Duisburg Zoo

On Saturday I decided I HAD to go someplace, I've been busy every weekend and I wanted to go see something new.  I told Amber we should go to Gelsenkirchen zoo, which I'd been to before, but she thought it was too far away.  Soooooo, we settled on Duisburg about an hour away.  It only cost about 15 Euro for their whole family!!!  Of course, it was that much just for me, so take your whole family:)  They had my favorites, otters, but it turns out they kind of look like rats when there's a bunch of them.  Also, they sound like little birds and I'll try to add a video at the end of this too.   Here's the otters:

   

I even convinced Chuck, Amber and the kids to pose for me in the Chinese garden!

Here's my artistic shot of the elephant, what a great enclosure they had for them.  We felt so close we could almost touch them!  The same could be said with the giraffes, you could even see them outside of the zoo.  What a great time together and we are definitely looking for more zoos so pass your ideas along!!
            

The dolphin show was amazing and they are definitely not as scared of being sued as and American zoo would be.  They put a little kid in a boat and the dolphins zoomed him around the pool extremely fast.  He bumped into the sides and almost fell into the water!!  I couldn't believe it.  Then he got to hold his hand out and the dolphin came up out of the water and took a fish out of his hand.  Amazing!  In the monkey house they had a sloth that could wander the whole room on a series of ropes and trees, but the cute thing was there were mice everywhere.  I got this picture of one checking out the sloth's food.  The final photo is an iguana that smiled for me.  I took his picture first with a flash and it turned out grainy, but the flash got his attention and he turned his head so it looked like he was posing!

              

Wow!

KARNEVAL 2009

Wow, it's been a long time since my last update, sorry family and friends!! This is one of my favorite parts of being in the Air Force, experiencing something for the second time at an assignment.  It always makes me feel like I'm finally not the new kid on the block.  Karneval was just as much fun this year as last, although this year I hung out at Chuck and Amber's house and it was AWESOME!!  I got to see all my neighbors who were in the parade and each one ran up for a hug and then stuffed my pockets with little bottles of liquor and candy.  I am always amazed at just how much candy is thrown and how much alcohol is drunk.  Plus, Chuck and Amber let all the parade members use their bathroom so we had a steady flow of vikings, musketeers, ducks, and pirates parading through the house and hanging out with our group.

Tate was so cute, once he got settled he just sat still and waited for them to come to him!  He was totally surrounded by candy when it was all said and done and got upset when we had to put in in my candy bag because his was full:)

These ducks were so drunk and just continued drinking.  It is absolutely amazing to me to watch these young teenagers drinking and staggering along the parade path, you can see a definite age line of the participants.

Prevaza, Greece

I know I waited quite awhile to update, but it's been crazy lately!  I'm so busy and I'm definitely ready to head home to the United States of America next week!!  These are photos taken from the cockpit on one of our flights.  We stayed at quite the hotel, one guys room even had a possible murder take place in it!  It was about 45 minutes by foot to the downtown area so the second and third nights we took taxis.

                               

There were cats everywhere!  Each time we ate dinner we had to share it with the cats.  Okay, maybe that was just me because I'm a sucker for a cute cat.  I ate my fill of Greek salad and I was actually sick of olives and feta cheese, but I'm already hungry for it again!!

           

                                                      

Oh La La....A Paris Adventure

As many of you know I am currently in France, with work of course.  I'm sure you're saying the same thing as me....man, NATO life is rough!  Yes, I was force to spend the weekend even.  But we made the most of it and managed to spend some quality time in Paris....YES, Paris.  I bought Rick Steve's Paris tourguide before we left and it was a lifesaver, plus I saw quite a few more floating around while we were there and made instant friends.  We left Friday morning and got there around noon.  After lunch at a Bistro down the street from our hotel we got a quick metro intro and were on our way to Notre Dame.  

While on the island we also saw the 

Deportation museum, honoring the French who were deported during the Holocaust, not to be confused with the Holocaust museum that we saw on Sunday.  We also hiked to the top of Notre Dame and got some shots of the most photographed gargoyle in France.  We next headed to Champ Elysees, the fanciest Shopping street ever and visited the Arc De Triomph.

At the Arch we got right in and saw the sights from on top, I highly recommend paying the money to see the view, it's gorgeous!  Every night at 6:30 they symbolically relight the eternal flame underneath.  On this particular night there was quite a crowd and we couldn't see what was going on.  All of a sudden, to my surprise, I heard the Korean National Anthem being played.  It was a Korean contingent helping relight the flame!  I couldn't believe it and I finally put my memorization of their anthem to use and sang along.  Afterwards Javier and I split from the others and headed over to see the Eiffel tower lit up, while enjoying one of my new favorite foods...crepes.  You can get just about anything in your crepe, but the ham, cheese and egg is especially filling.

Day two, Saturday, we started off a bit early to avoid the crowds, although we didn't have long waits anywhere we went.  We got to the Eiffel Tower about 9:25 or so and got in a very long line, but then realized a new line had opened and only ended up waiting about 15 minutes.  Of course, on our clear beautiful day it started getting foggy once we reached the top so I don't have many good shots.  The cool thing that happened though was

 after we got back down we looked up and the clouds were being split in half by the tower so there was a streak of blue.  All in all we decided we had accomplished one of the must do's of Paris and pressed on to the Orsay museum, which is in an old train station and I'm sure I will be giving that whole scoop to Dad if any of you area really interested.

 Next was the Louvre, because no visit to Paris is complete without the Louvre.  We were exhausted so we only visited the must sees and about a quarter mile of the nearly 12 miles of art.  Luckily, I had been warned in advance about the size of Mona Lisa so no surprise there.  Thanks to Rick Steves I got all the background on the painting while were walking and was able to fill the guys in.  We stopped at a few other pieces and tried to make out what was going on, but finally gave up and headed out to the gorgeous sunshine and took the Metro to Sacre Coure.  I was getting a bit cranky so we stopped for lunch first and did a speed tour inside because there was a wine festival going on and it was sardine packed.

That evening we ended our tour at the Moulin Rouge and headed to the hotel where we collapsed, throbbing feet and all, into our beds and slept hard the whole night.  Sunday we headed out a bit later and saw the Bastille monument and after that headed to the Holocaust memorial.  It was extremely moving and we spent more time there than any other sight.  Also, it had Fort Knox security with metal detectors and X-rays and they had to unlock each door for you before you could enter.  To leave you went through one door that had to lock behind you before you could unlock the second door.  Both Javier and I were exhausted be we trekked to the Latin Quarter for Chinese food for lunch and then went to the Cluny museum, George wasn't there and I was sad, but we did enjoy the tapestries.  We rounded out the trip with a short break in the Luxumbourg park before driving back to Bourges and one more week of work.  If you're interested in anymore photos I'm trying to figure out the whole Picasso thing and hope to get them on the web, available for viewing, soon.

Oktoberfest 2008

I know it's been a long time since my last blog! This is the most recent event, although I'll try to add some back trips. I promise to do better:)

My second Oktoberfest!!!! What a great one and I was a little bit more prepared this year. This year I went with some friends from my town, Amber and Chuck Cottrell, and we met Mike and Karin beforehand at their Guesthouse for a bit of pre-drinking to get warmed up. Mike, Karin and their friends were all dressed up in traditional dress, it was AWESOME! This is a picture of Amber, Karin and I with our new "boyfriend" Dieter. He bought all of us Ich Liebe Dich hearts, a traditional gift in Germany.


Here is the table I was with the whole time. This is fairly early on, you can tell it was a great group to drink with and sing with and dance with and....


Aside from the band, which was awesome and played traditional as well as current hits, there was another group that performed. The Men in Tights danced to Heidi and it was soooooo funny! They tried to do girl kind of moves, but watching guys do that is hilarious, of course beer makes it even funnier:)

Nordstrasse Strassenfest

Let me start off by saying I live in the most awsome village ever!!! Last year when I first arrived I experienced my first Strassenfest. I guess the best thing to compare it to is a block party in the U.S. Everyone on my street gets together and drinks, grills, eats, cooks, sings, toasts and enjoys each others company. It was an amazing way to meet my neighbors, although I hardly spoke any German.
Fast forward a year and I have now taken one German class and done some online work so I can communicate at least 30% better than last year. This years Strassenfest was held at an old restored windmill that a couple now live in.

We sang Karaoke in the living room, it was all english words though so somehow I kept ending up with the microphone in my hand!

Saturday was quite rainy, but Sunday was beautiful. On Saturday night we start around 6 p.m. with grilling and beer drinking. Funny story: I invited my friend Amber to come down around 11 p.m. and she brought a bottle of wine with her, everyone kind of looked at it like they didn't know what it was! Beer is definitely the drink of choice in Germany. Small fires are kept burning to keep away the chill, even though it was extremely humid after a rainstorm. Saturday goes really late, I left just after midnight because I had to sober up enough to drive to Dusseldorf the next morning and go to Chapel. Sunday is usually a bit of the same, but with cakes (Kuchen). Germans know their cakes and I tried a bit of everything, just to be fair of course:)

All my friends are extremely jealous, mostly because I talk about for about 2 weeks prior like it's my birthday or something. I don't know of any other person whose street gets together like this and, consequently, not many of my friends get to practice their German on a daily basis or even really get to know their neighbors. Okay, without further adieu, here are my nachbar (neighbors) and friends!! If you are a neighbor and friend and want copies of pictures, just stop by!

So Many Men, So Little Time......or, The Avord, France Airshow

I first have to say that airshows are such a trip. Okay, sure there's the standing around in the hot sun sweating and dehydrating all day. Okay, and there's the "Sorry, I don't speak French" thing, but it's the rest of it that's fun! Here's the flow of events, as they generally play out:

Arrive at the host base at least one day prior to the event. In our case we originally planned for the airshow to be Saturday and Sunday, but were pleasantly surprised to find it was Sunday only and Saturday was a practice day. The first night the host base sponsors a Beer Tent where all the aircrew members can get together and....drink beer! Okay, of course it is also about international relations, blah, blah, blah. Mostly it's just hanging out having a good time with your friends and the party never really starts till NATO is in the house. This picture is with Ingo, from our squadron.

After the beer party we boarded the bus to drive into Bourges, the nearest big city. The "boys" of course were looking for a bar, I was lucky enough to find a couple folks who wanted to see the sights so we checked out the Cathedra...gorgeous!! There was a blue light tour around the town at night showing all the historic religious sights and there were slide shows playing with music. We followed the music down one dark alleyway which led into a convent courtyard and had a music and light show.

Saturday I was up bright and not so early to catch the bus into town again and see the sights in the daylight. I was joined by the two other women on the trip and we took the Cathedral Crypt tour. Unfortunately, it was all in French and we only understood none of it. They did give us a booklet, but it told about 4% of what the guide told the group.

After the Crypt tour we headed up 350-some odd stairs to the top of the Cathedral. The walk up the stairs showed graffiti from the 1800s!! It was amazing and quite the view, but we were exhausted.

Sunday was, of course, the airshow. The French demonstration team performed, although I have to maintain U.S. pride and say the Thunderbirds are MUCH better:) I had a great time "talking" to folks, but if I never say Bonjour again it will be too soon!

After a grueling day we headed to the invitation only, which we managed to snag about 20 invitations for, cocktail party. While I understand French champagne is good and it's best served with small snacks, drinking it after a long hot day is not as great as you might imagaine. On the left is Timo and Shrek, I don't know the other two guys names, but I traded patches with the one on the right so he wanted in the picture. Trading patches is the biggest pastime at the airshow and I somehow ended up with less than I went with. I'm not sure how that happens, but I've been told champagne cloudss the senses.
Overall, another successful NATO venture and fun to boot! I had a great time and if any of you make it over here, there is much more to see than just guys, I PROMISE!!