the daily(ish)

The tents at Oktoberfest are insanely crowded. The beer maids (I’ve totally made that term up for them. I have no idea what they call them, but waitress sounds wrong) blow whistles as they plow through the crowds with their liters of beer and food…

If you don’t heed the warning be ready to be pushed pretty aggressively out of their way. I saw more than a few elbows thrown. I pray I don’t hear a whistle in public anytime soon, because I’ll likely throw myself to the ground. I’m still a bit shell-shocked.

flashback friday

snippet of the german national anthem from the world cup game we watched in cologne...



this is germany- the beer is a very important part.

welcome to koln

Thanks to a couple of flight delays we arrived at our hotel here in Cologne after midnight on Sunday... er, I guess that’s technically Monday.

Anyhoo, even being exhausted we couldn’t help but be blown away as we pulled up, like right up, to the Dom Cathedral. Wow, it's just spectacular.

Cologne had also just celebrated Pride and leftover revelers where swarming about as we unpacked all 832lbs of luggage from the taxi. Rainbow flags in hand, glitter and ribbons…I couldn’t imagine a warmer welcome to this city than seeing happy, out loud and proud gays after living 8 weeks in an Arab/Muslim state.

Between being in a tolerant city again, being able to order beer with dinner and having this as our next door neighbor…



I think we’re going to have a nice little 4 week stay here.


***um, that picture was taken from our hotel room window with no zoom. unbelievable.***

Round 4!

The results are in and we're headed to.....(insert drum roll).....

Germany!!!

Wow. We could not be happier! Although were really torn between it and Korea as our most desired location,(they always seem to schedule all the good ones at the same time) we are really thrilled we are going to be spending our summer in Europe!

Especially since we'll get to hang with this girl...



We've obviously been friends forever- or at least since the 80's. Can't wait to see you KS!

To all of our many friends who have said "if you go to Europe we'll come visit"- start checking out flights now! We probably won't stay in Germany one weekend- which is really very sad. But hey, we can always vacation in Germany. We'll probably never live within a 1-2 hour flight of some of the most amazing European cities again...got to get while the getting is good.