A trip to the Neighborhood Erotic Bakery

Why doesn't every neighborhood have one of these? I think Krispy Kreme and Starbucks could really learn something from this place. On occasion we will go pick up some larger items at the grocery store on a Saturday morning (because otherwise Jackie gets to carry it on the bus, we make very good shopping choices dependent on how it will get taken home...)anyway, we leave Jacoba & Ruby at home and grab a quick cup of coffee or cocoa before we dash into the frenzied store. All stores are closed here on Sundays and thus makes for much craziness on Saturdays.

Back to the sleazy bakery. We didn't really notice it the first time but since a couple of repeat visits we found their murals to be rather unusual for a bakery. Does eating their pastries make you want to strip down naked and worship the pastry?




Apparently, the location of this shopping center was once the office headquarters for the Nazi's many years ago. The original building was destroyed and this new area was developed. Ron recently finished reading a book called Dresden that had lots of interesting information in it, perhaps we can get him to post a blog about his book.




I thought perhaps it is a front for some other type of business, but they wouldn't hide that, it is all visible for the public to view. They aren't bashful when it comes to certain things, that is for sure.

Routine Behavior for the Dynamo

Just a couple of photos from the Hauptbahnhof in Dresden, we live about 5-6 blocks away from this train station and last Saturday we were absolutely freaked out by all the police presence.

Ron saw them 4 deep and 4 wide and wearing full riot gear. What we learned is that on that particular day, the Dynamo Soccer team was playing and this is just no big deal.

We have also since learned that should we ever decide to go to a soccer game we should sit in the "familie platz" and no one will bother you.

Elbe River Rising

We ventured out the Sunday before last to catch a glimpse of the talk of the town. Everyone in Dresden had the same idea. For the past week the Elbe River had been rising very rapidly. These are just a few photos near the Schillergarten and Blau Wonder Bridge. There were other Bier Garten locations that were removed from the riverside by crane and fortunately improvising tents were set up for last Sunday's spectacle, at least you could still get a brat and a cold one! That is thinking ahead.

We are relived to say things have calmed back down and all the hullabaloo is all over. And, you can order your brat and bier just like old times.

Meet Kelsey

Ruby was fortunate to participate in a special program last year during school, it allowed her to take lessons from another student and study guitar. She really enjoyed it and her teacher, Ethan was awesome, he and Ruby became the best of buds. Prior to that Ruby had wanted a guitar for a long time and we weren't really certain that she would want to continue her interest in it, fortunately we didn't need to invest in purchasing a guitar because Santa brought her one. She continued to play her guitar and was very excited when our container of household goods arrived in Germany and she could have her guitar to play again.

Two weeks ago Ruby was able to pick up again with her lessons, she has a 45 minute lesson once a week after school, her teacher, Mrs. Schneidewind is teaching Ruby all about classical guitar.

This past Saturday it was time to go find Ruby a new guitar, she had outgrown her beginner guitar. We visited a local shop in the Neustadt and tested out some guitars, she selected this pretty three quarter sized guitar by Manuel Romero. Because all great musians name their guitars Ruby needed a name and she came up with it immediately. Here is how...



Last summer we were fortunate to meet the incredible Henry family that had been traveling across country, they were staying at the Marriott hotel that Jackie was working at. Their amazing young daughter, Kelsey, played guitar and wrote her own music. She really inspired Ruby to continue learning guitar and a couple of times they played guitar together, it was so sweet. Kelsey has her first official CD out and Ruby loves it! So, naturally Ruby HAD to name her guitar, Kelsey!

Our Tradition-New Year's Day Hike

For many years our family has had the tradition to go for a hike on New Year's Day. It is a great way to clear your head after staying up too late and reflect on what events shaped our year and to look forward to the year ahead. We started this tradition when the girls were really young and it reminds me of our hikes in the beautiful Colorado Rockies. Hard to imagine that we are on the other side of the world now in an incredible, scenic city, Dresden.



During our Cultural Training, our instructor, Antonio (from Spain...but married to a local Dresdener) shared with us an area that you could hike on New Year's Day that would bring you good luck for the year if you went there, naturally we could not pass up this opportunity. We actually did this hike in October with gorgeous fall colors and we knew we'd have to come back on New Year's Day.



There are 365 steps that ascend to a panoramic view of the Dresden area. For every step it equals a day of good luck. The treat is at the top where you enjoy amazing scenery and delicious hot cocoa from one of our favorite restaurants, The Spitz Haus. On the hike up you are surrounded by vineyards and lovely wineries and homes. What we didn't take into account was the amount of snow and ice after a very, early and substantial winter...it was "slicker than snot".

We were able to share this activity with some wonderful friends, also new to the area, the Lewis family from California. Our kids have become close through swim team and the international school, and we've enjoyed spending time together, amazed at continuously finding similar interests. We keep saying, "Oh, you like that, too?"


After our adventure of getting back down the hillside, we had a great picnic in the snow, even Frosty had fun. Bottom line: guaranteed good luck for everyday this year! It's a win-win!

East European Holiday Travels

We returned from our trip Sunday the 26th and got home just fine. We had no troubles getting to our destinations or home, thankfully. Many of Ron's collegues had a difficult time because of weather here in Europe and in the States. Many lost luggage, had to switch to trains, etc. it was just a nightmare for many. We really lucked out. Here is a brief summary of our trip.

Prague: We are only about 2 hours away and traveling there by train was super. On arrival we all had to go to the restroom at the train station, a bathroom attendent snagged approx. $10 worth of Krooners from me, which burned me to no end.

Ron said to let it go and "chill", so I did but what made me so angry is that a friend here had told me about this experience and how it happened to her too, so I had been warned... Thus we started our adventure and went to find our hotel. Some highlights, well, we stumbled upon an art exhibit called "Play", that we decided to visit, it was all hands on with all sorts of old pipes, piano makings, blocks, noisemakers...I really can't describe it, photos will have to do. Or Google Petr Nikl & spol. It is worth looking up. We went to a music concert of wonderful, famous pieces-it was performed in an old theater called the Municipale House-art nouveau, just gorgeous.




We visited Dvorak & Smetana's graves, castles, cathedrals...the list goes on. At the completion of our time there we returned to the train station to continue our trip only to find that we had a different train time and we had a couple of extra hours to kill. SO, I did what every annoyed american does, be bold & bossy - I went back to the restroom with the "thief" attendent and got a picture of her with me! She owed me this! Now we have a great story to share with illustration.












Budapest: Old, gorgeous and huge, we thoroughly enjoyed our time here. Two million people live there and they do an amazing job of shuttling people around with the oldest underground subway in Europe! Can you imagine? The architecture in this city is incredible, if you do restoration work, there is always going to be a demand for it there. It is easy to see that this city struggled through many long years of hard times, some buildings are losing their architectural elements but are still being used even though they are not restored. Every building is different, unique and has a story behind it, which we learned when we took a "Hop On, Hop Off" City tour, due to the fact that it was very cold, rainy, and totally socked in with fog. It was a bummer because our hotel room was on the 13th floor with an awesome view, which we got a glimpse of the morning we left...Really, really fabulous food in this city, most accomodating for Ron's vegetarian requests, and a nice treat was the amount of friendly people that spoke English, even older generations. One highlight, visiting an OLD, art nouveau bath house, it was heavenly, the water was so warm and felt so good after being out in the cold wintery weather. Also, we visited an indoor market in this huge building and we saw all sorts of produce, seeds/beans, nuts, spices, seafood, meats, breads....it was really cool. We can only really imagine the gorgeous backdrop this city offers, with the Danube and hillsides it is beautfiul. We got a small taste of it at night when the buildings were lit up and they would show better through the fog. We also enjoyed Gerbeaud's and I will tell anyone going there that they are crazy if they don't go to this place. This is a famous coffee house that all the celebrities visit, but their chocolate creations are amazing. Right in front of Gerbeaud's we enjoyed the Christmas market.




























Vienna: Our hotel was across the street from the #1 Sex Shop in town, not #3 or 4, but #1! We lucked out. Seriously, our hotel was charming and perfect, it wasn't in a bad neighborhood, these shops, advertisements and establishments are everywhere in Europe, mixed in with the normal routine of the day. Our kids don't even really notice them anymore. We arrived there on Christmas Eve and visited the Christmas Market, which was marvelous. Germany is known for their Christmas Markets and they all have a special twist on their idea of what they should be. (For example, in Dresden, we have a Medieval one that is in the stables of the old palace and it is all lit with candles, etc.) Anyway, the 24th is a bigger holiday than the 25th there so we found a great little restaurant for dinner and then headed back to the hotel, we had to put out some socks in hopes that Santa knew his way to Austria. That night Ruby woke us all up at 1:15 am to let us know that in fact, Santa does know his way to Austria...we convinced her to go back to bed until 6:30 in the morning but she never actually slept... On Christmas day we visited the Mozart House where he lived for 3 years and wrote some of his major pieces of music, it was fantastic. We also did another "Hop On, Hop Off" tour because it was windy and starting to snow, we saw some great areas and decided we wouldn't mind going back there someday. We visited St. Stephens Cathedral just next to Mozart's house, it was in the gothic style and huge. The Danube there is beautiful and they have more recreational areas surrounding it. Clearly Austria had the money to maintain their buildings and there were also many major new skyscrapers and businesses there.






















We had the best time, this was one of the first vacations like this since we went to Disneyland, which was over 4 years ago. It was so fun to visit other countries, hear other languages, try other foods and be in a completely different environment. We learned that if you learned Czech or Hungarian you could really score some major points playing Scrabble because of all the Z's, J's, H's, etc. in their languages, we feel that they have way too many unnecessary constants & vowels. AND, we are so glad to be learning German instead of either of those two languages. What a treat to take this trip, we are slowly achieving our goal of showing the kids as much of Europe as we can. I have posted more pictures on Facebook to share with all, if you are on FB.


The next adventure is for Jacoba, she left yesterday morning for one week of skiing in Kossen, Austria, it is for a PE requirement.

Happy New Year

We have wrapped up the holiday season and enjoyed a magnificent vacation and we are ready to start off the year with a bang! We hosted a casual potluck dinner at our house on New Year's Eve and had about 8 families attend. There was marvelous food and our kids all got together and planned out impromptu skits for entertainment, we've got some talent in this group, and no stage fright.

At around 11 p.m. we lit sparklers from the terrace and afterwards ventured in to town to watch fireworks. What we didn't realize is that German people are crazy when it comes to fireworks and we now know why they only allow them to set off fireworks 4 days in a year. The locals will set off their own fireworks right in the middle of a crowd and pay no attention to what direction the fireworks shoot off to. It is SO scary. Add to the mixture some alcohol and you've got a big mess on your hands. We saw one firework fly through the air and land in the hood of a woman's coat on her back, a child holding one after he lit it and kept handing it to others until it finally fell down and people sticking their lit fireworks in the snow, regardless of the angle it was directed. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt in our group, but Jacoba did get hit in the head and a couple of people got junk in their eyes...it was really creepy. We wished someone had warned us about how crazy it can get, but we will always remember the start of 2011 and it puts new meaning into, "start off with a bang", hmmm, we've heard that somewhere before...