Poor George

Without a doubt, George has had the most trouble in Germany.

In addition to his problems captured on previous posts, George suffered through the holidays.
This picture shows happier times. You know something is happening when you call the dog-sitter and they say, "...everything is ok now..."

It seems George "got" an infection on the side of his face between Christmas and New Years. It swelled to the size of a baseball, he became lethargic, and then got a fever. Our dog sitter took him to the vet and George was knocked out so they could drain the infection.

But it gets better - George manages to remove the drain. This means that it swells back up a few days later. We went back to the vet Saturday for another knock-out and draining. Our vet assumes that George was bitten and that caused the infection. George doesn't know how to quit so he AGAIN managed to Houdini the drain out.

Daphne took George back this morning. The drain is now stapled into George's face in multiple places with multiple staples.

He loves it here.

Back to Munich

It's been a month since our last post and much has happened:
- Family visit to Chatham - friends and doctors
- Christmas with the Stolfi clan - fun with family in the cold Ohio winter
- New Year's in Florida - watching children swim in chilly weather and college bowl games

We cannot thank everyone enough for hosting us and/or working with our impossible schedule. There are just too many friends and relatives to see and spend time with. We go back to Munich with great memories.

We returned last week and spent a good deal of time readjusting our body clocks and getting the apartment settled. The kids have been sleeping in until 10am so Monday morning wake up was challenging. There is a great deal of snow here and the weather has been below freezing for over a week so everything is frozen.

There is a 2 mile long canal that runs to the castle by our house that is completely frozen.

It provides several types of fun - ice skating and curling are the most popular. Daphne took this picture one morning while on her walk.

This weekend was sunny and bright (still cold) and there were hundreds of people on the ice. The kids, George and I all went down and walked on the ice. You can rent ice skates and curling equipment (without the broom) but we will save that for another time.

Frankly, the curling looks like another German reason to drink cold beer or warm red wine.

Munich is pretty with a blanket of white snow.

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.