Germany Day 3: Part 1

The third day in Germany, we spent it around Munich.  My little brother had classes through most of the day, so we were on our own for the most part.  We spent the first part of the day near Marienplatz, which is the main town square that has town hall and the Glockenspiel.  We actually didn't get to see the Glockenspiel "go" on that day, but it's such a cool building!  Here are the pictures from the first part of the day:

One view of Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Lady), one of the steeples was being refurbished, but it is beautiful inside!

The doors at Frauenkirche, there were about 3 entrances on either side, all just as detailed!

This is the "Black Footprint", said to be the mark of where the devil came in & stomped on the flood because he was happy when he saw no windows.  When he took one more step he was disappointed to see all of the beautiful stained glass windows.  When you stand at this spot, you can not see any of the windows in the Church.

The Holy Family on display at Frauenkirche.

Matt going up the stairs to the top of St. Peter (Peterskirche), from the top of approximately 300 stairs you can view all across Munich.  On a clear day (not when we went) you supposedly can see the Alps.

My chicken butt going down.  No, I did not make it to the top because it was WINDY and rainy that day.  I am afraid of heights and simply could not handle it; I only went about 2/3 of the way up.  My wonderful husband went all the way to the top and got the pictures you'll see next.

The Glockenspiel (and "new" town hall)!

A view of Frauenkirche from Peterskirche.

Another portion of Munich.  It is amazing that in such a big city, they are still doing construction (or restoration).

More Munich!

Inside Peterskirche, not quite halfway towards the front of the church.

The ceiling at Peterskirche... Beautiful!

The Holy Family on display at Peterskirche.

The pulpit at Peterskirche, its actually in the middle of the church away from the alter.  Very different and neat!

Blessed Virgin Mary in Peterskirche.

Day 2 of Vacation: Part 2

The second part of our day, included a trip to a Gothic-style Catholic church called St. Johann or Asamkirche.  The church is the epitome of Gothic architecture!

The front of the church, it is not a free standing church, but shares walls with the adjoining buildings. 

The intricate wrought iron gate leading out of the narthex of the Church into the main part of the Church.

One of the many confessionals in this small church.

The second day in Germany was also our 3rd wedding anniversary!

My beer at dinner... we braved a German restaurant by ourselves since my brother had class!

Matt's beer at dinner for our anniversary (its Dark King Ludwig beer)

Hirschgarten, where we went to dinner for our anniversary.  Its the largest beer garden in Bavaria!

The champagne that the hotel surprised us with because my mom emailed them to tell them it was our anniversary.

Matt and I toasting to our anniversary and many more together!  (And yes, we look tired in most of our pictures.)

Day 2 of Germany: Part 1

On our second day in Germany, we spend the first part of the day visiting the site of Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp.



The guard house at the main entrance to the site.  This is where prisoners were walked into the main courtyard after walking from the train station.



The gate at the entrance had the German phrase meaning "Work Will Make You Free" which the prisoners saw when entering the concentration camp.



The main building which housed the showers, kitchen, work centers, etc.  It is now a very well put together museum.



One of the memorials at the site.

A sculpture made in remembrance of all those who lost their lives at the camp (the dates it operated underneath).

The poplar trees planted along this main road were planted by the prisoners.  At the end of the road you can see the Catholic memorial chapel.

The alter in the Catholic chapel.

I didn't want to put all of the pictures that I took in this post, but it was a very humbling experience.  The museum was very interesting and had a lot of personal experiences.  When Matt, my brother & I were there for over 3 hours we spent less than 20 minutes in any amount of conversation... there are no words.

For me one of the most touching sections of the museum was the temporary exhibit on women in the concentration camp.  While it was also one of the most heartbreaking things to see, it tells the story of the pregnant women whom lived at the camp.  There were only 7 women who were allowed to keep their babies, and only towards the end of the camp's operation.  The way those women banded together to do things to support each other, such as breastfeeding the babies because some of the other mothers were so malnourished they could not produce.  It showed how well the prisoners tried to take care of one another in spite such a terrible situation.

My Son is...

a Daddy's boy, its official.  This evening's scenario:

(Me coming through the back door after work)
Jack (running toward the back door): Da da da da!
Grandma: No, who is it?
Me (in my most excited-to-see-you voice): Hi Jack!
Jack (turns on a dime before even getting close to me and runs to my mom): NO NO NO NO NO!

Ouch, kid... that was cold.  Doesn't get much worse then that... well, I guess there could have been tears.

Fast forward an hour or so, he had calmed down... Mommy got stole a couple of kisses and we played.  Daddy gets home and we all play together until... Daddy goes in the other room and closes the door.  Full breakdown with tears ensues, baby boy is pounding on the door because he wants his Daddy.

Yes, there were tears in the end, all because a boy wanted his Daddy.

A Day Without Chemistry

I am currently at a training session for the American Chemical Society as I am the chair-elect for my local section. This was shown to everyone last night and I love it! Just a little food for thought, the things we wouldn't be able to do or understand without chemistry!

Congrats!

My cousin David and his wife Alexis welcomed a beautiful baby boy yesterday afternoon!  Mom and baby are happy and healthy.

Congrats!  Welcome to the world baby Ryan!

Pre-Vacation and Day 1 of Vacation in Germany

I will start with the Saturday before we left (we left on a Monday).  I was woken up by my cell phone ringing, and it was a recording from Delta... "Your flight from Atlanta to Munich has been cancelled.  Please go online or call 1-800-xxx-xxxx to rebook your flight."  Umm, excuse me, what?!  I immediately ran to the computer freaking out (being snippy with Matt because he was asking me what was wrong, as if it was his fault), pulled up our reservation and it had a handy-dandy button to rebook your flight.  If only it was that easy, because so many people were trying to rebook their flight the seats were filling up faster than the website could figure out what was going on.  I ended up calling the 800 number in order to talk to a person (of course that felt like it took FOREVER).  We ended up rebooking our flight (originally supposed to get in to Munich around 7:30 am local time) and we had to make an extra stop AND didn't get in until almost 3:00 pm local time.  Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed at that point.  The woman on the phone told me that they cancelled the flight due to weather... weather?  2 days early?  Well, little did I know they were predicting ice and snow storms in Atlanta.  So, the proactive cancelling of our flight ended up being to our benefit... at least we didn't get stuck in Atlanta, as I don't think any (or many) flights left that airport all of last week!

We left home and flew into New York City-Kennedy airport.  I did not like the set-up of this airport, but we eventually figured out where we were supposed to catch our next flight!  Our flight from there to Amsterdam was on a plane that had a second floor.  I guess it was the plane just smaller than the Airbus.  Our flight was FULL and about 6-7 hours long, but it was overnight so we were able to sleep  (or at least I did).  Here's a picture I took when we had just gotten off in Amsterdam:

We spent a little bit of time in the Amsterdam airport, but only had about 2 hours to get through passport control and to our next gate.  Our next flight into Munich was only about 2 hours and it was an easy flight compared to the one going across the pond.  Once we landed in Munich we actually didn't have to go through customs or passport control because we had already landed in the European Union previous to arriving in Germany.  My younger brother met us at the airport to help us get to our hotel... he even made a sign welcoming us to Germany (on an 8 1/2" x 11" pieces of paper using a sharpie, haha!).  Thank goodness he met us, because the train/metro system in Munich was CONFUSING at first.  We definitely got the hang of it by the end of the week.  Here are Matt & I on the S-bahn (subway/train system that reaches the suburbs of Munich):

We both look pretty exhausted from traveling for about 24 hours, but its still a cute picture!

It took about an hour to get from the airport to the hotel so we didn't get there until closer to 5 p.m.  After checking in, we decided to power-through the rest of the evening by going to see my brother's apartment and going to dinner!  Of course we had to have some German beer with our dinner (much more cost effective then pop or water, more fluid ounces per Euro).  Here are the first beers we tried:

I had a Helles (bright/light colored) and Matt had a Weissbier Dunkel (dark wheat beer) at the Italian restaurant near my brother's university campus.

We made it back to our hotel all by ourselves that night, ok my brother got us to the place where we had to switch trains but we took it from there!  Here's a picture of our adorable hotel that night:

Its kind of blurry, sorry!

We definitely crashed in bed that night, but not before Skyping with our baby boy!  I'm so thankful that my parents and my in-laws made the effort to Skype with us each evening during our trip... it definitely helped me not go crazy missing Jack!

Wonderful Vacation!

Yesterday evening, Matt and I made it safely home from Germany!  We had a wonderful vacation and aren't feeling jet lagged at all.  I do feel tired but more from the long day at work getting caught up (got to love seeing 180 emails first thing in the morning).

I'm going to try and do a couple of posts this week on our trip, but I am going out of town this weekend for a leadership conference/training so I hope to get it done!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful January!!

The Countdown!

One week from today, Matt & I will be in Germany!  We leave next Monday, and get in early morning our time.  I am really hoping we'll be able to check into our hotel and take a nap when we get there.  We'll be there over our anniversary so that is going to be really nice!  Jack will be staying here (with my parents & my in-laws) and it will be the longest either one of us have been away from him. 

So very excited for the vacation, but also going to miss my baby boy like CRAZY!  We're bringing out laptop in order to Skype with him (oh yeah, and my parents) when he's at my parents.  I am hoping that helps me!

Because we're getting ready for our trip, blog posts will be sparse this week and next.  Before I know it, it will be closing in on the end of January!

Christmas "Break"

This year I got the closest thing to a "Christmas Break" since graduating college.  Since Christmas was on a Saturday, my company had paid days off on the Thursday & Friday before and the Monday after!  It was such a nice break, but going back to work after 5 days off was hard.  Motivation = very little, especially since it was so quiet with a lot of people taking vacation last week.

Our Christmas day started out with Jack throwing up in our bed... yuck!  Matt ended up getting some 24-hour flu bug that day too.  Even though we weren't feeling well, out Christmas was relatively enjoyable!  Here are some pictures of our wonderful Christmas:


After Santa came!



Our tree lit up Christmas Eve, I guess technically Christmas Day.



Jack checking out the goodies in his stocking!



Jack is a gift opening pro this year!

With his new Cars suitcase from Uncle Alex!  He gets to use is next week when Mommy & Daddy leave for their Germany trip!