Prosit Neujahr!

Danke

A big danke schön to The Parrot Confectionery & the Ackerman family for the absolutely delicious handmade chocolates! The Ackerman's recently purchased the classic Parrot Confectionery in Helena, Montana. We happened to be the lucky recipients of a box of their fantastic goodies. See for yourself...

PS - For those of you who don't know, Brian (Merritt) and Brian (Ackerman)
have been friends since grade school!

True Life: Doing Laundry at the Marriott

Before we arrived at our sweet digs at the Marriott Sindelfingen, we weren't totally sure how we'd be able to do our laundry. We figured there would be a place on base, but we were hoping for something a little closer to home. Well, our wish was granted when we found the PCS Lounge at the Marriott. (PCS is an acronym for Permanent Change of Station). The PCS Lounge has a microwave, HUGE TV, mini-fridge that is always stocked with bottles of soda for the taking, big couches, silverware (which we may or may not have liberated for our room), and the much hoped for washer and dryer. Since I needed to do a load this morning, I thought I'd give everyone a peek...Let's go!

First we have to enter the PCS Lounge with our special key...



Here are the two beauts that keep our clothes squeaky clean!
("It's a beaut, Clark...It's a beaut!")



Conveniently the settings (in German) have rubbed almost completely off.



I mostly just spin the dial until I find a cycle that looks right time-wise. Although, my little game of laundry-roulette will only last as long as the clothes keep coming out fitting me and not Alexa.

Next up is the coolly austere dryer. Very German looking if you ask me. She does good work though, so I can't complain.

And, of course, the final product!

Nothing's better than a pile of yummy smelling clean clothes hot out of the dryer.

A Chinese Restaurant in Germany & More Birthdays!

A few days ago we took an impromptu self-guided walking tour of our little neighborhood, Sindelfingen. We happily realized there was a beer store, Chinese restaurant, and nice big park just a few blocks away! Saturday night presented us with the perfect opportunity to check out our local Chinese restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised.

Our appetizers: won-ton soup and a crispy spring roll.

The won-ton soup was as expected (yum!), the crispy spring roll was really more of a fried pillow of dough with not much filling. Needless to say we ate the whole thing anyways.

Our entrees: chicken with broccoli in a peanut sauce and
curry noodles with shrimp, ham, and vegetables.

The chicken with broccoli was fantastic! Not your typical peanut sauce, but still very good. The noodles were tasty too...as you can see from the picture, the portions were huge so we had some left-overs.

All in all we were excited to find a good Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood. Now whenever we need a little Chinese comfort food we know right where to go!

On a different note, it seems like it's birthday season around here...

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Nick (aka Uncle Nitz)!

This super cool cat turns the big 3-1 on December 27th.

...also...

a BIG Happy Birthday to Grammy Cal!



This party girl turns 90 on December 28th.
You are such an amazing woman and wonderful example of living life to the fullest, Gram!

We hope you both have a fabulous day. Know that we'll be thinking of you and wishing that we were there celebrating! We love you both very much -
C & B

Frohe Weihnachten

Here's a little present to our wonderful family and friends. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!!

Love - B & C

*Please make sure your speakers are on. Also, bear with the music...it warbles at first, but will get better.


PS - Those of you who voted for FRANCE are correct! Our first trek outside of Germany will be to Strasbourg, France on New Year's Day.

Christmas Eve and a Birthday Princess!

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone! We're celebrating today by being totally lazy and it's wonderfully relaxing. We hope that you all are celebrating in your own special way too.

In other news...

Happy (belated) Birthday to our sweet niece, Ella!

This cutie pie turned 4 on December 22nd.

We hope you had a celebration worthy of the fabulous princess that you are!
We love you - Uncle B & Aunt C

Mittelaltermarkt

Big thanks to Todd and Erin for giving us an article from Bon Appetit titled Stuttgart at Christmas. We recently took advantage of the Esslingen Medieval Christmas Market that was mentioned in the article and had a great time!

Esslingen is a town west of Stuttgart. We drove and it only took us about 35 minutes. After we found an available parking garage (the town was buzzing with Mittelaltermarkt excitement) we walked towards the town's Rathausplatz (townhall square). As we approached the start of the market we saw this huge, old Gothic church:

Once inside the market it felt a lot like Stuttgart's except all of the vendor booths were arranged tightly between the city's cool old buildings. This market had more of an "old world" feel whereas Stuttgart felt more like a city market. Here are a few shots:

After scoping out a few vendors we figured it was time for some glühwein!

The glühwein warmed us up so we decided to check out the Mittelaltermarkt (Medieval Market).



We weren't sure how Medieval Time-sy it was going to be, but we were pleasantly surprised at how honestly medieval everything seemed! All of the vendors were dressed in medieval-inspired clothing (minus the denim jeans on the guy below), the food vendors sold medieval-style food, there was a band playing medieval instruments and so on.



Esslingen was a beautiful, old town and we're both so glad we visited!



If you'd like to view the rest of our photos from the Esslingen Mittelaltermarkt, please click on this link:
Esslingen Mittelaltermarkt Photos

Vroooom, Vrooom!

This may be surprising (wink, wink), but we visited the Porsche Museum on Sunday! Not only do the Germans make beautiful cars, but they also make beautiful museums. This place was impeccable! Check out the striking facade:

The magnificent exterior led way to an even more impressive interior, artifacts and design. Brian was absolutely wow'ed by the rare and pristine collection of Porsches as I was equally blown away by the exquisite composition of the museum. Here is a shot of Brian with his favorite car and a shot of my favorite spot in the museum:

Now don't get me wrong, I still managed to find my next car:

The Speedster is actually one of Brian's favorites too! Ironically, it's the car that Charlie drives in TopGun. Something tells me her civilian contractor salary wouldn't cover the cost of one of these lovely ladies...

Our visit to the Porsche Museum was a really fun trip...I'm sure we'll be back! And I'm getting the feeling that Ferry Porsche isn't the only one dreaming of Porsches...

If you'd like to view the rest of our photos from the Porsche Museum, please click on this link:

Porsche Museum Photos

Weihnachtsmarkt!

On Saturday (despite the -15 degrees Celsius weather!) we visited the Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas Market. It was so festive and fun! The market was HUGE. It went on for blocks and blocks. Weinachtsmarkts have food/drink vendors, gift vendors, small rides, and TONS of people. There was also a small skating rink. Here's a view of a small portion of the market:

Our first stop after we got acquainted with our surroundings was for some YUMMY Glühwein! Glühwein is german mulled wine and it hits the spot in chilly weather.

The Glühwein got our bellies grumbling so we scoped out some choices. There were...

...breads and baguettes. We split a baguette and of course...

...a brat! I can honestly say it was THE best brat I've ever had. After walking around for about an hour we could hardly feel our fingers and toes so we figured it was time to make our way back to the car.

We read (in Bon Appetit, thanks T & E!) that there is a Medieval Weihnachtsmarkt in Esslingen, which is a town just west of us. We're going to check it out tomorrow!

We hope everyone is having a great Christmas season so far!