Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

It’s funny how quickly life takes a spin and puts you in another direction. This week I’ve been planning things month-by-month as to where and what I’ll be doing. In a way I’m a displaced person, currently living in my mother’s condominium while cleaning it up, boxing things I want of my mom’s, and getting it ready for sale. Staying at my mother’s place has been tough, so I booked a flight to Germany for next week where I’ll be staying for a month.

I will fly out on Thursday and arrive on Friday in Amsterdam and be in three countries in one day; United States, Holland and Germany. My Love will pick me up and we’ll stay at our flat for the night and then on Saturday head to the United Kingdom. We’ll drive (okay, he’ll drive) from Germany to the French Coast (3 countries; Germany, Belgium and France). From there, we will take a ferry across to Dover, U.K. and then drive to Canterbury where we will stay until Monday. We will be in 4 countries within a matter of 6 hours. I am looking forward to getting away and relaxing.

While I’m out there, we will be looking into other flats because the plan is (for now) that I will be moving out to Germany for a year or two, returning for holidays and summer vacation. The flat we have is all right, but we figured it would be nice to have a little more room or a balcony. If we can’t find anything cheap, then we’ll just make do with the flat we have now. Here are pictures I posted before of our flat.

It’s a learning experience living in another country. We didn’t have much out there—we actually lived like college students—but we had the essentials. This way of life was great because we focused on each other, things to do and cheap travel. When I returned to the States last year, I realized how much STUFF I had that wasn’t really needed. But I appreciate the way of life in the U.S. and in Germany.

When I lived in Germany, I made some videos of the places we went to. Here are a few of those videos.

A Glimpse of Germany

 

Many Faces of Spain

 For The Love of Italy

What are your plans for the next month?

Planning and Wandering,

Bea

A Taste of the Holiday Season and Weekend Wonders

Hello my friends. It’s been an exciting weekend, so I thought I’d share some of it with you. First off, many of you who truly know me know that I LOVE THE HOLIDAY SEASON. Unfortunately, I will not be in the States celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, but I did buy a little chicken that I shall cook up this week.

On Friday, a neighboring town already setup their Christmas Market. We headed over there for some tasty food, mulled wine and to get into the holiday spirit…okay, I’m already in the holiday mood. All the booths are decorated so cute.

The first booth I will present is a bread booth. Germans love bread, so this was a must to share.

This is a bratwurst booth. I love how bratwurst is served here. It’s a very long and skinny, like a sausage, and served on a roll (forgot to take picture before I ate it).

My mom had a huge village that she setup at Christmas time. These are German houses for Christmas villages.

Here is a great bar area where they serve beer, wine and hard liquor for those “who want to get drunk fast, and [they] don’t need any characters around to give the joint ‘atmosphere’”.

I laughed when I saw these on display. It’s mulled wine bottles wrapped with bread.

  
And here were some snowmen and reindeers made from tree trunks.

On Saturday, we already planned to go to Luxembourg—told that it is part of my heritage. This was an interesting day, because I was in four different countries; Germany, Luxembourg, France, and Belgium…Well…Belgium was an accident—we happened to have missed the sign that said “This Way!”

We left early and arrived before the crowds got in our way. Luxembourg is a beautiful city and my pictures do not do it justice. There was heavy fog over the area, so the sun didn’t get much of a chance to take a peak.

This is a picture near the town center looking down into the Petruss Valley. Outside the old fortress and palace, the water eroded and created the Petruss Valley, so the town built around this big park.

  
Here’s a picture for my eating buddies. This is a dessert and pastry store. The one in front to the far right looked like velvet, but we tried the individual caramel tort that’s in the middle in front. Mmmm…

This is the Passerell Bridge that has 24 arches and it’s in an arch formation. The bridge was built from 1859 – 1861.

This is the Adolphe bridge, built from 1899 – 1903, and was the largest bridge made from natural stone at the time of completion.

We walked up many, many stone stairs to get to the casements (system of tunnels for defense purposes).

 

  
Then we ventured into another area that somewhat turned into a little Italy. We had lunch in this area at a place called Oscar Wilde (great food at reasonable prices).

 

As we left the City of Luxembourg, I was able to capture a picture of the setting sun.

Today, we went to another town to enjoy the sun. SUN! We had sun, so I grabbed my camera to get some beautiful shots. I’ll share just a few with you.

  
Hope you enjoyed my weekend journey. Have a wonderful week.