You Can’t Handle the Truth!

Well…I’m trying to handle it. The time has come for me to say good-bye. I’m sad my European adventures and time with my Love is ending, but I know I was blessed and appreciate the opportunity. We’ve explored so many places within Germany and Europe that we’ve tracked our walks and they totaled approximately 210 miles since January 9. I’ve been pretty proud of our footage. Here’s a recap of the journeys we took over the past 5 months: (Germany) Hattingen, Essen, Monschau, Plettenberg, Bochum, Krefeld-Lynn, Wuppertal, Munster, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Dortmund, Kempen, Schloss Burg, Altenberg; (Luxembourg) Luxembourg; (Scotland) Edinburgh, (England) Windsor, (Spain) Roses, Cadaques, Figueres, Barcelona, Girona, Banyoles, Besalu; (Belgium) Brugge; (Holland) Amsterdam, Venlo, Domburg, Zoutelande; (Italy) Lake Garda, Verona, Bologna; and (Sweden) Stockholm, Trosa, Nykoping. I want to thank you all for following us in our travels.

As an update to my “I Got Your Back” post, I haven’t shed my weight like Germany shed the snow, but I haven’t gained either. See how I made that a positive. ;) At the present time, I am unable to sell my condo due to unforeseen matters. Once those unforeseen matters are cleared up, I will put it on the market. For anyone looking for a condo on the south side of Chicago in a historic part of town, and within walking distance to the train, shoot me an email and maybe we can work something out.

At the present time, my Love has not found a teaching position in the U.S. What this means is that he will be coming to the U.S. with me through the month of April for his spring break and student exchange excursion, but will return to Germany in May. I will look for a job, hopefully freelance or within the Chicago downtown area, while he finishes out his school year in Germany. If he still doesn’t have a teaching position in the U.S. by summer, he will come in July during his summer break and then return to Germany at the end of August—another year of separation.

It will be a tough year for us, so I ask you to send good thoughts our way…or a job. LOL! Anyhow, this will be my last post before I leave for the States on Friday. I wish you all a safe and awesome week.

 
Bea, who is looking forward to a shower without a hunched ceiling.

Sweetish Time

Hello Everyone. Over the weekend, our travels brought us to Stockholm, Sweden along with a few other quick stops. I thought I wouldn’t see snow for the rest of this winter, but Stockholm was all about it along with the cold. We had a great time, and Sweden was kind enough to share its cold with me.

On Friday, on our way to the airport, we stopped at a winery town called Ahrweiler in the Ahr valley region and by the river Ahr. Winemaking in this town dates back to the Roman times. The main red varieties are the Spätburgunder (pinot noir) and Portugieser and the white wine varieties are Riesling and Müller-Thurgau. Since I love wine, I thought I’d give you that tidbit of information.

This is a picture taken of one of the streets.

The town is unique because of its colorful painted buildings. Here is an example of the types of paintings you’ll find on the buildings.

I had to take a picture of this church, because the yellow outline of it really stands out.

When we left, I took a picture of the vineyards on the way out. Someday I’ll make it  to a town at harvest time to watch the winemaking process.

The next morning, we got out early to take in the sights of Stockholm. It’s amazing how one hour we were in Germany and the next in Sweden. It was sweetish. To me, Stockholm is like a combination of Amsterdam with the waterway bridges crossing over the Baltic Sea, and Edinburgh with its old buildings and palaces as backdrops.

These are a few pictures I took early in our journey before the rest of the city woke up. 

When I saw this statue, I thought of this guy saying, “Here I am. Come and get it”. 

 

This is one of the many streets in Stockholm. As you can tell, they’re narrow and loaded with stores, cafes and restaurants.

We took a ferry ride to another little island in Stockholm because we wanted to go to a few museums. Here are a few pictures of the ferry ride.

The first museum we went to was the Vasa. This museum is about the Swedish warship built from 1626 to 1628. It is the only 17^th century warship preserved in its entirety. It’s beautifully crafted, but never made it out of the harbor before capsizing. It finally broke surface in 1961. I honestly did not think I’d enjoy this museum as much as I did. These pictures are of the Royal Warship Vasa. It’s so huge that I couldn’t even get the ship all of the ship in a picture.  

This picture is a replica of how the ship functioned. The rocks at the bottom were to stabilize the ship with weight, but they didn’t put enough because of all the artillery aboard and the ship was unable to steady itself on the water.

From the Vasa museum, we went to Skansen open air museum, which shows the way of life before the industrial era. It has all kinds of things from glass making to animals. Here are a few pictures.

This is a night picture I took before we headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we decided to leave Stockholm and drive along the coast of the Baltic. There was an area where we had to take an ice breaker ferry with the car, so here are a few pictures from the ferry. 

We stopped in a town called Trosa. We didn’t know anything about this town other than it was on the map right off the Baltic. Here are a few pictures.

Hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the pictures.