German's are Geniuses...when it comes to shopping carts!

One of the most annoying things when going grocery shopping is seeing all the carts left all over the place. Sometimes you even have to bypass a spot or get out and move a cart because some lazy person left it right in the middle.

Here, they have a great system that keeps the parking lot nice and organized. When you pick up your cart you have to enter a 1 Euro coin. That releases it from the line of carts. You go about your shopping, and when you've finished with the cart, you return it to the same place. Once you connect to the other shopping carts you get your coin back. Also, they place where they keep the carts outside is covered so they don't have to bring the carts inside or worry about them getting wet.

The only downside I can see to this is that we don't really have a good unit of currency that will be compelling enough. I know there are 50 cent and dollar coins but most people don't have those lying around. Usually the biggest amount of change people have is a quarter. Some people might not care enough about 25 cents to take the extra time to put the cart away. But, then the people who usually have cart duty can still do it and keep the change or give it to the store. Daniel just mentioned another downside, this system would eliminate jobs.

Tonight we went shopping for stuff for me to do some Christmas baking. We found most everything but the sour cream here is weird, at least the only kind we could find. It had chives and stuff like that already mixed in. It would be perfect for a baked potato but won't work for baking. Daniel kept trying to tell me I could just pick it out, but there's no way that would have worked. Basically they were flavored sour creams. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the other grocery store close by us and see if they have regular sour cream. If not, hopefully I can find some baking powder. I have baking soda but all the recipes I can find that don't have sour cream call for baking powder instead of baking soda.

I hope everyone is really excited about Christmas! Only 3 more days!!!

Merry Christmas!

Celle, Germany

We were lucky we didn’t have to head to the airport in Leeds until about 3. That meant we didn’t really have to do any packing in advance. As you can probably guess from my post about the fitted sheet, I’m a very particular packer. I like to make sure certain things are protected, like cameras, my makeup, etc. I also like to make sure the toiletries are wrapped in plastic bags or put in baggies. I’ve had bad experiences where my shampoo comes open and gets all over my clothes in the past and hope that by wrapping them up carefully I’ll never have a repeat. Our flight out of Leeds was delayed a little bit because they needed to defrost the wings. Luckily we made our connection in Amsterdam and it wasn’t delayed because we had someone picking us up in Hannover. We couldn’t see much out the window while we were driving to Celle because it was so dark. I did see a few windmill silhouettes! We’ll get some pictures of those eventually. Daniel thinks they are smaller than the ones in West Texas but they look the same size to me. We stopped at Cameron so Daniel could pick up the GPS and keys from the security guard and then the driver dropped us off at the apartments. We had a little bit of trouble getting in and then finding out which apartment was ours. The 1's here look like upside down V’s but we finally figured out we were in #11.

The apartment is actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be, although it is lacking a couple of things I thought it would have.

This is the living room. 

There is actually a channel in English called Euronews. It has stories from all over the world on various topics; politics, music, sports, science, etc. The only problem with this channel is that it’s on a 20 or 30 minute loop. So I end up watching the same thing over and over. There is also a Viva Germany channel. Viva was a channel I had on a lot in Leeds. It’s basically like MTV was before it started having all those weird shows. During the day they play music videos and at night they have t.v. shows. Viva Germany has a lot of American music videos so sometimes I’ll watch that when I’m tired of hearing the same stories for the fourth or fifth time. It’s also bad about playing the same songs over and over though. I don't get internet during the day. There is a wifi network but you need a username and password and it only works on one computer. So since we already signed with Daniel's work computer, I can't get on with anything else, even when he's not here during the day. I need to try to find a place with wifi but I don't think there's a Starbucks here. I actually wrote this post in Microsoft word and then transferred it, hehe.

The kitchen is one of the main areas I was disappointed in. There’s no oven! 

At first my hopes of baking any Christmas cookies were dashed but we saw that there was a toaster oven on top of the fridge. I’m just worried about how well it works. I’ll still plan on trying so I’ll let you know how it goes. Also, there’s no dishwasher but that doesn’t bother me that much. It will at least give me something to do during the day.

The bed. It's actually two twin beds on one frame.

I didn’t take any of these pictures until Monday, after we had already slept here two nights. The bed itself is not so bad. We do have two separate blankets, which is kind of weird, but the worst thing is the pillows. They are so soft and as soon as you put your head down, all the feathers move so you’re basically laying your head straight on the bed. Daniel folded his half and I folded mine in half twice to make it better. I ended up tying two of the corners of the square together so the feathers couldn’t move as much, hehe. I think we will still try to find some better pillows. 

The armoire with all our clothes crammed inside.

After cramming all our clothes into 4 cubby holes in Leeds, I was looking forward to a little more space. Unfortunately, there’s only this armoire thingy. It does have more hangars, but it still won’t fit all our clothes. I just left the stuff we didn’t really wear in Leeds in the suitcases because I figure we won’t wear them here either.

Here’s the toilet and shower. 

I haven’t really had too many chances to shave my legs since we’ve been in Europe. The hot water would run out after like 10 minutes in Leeds so I didn’t have time there, and here the shower is small so I won’t really have the space. Good thing it’s winter, I don’t shave them that often when it’s so cold anyways :).

 The sink. There's not as much storage space as in Leeds.

There is a laundry service here but it only comes on Monday and Thursday. So whatever you send to have washed on Monday you don’t get back until Thursday. I bought some handwash soap so I’ll probably use that a lot but I’m going to have to get creative to find a way to lay them out to dry because there isn’t a drying rack or anything.

Today it snowed a lot. I tried to take some pictures but it’s hard to see the falling snowflakes.

 You can kind of see the snowflakes. That sign is for the little bakery by us.

 Part of the road and some houses by us. All the houses here have very slanted roofs.

We have driven around a bit since we’ve been here. We didn’t get in until late Saturday night so there was no time to get any food then. Luckily there’s a little bakery type shop right next to us so we were able to get some breakfast on Sunday before trying to find a grocery store. We knew the big one in town was closed on Sunday so we drove by the smaller one, which also turned out to be closed. We saw that there were a lot in Hannover and we didn’t have anything else to do so we drove out there. We couldn’t actually find the first couple on the list the GPS gave us and the one we did find was also closed. We ended up finding a Subway for lunch. Later that evening we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for dinner and we ended up getting Subway again, lol. Good thing we like Subway! We were able to get enough from the gas station right by us for me to have something to eat until we could go to the grocery store Monday night.

The grocery store was a pretty interesting experience. We knew from some of Daniel’s coworkers that we would need coins to get a cart, but we couldn’t see any when we got inside (we later found out most of them are in the parking lot). The only ones we could see had baby seats on them or had smaller baskets. We went ahead and got one with a smaller basket and after walking around for about 5 minutes we realized we were pushing it the wrong way. When we turned it around we saw that it was a handicap cart lol. It was a good thing we brought our German phrasebook/dictionary with us. It was really hard to tell what things were just by the pictures and of course we couldn’t understand any of the words. We did find a section with different foods from around the world. The USA section had A LOT of barbecue sauce hehe. It also had poptarts, popcorn, Betty Crocker mixes, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, and a few other things. We definitely got some poptarts (they didn’t have the brown sugar flavor though).

We haven’t had too much time to explore since we’ve been here but the town seems really cute, especially with all the snow on the roofs. There’s a Christmas Market too! I think we’re going to go there Thursday night. I haven’t been out during the day yet. I keep getting too scared of the language barrier. Everyone we’ve come into contact with so far has been really nice even if they don’t speak any English so it’s stupid for me to feel that way. I’m sure after another day or two, I’ll get so sick of being cooped up inside that I’ll get over my fear and do it anyway.

We don’t have too many trips planned for while we’re in Germany. We do have plans for Christmas weekend and possibly New Years. That only leaves 3 more weekends in January before we leave. We definitely want to go to Prague, and one of Brittany’s friends that I met when she visited the U.S. awhile back, lives in Dresden so we are going to try to meet up with her too.

Even though I think we’ll have a really nice time in Germany, Daniel and I have started counting down the days until we get home. We’re really missing our friends and family. 

Check back tomorrow or Thursday for a post about exploring Leeds.

Bye!

Dublin, Ireland

Thinking of Ireland makes me picture lots of green landscapes and smaller towns dotted through the countryside. However, when we visited Ireland, we stayed in Dublin, which is a big city. There were a lot of great things to do there and I definitely had good time (despite being sick), but I hope one day we'll be able to go back and stay in a homey B&B in a small town in the middle of the countryside. Dublin was a perfect place to visit for our short weekend though. Maybe for our 10 year anniversary or something we can take a longer trip, rent a car, and stay in the countryside.

Dublin is about an hour plane ride away from Leeds so we left Friday night to make sure we'd have more time on Saturday to sight see. Since Daniel and I were both feeling under the weather earlier that week we hadn't really taken the time to plan much for the weekend. Our first stop Saturday morning was the tourist information center close by our hotel. They suggested just enough for us to do on our short two day trip. They did have buses and trams but we decided that we didn't really mind walking. It was a little bit further than some of the other cities we'd been to, but not unreasonable.

The first thing we did was head to Dublin Castle. It's actually more of a palace now, but it started out as a castle in the early 1200s. It's been used as a seat of government since then as well; first by the British, and then the Irish Free State starting in 1922. The original castle was medieval but after being damaged by a fire in 1673, it was demolished and then rebuilt in the Georgian style because that was more popular then. We were able to tour the State Apartments, which are used for conferences, meetings, and presidential inaugurations, as well as some of the underground remains of the original castle.

 The gates to enter the Castle.

 This round turret is the only remaining portion of the original building. It dates from the mid 1200s.

 One of the buildings facing the square.

 There were beautiful chandeliers all over. I have no idea how old they are though.

 The symbol above the door, the harp on the blue background, is the symbol of the President. I think she said that the President is just a figure head and doesn't really have that many powers. 

 The act that was signed to remove Ireland from British control.

 A garden. Our tour guide said they sometimes use this as a helicopter landing pad for dignitaries that choose to arrive by helicopter.

 One of the state rooms.

 This hallway is where dignitaries come through when they first get here. According to the tour guide the Queen came here for the first time earlier this year. She wore a dress with tons of tiny shamrocks on it lol.

 This is the room where they used to hold balls. Apparently women used to have to be escorted or chaperoned at all times.

 That wooden thing in front of the fireplace was to protect women's faces from the heat and to keep their make up from melting off. Also, their make up used to have a lot of lead in it so many women would die early from it seeping into their skin and poisoning them.

 The Throne Room. It was made so big for one of the Kings of England (can't remember who). Queen Victoria had it cut down though because she was so short. The tour guide said it would have had lions claws as feet.

 This room is called St. Patrick's Hall. It's where the presidents are inaugurated.

 After going through the more current portion of the castle we moved on to the remains of the original castle. This is a picture of what it would have looked like when it was first built.

 It's hard to tell in this picture but these are the remains of another turret.

 Steps that probably would have led up into the area protected by the walls.

This used to be an opening for the moat. There used to be two main rivers running through Dublin. The River Liffey is pretty big but the other river mainly runs underground now.

After we finished up at the castle we decided to go checkout two older churches. The first was Christ Church Cathedral Dublin and the other was St. Patrick's Cathedral Dublin.

 Christ Church Cathedral.

The church was founded in the 11th century but a stone structure wasn't started until 1180. Of course there have been lots of renovations and rebuilds over the years.

 There was an underground area called the Crypt. They actually had a little Christmas Market down there that day too.

 These are some costumes worn by the actors of The Tudors. I guess some of it was filmed here. I think they may have filmed some of it at Dublin Castle too. I remember hearing about that show but I don't really know what its about, what channel its on (HBO?), or if they're still filming new episodes.

 The high ceilings inside the church. I know this picture is kind of blurry but we took another one just like it at the next cathedral so I thought it would be cool to compare.

 The Baptistry.

 I can't remember what this is called but it's either the place where they read scripture or the place where the pastor gives his sermon. It's pretty, with the contrasting stone colors though.

 Stained glass windows.

 Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

The cathedral was founded in 1191. It's newer and bigger than Christ Church Cathedral. I guess the two cathedrals have kind of had a long standing dispute over which one is the National Cathedral of Ireland.

 The high ceilings.

 This is the Boyle Monument. All these cathedrals have a lot of monuments and memorials in them.

 This is a Celtic stone they found. They think it may have marked the spot of the well St. Patrick used to baptize people.

 A statue of St. Patrick.

 In the late 15th Century two Earls were fighting. I guess they were having a particularly violent battle and one of the them took refuge inside the Chapter House. One of them realized that neither of them would win by fighting so he cut a hole in the door and reached through to shake the hand of his enemy. That's all it took for peace to be restored.

 The stairs leading up to the organ. It's a very tight spiral. I can't imagine climbing that.

 The High Altar and Choir area.

This is the grave of Jonathon Swift and his friend Stella. He was Dean of the Cathedral in the 1700s. Stella actually died before him but they were such good friends that he wanted to be buried next to her. (I don't know why the picture is sideways. I changed it in picture viewer but for some reason it's uploading like this.)

After walking through the churches we decided we were close enough to the Guinness Storehouse and Brewery to walk over. It was the farthest attraction from the city center that we visited while we were there but it was still within reasonable walking distance. Arthur Guinness started brewing in 1759 and signed a 9,000 year lease on a brewery in St. James' Gate in Dublin. The area that has been turned into a museum used to be the fermentation plant. However, the beer is still made in this location. We went through a portion of the tour that explains the process and you can see several of the buildings shown in the video by looking out the windows of the storehouse. I actually really enjoyed going through the storehouse to learn about the ingredients in Guinness and the process of making beer, which I know nothing about. We also got to go to a tasting area and the ticket includes a free pint at one of their bars. After going through the tasting area we knew we wouldn't be redeeming our free pints, lol. Daniel may have if he wasn't trying to get over being sick and if he didn't have to worry about GERD, but no way for me. The only beer I like is Blue Moon and it is the complete opposite of Guinness, hehe. Here's some of the pictures from our visit.

 Guinness also uses the harp as it's symbol. Theirs faces the other way from the Presidential symbol though.

 Lots of different beer bottles. It made for a pretty cool display.

 The 9,000 year lease signed by Arthur Guinness. The lease was for £45 per year and won't expire until the year 10,759. I wonder if they still only pay £45 per year, hehe.

 Barley, one of the four ingredients used to make Guinness.

 Another of the four ingredients. These were fake hops. 

 Water is another of the four ingredients. Guinness gets its water from the nearby Wicklow Mountains. The last ingredient is yeast.

 Guinness used to have its own cask makers. Apparently they were highly skilled craftsmen and it was an honor to be a cask maker.

 Some of the machinery used to make Guinness.

 I think this is where it goes after it's all done and almost ready to packaged.

 Some of the views of Dublin from the Gravity Bar.

The mountains in the background are the Wicklow Mountains, the source of the water in Guinness.

My sinuses and headache had gotten much worse as the day wore on so I was ready to head back to the hotel by the time we were finished with the Guinness Storehouse. It was already past 4 and starting to get dark too. I do wish we could have come during the spring or summer so it wouldn't get dark so soon. Here in Leeds it's usually completely dark by 4:30. Anyways, after leaving the storehouse we walked around a bit looking for the bus stop but ended up taking a cab back instead. I wish we could have gone to a pub or listened to some live music somewhere that night but I was feeling way to awful to go anywhere. We ended up eating dinner at the hotel restaurant and spending the rest of the evening in the hotel.

I slept in the next morning as well so we got a late start at about 11. Our mission for the day was to see Trinity College, the oldest university in Ireland founded in 1592, then head to some of the National Museums. We had plenty of time because our flight didn't leave until 9 that night. Before we left the hotel we saw that it was overcast but it wasn't raining and didn't look like it had rained recently so we decided not to bring the umbrella. That turned out to be a mistake, hehe. We started out towards Trinity College but we couldn't find an easy entrance inside to look around. We walked around it because that was the direction we needed to go for the museums anyways but decided it wasn't worth it to find a way in and then have to worry about being able to get back out easily. As we were walking towards the museums it started raining, and to make matters worse none of them opened until 2. We had to kill some time so we started heading toward an information center. Along the way we found a pedestrianized shopping street and decided to walk around there a bit (I was also out of kleenexes from blowing my nose every 5 seconds lol). We ended up getting a light lunch at Starbucks and hanging out there to wait out the rain until we could go back to the museums.

The first museum we went to was the National Museum of Archaeology. It wasn't real clear whether we were allowed to take pictures or not so we have a few. They did have a large exhibit of well preserved remains found in bogs around Ireland. They dated back to between 400 and 200 B.C. It was crazy to see that some of them still had hair! We couldn't take any pictures of those unfortunately but they were pretty cool. I found some pictures online so you'll be able to see some of what we saw.

 I found this picture online. These remains were one of the 4 on display at the museum. He's the one who still has his hair. I can't believe that has been preserved so well.

Another example of bog remains. This would have been a very big man. The skin looks so leather. Maybe the conditions in the bog are similar to what is done when making leather.

 A large cross. It had a hole at the bottom so it could be part of a scepter.

 An old burial. It's weird to see the bones in the position the body would have been in.

 Ancient gold jewelry.

 A mummy! I love mummies. I used to want to be an archaeologist or Egyptologist. I also used to want to be a marine biologist but salt water makes me sick so that never would worked, lol.

After finishing up at the Archaeology museum we walked around the block to the Museum of Natural History. We took one picture before we found out photography wasn't allowed in the whole place.

This is a Giant Irish Deer. Too bad the antlers wouldn't fit in the picture. They were almost the same size as the body itself.

When we were finished looking around the museums it was almost 5 and getting dark. We decided to just walk back to the hotel and pick up our bag since I still wasn't feeling all that well. We weren't sure yet if we would be able to get a bus back to the airport or if we would have to get a taxi so we wanted to have plenty of time to figure that out. Here are some random pictures of the city.

 Not sure what this building is but it's probably governmental. There's a nice festive Christmas Tree too.

 The River Liffey.

 The Irish sure like their beer!

 Dublin at night. I love that every city in Europe seems to have Christmas lights.

 A statue. No idea to who or what though. 

 A sand artist. We saw this guy on a pedestrianized street but we saw at least one other that weekend too.

 Overhead Christmas lights. Not sure what this says because it's in Irish.

 The Christmas Tree at night. So pretty.

More hanging Christmas lights. The language seems really hard to learn.

I really enjoyed Dublin and can't wait to go back to Ireland again. Hopefully next time we'll have more time to really travel and see more of the country.

*Emily stop reading right here - Love you!*

On another note, the way airports and flying works here is a little bit different. Most airports don't have the gateways that come directly up to the plane's door. A lot of times you go outside and walk directly to the plane or you have to take a bus to the plane. This was actually really annoying in Dublin. To get on the plane in Dublin we had to go outside and walk up to it. They were letting people get on the plane at the front and the back which made it a little bit quicker but it was freezing cold and really windy so it still really sucked waiting to get on. Also, when we landed in Leeds, we had to wait (with the doors open and cold air blowing in) for the buses to get there before we could get off. Also, the landings here are a lot scarier than in the states. They seem to come in faster and don't put down as gently. When the wheels touch down and they start slowing down it feels like the plane goes side to side more, which makes me feel like it could turn too much and start rolling over. Kind of scary. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned any of that considering we're flying to Germany tomorrow. (knocks on wood)

I'm behind on posting this and I still need to post about the places I visited in Leeds. I'll probably do a quick post about our place in Germany on Monday and then try to post about Leeds later in the week. I really want to try to make some Christmas cookies to bring with us when we visit the Marsh's for Christmas but I have no idea how to go about finding the ingredients and stuff so if I don't get the Leeds post done that will be why. Also, Daniel and I have to try to find some Christmas decorations! I can't believe there's only a little over a week until Christmas!!!