Matt's cool new leather jacket!)

Füssen, Neuschwanstein, etc.

Neuschwanstein has made it onto this blog before when I visited there with Jonathan and some of his friends, so I don't need to explain again the history of the castle. What is more relevant this time is simply that it is situated at the edge of the alps just a few miles from the Austrian border. Since we are likely going to visit this magnificent castle again when Matt's family comes to visit, instead of taking the tour of the castle, we decided to hike some of the mountains behind it.

The place to stay when visiting Neuschwanstein is Füssen, the town just a few minutes away from the castle. We got a great rate for a 4-star hotel called the Hotel Hirsch right in the middle of the town, and across the street from "old town." Füssen is really a beautiful town in and of itself, and had I known that to begin with we might have spent more time there, but we had a plan to go hiking. Since we couldn't really get a good map of the trails online or in Füssen, we decided to just go to the info center at the bottom of the castle and start asking questions.

View of Neuschwanstein in the Alps on the way to Hohenschwangau

So we got our camera, food, water, and started walking from Füssen to Hohenschwangau, where Neuschwanstein is located. When we got there and asked someone for a hiking map, they gave us a cartoon map that looked like it was designed to show ski slopes, i.e., absolutely awful for hiking because it's not to scale and doesn't show elevation or distances well. But, with that we were off!

Just outside the information center with the castle in the background

To get to the trails we went past the castle. You can even go inside the courtyard without paying any money.

I knew there were some trails on the other side of Marienbrücke, so we headed there with our cartoon map and looked for signs. We decided to take the trail that led to the highest peak in the area: Saüling (kinda reminds you of Sauron doesn't it?). At the trail haid the estimated time to get to the peak was 4 hours. Matt and I looked at each other, not expecting to do a hike like this when we started our day, but decided that it'd be fun. The first part of the trail was ridiculously easy: we just walked along a gravel road.

Gorgeous day for a hike. This was the only sun we got because for the rest of the hike we were on the north side of the mountain.

After about 45 minutes we paused to take a break, and we saw this guy walk past us, off the road, and upsome mucky trail. We just thought he was crazy until we got closer and realized that was our trail. So no more of this pansy road stuff, we started to hike up the muck and into the forest for real.

See what I'm pointing at?

This beautiful view is what I'm pointing at!

A couple hours into the hike. The town you see by the lake is a little closer than Füssen, from which we had walked that morning.

After about two and a half hours we encountered a ladder. We should have known at that point, and from looking at the rocks what would come after, but we didn't think about that. After the ladder everything was just scrambling upwards. You used your hands for almost every step and just kept going upwards. Since this was a lot more than we had bargained for it stopped being as much fun as the beginning. So instead of just pushing through for another 45 minutes or so of scrambling, we decided to just make our way down while we were still happy.

We took a different way down than we had coming up, got lost in the process, but finally made it to a lodge/restaurant called Bleckenau. By how everyone was looking at us I think we were the first Americans to make it that way. Sadly, the bus we were expecting at Bleckenau wouldn't be coming for another hour and a half, so we decided to just walk the three miles back to Neuschwanstein and take the bus from there.

Cool tree I fit inside in Bleckenau

View of Neuschwanstein and the plane from Marienbrücke while waiting for the bus

Eisenberg and Ehrenberg Castles
That night, after hiking some 12+ miles or so, we went to an amazing Italian place and stuffed our faces. The next day, on the way home, we stopped at a couple of castle ruins just because they were nearby. These castles, Eisenberg and Ehrenberg, were I think the last castles built Germany. So, with these castles, you are seeing an end of an age.

We got so lucky with the weather. This is on the walk up to Eisenberg Castle

Looking from Eisenberg to Ehrenberg

A tower inside Ehrenberg castle

And this is the end of this part of the saga! I'll try to get our other trips up sometime before we head to the states on Monday.

Fall-ing in Edelsfeld

Two Sunday's ago, after I got out of church, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so I decided to take a walk. And considering this time of year is just so colorful, I decided to take my camera along as company. The following pictures are around our little village of Edelsfeld. Enjoy!

Sometimes go running out this direction. Recently the fog has been so thick that you'd think only you, the road and the fog ever existed.

It was just a cute wagon, it needed to be photographed!

Bavaria is mostly agrarian, creating such beautiful landscapes as these.

Typical of Europe, there are lots of little stone places like this to be found in the side of a hill. I wonder what it once was.

It's apple season! I'm going to try my hand at making some apple butter within the next few days.

The main road we drive in and out of every day. This direction is coming from the post and going towards our house.

Just a couple minutes down the road from the last picture (walking). The white building on the left is the Getränke, where we go and get our crates of beer :).

A little walking path right behind the red building with the red ivy. There's a little sign to the right that tells you that you can buy honey from the man that lives in that house.

The Glockenturm! Meaning, the bell tower! I look at it every day, and every day I think it's picture worthy. I'll probably have about 50 pictures of that bell tower before I leave Germany. I really do have to restrain myself!

Etcetera

The big news: Matt's coming home! I can't say when, but very very soon. Right now he's in Kuwait just waiting to catch a flight. But! Some day soon I'll get the 48 hour email notice. Then when they leave Kuwait, I'll get a phone call saying they'll be here in so-many hours. The last notice I get will be a phone call saying I just have a couple of hours before we meet them in the gym. At that phone call, I get all dolled up, frantically straighten up the house, put a few special touches here and there for Matt to notice when he gets home, and then head to the gym. At the gym we wait for who knows how long, and then finally the boys come in formation, some guy gives a speech (I hope he knows that if it's longer than 2 minutes he's gonna be mauled by every wife here), and then we have our men back! He'll have to go back to work every day for the next seven days after he gets back. The rationale behind that is to kinda soften the shock of going from a war zone to a place with lots of kids and wives. But, it will suck.

What will I be doing with those days? Well, I hope to hear in the next week or so if I got the job with the Army Corps of Engineers. It'll be so nice to finally post on here that I have a job and am not longer in the process of finding one. This is decidedly the longest job search I've ever had, by like 3 months, but, if it produces a job, then I won't complain! What will my title be? Civil Engineer. How cool is that?

We're also doing an extensive car search as well. I've done so much research on cars it's ridiculous, I just hope we find one within our price range, that will last for a while, is a car that we'll both like, and that we can get before I need to start my job! I'll let you know how this all comes together. But in the meantime, pray that Matt comes home on the first flight he can!!

Prague, Parents & Possibilities

It's been a month since I've written, hasn't it? Well, technically, we're still in September, but still, it's been a month! A bit has happened, and I'd love to tell it all in detail, but lucky for you, since we're far away from the events now, I'm just going to give the highlights.

Last post I told you I was going something called a Spur Ride. Well let me tell you, it was such a blast. I got to change a tire of a tactical vehicle, eat an MRE, put on the full gas suit, mask and all, get turned upside down in a hummer simulation, practice with a rifle at the firing range, and take a modified PT test. Oh goodness, we had so much fun. There were a few stations that we went to, one in particular, that they tried to kick our butts (and tried to give me a hard time for "being" an officer), but I just laughed my way through it all. I actually got the only individual award that was given out for getting the best PT score out of all the women that were there. Let's just say I kick butt at pushups (real ones) and flutter kicks.Me in Matt's uniform for the Spur Ride. Yes, that is a broomstick. It was our "mount" for the day. And yes, I had to take him everywhere we went that day.

After the Spur Ride I came back home, showered, and then drove to Prague. You know, I think it's easily becoming my favorite city, and I am slightly, ever so slightly, learning the roads there. If you've ever been to Prague, and taken a taxi around Zone 1, you know that the roads are absurd, as are the drivers. But, I got safely to the hotel, and just had a wonderful time with my parents. I don't know when I've been that spoiled. We got to go to pretty much the nicest restaurants in Prague because they were on a business trip. I got to meet a lot of people my parents have known for years, and who have apparently known me since I was a wee one. They've all seen me grow up through pictures over the years, so it was nice to put names to faces.

Prague is ridiculously beautiful, so I've put some photos up of some of the typical sights you'd see while there.

Gorgeous building at the east side of Old Town Square. The clouds were just perfect behind it.

Great bridge with copper accents

Yes, more bridges. Took this while on a boat cruise

The castle and its cathedral, set up on the hill

At one of our lovely dinners.

After Prague, my parents came back to my place to hang for about a week. Now, I had every intention of showing them a good time, taking to some of my favorite spots, but they really just insisted on helping me get my place more set up. And oh my goodness, I am so glad they did. My place looked good before, and was relatively functional, but now, it is so much cooler looking and a heck of a lot more functional. The first thing we changed was to move a piece of furniture I had gotten from a friend from the hallway into the living room to act as a bar. Prior to the bar we just had all our alcohol sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Though it wasn't much, when it's all in one place just out in the open, it looks a lot less modest than when it's in a nice bar. And for the area, I happened to have a great Guinness clock my brother had given me.

Bar in living room

An area that needed work for functionality and decor was the entryway. It was pretty much empty save for a little table I had hidden in a nook (see one leg in the bottom right of the picture below). So, we decided to get a nice entry-way table over which we'd hang decorations, and to install an exposed closet underneath the stairs (much sweat and brain power went into making that closet work, thanks so much Dad, could not have done it without you!).

Front entry way

To decorate the hallway, I had a few random frames for which my mom found good pictures, and a few other items. My favorite thing on wall is the set of candles. Mom had just gotten back from Guatemala and was so kind to bring me a beautiful set of candles, amongst other colorful cloth placemats and gifts from my grandmother. Now, for you to fully appreciate what it took to get this display up, you must understand that that wall is solid cinder block. This house is not a wood house, so for each hole we made we actually had to use a masonry drill bit to get the holes in. And you see the letters and the "London" sign? Yeah, they had two holes a piece.

Front entry way display

Now, before my parents came, the upstairs was completely lacking. A beautiful lit area, but completely lacking. The only piece of furniture up there was an antique table. But now, with my parents help and a little investment on our part, we furnished the upstairs! We got the couch for a ridiculously good price, and the rug too. And the entertainment center too, now that I think about it, so this whole room is such a blessing. From the picture of the front hallway, you can see how tiny the stairwell is to get upstairs, so we actually had to bring the boxes up piece by piece, and assemble it upstairs.

Entertainment Room

And because I do a bit of crafty stuff, and at least have a lot of crafty items that needed a space (got loads of scrapbooking stuff for my birthday, thanks ladies!), we decided to make the back room a craft room. Once Matt gets back it'll be a workout room too, and perhaps a bit of a reading room if we can find a comfortable chair for upstairs. I love how the table came together, because we bought the legs and the top separately. I chose these legs because I can choose to sit or stand, or even to tilt the table-top towards me like a drafting desk (Esther, you gotta visit). The table-top is actually a door from Ikea that was damaged on one side. So for just 5 EUR we bought it, and you can't tell at all that it's damaged because we just put the undamaged side face up.

So now I feel really good about my house, and can't wait for Matt to come home and live in it with me. We think he's going to be coming before the end of October. I'll only know a few hours before he lands that he'll be arriving, so I won't be able to put any more detailed information on here (nor would I be able to even if I could for OPSEC reasons). But clearly, I'll let you know when he's home, safe and sound.

Of course, there is the question of the job. Yes, I'm still hoping for the one with the Army Corps of Engineers, it's just taking forever. They have finally established a position for me, but now I have to go through the application process. The position hasn't come online yet so I haven't been able to apply, but the guy I've been talking to sounds really confident that I'm the one who will get the job...whenever that is.

As for Christmas vacation, we're going home! Yup, our first time back to the state since early May. We won't be coming back very often because flights are just awfully expensive. So, you really gotta get over here and see us :-D. We'll be in Orlando for about a week and a half before Christmas and for Christmas day, and the next day we fly out to San Francisco for the traditional Lipps New Year's party. I'd love to see whoever I can while I'm in Orlando and San Francisco, so let me know if you're going to be home or in the area.

That's it for now. Oh, and I think we found a good church and I'm going to be on the worship team there. NOW I think that's about it. Thanks for keeping up!

The End of Summer

I don't know about you, but August is definitely the last month of the summer. When you were still of school age, if you were in the month of September, you were definitely in class, which means no summer.

Today is the first day of September, meaning that in my school-girl heart, summer has officially ended. It was a good summer if I may say so. It was the longest Matt and I have been able to be together in our relationship, so we really had a blast. I moved to Germany, got a house, got some cool friends, and figured out this whole house-wife thing pretty well. But what else does September mean? It means that next month my husband comes home. The boys were scheduled to come home in November, but we heard that the Boots On Ground (BOG) date is November 25th, meaning that most of the guys have to be back by that date. And there is rumor (as always) that the boys will be coming back sooner than that. SO, next month is when my husband comes home!

He's been doing pretty well in Iraq. He just signed up for wireless internet in his bunk so we are finally able to have a long conversation at least over gmail chat in the evenings. We have fun bantering back and forth talking nonsense, but it's so comforting to be able to do that. If we can't do that life just gets to serious! His men have apparently really taken to him and show this by hazing him. Some of the things he tells me are just incredible and I cannot imagine them actually happening because it just tells like a movie. He sent me a picture of him in his uniform though and that's below. Gosh, he is such a stud!



For my birthday Sarah (my aunt) sent me a buttload of scrapbooking stuff, so now, I actually have to get down to it. I had about 3-4 boxes of stuff that I wanted to scrapbook, but it was in no order whatsoever, so today, my project was to make a dent in organizing it. It took most of my day, but I have almost everything in piles according to the year. I probably need to go back and organize it according to the school year instead of the calendar year, but heck, at least it's in like 10 different piles instead of just one! I also threw a bunch of stuff away that I just had no need for anymore.

During my organization I came across a load of letters. I guess I kept all of my birthday/Christmas/valentine's day cards for the past 10 years or so, and it was so much fun to go through them all. I even had notes that my friends would pass me inbetween classes. It's incredible to see how those friendships develop over the years. I even found a $20 bill in birthday letter from someone! Glad I looked through it! I'll consider that my pay for the day.

Apparently, over the years, two people in particular have written me loads of letters. I guess it would make sense, but I was just astonished at the mass of letters I had acquired from them! Both my mother and my grandmother (Lipps) have just sent me tons of letters. Grandma always writes these lengthy letters in her beautiful handwriting, never forgetting any holiday. And mom, she writes me tons of just "I love you!" and "I'm thinking about you!" notes. I guess whenever she finds a cute card or a postcard she just sends me stuff. I can't tell you how loved I felt from these two women. So, to you to ladies, thank you for your love and for always thinking about me! Forgive me if I haven't replied as often as I should, but I have made a plan to get better at it :).

Speaking of my mother, she and my father are going to be arriving in Prague this Friday for "business"--meaning some meetings and lots of play time--and I'm going to be joining them! Then on Wednesday or Thursday I'm going to drive them back here to hang out with me until the 18th. I am so excited to have my family visiting me! And for such a long time too! I love that they can see my house and my life, so they can better understand when I talk to them on the phone and say "I'm in the kitchen," and things like that. Dad and I plan on changing the brake pads on the car, along with the warped front rotors, and we plan to watch the Die Hard trilogy. My mom and I will be spending time scrapbooking, as she has to catch up on the last 23 years. Well, she'll do the first however many and I'll pick up where she leaves off.

Ah, but before my trip to Prague, this Friday there is an event called a Spur Ride. This is where the spouses get to dress up in their soldier's uniform and basically take a day in his shoes. We're going to have a (modified) P.T. test in the morning, move on to first aid, then NBC (eh?), a flat tire change, weapons training, and a mystery event. At the end of the day there's going to be an awards ceremony. I would clearly love to get an award, but I'm really just doing this for fun, to see what Matt goes through, and to join the other women.

Hopefully I'll have pictures to put up on the next post. And hopefully they're not of me getting my butt kicked on Friday!

23: Tea and NyQuil

I turned 23 yesterday, and that was my greeting to start my 24th year: tea and NyQuil.

I had just finished watching some Grey's Anatomy and was heading to bed and everything was, well, normal. I was alone, turned off the light, and crawled towards my pillow in darkness. Since there's no real reason to get out of bed in the mornings, I've gotten a lot of sleep lately, which, unfortunately makes going to sleep much more difficult. Those of you who know me well will know that I can fall asleep anytime and anywhere in just about five minutes. Not recently, which is a new phenomenon for me and rather frustrating, because it leaves me alone with my mind.

So the night of the 25th, what was there to think about? Oh, the usual, that my husband was at war in Iraq and that the other side of the bed was and would be cold for the next couple of months, and that there was nobody else in the house. That I have no job and am continuing to get bored with the little projects I've made for myself. But then there was the fact that the next day was my birthday. I didn't want it to be my birthday, because the person I wanted to celebrate it with wouldn't be there. No matter how badly I wanted him there, he wouldn't be there. And people would be calling me, wishing me happy birthday, and I wouldn't have the heart to tell them that it wasn't a happy birthday, and that I wish I had just slept through the whole day because there was nothing I wanted to celebrate.

Somewhere along the line, these thoughts got to me and I started crying. I'm not a big crier, but when I do cry, it's usually just a few tears and then the moment is gone. Not tonight. Tonight the pain just grew and grew, as did my tears. My nose got clogged, my throat was sore from trying to extricate my pain by using my vocal chords, and from the heavy breathing. I kept on turning in bed waiting to go to sleep, but my system had just had too much.

After about half an hour of this, my heart just couldn't take it anymore; it couldn't be alone. I got out of bed and went to the computer to try to Skype my mom. Well, that failed, but she heard enough to be able to call my cell phone. I don't think she could understand me for the first five minutes or so, but over the next half hour she was able to calm me down. She was sitting in the Admiral's Club in Dallas with my grandma on her way to Guatemala. Thank goodness she wasn't on the plane or already there, because that would have just hurt too much to finally reach out to someone and have them not be there.

At the end of our...conversation, she told me to go have some tea, and that it would be okay to take something that would help me sleep. I laughed at that, and the clock struck midnight as I started to heat the water for my tea and grab the NyQuil from the medicine cabinet. What a great way to start my birthday.

Mom had to catch her plane, so I asked her to call Sarah (my aunt) and ask if she could give me a call. Sarah called and we were able to chat for a little; my darling little cousin piped into the phone that he loved me and that made me smile. I was able to talk to my uncle for a bit too, which I haven't done in a while, and it was just good to hear from a whole family who loved me.

So, I finished my tea, took my NyQuil, and went to bed.

The next morning was fine. Not good, but fine. I got up late, did some yoga, ran for a mile (still experimenting with running since I'm unsure about my achilles), and had two very short phone calls with Matt that got cut off shortly after the hello. I also met my new neighbor. The couple that lives downstairs hadn't been there since we had been here because he is in Iraq and she was state-side. She got back on my birthday, and, because she didn't have a car, I took her with me to the Commissary so she could get some food and cleaning supplies to put her house back together.

For dinner, Krista came over and we made filet mignon wrapped in bacon (Veronica would have been there too but she was traveling with her sister). You can see a picture of it below, topped with a yummy butter concoction, served with a basil parmesan rice and a dry red wine. Very nice! She also showered me with many lovely gifts, my favorites of which are the first season of Friends (never seen it before!) and an orchid! It'll be my first plant. I'm excited to see if I can actually keep it alive and get it to re-bloom. Such a beautiful flower.



We ended the evening by making some brownies from my grandma's recipe and watching The Count of Monte Cristo.

So, how was my birthday? It was okay. But this year, I shouldn't think of my birthday as just one day, simply because I got to experience bits of it on other days as well. When Jonathan visited me he brought me a little something from my parents. Just last week I got a package in the mail from the Melone family containing lovely letters from them all, making me feel so special that my new family cares for me and remembers my birthday. Esther made a beautiful watercolor of our wedding and sent that to me a few days ago, and so many people emailed, sent cards/letters, and sent messages on facebook. Krista did a wonderful job of making me feel special.

Though my birthday may have started out rather...terrible, I have no doubt that I am loved. I know that I feel pain because I love and am loved in return, and that is wonderful. I also know that the pain isn't going to go away, and I will hurt again. And it's okay to hurt, and it's okay that knowing that doesn't make it hurt less. But the important thing is that I am loved. Thanks for keeping track of me during this journey and keeping us in your prayers. They are indeed appreciated.

Second and Third Visitors!

Apparently some of the pictures I tried to upload on my last post actually got on, but since I didn't see them, I couldn't put captions on them. If you check them out again you'll see that I've told you what they are.

This post will be full of pictures because I have had ample opportunity to use my camera over the last couple of weeks. In fact, I'm going to do a lot less talking here and let my pictures tell the stories. Yay for a lazy post! But first, let me update you about Matt.


Matt

There has been a lot of angst, frustration and joy over the last three weeks, but the good news is that we have ended on "joy." Matt was in Kuwait for a few days where he got to sit around, then he was sent to Baghdad where he got to sit around and work out, and then was sent to Mosul where he got to sit around and work out. I'm sure he did more than that, but that was the general jist of how things were going...until his unit arrived.

When his unit got there, since they didn't know what they wanted to do with him, they put him with the Headquarters company. While with them he did a lot of office work, which he didn't expect, so that was frustrating.

But the joyful part? Just yesterday he got assigned to a company and a platoon. He's uber excited to have something to do and to finally have a weapon. This is what he's been training for over the past three years. It is going to be more dangerous for him now because he'll be going on operations (don't ask what that means because I don't really know), so pray that he stays safe, that he is given the chance to show how great of a leader he is, and that he is able to enjoy his time there as much as possible.

On a more personal note, I just want to say that I have the most amazing husband. We get to email or talk almost every day, and I can't even tell you the wonderful things he says. He knows exactly the right thing to say at exactly the right moment and it just makes me love him all the more. God certainly did match us up well!


The Troxels

My time with the Troxels was great. We got to make egg-in-the-eye (yummy breakfast consisting of a fried egg cooked into the middle of a piece of bread with a hole in the middle). Their daughter Bea (short for Beatrice) has a love for cameras so I lent her the camera/lenses my parents and brothers gave me for graduation, and she just went to town. The first three here are hers.

This is Lori, my professor/friend from Vanderbilt, and Bea's mom

Bea's self-portrait


A shot she took while we were at lunch. I found a little worm in my salad...after I had finished eating it.


THIS is the infamous Spaghetti Eis (Eis = ice cream!). It may look like a typical plate of spaghetti, but it's actually ice cream with strawberry sauce. The white stuff is grated white chocolate. Ooh, so good.

Munich

Jonathan decided to come and visit me for a couple of weeks, and he and I went to Munich this past weekend to meet up with his girlfriend Jessica and two friends from his community back in San Francisco, the Wiesens. The first two stops in Munich? The Beer Museum and the largest beer hall in Germany.

This was taken inside the beer museum. These are old-school steins, and I so wish I could find some like these. The ones we can buy these days are just too decorative for me.


Jonathan, Jessica and I inside the beer hall. Isn't she cute?


Marienplatz. We think this gigantic building used to be the old town hall. Absolutely beautiful!


Just a statue in the middle of the square. Good photo-op.


We never figured out which church was. My guess was the Frauenkirche, but I wouldn't bet on it. The church was massive, and this was just the front. The color really was that good that day, no saturation needed.

Neuschwanstein Castle- a.k.a Cinderella's Castle

From Munich the five of us decided to take a day-trip down to Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that inspired Disney's Cinderella's Castle. As you can see from the pictures, it's not your standard castle, but very mystical and, well, kinda pointless other than being majestic/impressive/beautiful. I'm sure it could be defended well, but it wasn't built for that purpose. King Ludwig, the guy who owned the place, grew up not a mile from this castle (seen below in some other pictures). But, he went kinda crazy and wanted to build a bigger and better castle than his parents.

The quick and dirty version of the story: Ludwig was a huge fan of Wagner, and we think that he really liked Wagner. Because of that, most of the rooms in the castle are the visual representation of some of Wagner's songs. To prove that Ludwig was crazy, there is a room in the castle that looks like a cave. It's not one of the lower rooms and it wasn't dug out of rock; someone was called in to design the room right next to his dressing room to look exactly like a cave, with stalactites and everything. Right next to that was his Zhen garden. Anyway, I'll stop talking and get back to the visual tour.

There is a pretty steep 1.5 mile hike to the castle, and this shot is from the road we walked up. Anybody thinking Cinderella?

A cool shot of the ceiling right after the cave room. No pictures were actually allowed of the inside, but hey, it looked cool and it was light enough to take the picture quickly and without a flash.

This is one of the many gorgeous views from the castle. At the bottom right you can see his parents' castle. I'd say he kinda out-did them.

There is a bridge that you can hike to that will give you t his view of the castle. From here you can see part of the castle and another of its amazing views. I cropped the castle because the rest of it was under construction from this vantage point.Me on the bridge! You can see the construction that was going on.

Back in Munich

The next day the Wiesens left Munich to go travel the rest of Europe and Jonathan, Jessica and I went to a museum called the Alte Pinakotek. I really enjoyed all of the paintings they had, but the most picture-worthy thing was the building itself. I just loved this stairwell. When I walked into it the first time, I just stared at it and thought "wow."

The "wow" stairwell in the Alte Pinakotek


After the museum, we went to hang out at a park. There was a river running through the park, and there were guys surfing in it. Way cool.

Well, that is my last two weeks in picture form! What you can't see is that Jonathan and I have made lots of food together. Most of it has been yummy Indian curry, but we've also made cookies, pancakes and banana-bread muffins. He's been great to have around, even if he does like to steal my internet. He's taken me out to eat a couple of times, and last night he took me out for my birthday, and then to see The Black Knight. Very good movie.

Since he leaves tomorrow morning, I thought I was going to be all alone, but I just got an email from the Wiesens asking if they could spend the night here tomorrow night (the third visitors, in case you weren't tracking).

And for now, that's it!