Praha!

                                                                                       Photo by Desma Colburn

Do you ever have one of those days when you know that if you don't do a particular task or, in my case write a certain blog post, that it will just never happen? Yeah, today is one of those days for me. Don't get me wrong, Prague was even better than I had remembered, but I've been lazy about posting pictures and now that we're heading into the weekend...eh, I just didn't see the motivation, as little as it may be, returning on Monday. So just a warning: writing and spelling mistakes are sure to abound! Plus I'm taking off for a couple beirs here in, ooh, half an hour so that's sure to not help anything.

Bah! Okay. The goods.

We finally made it it Prague! I can't believe that a) we've been here six months and b) we hadn't made the 3 hour drive to this wonderful city until now. We piled into a rented 9 passenger van with the Colburns and one Stovall and away we went. It was Josh's first visit and I had spent a week there with a good friend and her family, but that was almost 10 years ago. Let's just say that neither of us were disappointed on this trip. The beer...oh, the beer! There was a pub just a couple building down from our hotel that had a 12% anniversary black pepper beer on tap. It was only 1 euro per half liter! Get.Out. I might have been a  little groggy for sight-seeing the next morning.

Shit, I need to get rolling on this. Time is a-tickin'. I really don't know what to say about Prague other than it's incredible, and that I'm jealous that my cousin, Kim, lived there for three years. Very jealous. Also, everyone must go. I mandate it. Make it so.

Yeah, that is pretty much how we looked the entire time. I took a lot of pictures. This photo, however, was taken by Desma Colburn.

The Charles Bridge

If it looks cold, it's because it most definitely was.

On the Charles Bridge

Stained glass from the cathedral on the hill

I just loved the buildings lining the street all over in the old part of the city.

A delightful little cheese and booze hole.

Josh in our sweet hotel room.

The Old Jewish Cemetery right in the middle of the city.

We're going back in May at the very latest! I would be fine with going at least once a month...

It's All About Timing

Neues Rathaus - Munich

Take this picture for example. Last weekend Josh and I had our first visitor and we decided that a day in Munich was in order. We probably walked by parts of the Neues Rathaus at least 5 or 6 times throughout the day, attempting to avoid the anti-war protesters and the hundreds of police officers that were on standby . The last time we walked near the Rathaus it was sunset and I happened to glance behind me and see how awesome the light was on the usually gray building. Had I a proper camera and the skill, there could have been some breathtaking photos. But nonetheless, good timing.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning. I have a little tickle in my throat, maybe a slight headache, and am feeling a little groggy. Since the Battle of the Books competition is the next day, I decide to stay in bed and take it easy. I mean, it would be awful if I had to stay home sick for the one day I'd been working towards all these months, right? By that afternoon, I had full on flu symptoms. It wasn't pretty. I vaguely remember that evening and the next morning. Only the pain has stuck with me. The pain and the fact that all I could manage on the day of the Battle was a shower. And just barely. Ugh, bad timing.

January Round-Up

Oh, my poor little neglected blog!

January has never been a good month for me. The vitamin D deficiency firmly settles in by mid month and I think the decades of PNW winters are starting to take their toll. I force myself to get dressed in the morning and call it a victory if I don't go back to bed before 9:00pm. I'm not a huge fan of California in general, but this time of the year usually finds me compiling a mental list of pros and cons on what living in SoCal would be like. Sandals year round (yay!), douchy tan people (boo!). The pros list usually wins out and I weave an intricate fantasy of an eco/solar friendly house with equal amounts of indoor and outdoor living spaces. However it's a little too rich for my blood at this point in my life. So anyway, despite the lengthy break on the part of this blogger, a big thank you to anyone out there who may still be following The Curti Abroad!

To set the mood for this update I have cracked open a German lager (no, Josh isn't home yet. yes, it's after five. totally acceptable in Bavaria) and put my Tom Petty collection on shuffle. The latter is in honor of little Jacob Roberston's birth. Congratulations Josh and Annie!

In case you get the idea that I'm just a lazy housewife that gets all self-congratulatory over getting out of bed in the morning, I have actually been fairly busy this last month. I tried some new recipes, went on a quite a few out of town trips, and met with students at many different high schools in preparation for the Battle of the Books competition. Since students are required to take English language classes, having a native speaker come for a small discussion group is, like, totally cool. The Battle takes place next Thursday and while this next week will be really busy with last minute details, I'm really looking forward to it.

The rest of this post will just be bits and pieces of our life in 2011 so far. I hope you enjoy!

In an effort to spruce up the apartment a bit, we decided to buy a few house plants since we had to leave ours in Portland. Don't worry, we found a nice adoptive plant parent in Ian. We were surprised when the lady at the garden store started wrapping our plants...

There was at least three layers of paper on each plant. Um...thanks?

One of the new recipes I tried this month was actually a German recipe! Bryan and Katie gave us this very cool book, Culinaria Germany, before we left and I found a recipe for quark dough cabbage rolls. I meant to post this recipe as a stand alone about, oh, three weeks ago. They were so good! The Tabasco was key though. Email me if you want the recipe.

These don't look too awesome, but they taste amazing. I was going "borrow" a picture from someone online. I couldn't find one that adequately represented what I made the night before, so I dug these out of the garbage. Classy.

 This was also a veeery big month in my developing positive attitude towards babies. I'm still not going to have any, but I do think friends' babies are adorable. I held a baby for the first time in, like, 5 years, I saw the hilarity that can happen when a new mom finally lets wine touch her lips after many many months, and I actually had a baby in my home. Shut up! She was too cute.

Lena-bear with her daddy (and my animal friends)

 Hang in there, we are most definitely not done yet!

Soooo...finally made it to Munich. Not sure why it took us this long since it's only an hour and a half away by train, but it was worth the wait! I would live there in a heartbeat. We made it a day trip and checked out a few things. There is great food market on Saturdays that we were drooling over. We're considering taking a cooler down there with us and loading up. Oh man, I can't even imagine all the stares and judgmental looks we would get if we brought a cooler on a train. "Something out of the ordinary is happening in my periphery, I must now stare daggers at the people responsible until it stops!" I'm totally going to do it now and take pictures of the people staring. I'll report back.

Spices at the food market

Super cool church

Inside the Residenz

At the Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall

A large group of at least 50 people dressed up as "Where's Waldo?" descended upon the beer hall while we were there.

We have another trip to Munich planned for this weekend. Eeeeeee!

Last weekend we went down to Garmisch with some friends to snowboard the alps. We lucked out and it was gorgeous weather! I'm not sure it's the best place for beginning snowboarders though, there were a lot places where it flattens out quite a bit. It was crowded and the slopes were pretty icy by the end of the day, but all in all it was a great day. I just wish that there had been a hot tub to sit in that night...

Pre-slope beers with Danielle, Josh, Amanda, and Zach

Gondola ride up the mountain

Amanda and me, taking a short break

A much needed beer break

A beautiful evening in the alps

Oh crap, I think I just taught myself a lesson about procrastination. Is it to always leave a note?

"Ich bin ein Berliner"

Berlin was fabulous. Berlin was beautiful. Berlin was saukalt!

As a special Christmas treat, Josh and I took to the rails and traveled north for a few nights last week. It had snowed about a foot the day and night before our trip and the scenery from the train ("mountains", trees, German villages, hilltop castles) was gorgeous! Snow is pretty, but snow is basically just fluffy ice and Berlin was frigid the entire time we were there. Fortunately it was the first trip to Berlin for both of us and there were many museums (aka sanctuaries from the cold) to explore. But trust me, we still spent plenty of time out in the elements as you will see from the ridiculous amount of pictures that I am posting.

Speaking of, let's get most of those out of the way...

Josh on an antiquated Berlin U-bahn train. I for real saw a door fly open during transit. Not cool, train, not cool.

A festive Bradenburg Tor

Friedrichstraße

Unter den Linden

My favorite Christmas decorations yet! Very large cloth and wood frame lanterns hanging from trees lighting a neighborhood near our hotel.

TV tower in Alexanderplatz

Yeah, those are ice chunks...

Part of the reconstructed Pergamon temple at the Pergamon Museum

Part of a reconstructed market gate at the Pergamon Museum

Detail of the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum

Our lunch stop had a fancy atmosphere. It was kind of like a Mexican tiki bar?

Cha-a-a, it was cold. But as we all know by now, I love me some snow.

I dunno, some art gallery? I thought it was pretty.

On our way to the Neues Museum

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the "world's largest granite bowl" in the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden), but reading about it was more exciting than seeing it...

Uhhh...inside at the Neues or Altes Museum - cannot remember

Berliner Dom with the tv tower in the background

On our way to to dinner along the Ku'damm

Joshy the snowman

A portion of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

A Christmasy Checkpoint Charlie

 

 

Highlights of the trip:

- The Pergamon Museum
-The interactive, independently ran DDR museum gives you a little insight to what everyday life was like in the German Democratic Republic.
- Gemäldegalerie
- The bar near our hotel that served proper cocktails
- Machine Guns, everywhere! This is not so much a "highlight" as it is something of note. I did not care for the machined gunned guy standing in the middle of a side street 30 feet away from an unattended large duffel bag, also in the street, who did not appear to have anything on him that would identify to the casual observer that it was okay for him to be armed, at night, near the Reichstag.

We packed our days full, but there still is so much more Berlin to see. I hope we make it back.

Oh, and I was under the impression that Berlin is known for their jelly donuts (the Berliner, duh!), well I did not chance upon any of these delightful sounding num-nums but one particular American chain was even more prevalent than Starbucks in the tourist areas. I probably saw at least 10 different shops.

Do these still even exist in Oregon? (Photo inspired by and taken for Ms. McGibbon)