Our first visitors, Salzburg and more!

Some of these are very late, but I am going to try to get all of our blogs caught up today.  Here we go....

Back in February Ron and Connie Koehn came to visit and we met them in Salzburg, Austria.  Ron and Connie studied abroad at Salzburg College and actually met while exploring Austria together!  Ever since then, they have loved Salzburg and have encouraged all the Kap kids to study abroad and travel as much as we can.  As soon as we told our family we would be moving to Germany we knew they would plan a trip to see us right away.  They spent a week in Salzburg before we arrived and were excited to show us around.  Brandon and I hopped on the train, made a few connections and in about 6 hours we arrived in Salzburg where Ron and Connie were waiting for us on the train platform.

The weather wasn't great while we were there, but it was great to walk around and see the city that Ron and Connie love so much as well as take in some wonderful architecture, sights and food.  We took the Sound of Music Tour which was a great way to see different parts of the city as well as some of the countryside (even though I have to admit I've never seen the whole movie.  We tried to watch it the night before and didn't get very far :) ).

The steps in the background are featured in the "Do, re, mi" scene of The Sound of Music.  I actually did see that part of the movie :).

One of the exteriors of the house used in the movie.

Also from The Sound of Music.  The gazebo has been moved, but this is the original structure from the movie.

We also took a trip about an hour outside of town to Berchtesgaden.  When I google pictures of this town, it looks beautiful!  It was pretty when we were there as well, but the cloudy weather inhibited us from actually seeing any mountains or blue sky.  We did eat at a great beer garden, toured the old salt mine and got to see the Documentation Obersalzberg which was a great museum depicting some of the Nazi propaganda as well as Hitler's summer retreat and compound that was located on the same grounds.  They have even opened up some of the old bunkers that connected all of the Nazi buildings and it was really interesting to see how they had carved out so much of the mountains to connect all of their offices, buildings, etc.  We will have to go back some day to see Hitler's Eagles Nest which wasn't open while we were there.

The hike down to the site of Hitler's summer home

All that remains of Hitler's summer home.  This is the back wall of the house.  The house was destroyed by bombing and trees were planted to try and cover up the area after the war.  Only recently has Germany really started to create museums, etc. in regard to WWII.  It was a time in history that many wanted to simply forget, but history can never be forgotten and they are starting to understand the importance of educating people about the past to ensure history does not repeat itself.

Other highlights of Salzburg include visiting Augustiner beer hall, taking a tour of Mozart's birthplace as well as a wonderful dinner and concert of some of Mozart's famous opera arias performed by a string quintet in costume as well as a male and female vocalist.  We had a GREAT time and were so thankful to spend time with Ron and Connie and get to see the beautiful city of Salzburg.  We definitely want to go back when the weather is better.

Ron and Connie spent a few more days in Salzburg and then flew to Frankfurt to spend a week with us.  Unfortunately, we had to work every day, but they are easy guests!  They ventured out to many of the little towns around us and took in the sights while we were at work.  We did get to spend evenings with them and show them some of our favorite restaurants around Kaiserslautern.  Over the weekend that they were here, we took them to Bamburg and Rothenburg (see previous post about our trip there last fall).  We had a wonderful time and were sad to see them go.

In other news...I don't think I ever posted that I got a full time teaching job for the remainder of the school year.  I spent about a month as a special education aide at Kaiserslautern Middle School last December and was offered a position directing band at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School for the rest of the school year starting in January.  I am really liking it!  I miss teaching choir, but this has been a great experience and I am learning a lot.  I should know in the next few weeks if I will get to keep the job for next year.  As a result of government budget cuts and schools closing, I may not get to stay in this position.  Brandon is still enjoying his job as well and has even started volunteering with one of his co-workers as a coach for pe-wee baseball.

"We have rules here in Germany"

I figured it was my turn to try my hand at writing a blog post since Andrea has been writing them all up to this point. Soooooooo........Here we go!

Our latest weekend trip took us up to Berlin.  Berlin is around a 7 hour drive from Kaiserslautern, so we decided to try a different mode of transportation that we hadn't used up to this point.  The DB (German train company) offers overnight trains for longer distance trips, so we decided to give that a try.  We boarded the train in Kaiserslautern around 10:30 and made the 1 hour trip to Mannheim where we caught the overnight train.  We were traveling with Toni and Warren, so we reserved a 4 person coachette to share with them.  I was kind of nervous because I didn't really know what to expect.  Turns out it worked out pretty well (as well as an oversized closet with 4 beds in it could be!)  I didn't sleep very well, but I think everyone else was able to get some sleep.  I think I slept for maybe 4 of the 8 hours that we were on the train.   Here is what our "closet" looked like.  It was cozy to say the least!

We arrived in Berlin around 7:30 AM on Saturday, and hit the ground running.  We found out way to our B&B where we showered up and dropped off our bags.  First on the agenda was visiting some of the Museums that Berlin has to offer.  We went to the Pergamon Museum and the Neues Museum.  Both of them were very cool and well worth the time.  The main exhibits at the Pergamon were several different monumental buildings that were reconstructed in the museum.  The Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus were excavated and brought to Germany from Turkey, and the Ishtar Gate came from ancient Babylon.  All three were very impressive.

                                                                        Ishtar Gate

                                   

The Pergamon Altar

Market Gate of Miletus

The Neues Museum had a very large exhibit of Egyptian antiquities that were found on several different expeditions.  The prize piece of the exhibit was the famous bust of Nefertiti.  The bust is very impressive in pictures but is ten times better in person.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures......booooo!  

Next it was on to Check Point Charlie.  The museum was very informative and we could have spent half of the day in there alone.  There was so much to go through.  It was very worth while for me because I didn't really know much about it before we went there.  I thought the coolest part of the exhibits were how they showed the different ways that people tried to escape and make it across or under the Berlin Wall.  

After we made it through that museum, we made out way over to a museum that was called the Topography of Terror.  This museum was built on the site of the former SS headquarters from when the Nazi's were in power.  It was a very somber place, but well worth the time to see.  The German government built it because they wanted the people to never forget what went on during that time in their history.  Also, outside of the Topography of Terror stands the largest segment of the Berlin Wall that is still standing.  

On to day two!

Day two was filled with lots of plans...........that never really materialized thanks to the Bahn Police.  No, we didn't end up in a German jail, but we did end up a little lighter in the wallet.  Many people had told us about a walking tour of the city that they highly recommended, so we made that first on our list of things to do.  We bought our day pass, as we had done the day before, and boarded the train.  We were running a little bit late, so we were going to be cutting it close to make it on time.  The we saw the dreaded Bahn Police.  They come around every so often to make sure that people actually have tickets and aren't just riding the trains without paying.  I handed him out ticket, and he looked at me with a very confused look on his face.  He told me that we hadn't validated out tickets.  I told the man that the tickets had the time and date printed on the ticket, so I thought we were good.  He proceeded to tell me that "We have rules here in Germany, and we need you to get off the train at the next stop."  So, after we each had to pay the man $40 Euros a piece, we were on our merry way.  Of course by that time, we had missed our tour, so we had to come up with another plan for the day.  

It all ended up working out though, because we found a really cool market/flea market that we wandered around for a while.  We could have spent a lot of money there, but the Bahn Police had taken it all.....haha.  After the market, we ended up doing our own tour using a guide that was in the Rick Steves book that Toni and Warren brought with.  That walk included the German Reichstag (the German Parliament), the Berliner Dome, and the Brandenburg Gate.  It was a long day of walking, but we got to see a lot of the city.  We ended our night in an Irish Pub.  We enjoyed a couple pints of Guinness, planned some activities for our trip to Ireland in April, and then called it a night.  

                                                                Brandenburg Gate

    

Berliner Dome

German Reichstag

We headed for the train station in the morning and made the long haul back to Kaiserslautern and were home by 6:00 on Monday.  Berlin was a pretty neat city with lots and lots of history.  It was well worth the time.  I would definitely recommend going there, but make sure that you remember that they have rules!   We will be stamping and double stamping all train tickets from here on out! 

We are really excited to meet Ron and Connie Koehn (some of Andrea's family friends) in a few weeks in Salzburg, Austria.  Another post and pictures will follow that trip!

 

Christmas in Paris

On Saturday morning before Christmas I woke up to a phone call from our friend Ben (and coworker of Brandon's) saying that the president had signed an executive order giving them the day off on Christmas Eve.  This unexpected day off gave us a four day weekend and of course we couldn't sit around the house for a four day weekend.  We decided to go to Paris for the weekend.  I love that we can randomly go to Paris for the weekend whenever we want to :).  We went to the train station and bought tickets for the high speed rail (200 mph) departing from Kaiserslautern at about 6:00 PM.  We got on trip advisor and found a great hotel for a good price and we were on our way.

The train ride is only about 2.5 hours.  We easily navigated the metro and got to the hotel about 9:45 or 10:00 PM.  The hotel staff were extremely friendly and told us about a Christmas market by the Arc de Triumphe that was open until midnight.  We put our luggage in our room and hopped on the metro to walk downtown.  When we came up from the subway stop this is what we saw.....

We walked around the Christmas market and made our way down the famous Champs Elysees toward the Place de la Concorde and enjoyed some wonderful crepes before heading back to our hotel.  

Sunday morning we got up and visited the Musee L'Orangerie which is a small gallery of impressionistic and post-impressionistic paintings.   My favorite style of painting is from the impressionistic period, so this museum was amazing!  This museum features a series of Monet's Waterlilies paintings that were specifically created for entire walls in this room.  It was beautiful! They also had an impressive collection of Renoir (my favorite) and had his famous painting of the two young girls at the piano.  We then walked across the Seine and visited the Musee D'Orsay which is an old train station turned into an art museum.  This hotel also featured a massive collection of impressionistic art (86 Monet, 46 Pissaro, 81 Renoir and many others).  We enjoyed this museum even more than the Louvre because of the collections it featured.  It had a great collection (24 paintings) of Van Gogh which is Brandon's favorite artist.  

After visiting these museums we walked along the river and headed toward the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame.  It was a Sunday, but we were still able to walk through Notre Dame.  However, we were unable to take a guided tour.  We still got some great pictures and enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture of this historical cathedral.  

We had some lunch in the Latin Quarter and hopped on the metro toward the Eiffel Tower.  After waiting in line for about 45 minutes we finally got our tickets to the 2nd story of the Eiffel Tower.  We waited there for another 45 minutes or so to go all the way to the top.  It was a little chilly, but beautiful!  We returned later that night to catch a view of the tower at night as well.

I had some fun with photoshop :)

On Monday we started our day at the Louvre.  It was great to see the Mona Lisa and the other famous works in the Louvre, but we enjoyed the building itself just as much as the art within the building.  All of the rooms were beautiful!  We walked through the Egyptian gallery which was wonderful.  Our hotel staff informed us that Napoleon was very good at taking things and the Louve houses a huge selection of Egyptian artifacts.  We really did not spend much time here as it was very crowded.

We found a little cafe to have lunch and got on the metro toward the Sacre Coeur.  This basilica sits on the highest part of Paris and had wonderful views of the city.  

After enjoying another Christmas market at the top of the hill we went back to the hotel for a little while and found a place to have dinner that night.  

We really enjoyed our weekend in Paris and would love to go back someday to see more of what we missed this time around.

In other news, I got a new job teaching middle school band and I start tomorrow.  I am really excited!  We are headed to Berlin this weekend with Toni and Warren and we are supposed to get internet this Thursday (finally!!!!), so I'm sure we will have a new post from Berlin soon.

Auf Wiedersehen for now!

Our House

After many people have asked (and we finally have the house all set up and looking like a home) we took some pictures of our house to share with everyone.   The whole house has radiant heat in the floors, it is awesome!

Living room looking out toward the patio

Kitchen - We have decided we love the open shelves next to the cabinets in the kitchen and we definitely want them in our kitchen in the states someday.  On the opposite wall there are quite a few more cabinets and the refrigerator.  The wine fridge is in the bottom right corner of the picture (the only appliance we brought with us from home ;) ).

The 2nd floor hallway

Master bedroom

Walk in closet (this picture only shows half of it) - We definitely need one of these when we get home! :)

Guest bedroom #1 on the 2nd floor

The guest bathroom on the 3rd floor

Guest bedroom #2 / music room on the 3rd floor

Guest bedroom #3 - the workout room that leads out to the balcony on the 3rd floor

View from the balcony 

The top floor (4th floor) is one big open room that we use for storage.  There is a half bath and a laundry room right off of the entry way on the main floor.  We love this place and can't wait to have visitors!

Stay tuned for a  post from our Christmas in Paris in the next few days! :)