I'm PREGNANT!

Woohoo!!! Now I can finally say why I've been so under the weather...I'm pregnant!!! We've known since Jan. 2, via pregnancy tests, but this past Tuesday, we were able to see the heartbeat! How exciting! I'm due on September 10, just two days before my birthday, so maybe it'll be a little late...I'll post more later! I just wanted to tell the world!

Ugh!

So this past week, starting on about Thursday, I've been sick. This is why I haven't written anything. But let's see. What have I done? In all honesty...nothing! Hopefully this week will be a bit better. I'm pretty sure! More to come...

Nuremberg

Today I tagged along with Markus to Nuremberg. He had to go to some meeting type thing, and I had nothing better to do, so what the hay right? Well, I had fun.

We got there at about 8:30, but none of the stores opened until about 10, so I walked around...tried to get my bearings (kind of successful) and looked for a cute cafe where I could sit, read a bit and wait for the stores to open. Well, to my shock, most of the cafes weren't open yet. The only thing that I could find that was open was a Starbucks. Well, what the hell...I haven't been to one since the Munich airport, so why not? I sat in there drinking my Chai Tea Latte and eating a blueberry muffin until about 10. It was quite nice. Reminded me that I should probably make some blueberry muffins myself since they are so freaking good!

So, the clock struck 10...time to shop. Now, this isn't what you might think. I'm not a spending-money-shopper. Nope, I'm more of a walk-around-look-at-everything-shopper. I buy things that I think warrant a purchase. Things that really interest me.

So, I started off the day at Karstadt (big department store). There are two things that I really like about Karstadt. First, they have the most wonderful kitchen area with the best pots and pans and kitchen gadgets, and I simply start drooling, so I can't really spend too long there...too dangerous, if you know what I mean. But I did see this wonderful set of non-stick pots and pans that would just be so wonderful.....ahhh....oops...sorry. Started daydreaming...

Ok, the second thing that I love about Karstadt is that when they have a grocery store in the basement, this usually means that they have an "American" section. I was definitely hoping that they would have some canned pumpkin. No such luck. They just had the pre-mixed pumpkin pie mix stuff...no good. Then, I saw that they had Old El Paso stuff too! Score! Unfortunately, they had no green chilies! I knew it was too much to hope that they had RoTel, but if you just add some green chilies to canned tomatoes, that is basically RoTel right?

So Karstadt was a bust, but it had lots of cool stuff to look at, so that side of it was fun. On to the rest of the city.

So if you've ever been to Nuremberg, you know this is a shopping haven. However, I just felt really overwhelmed. I went in to may 4 stores out of the possible thousands. However, the stores that I went in were really cool. I made a purchase at one of them of the most amazing lotion. The thing that I really liked about it was that all of the soaps in the store are handmade, most of them are vegan, and they don't have any preservatives. So, these are some of the granola aspects that I like. Plus, this lotion is amazing! The store is called "Lush". The lotion that I got is called "Dreamy Creamy". Seriously good stuff!

So, I kept walking around, and walking around, and I guess that I just really wasn't into the whole shopping thing today. I'll blame it on the weather. It was rainy all day...and cold...and basically miserable. So, I knew Markus was going to be done at about 12:00, so around then, I went over to the parking garage and waited for him. There was a river nearby, so I thought I'd just go and see what's floating by. There was a lot of random stuff...oh, and I must say that the river was REALLY HIGH....much higher than normal, so that might, just might, explain some of the weird stuff that I saw...What I saw is as follows:
4- dead birds (poor things)
3- tennis balls
1- flip flop
1- kid's shoe
1- Ramazotti bottle
countless numbers of assorted alcohol bottles
countless logs (trees really)
1- swim noodle

Really, it is the swim noodle that gets me. How random.

So that was my day.

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Awesome! This movie was absolutely wonderful. It gave an interesting perspective on life in India, especially that of children.

I don't want to give too much away, but this is a definite must see! Definitely worth your money.

Basically, Jamal wins the Hindu version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"m but is accused of cheating. The interrogators go through every question and ask him how he knew the answer. Thus, we get the story of Jamal's life. There is a love story here, but it is so lovely intertwined into the story that it isn't overly gushy or cliche, it fits perfectly.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

Movie Review: The Red Baron

I'll save you the rental fee...DON'T SEE THIS HORRIBLE MOVIE!

This is one of the worst movies that I have seen...at least in a long time. It was so far off base on fact. Keep in mind, the "Red Baron" was a real person. He was a fighter pilot during WWI and he was damn good at that. He wanted to shoot down as many planes as possible, no matter the loss of life.

In this movie, it puts a whole new light on him, making him out to be this wonderful person who just wanted to shoot down planes, and try to spare life as much as possible. FALSE! No way!

The other thing that they showed was that he would argue with the German Emperor about strategy. No way! That wouldn't have happened either!

All in all, this movie annoyed the absolute hell out of me (and Markus too!) and so we couldn't watch it to the end. We turned it off with about 30 minutes left. It was so bad! So, save your money and, if you want, wait for it to come on TV, if it will come on TV.

My favorite sites

I have many web-sites that I visit on a daily basis. Some of them have a large following, others, not so much. I thought that I would just share them here with you and see if you can get a bit of joy out of them.

My absolute favorite blog is Cakewrecks. It has me in tears on just about a weekly basis. It does basically what the name says, it displays many cakes that have been made "professionally" (meaning someone actually paid money for them) and they are just awful, or with the Sunday Sweets, amazing. You should really check it out! The best part is, she posts every day! So every day you can have a little laugh!

Another one that my mom got me on to is SmittenKitchen. The food that this lady makes is absolutely DIVINE! I've made a couple of her recipes, and I'm going to attempt her rice pudding tonight. The pictures that she takes look so professional, but it is just her taking the photos. The pictures also just make your mouth start to water! YUM!

Another website that I look at on a daily basis is AmiExpat. This website was started by a lady named Christina (who I get to meet on Friday). She lives in Regensburg, about an hour away from where I live, and she basically talks about the wonderful world of Expat life. What is also really wonderful about this blog is that she has created substitutes for American products, such as brown sugar. This came in handy over the holidays! It is basicaly just an interesting blog all around.

Another website that I check is called Mama's Worldwide. I know, I know. I'm not a mom yet, but Markus and I are wanting to have kids in the future, so it's never to late to start looking and getting tips! This website was also created by Christina of AmiExpat. The thing I like about this blog is that it has a few different mothers writing on this blog, all of who are American who have had children in Germany and are raising children in Germany.

So, go to these websites if you get a chance. They are all really cool. :)

German Winter....so freaking cold!

So, it's winter (duh!) and here in Germany, it is freaking cold! However, the past couple of days have been really gorgeous, despite the cold. Markus and I went out yesterday on a "Winterspaziergang" (a winter walk...but it just sounds fancier in German) and I brought along the trusty ol' Nikon. The picture below was from a frozen creek that leads into an almost frozen river. These were some pretty ice flake formations and they were all over this one part of the creek. I just had to get a picture!
The second picture is of Charlie's favorite creek (a different one than the one above). This is where, in Summer, every time we walk past this creek, he just has to jump in over and over and over and....well, you get the picture.

Charlie is showing off his mad frisbee skillz with his birthday present...the red frisbee. It is now his favorite toy.

The ducks walking on ice/swiming in the part of the river that isn't frozen.

This is the Naab. It flows near our house and we always go with Charlie there. This photo was taken on Jan. 10, 2009, but today, on the 11th, it was close to being completely frozen over in parts! How cool is that!

This has got to be the funniest thing...

If you can read German, then this is absolutely HILARIOUS!!! If not, you can look at the pictures and follow along that way.

YOU MUST READ/LOOK AT THIS...

Enjoy...

WTF?

So, here in Germany there is A LOT of English used within the German language itself. One thing that REALLY gets me, is when they take an English word and bastardize its meaning. For example, a couple years ago, Emily and I were here and saw a sign for an "Electronics Gang Bang". Now, while this is a big meeting of the people who like the musical genre of Electronics, the word "Gang Bang" is what really gets me. From what I understand, the word gang bang is when a female wants to be initiated into a gang. Basically all of the men of the gang line up to rape this woman. Not a very good word. But here in Germany, it is used to mean group sex, as well as in the sense above, a meeting. I find this absolutely awful.

Yet another example came today when I was reading a magazine about the happenings around Weiden. A DJ decided to take the name "DJ Slutshaker". Seriously, WTF??? I am pretty sure that he took this name just because he thought it "cool" (another English word used often). But seriously, Slutshaker? When I hear this as the name of a DJ, I automatically think of a strip club.

However, this also brings up a much bigger debate, the "Englishifying of the German Language". There have been a few reports I've seen on TV about this, and they are really interesting. There is a huge surge, espeically in the younger generations, of using more and more English words in their everyday language.

What is REALLY annoying to me is when people beign to blame the Americans and the English for this. Oh no sir, in my opinion it is not the English speaker's fault. It is that of the Germans. They want to sound cool, and right now the English language is "total in", so they bring over words they hear, no matter the meaning and give them new meaning. This is not to say that the Germans bastardize every English word brought over into their language. No, not at all. They use the word "sale" correctly. In my opinion if many Germans are against this, then they should try creating a law limitizing the influence of the English language. In France, they have this law where most of the songs on the radio are French. They limit the ammount of foreign language songs played on the radio. Here, just about every song is sung in English.

However, I really just wanted to talk about DJ Slutshaker and his awful name.

UPDATE: Ok, so since the original DJ Slutshaker contacted me, he isn't an awful guy. Just a DJ with a catchy name...Maybe I'll become a DJ (yea right!) in the US and call myself DJ Schlampenschlepper...I think that would be funny! But first, I would definitely have to work on my DJing skillz which are basically non-existent...so I'll just leave that to the pros, such as DJ Slutshaker. ;)

Charlie on Ice

For the past week it is not gone above freezing, so all of the lakes are completely frozen. So, on this lovely first day of the new year, we decided to take our four-legged-fuzzy son "ice-skating". He's been on ice before, but on just frozen puddles and the like. This was a whole lake! Charlie was totally excited. It took him a while to figure out he couldn't run and go crazy like he's used to on real earth. By the end of the 40 minutes we were there, he figured out that he had to start slow and when he wanted to stop, he had to slide a few feet before he could fully stop. I got many great shots, but here are a few of our favs.

"Hey, why is this stuff so cold...I can lick it and it tastes like lake water...but it's so cold and hard...I just don't get it..."

"Look! I can bring sticks onto this big cold area! Fun! Now, I just have to figure out how not to keep slipping!"

"Ok...I have to slow it down otherwise I'll slip...sometimes when I run, I slip, but I'm getting better..."

"This is fun with dad! We run, then all of a sudden he stops and we both slide. WOOHOO!!! Fun!!!"

"Ok. I've got the hang of this whole 'walking on cold, slippery earth' thing..."

New Year's 2008/2009

New Year's this year was pretty laid back. We spent it with some close friends and their children. We made Raclette, which was really good. We also had a chocolate fountain and a waffle maker. It was pretty interesting. At midnight we set off fireworks and drank sparkling wine...it was really nice. I, however, only took pictures of Mortiz, my friend's son. I'm sure that Hias will give me some of the photos that he took though. So, without further ado, here is Moritz Forster...

Look at that smile! What a cutie!

BUBBLES!!!

Weihnachts Packet

Hello again. Every year, ATU, the company that Markus works for, takes part in a charity even called "Die Weihnachtstrucker", literally, Christmas Truckers. They team up with Antenne Bayern (a radio station here), Rewe (a supermarket here), Die Johanniter (kinda like the Red Cross) and some others and collect packages containing basic nutrition needs. They send these all over Eastern Europe, and this year, the 4 ATU trucks went to Albania. Pretty cool. Last year we packed only one packet. This year though, we were a bit extra blessed, so we decided to pack 2. In total, there were close to 59,000 packets going to different places around Eastern Europe.

This is all the stuff to go into the packet!



The 4 ATU trucks that went to Albania...each with two trailers!!!



The truckers who gave up some of their vacation time to drive the packets to Albania. They are really a great group of guys...

Markus wanting to be a trucker...one day my love :)