Saturday morning snow

We woke to a fresh coating of snow. For the first time, Munich is white as we get ready for Christmas. The city (like most places) is beautiful with a fresh dusting of snow.

Julia and George played in the park. George is crazy in the snow. Seeing the black dog romp in the snow is fun for all of us.


The snow was heavy and almost wet. Perfect packing snow for all you favorite activities. The boys played some tackle football and could not be kept from hitting each other with snow balls.

A good start to our last Saturday in Munich in 2009. Schoenes Wochenende.

Christmas Markets

We are now into the Christmas market season. The kids came to my office friday night and we went to the market outside my building. We then walked down to the one in the "times square" of Munich - Marienplatz.

The main attraction of the markets is to sip the warm wine and enjoy the crisp weather. This is not fun for the kids. As the photo shows (camera phone - sorry), the kids attraction is being able to eat something on a stick. And in this case - I really mean something - I have no idea what he is eating. David stuck to sausages on a roll. Julia, of course, remains thin because this diet is not for her.

Saturday we went to the Nuremberg markets for the day. This was purely for Daphne as the kids did not want to walk around and look at all the stalls filled with ornaments and trinkets.

Going to Nuremberg was one of the 5 things Daph said was most important to her while we live here. If David didn't misplace the camera, I would show you some pictures. Maybe in the coming days....

Thanksgiving

I am a bit behind on the blog. Here's what's happening:

- We had Thanksgiving at a local restaurant that is normally a New Orleans Jazz place. They offered a carved turkey dinner and we saw a could of people from the international school that the kids know. It was really nice. They also showed us more of a New Orleans Thanksgiving because they offered jambalaya in addition to the turkey. No pumpkin pie but Daph made one for us at home. Here's a picture from the restaurant.

- The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we invited our friends over and Daphne made a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was perfect. Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc. We even had tivo-ed the Macy's parade and had it running on the TV.

The following Sunday we joined our German friends for a "day out". The boys broke out the Santa hats on the streets of Munich and we headed south.
We went for a walk in a large park at the base of the mountains. We walked for a couple of miles and enjoyed the view and fresh air in Murnau.

We then went further south to the base of the Alps to Garmisch. The town center was decorated for Christmas and a band played at the town center. Brian did not want to be photographed.
The night was crisp and everyone was in a happy mood. We sipped warm wine (Gluwein) before having one of the best Bavarian dinners I have ever enjoyed. (Even better than pumpernickels on Long Island).

We are starting to feel connected in our new life. Daph is getting so settled, the kids and I allow her unsupervised access to the car.

Happy Thanksgiving

We are really feeling far from home this week. Tomorrow the kids will go to school and I will go for a normal day at work even though we are all feeling the Thanksgiving holiday spirit.

We will get to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings thanks to a restaurant down the street called, "The Big Easy". While TBE normally produces some of the best New Orleans cuisine in Europe, tomorrow they will prepare our US Thanksgiving dinner. We will also get to watch "American Football" although our games will start around 6pm instead of noon.

While we are missing home and some of our traditions, we can still be thankful for all of our blessings. We hope we have a greater appreciation for friends and family and look forward to future chances to reconnect to all those close to us.

We wish everyone a healthy and happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Christmas Markets

The big celebration point during the holidays in Germany is the Christmas Markets. These are temporary structures set up to sell gifts and food and drinks to shoppers intoxicated by the season.(The first picture is out of a window in my building)

What we didn't know is that it is really a huge outdoor cocktail party where people agree to meet and socialize.


A couple of days ago they started building the market outside of my office in central Munich at the Wittelsbacherplatz. Each market has a theme in Munchen - ours is medieval times. They started building last week (when I took these pictures).
When I spoke to the people in my office, they asked, "Surely you have these markets in NYC?" After a short discussion about how these markets are really a venue for people to meet and socialize more than shop, I had to tell them that we really don't have anything like these in NYC.

These pictures also show that our weather has been dynamite. We have had sunshine and 60 degrees for many days of the past two weeks. Today I had coffee outside in the sun with a friend with no coat.
I took this picture tonight while leaving the office. They do install a Christmas tree in the center of the market - which in our case is lit by Siemens bulbs.

Guest!

We had a guest this week in Bavaria. Our former neighbor, Stephen McCreary, had a business trip to northern Germany and came out of his way to see us in Munich. We picked up our sleepy guest and immediately set about a full day of showing him Munich. Poor guy.

Stephen is interesting because he took years of high school German but has never been to Germany. He could say short things to the kids in German but never knew the country.

He has a BMW so we took him to the BMW museum (after a double espresso). He was a good sport. After the museum (and more espresso), we showed him some more sights. The poor guy was tired.

After a full day, we forced him to go out to a traditional Gasthaus (German restaurant) and we feed him schnitzel, German potato salad, Sausages, and weissebier.

The morning after was a brunch and then we shipped him off to Dusseldorf. Maybe we should have let him sleep a little bit. Oh well. It was great to see an old friend.

To anyone reading the blog - we love visitors and everyone is welcome. Please come. We don't want anyone to feel compelled, but if you are game - you're welcome!

This weekend we were lucky enough to be invited to a traditional Bavarian event.
We woke early and drove south one hour toward the Alps. We were going to the Leonhardifahrt Hundham event. This is a ceremony that goes back to pre-Christian events. The current ceremony looks to bless the horses and other farm animals that are important to the townspeople.

We started with the parade. Many of the surrounding villages prepare for weeks for the religious event by preparing the coach, dressing up their horses, and wearing very beautiful traditional dress.
One of the floats pays homage to the patron saint who will protect against fire in the home or barn.
The groups paraded into the center of a very small town and into a small field by a small church. While this is happening, any observers, like the 5 Americans, could walk through and talk to the participants and pet the horses.

It really struck Daphne and I that these were not costumes. There were no tourist brochures, no programs, no advertising. We only came because our friend invited us to see a real Bavarian event.
As we walked around, the outfits were terrific, but we were the ones who looked strange. We were the only ones taking pictures and acting like outsiders.


The men's hats have these flourishes that look like upturned brushes. These are actually the hair from mountain goats that are hand crafted and highly valued. The bigger the 'brush' the more important the man and the more important his rank.
Everyone was friendly and approachable - they were just having their annual event to bless the animals.


The view was several of the highest mountains in Germany/Austria in the background.


At the end, David saw a dripping fountain in the town square and asked our host about the quality of the water.
He said that as long as there is not a big sign showing that the water is not safe, it is clean, clear water that is very safe and quite tasty.

We don't know what the kids are getting from this, but this was a truly special peek into a different culture. I love how proud the Bavarians are of their history and how some are willing to share with us Americans.

Halloween

Yes, we had Halloween in Germany. Some of the parents from the international school arranged to have their neighbors distribute candy to any kids who would come. We had about 100 kids go to about 30 houses outside of Munich.

Mom and Dad didn't take any pictures but we can report that Julia was in costume as a witch, David was a ghost and Brian was Darth Vader. Darth Vader is global.

Santa Margarita

Today was our final day on our European Vacation.
We took some pictures from the balcony of our hotel in Santa Margarita before heading home to Munich.


Our hotel had a great balcony facing the harbor full of boats that survived the previous storm.
As we asked the kids their favorite memories, David liked the sausages in Bern, Brian liked the big boats in Cannes and Monaco, and Julia said she was happy to go home to Munich.
Daphne missed out on eating in Provence but her health improved enough to let her enjoy Italy. We had some wonderful, home cooked meals in small restaurants in Italy. Daph concluded that the food is much better in Italy than Germany, but everything else is harder.

We also concluded that life on the cote d'azur requires:
1. waking up late and drinking great coffee
2. driving your scooter into oncoming traffic without hesitation
3. smoking at all possible times, such as while passing traffic on your scooter, while on a cell phone
4. looking fabulous - this is a stereo type that is true. They look good 24/7


We had fun - we tried to do too much - but we had fun.


Thanks for enjoying it with us. It was my wife's dream and now we did it.

As a family, we all are happy when Mama is happy.

Italy

Waking from the storm, we found the harbor to be more quiet although the skies were still gray and stormy. We decided to try and see the towns of Cinque Terra. These are towns perched on the edge of the sea that are incredibly beautiful but impossible in their construction and not accessable by road until recent times.
We headed down to the ferry dock to try and see them be boat but the seas were too rough. Since it was noon, Daphne said we should try and drive and, "see how far we get before the drive becomes too difficult."

This drive was murder.

Picture roads wide enough for 1.5 cars, with mountain straight up the right side and no discernible land on the left. If you dare to let your peripheral vision peek out the corners, you will see there is a 1000 foot drop to rocks before you bounce into the sea. But you don't need to worry because there is a fence made of wire the size of fishing line that will protect you in case you have a problem. Did I mention that it began to storm again? Wet roads are fun.

When I said I was ready to turn back, Daph suggested we go to one of the small towns to have lunch. This proved to be the worst drive possible according to the internet. We needed to turn off the main road, toward the sea, and drive straight down. There were some switchbacks that we needed to slow to 5 mph as you turn 250 degrees.

I was not enjoying this. Daph said her hand hurt from grabbing the handle so tightly. The kids stayed dead quiet - likely a survival instinct from thousands of years of evolution. (Mom and Dad are stressed - stay quiet!)

Anyway - it was fine. Views were great. Hard to understand why people built houses here. Munich doesn't have the view but is still pretty great.

Monaco

We left Nice early on Wednesday to see Monaco and travel to Italy for the first time.

We woke up and took a picture from our rooftop pool (too cold to swim) of the beaches of Nice. In season, this would have been fabulous.

My father suggested that Monaco doesn’t have too much to see and we should try to visit a small medieval town called Eze. As the navigation system took us from Nice to Monaco, we saw a sign for Eze and made the stop for a late breakfast.

The town is at the peak of a stone cliff. Buildings are perched impossibly on the steep edges of the mountain, ready to slide into the sea. It always seems that there is a church with three sides on the edges.

Pictures cannot capture the steep drops you experience from these perches.

I don’t like these edges. Fear of my own clumsiness is really the issue. David has no fear and was reprimanded several times for leaning over iron fences with his feet off the ground.

Even Daphne was taunting me with her arm.

Next we pushed on to Monaco / Monte Carlo. This was tough to explain to the kids. We were visiting a city/country built on tax avoidance (if not evasion) and gambling.

The boys seemed to only see the bigger boats. Here is a picture of the gang in front of the Lady Moura which is the 11^th biggest private boat in the world. On the right.

We visited the oceanic museum where Jacques Cousteau set up his foundation. King Albert I of Monaco was a big believer in protecting the ocean (while hunting ocean creatures) in the beginning of the 20^th century.

We also visited the palace where the prince lives and the church where Grace Kelly was married. The boys were very impressed. Not really.

We ate at a place called Gaston’s and we asked them if they knew who Gaston was in history. Julia said he was a character in Disney’s Ratatouille movie. When we asked if anyone had heard of Monte Carlo, David said there was a Scooby Doo episode with a ghost that haunts a building in Monte Carlo. We are fighting an uphill battle.

Late in the day we left Monaco for the 2-3 hours drive to Genova (birthplace of Christopher Columbus). Considered one of the most beautiful drives in the world, the road follows the coast from small town to small town along the Mediterranean. We had the misfortune to have a driving rainstorm and high winds. This meant that the towering vistas and high bridges were a bit more scary then enjoyable. It was a white knuckle ride with the trucks and scooters flying around in the bad weather.

When we got to our hotel, we were across the street from the harbor where the local town’s men where watching the storm knock the boats about and sink one or two. The hotelier said it was a “typhoon” but that might be a language issue. We watched the storm shred some canvas covers and pull some of the boats from their docks.

Good fun.

Day 4

Brian says this is what it feels like to sit three across in the back seat.
I guess I should blame myself for exposing him to billion dollar metaphors.

This was the end of our day in Cannes. Wow. If the kids have to ask, they cannot afford these boats. (David did see a for sale sign on a small 80 ft. boat and ask if he could approach the owner.)

but let's start at the beginning...

We started the drive up the cote-d'azur from Marseille, through the beautiful fishing town of Sanary-sur-Mer, to the naval port of Toulon, up to Saint-Tropez for lunch and finally into Cannes.



The day was nice as warm versus our earlier adventures. While Daph is still not feeling well, she is trying to be a trooper. The kids actually seemed to look out the window now and then and enjoy the views of the Mediterranean.

Lunch was in Saint-Tropez at Pizzeria Bruno. David asked to order the mussels. Daph thought he wouldn't like them (and she might throw up) but we allowed him and, to his credit, he ate them.

After lunch all except Daph had ice cream on the docks. We did not see Bridgit Bardot.



We did see several large boats like this one. A mere 130 ft. long, none of the children was ready to put down the deposit on the $225K per week instead of our time in Sunset Beach next year. It does only sleep 10.



Finally, we pulled into Cannes and the previous boats looked average.
When we went to park the Volvo to walk around, I pulled into a garage with many openings. We parked and saw an impressive line up of cars with license plates that had the same markings.
Clearly, one person owned the Lambo, 2 Ferrari's, Bentley, 3 BMWs, 7 Mercedes, Maybach, and the Austin Martin. All with German plates from Hamburg and not a single Porsche in the group.