New York, New York

Over Thanksgiving, we were invited to spend the weekend in Morristown, New Jersey with our friends Jodie and Adam, as guests of Jodie's parents Ed and Maretta. Morristown is only about a 1-hour train ride from New York City, so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of days in the city while we were there.

We piled in the SUV with Jodie, Adam and their Border Collie, Duncan for the approximately 7-hour drive from Cleveland to Morristown Wednesday afternoon. After a relatively uneventful drive, we arrived around 11:00 PM to some great hospitality, and a house full of dogs as Jodie's brother and his girlfriend, also staying at the house, had brought their two labs as well. Erin has been talking about having three dogs one day, and this gave us an idea of what it might be like (a little crazy, but not too bad).

Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving in the States. It's a stroke of genius if you ask me. They get a four-day weekend out of it, while we only get a three day weekend with our Thanksgiving on a Monday. It was pretty much as advertised in TV and the movies: an entire day dedicated to nothing but lazing around the house, gorging yourself, drinking too much, watching football, and passing out from the turkey. A good time, but not something you could do every day.

On Friday, our hosts had plans to attend a concert in Morristown, so we headed out on our own to the Big Apple. Black Friday crowds meant the city was incredibly crowded, but it was still great. We arrived at Penn Station, and from there walked around mid-town, seeing sights like Times Square, the Empire State Building, Broadway and Rockefeller Center before hopping on the Subway down to Greenwich Village and the East Village. We did a little bit of shopping, stopped at a café and later a small pub before having a very nice dinner at a steakhouse in the area.

Our hosts were free on Saturday, so they took us on a little tour of more of Manhattan. We again took the train into the city and headed downtown. This time we saw Chinatown, Canal Street, Little Italy, the World Trade Center site, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Another great day in New York.

A big thanks to our hosts Ed and Maretta for welcoming us into their house for Thanksgiving, and for the Saturday tour of the city. New York is an amazing city, and not one you can do in a few days, so we're definitely planning on making a trip back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Cleveland Rocks! (Though we haven't lived through winter yet)

It's been a couple of months since our last update. Chalk it up to us being busy settling in here in Cleveland. Here's an update on what we've been up to:

At the end of October, we moved into our new house in the Coventry Village area of Cleveland Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland. We love both the house and the area.

Moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a two-story house means that we had a LOT of furniture to get to fill up the house, and it is still half empty. We've managed to furnish most of the downstairs, including our living room, dining room and eat-in kitchen (though the living room furniture will be upgraded), but our upstairs still consists of a half-furnished bedroom (our TV is resting on two German beer crates -- very classy) and two empty bedrooms. We hope to get our guest bedroom furnished early in the new year, at which point we can comfortably host visitors.

Even though it's still unfinished, our house already feels very much like "home". It's our first house together, and we are really enjoying the experience of making it our own.

The Coventry Village area is great. It's one of the few areas in Cleveland that is walkable; there are a large number of shops, restaurants, pubs and cafés within a 5 minute walk of our house. With Christmas approaching, the trees lining the street are all lit up with lights and it is quite beautiful. We've been to a few of the restaurants and pubs, but still have a number to try. We've heard that the area is especially nice in the summer, and we're looking forward to that very much.

Other than settling in, we haven't done anything too too exciting, except for a short trip to New York and New Jersey over American Thanksgiving with our friends Jodie and Adam. We'll have a separate update on that shortly, but it was a great trip. Tomorrow morning we head to Prince George for Christmas, with a short stay in Vancouver for New Year's before we head back to Cleveland.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

After Patrick and Bree's visit, we had just a few days left in Germany. Patrick and Bree left town on Tuesday morning, a day which also saw movers come to pack up our apartment, and Erin work her last day in Singen. After being moved out of our apartment, we'd spend three nights in a hotel right in the heart of Konstanz's old town.

Despite living pretty much right in the middle of Konstanz for a long time (3.5 years for Erin, 1.5 years for Tim), the town seemed a little different while staying in the hotel. We got to see the city through the eyes of a tourist, and we realized all over again what a beautiful town it is, and how much we'd miss it.

In between checking in on the cleaners and painters touching up our apartment for the turnover to the next tenant, we were able to spend some time touring the city one last time. We walked through the old town, walked along the Rhein, and had some nice meals at some our favourite restaurants in town. It would have been nice to have a little more time to soak in the town before we left, but unfortunately we had to leave early Friday morning to move to Cleveland.

Our move to the USA is one we're making with mixed feelings. On one hand, we're excited for this next adventure in our life, and to be in a culture way more similar to our Canadian way of life. On the other hand, we will miss some facets of European life that we really grew to love, and we will definitely, definitely miss having all these amazing travel opportunities right at our doorstep. In less than four years, we've seen more beautiful and amazing places than most people get to see in a lifetime, and we've gotten to meet a number of wonderful people that have become great friends. We've had some great experiences here, and we're truly lucky for that.

Konstanz Oktoberfest (with some visitors from Canada!)

This most recent update is coming to you from our new (temporary) home in Beachwood, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but we are starting to get things in order here. More on that to come soon, but first we'll go over our last days in Germany.

Our friends Patrick and Bree were visiting family and friends in England in September, and had mentioned that they had hoped to come visit us for a few days in Germany if we were able to find the time. We had to make sure their visit wouldn't interfere with the movers coming to our house, and after organizing and cancelling their vist a few times, finally we were able to arrange everything, and Patrick and Bree arrived in Konstanz on the Friday night.

Those of you who were at our wedding will remember Patrick as one our MCs; specifically the one with the odd sense of humour. He worked with both Erin and I at our last job in Canada, so we both know him well and were happy to have him and Bree visit. On their first night, we made them a cheese fondue before heading into Konstanz for a couple of drinks; all in all a pretty quiet night.

On Saturday we showed them around the town. We showed them the usual tourist sites of Konstanz: the cathedral, the old town, the waterfront, and the statue of Imperia. They absolutely loved the town.

That evening we went to the local Oktoberfest. It is tiny compared to the one in Münich, but it is still a huge party. We had a number of other friends show up as well: Scott from Tim's German class with his girlfriend Nina, our friends Chastity and Mark, and a number of friends from Erin's work as well. We had a great time drinking the giant one-litre beers, eating pork knuckles and listening to German music while wearing our lederhosen and dirndls.

Sunday we showed Patrick and Bree around town a little more, and Bree, inspired by the night before, went and bought her own dirndl for future Oktoberfests. We took advantage of some nice September weather and had a couple of beers on Konstanz's waterfront beer garden before having a nice dinner on a restaurant on the Rhine.

Monday we were back to work (Tim's last day teaching English and Erin's second-to-last day in Singen), so Patrick and Bree went down to Zürich for the day. They enjoyed it, but said they liked Konstanz much better -- great praise considering Zürich is generally considered one of the nicest cities in the world. For dinner we went to a local Brauhaus to get some traditional German food and beer. We sent Patrick and Bree off to a friend's apartment in Kreuzlingen across the border, as we needed to do some preparations for the movers coming the following morning.

Patrick and Bree were off back to England Tuesday morning, and the movers came and cleaned our stuff out of our apartment. While it was a hectic few days to have shortly before our move, it was really great to see our friends and show off our life in Germany. Three days later we would leave Germany. More on that next entry...

Croatia Part III - Dubrovnik

Our last stop on our trip through Croatia was "The Pearl of the Adriatic", Dubrovnik. We had heard nothing but good things about Dubrovnik, and it didn't disappoint.

We stayed at a waterfront hotel in the Dubrovnik suburb of Lapad, just north of the old town. It was too far to walk into town, but luckily the bus stop was right in front of our hotel, so we were able to commute easily between our hotel and the old town each day.

We arrived too late on Wednesday to head into town, so we just spent an hour or so at the hotel before going to bed. In the morning, we went for a swim off the rocks on Lapad Bay right by our hotel. As in Split and Korčula, the water was great. After our swim, we cleaned up at the hotel and took the bus into the old town of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik's old town is surrounded by a huge wall that dates back centuries. The entire old town is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was quite a sight; marble streets, narrow side streets, houses stacked up side by side and one on top of the other. It was great seeing another city so well preserved (despite the fact that 2/3 of the buildings were damaged during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's -- when doing the repairs they made sure to do the repairs in the original style they were constructed in).

Despite being a major tourist city, Dubrovnik is quite small, with a population of only around 40,000 people, so we were able to see a lot of the city in our 3 full days there. On Thursday, we walked around the city walls, which offered great views of both the city and the Adriatic Sea. On Friday we went to a beach just outside the city, and afterwards enjoyed a nice dinner on a patio overlooking the old harbour before having drinks at one of the coolest bars we've ever seen. Dubrovnik has two bars outside of the city walls, located on the rocky cliffs above the Adriatic. Having drinks on these rocks, with the city wall behind us blocking out all sounds of the city while we looked out over the sea was a great time, and a great memory we will have for years.

Saturday, we intended to make a day trip to the nearby island of Lokrum, but a huge thunderstorm thwarted our plans. We would have been happy to go to the island despite the rain, but the boats that take tourists there weren't running. So instead, we spent a bit of time running around in the rain looking for a decent restaurant to eat in (only to be disappointed with the one we found... oh well), before heading back to the hotel and exploring the area of Lapad a little. After a nice dinner in Lapad, we headed back into town (now that the rain had stopped) for another drink at one of the cliff top bars outside the wall. Despite not getting to do everything we wanted this day, we learned a valuable lesson: if it starts raining in Dubrovnik, get inside ASAP. In a town where everything is made of marble and stone, there is nowhere for the rain to go except on you. The streets became rivers and we got absolutely soaked.

We had an early, early flight on Sunday, which of course was delayed 2.5 hours. Luckily they held our connecting flight in Zagreb for about 40 minutes to let us on, and we were able to get back into Zürich only about 30 minutes late. Despite the minor troubles our last couple of days, we had an amazing time in Croatia, and it was a great final vacation to have before we leave Europe for the USA.

Croatia Part II - Korčula

The next stop in our trip was the island of Korčula, about halfway between Split and Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast.

We arrived in the evening and checked into our hotel, which was possibly the worst hotel we've stayed in in Europe. Apparently many of the hotels along the Croatian coast were built by the communist Yugoslavian government during the 1970s. This one probably hasn't been updated since then. The accommodations were pretty dingy and the staff was incredibly rude, but the hotel did boast a nice location right on the water, just a 5-10 minute walk from Korčula's beautiful old town.

The old town of Korčula is a walled city dating back to I think the 13th Century or so, and has a small population, only about 5,000 people. It is designed in an interesting way, with tall (for the time) buildings and narrow streets, and if you were to look at it from above, a map of the city streets would look kind of like a big fishbone. There is one main street down the middle, with side streets fanning out along from it. The sides streets were angled in a certain way so that cool summer winds would blow through the streets in the hot summers, but strong, cold winter winds (coming from the other direction) wouldn't penetrate the city. We went into the town, had some dinner, then went back to the hotel for some sleep.

In the morning, we decided to go to the beach right after breakfast. When we booked the hotel, we were under the impression it had its own beach. We wouldn't really call it a beach, it was more a bunch of rocks along the water, which wasn't what we had hope for, but was still alright. We walked along the rocks for a little while and found a quiet, semi-private spot where we could go swimming. The swimming, as in Split, was great. Perfect temperatures, nice and calm, all you could ask for.

For dinner that night, we followed a recommendation from our guide book and went to a really nice family-run seafood restaurant. We had some great fish, caught that very day, on a nice sidewalk patio along one of the narrow side streets looking down to the water. It was probably the nicest dinner we had on our trip.

When we got back to our hotel at about 11:00, we were not-so-pleasantly surprised to find out that there was an outdoor rock concert going on right next to our hotel. This was something our hotel neglected to tell us, both when we booked the hotel and at any other point during our stay. It kept us up until after 2 AM (and this was on a Tuesday night too), which made for a pretty miserable night. The hotel of course didn't care at all, and brushed of our complaints.

However, we didn't let it ruin our time in Korčula. The next morning we went for another swim off the rocks, and had a nice lunch at a pizza place along the water in the old town. Later in the afternoon, we had our next ferry trip, this time to Dubrovnik. Korčula was great, despite the awful hotel. It made us wish we had more time and were able to see more of the Croatian islands.

Croatia Part I - Split

Our final vacation in Europe before we move to the States took us to Croatia. We flew from nearby Friedrichshafen, Germany to Split, Croatia. We spent two nights in Split before moving on to the island of Korčula and Dubrovnik. We'll start off with Split.

We arrived in Split early Saturday afternoon. We were met by a girl from the company that we rented an apartment from, and after taking us to our apartment, gaves us some recommendations for places to check out. The apartment was in a cool part of Split's old town, right next to Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian's Palace was built around 300 AD. It was abandoned by the Romans some time after that, and in the 7th Century, nearby residents started residing within the palace, and it eventually became the main part of Split's old town. It was really cool walking around in a town where the buildings are 1700 years old and still intact.

On Sunday we went and toured the basements underneath Diocletian's Palace. The basements had been forgotten for centuries, and it wasn't until something like 50 years ago that they were rediscovered. Apparently back when people first started living in the palace, they lived above the basements, and looking for somewhere to dispose of their garbage and human waste, just broke holes in their floors and threw their trash into the basement. Eventually the basements filled up with garbage and people just forgot the basements were there. Anyway, they've now been emptied of the garbage, and they are preserving the basements the way they originally were, which was interesting to see.

We headed to Korčula on Monday afternoon, but before the ferry ride we had time to kill in town, so we headed to Bačvice Beach for a swim. Despite being a "city beach", which a lot of Croatians apparently thing aren't all that nice, we really like the beach. The water was crystal clear, the sand was soft and white, and you could walk out what seemed like 100 yards before the water was up to your shoulders. A really enjoyable beach.

Dieppe

Early in the morning of August 19, 1942 almost 5000 Canadian soldiers stormed the beach at Dieppe, France, hoping to temporarily seize and hold the port town, while destroying coastal defenses and gathering intelligence. As almost everyone in Canada knows, it did not work out this way. By early afternoon, over 900 of those Canadians had been killed, and almost 2500 captured by the Germans. Less than half of the Canadian troops that headed out from England that morning made it back safely that night.


As we walked along that same beach 67 years and 4 days later, it was hard to fathom what had occurred here. Despite the fact that there are reminders of the Dieppe Raid all around the town of Dieppe, its hard to believe that so many people died not that long ago on the beach where people sunbathe and swim today.

We ended up in Dieppe on Sunday evening, as Erin had to go there for work for Monday and Tuesday. I tagged along to see the sites and pay our respects at the Canadian memorials in town.

Today, Dieppe is a relatively sleepy beach town in Normandy. It has a nice enclosed harbour with a number of waterfront restaurants, the aforementioned beach on the English Channel, an old castle/chateau on the cliffs overlooking the town, and pretty nice, if somewhat run-down old town right off the beach. But as Canadians, there were some other things in town that held a lot of interest as well: The Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery and the Mémorial du 19 Août 1942, a museum in town dedicated to the raid.

The Canadian War Cemetery is actually a few kilometres out of town, in some farmland in a small village outside of Dieppe. It is very peaceful, and is quite attractive as well. There are soldiers from France, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Poland buried here as well, but the vast majority of the graves belong to Canadian soldiers. Most have names, but there are a number hat just say something like "a soldier of the war of 1939-1945", which is quite sad. In addition, you see some tombstones where the soldiers died as young as 18, which, as trite as it may sound, gives you pause to think, and thank that we didn't have to go through anything like that in our generation.

After visiting the cemetery, I walked back into town and visited the Mémorial du 19 Août 1942. This is a small, but moving museum. They have a 40 minute video with film and pictures of the raid, as well as first person account from Canadian and British soldiers, as well as a doctor and nun from Dieppe that helped wounded Canadians on the day of the raid. In addition, they had newspaper clippings from Canada, Britain and Germany from the time of the raid, as well as memorabilia from the raid, such as Canadian uniforms and things like that.

One other tribute to Canada that they have in Dieppe is the "Square du Canada", a small park-like square right below the Château de Dieppe. Its quite nice, and right in the heart of town. It's nice to see that Dieppe has remembered the sacrifices Canadians made to make them free.

After Erin got off work the two full days we had in town, we just explored the town a bit and tried to find nice places for dinner. The walk along the harbour is quite nice, but unfortunately the restaurants were quite touristy, and the food wasn't that great (which was a shame, as we were looking forward to some good seafood, being on the sea and all). We also got a taste of the legendary French customer service, which we had thus far avoided for the most part in our earlier visits to Paris and Strasbourg. Let's just say that most waitresses in Dieppe won't be winning any awards for congeniality.

On Wednesday morning, we left Dieppe and spent some time on planes, trains and automobiles (train to Paris, flight to Zürich, car to Konstanz) getting back home. Dieppe was another valuable historical trip for us, and one we're glad we made.

Coming up this weekend is our final vacation in Europe, a week long trip to Croatia, where we will hopefully soak up some sun on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea. After that, it's back to Konstanz for not quite three weeks before we move to Ohio.

Prague

With our time in Europe running out quickly, we have been trying to travel as much as possible lately. Our latest mini-vacation was a weekend trip to Prague.

After finishing work early on Friday, we took the train to Zürich and flew out to Prague in the evening. After checking into our hotel around 9:30, we rushed out to get a quick dinner before exploring the town. Our new friends from the USA, Chastity and Mark, also went to Prague this weekend, and after dinner we met up with them.

The four of us explored the old town of Prague, including the Old Town Square, which includes the Týn Church, Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock before walking down to the world famous Charles Bridge. The Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava river and offers great views of Prague Castle, the biggest castle in Europe. The bridge also has about 30 statues all along it, dedicated mostly to religious figures. The bridge was built in the mid 1300s, and the statues date back to about 1700.

Saturday and Sunday we spent just touring the town during the day, and then meeting up with Chastity and Mark for dinner and drinks at night. Prague has a lot of tourist attractions, like the bridge, the castle and the town square, but really, the town itself is a tourist attraction. It is absolutely beautiful, and it has done a great job of becoming a modern city while still having a look of an old European town. Walking through the streets, you can imagine that the way the street looks today is almost the same as it would have looked one or two hundred years ago.

So we spent a lot of the weekend just sort of strolling around town. We saw sites like the Prague Castle, some old churches, and a relatively new attraction, the John Lennon Peace Wall. The wall is a section of wall in the "Lesser Town" across the bridge from the Old Town, where when John Lennon was murdered, people in Prague, which was still under communist rule at the time, went to spray paint messages of peace and freedom in spite of government orders to not do so.

While in Prague, we of course also sampled some of the local beers. The Czech Republic is where the Pilsener style of beer was invented, so it is of course prevalent here, and often dirt cheap. It was also very good.

We had to head back on Monday afternoon, so Monday morning and early afternoon we took the opportunity for one last walk around town and one last drink on a sidewalk patio. Prague was definitely one of our favourite places we've visited, and it was nice to soak it up a little more.

Next up is a short, last-minute trip to Dieppe, France. Erin has to go there for work, and Tim will be tagging along. Dieppe is probably best known to Canadians as the site of a battle where Canadians were decimated by the Germans in WWII. There is a large Canadian War Cemetery there. We will definitely visit it and pay our respects.

Our First Anniversary, One Year Together in Germany

August 2, 2009 marked our first anniversary. Since we had just gotten back from our trip to Vienna and Budapest, we didn't do anything big to celebrate. Instead we just had a nice weekend around Lake Konstanz.

On the Friday night, we went to the Konstanz Weinfest (Wine Festival). Imagine a mini Oktoberfest, only outside and with wine instead of beer. It was just a few blocks from our house, and was a lot of fun. They filled up a square in town with tables, stands from probably dozens of local wineries, and a stage with for live music. It was a lot of fun.

On the Saturday, we took a ferry to the city of Meersburg, where we finally got around to using a wedding gift from Erin's colleagues, a wine tasting and gift certificate at the Meersburg winery Staatsweingut Meersburg. While it was very nice, we may not have picked the best day to go there. After indulging at the Weinfest the night before, sampling a bunch of wines early the next afternoon probably wasn't the most pleasant thing for our palates. After the tasting we strolled around Meersburg, which is a really beautiful little town.

For dinner that night, we went to one of our favourite restaurants in Konstanz: a little tapas restaurant called La Bodega. We filled up on delicious food, including our personal favourites: bacon-wrapped dates. This was our "big" anniversary dinner, as on Sunday, our actual anniversary, we took it pretty easy and stayed home most of the day, watching an ill-timed summer rainstorm most of the day.

So with one year of marriage in the books, our next milestone was one full year together in Germany. That day came the next weekend, August 9th. Last year when we arrived, it was during Seenachtsfest, a local festival that concludes with a big fireworks show over Lake Konstanz. Last year we were dead tired and didn't go to the festival, but saw the fireworks show from out balcony. This year, we again didn't go to the festival, but this time it was due to yet another ill-timed summer storm that kept us from wanting to go and stand outside all day. So we again watched the show from our balcony, and thought back on the great year we've had together in Germany. Hard to believe our time here is almost over...

I'm the Buda, She's the Pest

After Vienna, we hopped on the train for the 3-hour trip to Budapest. We arrived Sunday night at about 7:00 PM. After checking into our holiday apartment, which was in a great location one block from the Danube in between Parliament and the Chain Bridge, we headed out for dinner.

Budapest is a beautiful city. It is split into two parts, Buda and Pest, by the Danube River. Buda is on the west and contains the Royal Palace and some old parts of the city. Pest, where we were staying, is more modern, and despite that, possibly more beautiful.

For dinner, we headed to a Kosher restaurant we read about, and after searching around a little, were finally able to find it. When we walked in, however, we were the only customers there, and the waiter told us it was vegetarian food only. This surprised us, because the guide book mentioned a number of meat dishes, but we thought "what the heck" and ate there anyways. We found out later that our trip to Budapest coincided with The Nine Days, a Jewish period of mourning where meat (and apparently bathing) is forbidden. The food was okay, but nto what we had hoped for. After dinner we discovered a little more of Pest beforeheading back to the apartment after a long day.

On Monday, we went out for a nice breakfast at a café in Pest before crossing the Chain Bridge to Buda, where we checked out the Royal Palace and the castle district for much of the afternoon. After that, we checked out a Communist-themed pizza restaurant in an area of Buda where it kind of looked like they were still stuck in the Cold War. It wasn't the most beautiful part of town, and we definitely preferred the more upscale Pest side, but it was interesting to get a glimpse at what life may have looked like in Budapest under the communist regimes of the 70's and 80's.

On Tuesday, we checked out a couple of tourist attractions, the Terror House, the Great Market Hall, and St. Stephen's Basilica. The Terror House is a building in Pest that served as the headquarters for both the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (basically the Nazis of Hungary) and the communist State Protection Authority. Both of these groups used the building to interrogate, torture and imprison people that got in their way or disagreed with their way of life. It was interesting to learn more about this, since internationally, you don't often hear much about what happened in Hungary during those times.

The Great Market Hall is Budapest's largest public market. Picture Granville Island, only bigger and with every second stall selling Hungarian Paprika. It was pretty cool. Later in the afternoon we checked out St. Stephen's Basilica, and we were wowed. It's one of the more beautiful cathedrals we've seen in our travels, with a huge interior, a beautiful dome, and mostly marble walls and columns inside. It was something.

Our night concluded with a nice dinner on a patio in Pest, where we finally got our first taste of authentic Hungarian Goulash, as well as the Hungarian digestif "Unicum". Let's just say the Goulash went down easier.

We headed back to Vienna on Wednesday for our flight back to Zürich. Budapest was a beautiful city that we really loved, and wished we could have spent more time in. Our next planned trip is a weekend in Prague. If its anywhere as nice as Budapest, it should be a great time.

Just a Couple of Wieners

Last Wednesday, we headed to Vienna and Budapest for a one-week trip. We had four nights in Vienna and three in Budapest. Part of the time in Vienna was taken up by a lacrosse tournament for Tim, but the rest of the week we were free to tour these two beautiful cities.

We arrived in Vienna on Wednesday evening, and after checking into our hotel, headed to a restaurant recommended by a co-worker of Erin, that allegedly has the best Wiener schnitzel in all of Vienna. We had made reservations at this restaurant, named Figlmüller earlier in the day, and it was a good thing, as there was a lineup out the door when we arrived. The schnitzel didn't disappoint. In addition to being delicious, it was bigger than the plate it was brought out on. We had an Austrian potato salad with it, and washed it down with some local white wine, a traditional Austrian meal for our first night.

On Thursday, we checked out out local sites like the Naschmarkt, St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Hofburg Imperial Palace, before having a nice, albeit incredibly filling dinner at an old restaurant located in a hundreds of years old cellar in the old town.

On Friday, we started the day off with a nice breakfast at a Viennese coffee house, and then went our separate ways for most of the day; Tim playing lacrosse with the Swiss National Team in the Austrian Nations Cup and Erin checking out more of the city as well as seeing Schönbrunn Palace before catching the last lacrosse game of the day and heading out for dinner together.

Saturday was more of the same; Tim playing lacrosse and Erin touring the city during the day before we met up for dinner together at the end of the night. Tim's lacrosse team managed to make it to the tournament final with an overtime win over the Slovakian team in the semifinals, and was set to face Team Austria in the finals early Sunday afternoon.

Since we had to leave for Budapest pretty much right after the lacrosse game on Sunday, no touristy stuff was done. Erin came to watch the game (the only person cheering on Switzerland, compared to a decent sized crowd cheering on the hated Austrians), and despite falling behind 4-0 early, Tim and Team Switzerland managed to come back and win the tournament 11-9, the first time Switzerland has ever beaten Austria. It was a nice way to end our time in Vienna, but we didn't get to celebrate for too long, as we had a train to catch to Budapest. More on Budapest to come soon!

Onward to The Metropolis of the Western Reserve!

It's been an exciting week here. As of yesterday, it is official that we will be moving to Cleveland. Earlier in the year, Erin interviewed for a job in Solon, just outside of Cleveland, still with the same company. After being informally offered the position a little while ago, she received an official offer last week, and as of yesterday, she accepted it! So, as of the beginning of October, we will be living in the USA. It will certainly be a change of pace, but after seeing the video below, we can't wait!

In all seriousness though, we will definitely miss Europe. While there are some things from home that we definitely miss here, there are also some great things that we will miss when we move back to North America. For one, it'll be a lot more difficult to just pack up and head to Paris for the weekend now...

So, with only about 2.5 months left in Europe, we are trying to make the most of our remaining time (and generous amount of vacation given in Germany) and do as much travelling as possible. Next week we head to Vienna and Budapest for a week, and just last night we booked a weekend trip to Prague in mid-August. We're also hoping to spend a week in Croatia and a weekend in Amsterdam before all is said and done.

And as mentioned earlier, in October, we'll be back in North America. It'll be nice to be that much closer to our families, and also to be back in an English speaking country. We're looking forward to this next step in our adventure.

Back to Paris

Last weekend we took advantage of affordable train tickets and some local connections and went back to one of our favourite cities: Paris. Early Friday afternoon we hopped on a train for Paris with our friend Laurence, a colleague of Erin's whose boyfriend, Fred, is a Gendarme living in Paris. Fred lives on a Gendarmerie base in the Paris suburbs and we were able to stay with him for the weekend, making Paris much more affordable.

Our inbound train had to be re-routed due to a tree on the tracks somewhere, and thus we were a little late arriving. Because of this we decided to stay in and take it easy, and cram our Paris adventure into Saturday and Sunday.

We got up relatively early on Saturday and had a nice French pastry breakfast before heading out. We had wanted to go see the Catacombs, but the line to get in was literally around the blocks, so we went with Plan B and checked out Rue Daguerre in the same neighbourhood, and fun street with some cool shops and cafés. After that we went to the Grande Mosquée de Paris, which has a café/restaurant attached, and had a really nice lunch. We had various Moroccan dishes, with a sweet mint tea, and some great pastries for dessert.

Afterwards, we walked through the Latin Quarter, Île Saint-Louis, and Le Marais before heading back to Fred's to get ready for our evening event, a dinner cruise along the Seine. While the dinner cruise may be a little touristy, it was still really enjoyable. We boarded the boat right near the Eiffel Tower, and the boat then goes upriver through all the main sights along the river, turning around on the eastern edge of the city before turning and heading back downriver, finishing up right by the Eiffel Tower, which at this point is all lit up in the night sky.

The meals were very good, and despite being on a boat, it felt more like we were in an elegant restaurant. There was live music from a jazz band, nice wine, and expensive dishes with portion sizes half of what we would get in a regular restaurant... yep, we're in Paris! After the cruise, we strolled around the city a little more before heading home.

On Sunday, Fred and Laurence took us to one of their favourite places for brunch in the city. It was this place in a very nondescript neighbourhood in the 19th or 20th Arrondissement, where we can't imagine tourists would ever go unless they were specifically looking for this place. The brunch has two parts. The first was an all-you-can-eat buffet of delicious pastries, baked goods like brownies and cookies, fruit and beverages. That would have been easily enough food, but they then offer you a choice of one of five or six prepared dishes, with things like an English Plate (with eggs, sausages, bacon), lamb or salmon. It was all very good, and filled us up for the rest of the day. We'd highly recommend this place, which is called La Bellevilloise, if you are ever in Paris.

Having to head back to Konstanz late Sunday afternoon, we didn't have too too much time to do much else, but we were able to head back to one of our favourite streets in Paris, Rue Mouffetard, where we spent another nice afternoon.

We arrived back in Konstanz late Sunday night, appreciating Paris even more. Every time we go there, we find something new which makes us love the city even more. And it definitely helps to have some local guides like Fred and Laurence to show us around!

Lugano

This past weekend we decided to take a quick trip to Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano is the largest city in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, though it only has a population of about 60,000.

Despite Lugano being in the far south of the country, and us being located on the northern border of Switzerland, we were able to get there by train in about 5 hours. We left Konstanz and Singen around 3:30 PM and arrived in Lugano around 8:30.

Arriving in town, we could see how beautiful it was right away. Located on Lago di Lugano (Lake Lugano) just south of the Alps, Lugano is still in a very hilly area which creates great scenery. Huge hills surround the lake, with houses and villas dotting a number of the hills.

Lake Lugano is right on the border between Switzerland and Italy. The hills are very lush, and palm trees can be spotted all around the city of Lugano. Throw in 30-degree heat and its very easy to forget that you're in snowy Switzerland.

After arriving, we checked into our hotel about halfway down the hill from the train station, and then headed out to explore the town. The mostly pedestrian-only downtown is actually quite small. It's full of high end boutiques that are expensive even by Swiss standards. There are a number of squares around town, and we found a nice restuarant right on the main square for dinner. We sat on their patio to enjoy some delicious beef carpaccio and pizza, and its a good thing the patio was covered, because in the middle of our dinner, a huge thunderstorm hit the town and drenched the main square. However, by the time we were done dinner, the rain had stopped, and with the tropical-like Lugano heat, most of it had already dried up.

We went out Saturday without much of a plan, deciding to just wander around the city and see what it had to offer. We checked out the old town some more, walked along the waterfront and saw the St. Mary of the Angels Church, which dates back to the 16th century and has an amazing fresco of the Passion of the Christ painted on the wall inside. See the slideshow below for a picture of that.

After that, we walked along the water the opposite direction, through a very nice city park with some beautiful gardens, and had lunch at a little restaurant along the water. After lunch we spent some more time in the park before heading back to the hotel for a quick break. We then explored more of the town, including the St. Lawrence Cathedral, with its great location on the hill, dating back to the 8th century. We spent some time in the courtyard admiring the view of Lake Lugano before heading back into town for drinks and dinner. We each had some fresh pasta, bookended by some Port wine before and after dinner, a legacy from our trip to Portugal.

Before heading back on Sunday, we squeezed in one more walk along the lake. There wasn't too much else to do since everything was closed for Sunday, but that's alright, because just checking out one of the more beautiful places we've been was nice enough.

Lausanne

The first week of June, Erin had to go to Lausanne for work for a few days, and I decided to tag along. Lausanne is one of our favourite places we've been. On the hills above Lake Geneva, it's one of the most picturesque places in Switzerland, and that's saying a lot.

We arrived tuesday night and stayed until Thursday evening. While Erin was working I was able to explore the city a little. Having already been here a few times before, there wasn't much left for me to explore, but it's still nice wandering around the steep, cobblestone streets of the old town, and along the Quai d'Ouchy along Lausanne's waterfront.

On Tuesday, I spent some time checking out the city before heading down to the lake, where I walked along the Quai until I found a quiet little pebbled beach to read and go for a quick swim. The weather was great; mid-20's and sunny. After Erin got off work, we had a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant in our hotel and walked the meal off with a hike through town at night.

Wednesday, Erin was stuck working again, so I made a visit to the Olympic Museum. I've visited the museum a few times, and always find it enjoyable. They have a permanent collection with memorabilia from athletes past, as well as all the torches, medals, etc. used from every Olympics.

Unfortunately, that was it for this quick trip, and we were back to Konstanz that night. Lausanne, as usual, was beautiful, and hopefully we can make it back there again soon.

Mainau - die Blumeninsel

The last weekend of May was yet another long weekend here in Germany (another Catholic holiday, don't ask which one), and around a lacrosse game for Tim in the too-far-away Bavarian Town of Erlangen (which took up an entire saturday), we took some time to relax and enjoy the sun.

Our friend Laurence, a co-worker of Erin's who came out to Vancouver last summer with her boyfriend Fred all the way from France, spent most of the weekend with us, adding a touch of French sophistication to our normally lowbrow weekends!

The highlight of our weekend was probably our Sunday trip to the nearby island of Mainau, known as the Blumeninsel, or Flower Island. Despite being in Lake Konstanz in Germany, the island was property of the Swedish Royal Family until about 35 years ago. They used it as a private retreat, but it is now maintained as a garden island, full of beautiful flowers, manicured gardens, and a butterfly house.

The island wasn't quite as beautiful as it could be, unfortunately, due to a huge thunder and hailstorm that caused a ton of damage and flooding in the town of Konstanz on the preceding Tuesday. So, while it was still very nice, a number of plants and trees were kind of beat up from the storm.

The plant highlights were probably the rose gardens and the "Globemaster" Allium flowers, some of which are pictured below. But as usual, our favourite time was probably spent in the butterfly house. (When we way "our favourite", by the way, we are excluding Laurence, who for some reason seems to be afraid of butterflies). We spent a while in there, looking at the gorgeous butterflies, and Erin used her special charms to get a number of them to land on her hands.

Hopefully we will have the time to visit Mainau again before the summer is over. It is really beautiful, but its one of those things we often forget about doing since its so close.

Portugal Part III - Lisbon

After a couple of relaxing days in Porto Covo, we hopped on a bus early Thursday morning and arrived in Lisbon around noon. We took a cab to our rental apartment, where we were met by Deb, a transplanted American, who along with her husband Jordan rent out a number of apartments in the heart of Lisbon through their website Visiting Portugal. She was really great, and after letting us in the apartment, she gave us a little food to keep in the fridge, and then gave us a tour of the neighbourhood around our apartment, which included some nice restaurant recommendations that we took her up on during our stay.

After our tour, we decided to hit up a local grocery store, where we bought some fresh fruit, and ate that along with some fresh Portuguese buns and cheese from Deb for our lunch. We washed it down with some green wine, or Vinho Verde, a Portuguese wine that we quite enjoyed.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, and did a little shopping for Portuguese potteries. Airline luggage restrictions stopped us from buying too much, which may have been a good thing, because there was so much beautiful pottery around that we could have easily bought enough to fill up 5 suitcases. For dinner we went to a Nepalese restaurant that Deb recommended, and it did not disappoint.

On Friday we went to see the Castle of São Jorge, which dates back hundreds of hundreds of years, and saw a number of important battles before eventually being used as a palace for Portuguese royalty. The castle was very cool, and offered great views of Lisbon as well.

To get down from the castle, we hopped on one of Lisbon's street cars for the ride back down to the old town. Riding the street cars through the old neighbourhoods is supposed to be one of the best tourist attractions in town, but we found it not as enjoyable. Instead, it was just like being stuck on a hot, crowded street car in rush hour, barely moving, and really, we could have done that anywhere...

For dinner we took another one of Deb's recommendations and went to a nice restaurant called Café Buenos Aires, a tiny little place that puts tables out on the stairway overlooking the main square of Lisbon. It was really nice, and much to Erin's delight, offered a number of dishes filled with vegetables, which is rare in meat & potatoes Portugal.

On Sunday, we ventured out of the city center and took a 15-20 minute street car ride to the historic suburb of Belém. There, we toured the Belém Tower, a fortification built in the early 1500's, which was built to be both a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon and also for defensive purposes.

Afterwards, it started to rain (fortunately the first rain we saw all trip), so we rushed over to the town of Belém and found the world famous Casa Pastéis de Belém pastry shop, and had some delicious Pastéis de nata, which small custard tarts that are very popular in the area. They are served fresh and warm and were very, very good. While we were inside, the rain stopped, and we headed back into Lisbon's old town.

For dinner that night, we went to a tiny little hole in the wall that we'd seen the night before, and had one last traditional Portuguese meal (i.e. meat and potatoes) before heading home. After 9 days of travel, and with an early flight the next morning, we were pretty beat and just went back to our apartment for a somewhat early night in.




Portugal was great. Porto, Porto Covo and Lisbon were all quite different from one another, but there was a definite similarity between these towns as well. The Portuguese seemed quite laid back and friendly almost everywhere we went. The weather was great, the food was great, the and the beaches were great. Hopefully we will get to go back one day.