what you see, what i see

The doors in our apartment are made of a wood veneer that I don't think is all that pretty. But anyhow. When I'm in the bathroom and the door is shut, you might think I see this---^

But what I really see is this:

Cemetary Visit

Nope, we don't know anyone buried here. But we needed to get out, go for a walk, and this cemetary is not far from our apartment. It had snowed a few days earlier. This is what we saw.

I fought the can...

...and I won. I was making chicken with onions and tomatoes. Delicious, actually. But the tomato part was difficult. We had a can of tomatoes. We had a can opener. But the can opener was made for US cans, and the tomatoes were canned here in Germany. Bad idea. Since then, I have been to the store and bought a German made can opener.

Dust bunnies

So, I've been feeling really dusty. I sweep the floors probably twice a week, and yet there's always so much dust. I finally figured out why. You know how when you dry a load of clothing in the dryer, you have to clean the lint filter? Well, since we don't have a dryer, we don't have a lint filter, so I think the clothes just delint as they choose, wherever they choose. Thus, this is what the dustpan looks like on a weekly basis.

Stop, or go?

I'm not sure what this means. The stop sign says stop. The green light says go. So what are you supposed to do here?

Fun Facts

Or so I think.
1. The majority of the sidewalks I walk on are made of cobblestones.
2. You can't buy bleach just anywhere. In fact, I can't even find any.
3. In the winter, babies and sleeping bags are synonymous.
4. I hear a police siren at least once a day. And no, it's not all in my head.
5. My oven is more of a dehydrater than a baker.
6. I spent 6.99 Euros today on a pack of just 4 AAA batteries. That's almost $9!
7. Here, when you want to buy ginger, you look for Ingwer.

Vienna and more

We took the train to Vienna this past weekend. It took about 4 hours, the same as driving, and there was no worry about finding a parking space. Trains in Europe are a great way to travel. When we got there, we had reservations in a little family run hotel. My nephew Scott and his girlfriend Kelly met us there. It was great because they had already been there for a few days, so they knew all the Ubahn stations and things to do.

We went to the Haus der Musik, which is a four story house, all about music. There were all sorts of interactive programs to play with, displays of all the prominent Austrian composers, and video stuff and audio stuff and wow! It was really cool. We also went to the Hundertwasser Haus, which is a crazy big apartment building with windows of all different shapes and sizes and columns in random places and wow! Here's a picture:

We also went to the Christkindlmarkt (yes, the sign in the picture says "Wiener" because that means Vienna). It was pretty. We must have walked miles and miles that day. At the end of the day we went to a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner held at a restaurant. Kelly's sister, Amy, is in Vienna for study abroad, and the 8 or 9 students and their host families and some of their teachers were there. Afterward dinner but before pumpkin pie Amy played the cello and a couple students sang.

Back in Munich, I've been to the shopping centers a few times to get some Christmas decorations. So far I've found two strings of lights, two candle holders, and a wooden woodcutter figure. And we went to the Christkindlmarkt here, which just opened on Sunday. I got a delicious donut-like thing that had been sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. I've gotta go back and get another one when my gluten intolerance allows.

I spent a couple hours making some decorations out of paper too. I've got snowflakes hanging in the windows and paper balls hanging from the light fixtures.

Well, Rob heads off to Ireland tomorrow for just one night, and then Meg and Lauri are coming on Sunday. I can't wait to see them and take them all over the place. We're going to go to Nurnberg and Salzburg and who knows where else.