Micha's Snowy Birthday Weekend in Pictures

We took a trip to Rügen this year for Micha's birthday, as we tend to do, to play his usual game of escaping any birthday hoopla (he's very silly like that) and to get our annual dose of winter beach time, which we love so much. You can take your mountains and ski poles, I'll stick to my snow-covered beaches and Fischbrötchen for a short winter getaway every time.

The view from our hotel

We had this entire house - hilariously called the "Villa Honey" - all to ourselves!

Super creepy The Shining-style topiary | Micha put some random outdoor workout gear to use

My typical, ridiculous stance in below-freezing temperatures

Icicle alert!

I was in awe at the seagulls' ability to stay warm while chillin' (ha!) in the snow or icy waters

I swear this was Germany and not the Arctic...

Enjoying our mansion for two! (Not falling. Really!) | Blue champagne for the birthday boys

We relaxed for most of the weekend, which including walking along the beach and marveling at the crazy ice structures that had accumulated everywhere; laughing at the seagulls who were either merrily napping or frantically chasing each other away from their respective territories; testing out each of the seven different saunas, as well as the pool and whirlpool, in the wellness area; and catching up on our beer intake following alcohol-free January (we end on Micha's birthday, or in this case, right before) accompanied by Fischbrötchen and the amazing fish soup at the shop near the beach. 

Randomly enough, when we headed to the Hanseatic bar for some pre-birthday drinkies on Saturday night, the only other couple there was an adorable little British couple (ok fine, my age ;) with a gigantic (and so sweet) dog who were, naturally, celebrating the dude's birthday too! It made for a lovely night of joking and exchanging stories of what it's like to get to know the Germans and their ways when moving here (he was in the army and she'd just recently moved to Niedersachsen to live with him there). When the entranced (by so much English) bartender happily offered up glasses of a blue champagne cocktail upon hearing there were two birthday boys in the house, he earned himself a little happy face next to his name in my book. Well, played, guy. 

How was your weekend? Can you believe it's almost February already?? Eeek!

Our Christmas in Pictures

The holidays definitely snuck up on me this time around, despite a weekend of cookie-baking madness and twice weekly visits to the Christmas markets (as I'd aimed for!). We did manage to get our tree up and decorated nice and early this year, since it was my turn to decorate.

Side note on that: We switch off years choosing decorations for the tree because you never know what a big role your cultural background plays in decorating a Christmas tree until you see someone else doing it wrong. Germans like Micha like white lights on their tree - preferably the big ones that look like candles but the usual small ones will do too - and they like to pick a color scheme or ornaments and stick to it entirely for that year. I - being what I consider typically American but feel free to call me out on this - like colorful light strands and lots of colorful ornaments, but the usual balls and special ones that have been collected over the years. This sharp contrast in decorating schemes led us to agree to switch off years with decorating the tree, saving us each a few gray hairs in the process (if only it were that easy when coming to choosing a coffee table...)

Some of my favorite ornaments, mostly courtesy of Nat or Emily

In addition to our lovely, bushy tree, I also had an advent calendar from Liz to look forward to every morning (oh boy did it live up to my expectations!) and goodies from Sister to stash under the tree...

...but somehow, the whole holiday spirit didn't really hit me until Christmas Eve itself when I donned my jingly reindeer ears and light-up earrings and headed with Micha and a car full of presents, cookies, and homemade eggnog to his mom's house in the 'burbs. And then I promptly managed a nice, leisurely holiday videochat with Natalie (in Florida) and Mom (in California) to make my day complete. Sweet valley high, sometimes I really could just kiss technology as a whole for giving me moments like that.

Enthralled in a serious discussion of jinglebell antlers or the Royal Baby or something to that effect

On Christmas Eve we ate würstchen and potato salad, as tradition dictates, drank our fair share of eggnog, conducted the annual viewing of Christmas Vacation (Kai and his mother know the movie verbatim), opened the presents (Germans always do on Christmas Eve), and rounded things out with a lively, albeit at first rather reluctant from the German contingent, game of Cranium (which really is just as awesome in German, except that I totally suck at the trivia and am not quite the whiz at the spelling-backwards challenges that I am in English).

Christmas Day was much lazier. After breakfast and mimosas, we spent a fair share of our time reading our new books on the couch while their Grandma did some puzzles or watched cheesy tv shows. 

Then came the big meal - goose and rabbit with sides of Klöse, potatoes (for me, Klöse aren't my fave), buttery green beans, and Rotkohl - and by then I was ready to return home to our own Christmas tree, call the rest of my family at Gramma's house to wish them a merry Christmas, and end the night cozy and full and happy that a week of vacation was just beginning.

The fact that it's a new year is still sinking in and I'm taking my time digesting it, reflecting back on the last one, and planning for this one (which I know with an almost certainty will be fantabulous). 

See You in March!

By the time you read this, I will already be in the Philippines and hopefully even have a wee bit of a tan... (if my poor pale now-German skin will allow it, that is). But I just wanted to say: I miss you! And thanks for reading! And don't worry, Nat will hold down the fort while I'm gone, and do a great job of it, as she always does. PLUS, I've got an exciting guest poster lined up for you. One of my very favorite people in the whole wide world.

So make sure to check back in regularly still and I'll even try to pop by every now and then, if possible (internet access permitting), to give you a glimpse of our Mission: Escape-the-Siberian-Winter Vacation. But if not, then I'll see you in March!

Image pinned by Hannah (source?)

My Weekend in Pictures

Blacklight mini-golf for our company outing

Micha found me some macarons!

The fancified English section in Dussman | Tomato seed shopping

Party time | Tomato planting

An outing in Quedlinburg after picking up...

...the long-awaited bar cart!

Cleaning time | Failed gold martinis

The weekend kind of started for me on Thursday as we had a big work party and outing and in turn, got half of Friday off. (Working the second half of Friday, however, was not so fun). Going blacklight mini-golfing in Kreuzberg was definitely the highlight of the day.

On Saturday, exactly one week before we leave for the Philippines (eek!), we finally got around to our first errand and got my big old backpack fit to me. Now only 85,982 other things to get done this week...

We also started our baby tomato garden this weeknd! I'll follow up with a full post about that because, well, you know how much I freaking love our tomatoes. And we managed to make it to Sarah's birthday party as well on Saturday, even though Micha was nursing a brutal hangover from visiting Hofbräuhaus with his dad the night before. (Hangover courtesy of the extra beer bought for us by our new Australian archaeologist buddy, Ben.)

On Sunday, Micha proved, once again, what an awesome and unbelievably tolerant boyfriend he is by accompanying me to Bernburg to pick up the awesome brass bar cart I won on eBay! Oh yes, I won it for a whopping 1.50€ because I was, apparently, the only person willing to drive to Bernburg for it! But I still contest that it was a genius move on my part because, even with gas, the grand total only came to 21.50€. Plus, Micha then decided that we should head to the medieval town of Quedlinburg and make a day out of it. Which, while lovely, would have been so much better had it not been negative a bajillion degrees outside and had any restaurants been open. By the time we found the single one open in town, we were too frozen to continue sightseeing. (Still a win in my book, though.)

So now the bar cart is currently undergoing a tedious - and extremely messy - cleaning process. Cross your fingers that the result is worth it because I really want to buy some fancy liquor to put on it before we leave! (We currently only have 3 partially-filled bottles of tequila and goldwasser. Which is apparently an herby schnapps and NOT AT ALL tasty when mixed with vermouth. Even though the flecks of gold are so lovely. Live and learn, right?)

p.s. If anyone ever tells you that driving at ridiculous speeds on the German Autobahn is more scary than fun, they lie! I kicked the German Autobahn's ass this Sunday and it was AMAZING! More on that to come...

p.p.s Yes, that is Micha dancing in a church up there. Blasphemous East German...

Micha's Birthday Weekend auf Rügen in Pictures

A long title for a not-long-enough weekend. But it was celebratory and relaxing and gluttonous, nonetheless. So really, pretty darn fabulous.

Birthday breakfast

Birthday champagne, courtesy of the Hotel Hanseatic, which we cannot recommend highly enough. (Whiskey, top right, courtesy of me)

 Not-too-snowy, but oh-so-cold-and-windy beach 

Varied styles of living

The crew: Kerstin, Hendryk, and bday boy Micha

Re-energizing with fish soup and the beer of the righteous

Our villa (the top right corner one)

Boys, a bit skeptical of our candlelight dinner for four

Drinkies (please note Micha's table-decoration-turned-pearl bracelet)

Sellin, where "Kendryk" got married 1.5 years ago

As you probably know by now, we're kind of Rügen addicts. And tend to have the most fun when these two come along. Our goals for the weekend were simple:

-- Celebrate Micha's birthday quietly in one of his favorite settings. Success! We even got a fancy room in the adjacent Villa Fortuna with an extra large lounge area, balcony, and very envy-enducing-sized bathroom. Not to mention, we're such frequent guests that they left a bottle of champage waiting for the birthday boy upon arrival. (As my luck would have it, the bottle pretty much just went to me! Since the boys stuck to whiskey and Kerstin's preggo state doesn't allow for such debauchery.)

-- Enjoy our first real drinkies since December. Choosing to end Alcohol-free January on his birthday every year is like icing on the cake. Actually better, since Micha doesn't even like cake.

-- Sleep entirely too much. We did a lot of relaxing and napping in between breakfast buffets, lunchtime beach walks, and our candlelight dinner. We even all fell asleep at the same time in our lounge chairs at the pool, resulting in us all too closely resembling the groups of old couples around us. Yeah, they know how to live the life.

-- Eat lots and lots of fish. Fischbrötchen and a fantastic (and award-winning! :) red fish soup at this teeny tiny little restaurant near the beach are our all-time favorites. It's also kind of the only place open in winter...

Other than that, I did manage to spill an entire cup of hot coffee all over my stomach and lap at breakfast our first morning (after having packed extra light. Go me.). This following my finger-burning incident of the previous weekend. It appears my self-inflicted injuries habit has shifted gear from cuts to burns. Not sure I like the change...

And how was your weekend?

All photos by Nicole or Micha