Neuschwanstein

Had the chance to travel to Fussen and see Neuschwanstein Castle today. Here is the link to the Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066295&id=1265812763&l=80d8a1ec3d

The weather was incredible and I had awesome company. It was a lovely trip!

Oberammergau Passion Play 2010

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062642&id=1265812763&l=47887de924

Pictures from my trip yesterday to Oberammergau for the Passion Play. It was INCREDIBLE!!!!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,694970,00.html

Link to a great article about the Oberammergau Passion Play, which as occured every 10 years since the 1600s. Check out the slideshow for some pictures from the performance. (We couldn't take pictures durin the show.)

Two more picture links!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059853&id=1265812763&l=d1fedcedc1
Pictures from our road trip to Triberg, in the Black Forest, last week.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059850&id=1265812763&l=65bbc485cc
Pictures from our trip to Ramstein and our old stomping grounds.

Enjoy!

Italy Spring Break 2010

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059779&id=1265812763&l=eb1753e353

Here is my Facebook album of pictures from our Spring Break trip to Italy.

My mom and dad flew in on Friday and we left for Italy on Saturday. We got home at 4am on Friday morning. It was amazing!

Mom and Dad were supposed to fly home on Sunday, but the volcano ash shut down the airports. They tried again Tuesday, but that flight was cancelled as well. They left yesterday and arrived home safely.

I have another batch of pictures to post from our trips to Ramstein and the Black Forest. I will post links here.

Sorry for being the world's worst blogger. Things have been so crazy with travel and school and the play. The show opens Thursday! I'll post some pics of that, as well!

More snow

Last week showed some signs of spring... temperatures got up into the upper 50s and there was some lovely sunshine. And then some crazy windy days. And this morning I woke up to several inches of snow. Throughout the day, there was a little bit of everything. Snow, sunshine, more snow, cloudiness. Spring weather is certainly unpredictable here. I had plans to go out for dinner and socializing tonight, but decided to stay in and off of the roads. So I might try to get some more work done around the house (got my desktop hooked up today and did some re-arranging in the computer room, but still have more work to do!) and may try to get more done after dinner, or I might just put in a movie and snuggle up under some blankets on the couch. I definitely need to get serious about getting some guest furniture set up. My parents will be here in a month! Looking forward to a mini-reunion of some high school friends at the end of the month. Things are good. Nothing too exciting to report. Just hunkered down in the safe, warm house for the evening! :)

Back to the Old 'Hood

A new friend and I made the trip up to Ramstein yesterday. Ramstein is where I lived in '97-'98, when I lived here before. It is about two hours north of here. We left around 9am Saturday and spent the day shopping, eating, and driving around the base to see how much it had changed in 12 years. They have a big mall on base now, with a Food Court, complete with several American fast food chains. (Taco Bell, Subway, plus a ton of AAFES favorites like Anthony's Pizza and Frank's Franks.) They also have a Macaroni Grill and multiplex movie theater upstairs. Quite different from back in the day when we had to "rough it." :) There's a Chili's on base now, although it isn't in the mall. We went to Chili's for lunch and I enjoyed a Buffalo Chicken Salad, just like at home! Yay! It was lovely! It was neat to drive around the base and go by the high school. I look forward to going back on a school day to see the teachers who are still there. The next trip, I plan to spend some time off-base, in some of the villages in the area that used to be our old stomping grounds. Fun!

Germans and shoveling

It's German law that you shovel the snow out of your walkway. They take it very seriously. If someone slips on your sidewalk, they can sue you. I have been unable to find a snow shovel, so I've been counting on the generosity of my neighbors to shovel my bit of the sidewalk in front of our row. I'm sure it's starting to get on their nerves, but they haven't said anything yet. So when it snows, you see the Germans out shoveling like mad. Yesterday when I was driving home, I saw several small children all bundled up, shoveling along with a toy shovel with Mom and Dad. They start them pretty young, so it is totally part of being German. Shovel, shovel, shovel! I got some salt to throw down. It just keeps snowing! Seems like a losing battle to me! :)

Let it snow, let it snow, eh... enough with the snow already!

So it started to snow a few days ago and has been going non-stop. The roads were atrocious today and people were very unhappy that school wasn't at least delayed. I suspect a delay for tomorrow morning, if not an outright cancellation. I was planning to go to Ramstein on Saturday, but may not, depending on the road conditions. All of my driving today was sloooooow and steady. The tires on my car could use replacing, but I don't have the cash for it right now. I am still waiting for my allowances to kick in and rent is due Monday. Ugh! I will be glad when they get my allowances sorted out and I can start having a little disposable cash again.

This past weekend, I met up with my brother's girlfriend's mom, Susan, who is married to a German and lives about an hour north of me. We went on a five hour, 18 km (11 miles) hike around Stuttgart. It was cold and muddy, but it was lovely. I was pretty sore afterwards and am still nursing some cranky muscles in the bottom of my left foot. I look forward to joining them again for another walk. It was predominately older Germans, but don't let that fool you. They are very fit and were in better shape for the walk than I was! We ended the hike at a restaurant and had some yummy food, well-deserved!

I was trying to go on a trip Saturday, but it sold out. I have plans to go to a Rosenmontag parade on Monday, but not much else planned for this lovely, freezing, snowy three day weekend. (Maybe four day, if school gets cancelled tomorrow!)

We had auditions for the spring musical this past week and I have the show cast. Planning on posting the cast list tomorrow, assuming we have school. Rehearsals will start Monday and the show will be in late April/early May. The kids seem super excited and I think it is going to be a great show.

Off to whip up some homemade pizza for dinner...

And that's that!

They came to pick up the empty boxes today. Nice to have them out of the house. They were taking up a lot of space in the living room and I was tired of looking at them and stepping over them.

Almost all they way done with unpacking. Still need to move the Christmas stuff and some other random things up to the attic to get them out of the way. Still haven't hooked up the TV or my desktop. Maybe this weekend. Not a huge priority, since I don't watch a lot of TV and the laptop has pretty much eliminated my need for the desktop.

Still waiting for SEVEN of the ten boxes I mailed myself. Packages take FOREVER to get here, apparently. (The guy at the post office said three to six weeks. UGH!)

We had a two hour snow delay this morning. The alarm went off at 5am and I hit snooze. The phone rang a few minutes later, which totally confused me, since the ringer is different from the alarm. It was our school secretary, telling me about the delay. So I went back to sleep. Got up, did the morning routine, packed my lunch, and schlepped all of the empty cardboard boxes out to the garage for pick-up. Sucked! It was cold and there were a ton of them. Glad that chore is done! I was annoyed with them in the house, but wasn't excited about having to carry them all out of the house. Oh well. It's done now. WHEW!

I need to get serious about picking up some furniture for the guest room. At this point, I am looking to get a full bed and at least one nightstand. Maybe a small dresser and a bookshelf. I am also planning to get a futon for the computer room, so I can have two guest rooms at the same time, without having to put anyone on a couch or air mattress. I'm keeping an eye out for a gently used set, but will go to IKEA if I haven't found anything by the time guests start rolling in.

The drive in was pretty this morning. It's normally dark when I drive to school, so I really appreciated the sunlight on the snowy trees, particularly since there's not a whole lot of actual sunlight. Most days are pretty gray and blah.

The Travel Plan

So Spring Break will be here before I know it... I need to get some sort of a plan together as to where I want to go. There is a pretty good lookin' Italy trip scheduled. That sounds good. I was cruising the travel website and they have some trips I am definitely interested in doing. Ireland is high on my list, as is Greece. There is an intriguing trip to Egypt, as well. I definitely want to take a trip to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play. It runs from May through October and it only happens once every 10 years, so that's a must-do, as well. They have a weekend trip to Paris that is ridiculously cheap ($250 for everything!!!), so I might have to do that one weekend, just 'cause. (Even though I've been to Paris several times, it seems like a shame not to go again when it's really cheap!) Maybe I'll save the weekend in Paris for when I get a visitor who hasn't been. C'mon, guys, get your tookuses over here!!! :)

Now that I am getting pretty solidly settled in my house and school, it only makes sense to start thinking a little bigger... And having Spring Break and summer vacation to get my travel on seems pretty incredible, no?

Now if only I had a travel partner... cruises and some of the tours charge a "single supplement." Punks. Like it isn't bad enough that I am traveling alone. They have to charge more, too? Talk about adding insult to injury! Heh.

Three weeks!

So this time three weeks ago, I was in transit. Hard to believe it's already been three weeks! But I have gotten so much done in the past three weeks! Woot!

On the unpacking front, not much has changed. I am working on the office tonight and I still haven't plugged in any of my electronics. I still have piles of empty boxes everywhere. I am definitely ready to be done with those. I did get the garage straight so I can park my car in there. However, it is a TEENY garage and I scraped up the front of my car getting it in there. On the upside, I won't have to scrape ice off of my car at 6:45 tomorrow morning before I can leave for work.

It is COLD. Today's high was 25 degrees. UGH!!! It is also crazy gray here. Not a whole lot of sunlight. I got a multi-vitamin and a calcium supplement with extra D because I was starting to feel a little wilty.

Things are good. This week is semester exams, so it's a little weird schedule-wise. The kids have off on Friday (lucky punks) but we have a workday. I expect to have all of my grading done at that point, so I can spend Friday moving stuff into my classroom and getting a little more moved in there. It will be nice to have my stuff in there, posters and whatnot. It doesn't feel like "my" classroom yet.

I also need to get cracking on the spring musical, which will be "Little Shop of Horrors." And I need to get a rough outline of lesson plans for the next semester taken care of, as well.

One of my new purchases is a GPS navigator. In the States, I just used my phone and it was sufficient for the most part, since I usually knew where I was going in Austin. But here, the GPS has been invaluable. It has a lot of cool features my phone navigator lacked. It knows what the speed limit is and tells you how fast you are going, which is nice to see together on the screen. It also tells you where the traffic "safety" cameras are, so you can avoid getting "blitzed." If you are speeding, the camera snaps your picture and they mail you your ticket. The navigator also gives traffic advice. I am a fan. Neat toy and highly recommended, particularly when driving in a foreign country.

Time to get back to work! Muah! :)

The world's worst blogger

Okay, okay, I know. I have been slacking on the blog. I will try to do better, I promise!

I am in my house as of last Monday. Officially, I got the keys last Friday, but stayed in the hotel through the weekend. All of my stuff was delivered Monday, including my snazzy new washer and dryer. (More on that later.) My wardrobes came Tuesday. (German houses don't have closets.) The dogs also joined me on Tuesday. I was as glad to see them as they were to see me, I'm sure. The house is much less lonely with them here and I missed them while they were at the puppy hotel. They seem to be adjusting well to their new digs, although Guinness still struggles a bit coming down the slippery wooden stairs. I plan to get some sticky carpet thingies to help her out a bit. Also, the backyard isn't fenced yet (sometime this spring/summer after the ground thaws) so that entails lots of time standing in the backyard with them and at least one walk a day. But we're flexible, that's how we roll.

So far, I have unpacked the kitchen and my bedroom. My clothes are almost all put away, still have a few boxes of shoes and clothes to deal with, but I should be able to knock that out pretty quickly. (I was going to do that this evening, but figured I was WAAAAAAY overdue for a blog entry. So here we are.) I haven't started in the office yet. Mostly just boxes of books and my computer to set up. Shouldn't be too bad. The living room is mostly in place, but now there are empty boxes stacked up all over, so it isn't quite inhabitable yet. (The dogs aren't having any problem finding spots to lay on the couch, though. Punks.) We're almost there. Damage appears to be light up to this point. My kitchen trash can was a little dented and the plastic tray in one of the dog kennels got a bit broken off, but so far so good.

Speaking of furniture, IKEA makes so much more sense to me now that I am living in a German house with teeny narrow wooden stairs. The movers had to bring my dresser and my queen boxsprings in through the window! (And I had to help lift the dresser up since there were only two movers. That was a sight to see, I'm sure!) The wardrobes also had to be taken apart and reassembled upstairs. I have two bookshelves that I intended to put on the 3rd floor in my office, but they wouldn't make it up the stairs. So they are going to live in the living room on either side of the TV. Not what I wanted to do with them, but oh well.

As for the washer and dryer... they are on the 2nd floor, which is convenient, since that's where all of my clothes are kept. So no schlepping anything up or downstairs. BUT. The laundry room is in the center of the house without any access to an exterior wall, which means no vent. So I had to get a special type of dryer called a condensing dryer. It manages to suck all of the water out of the clothes and puts it into a bucket that I have to empty out after every load. Fun, huh? The washer and dryer are both pretty small, but take FOREVER to run a load. I'm used to being able to wash and dry a load in an hour and a half or so. This washer takes almost two hours to run a cycle and the dryer is probably another two hours. So I've been trying to get into a routine of putting in a load before bed and then putting it into the dryer when I get up in the morning. I'm just fortunate I am only doing laundry for one! :)

School is going well. I have three classes of drama (will add a 4th in February) and one section of a reading class called Read 180. I also have a seminar/study hall for seniors. I just pretty much babysit and sign them in and out while I can grade papers and do other paperwork stuff. It is not in my classroom, since my classroom is being used by another teacher that period. Space is definitely an issue at PHS. The cafeteria stage is small and cute, but the wrestlers are in there after school every day from November through February. Not sure how we will manage to do a show next fall. Maybe finish in November and not start the spring musical until later? Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The kids are great so far. I have 25 in two of my classes and only 10 in my 3rd. I have enjoyed getting to know them over the past two weeks. It is definitely a different culture than Leander or Pflugerville. Military kids are just different. But I feel right at home and they seem to be adjusting to having a "real" teacher.

I just uploaded some pictures and will get some posted on here ASAP. I promise to write again before another week goes by!! Don't give up on me! :)

Alles gut!

I meant to update this as I was traveling, but internet access was sketchy along the way and I didn't. I haven't decided whether or not I will go back and document the travel saga. I'm sure I will, but give me a few days. I really need to come up with a plan for the first few days of school. I could procrastinate and spend time on here, but... give me a few days! Hopefully, you've been able to follow along on Facebook.

If not, the quick overview is that I arrived Wednesday after a missed connection, got settled into the hotel, have picked up my car, and am ready to start school tomorrow. The dogs are safe and sound in the kennel and are waiting for me to move into the house before they will be able to join me. All is well. Getting settled in nicely and am relatively mobile, despite gross road conditions. I am able to drive back and forth between the hotel and the two military installations I need to access. I have a temporary cell phone, borrowed from school, but hope to get my iPhone tomorrow. I will have phone and internet set up at the house, hopefully this week. I am waiting to get my advance pay in place before I can move into the house, but hope to get that squared away in time to move in this weekend.

It is very nice here. Cold and snowy, but beautiful. So far, I have been able to get around a bit and there are lots of restaurants within walking distance. I am about to head out in search of dinner.

Tomorrow, I teach in the morning and plan to spend the first few days getting to know the kids. I still have some errands to run tomorrow afternoon. It will be nice to have the afternoons free over the next few weeks. The new semester starts Feb 1st and I will pick up two more classes and will have more of a full-time schedule. I was able to meet my three classes last week and they seem pretty excited about having their "real" teacher finally. I know they seem eager about getting started on the spring musical. "Little Shop of Horrors" seems to be the popular option, from what I have heard so far.

Alright, off to dinner before some final prep for tomorrow!