Eric and Alicia Visit!

Eric and Alicia came to visit in October! We were so thankful that they spent their vacation time to come and see us. They had just moved to a new apartment in Chicago, and Alicia had just taken a new job, so it wasn't the easiest time for them to leave. But they came anyway, and we were so glad that they did! Thinking back on our time together, I remember laughing a LOT. But when you hang out with Brian and Eric, it's like watching an episode of Family Guy - it's super random and crazy funny, but in the end, you can't quite remember what exactly was SO funny! So I apologize in advance if some of the funny parts are missing from my blog.

The time that we had with A&E was great fun and it was quite busy! Here's a general timeline:

Weekend 1 - Eric and Alicia arrive (aka: Dr. Kenneth Noisewater and Mary Samsonite - Brian made signs for us to hold up at the airport. We thought it was hilarious, but somehow we missed E&A at the gate, so we didn't get to hold them up. Whoops!) We all hang out in Frankfurt.

Week 1 - E&A went to Badden Badden, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland for fun; Brian went to Bern, Switzerland for work; and I went to Vilseck, Germany for work

Weekend 2 - We all met up in Bern, Switzerland

Week 2 - E&A drove back to Frankfurt to fly back to Chicago (boo); Brian stayed in Bern and then came to stay with me in Vilseck on Thursday; I went back to Vilseck for the whole week

Weekend 3 - Brian was still with me in Vilseck and then we caravanned back to Frankfurt

Our first weekend with Eric and Alicia was a lot of fun. It was very relaxing, and we had a great time catching up with them! There was a LOT to talk about! On Saturday, we went on a walk downtown, but unfortunately the weather wasn't the best. So we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite German restaurants, Paulaner's. A traditional "Welcome to Germany" lunch was consumed. We also went shopping at a few fun stores downtown to get out of the rain, and then we headed back to our apartment for the evening. I had barbecue slow cooking all day, so we had that for dinner. A successful and relaxing Saturday in Frankfurt!

On Sunday, we hung out in our apartment all afternoon. I made a traditional German brunch - meats, cheeses, breads, spreads, etc. We also had fun playing Little Big Planet on Brian's PS3. Around 3, I had to take off for Vilseck since my training started on Monday morning. I was really sad to leave everyone, but the gorgeous fall drive really helped to brighten my mood. I pulled over and took these pictures on my drive. I love fall colors!!

While I drove to Vilseck, Brian, Eric and Alicia went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, a Japanese noodle bar called Mosch Mosch. I heard that they enjoyed a great meal! When they got back from dinner, they video chatted with me a little before going to bed. I loved being able to chat with them in the evening - it made me feel better about being away!

Monday morning, Eric, Alicia and Brian all drove south from Frankfurt together. E&A had rented a car in Frankfurt, and Brian drove his motorcycle. They enjoyed the fall colors as well on their drive through the Black Forest. Brian said it was pretty cold that day, though! So they stopped a couple of times for hot chocolate and food so that Brian could warm up. Also, there was a really crazy fog that day. Alicia took this awesome picture of Brian driving in front of them.


After driving together for a few hours, they went their separate ways - Eric and Alicia headed for Zurich and Brian went to Bern. Here are some pictures Brian took on the last leg of his trip.

You would think the road to Bern would be a little more developed :)

Bern in the distance

During the week, Brian worked hard in Bern, I learned about hazardous shipments, and Eric and Alicia enjoyed Zurich and Badden Badden. On Friday, we all met in Bern to see the city together!

Friday night we went to this hysterical restaurant - I can't remember what it was called - but it was supposed to look like the Carribbean. We all concluded that it looked more like Mexico, but either way, it was VERY colorful! It was not at all what I expected of our first night out in Bern (I was thinking fondue in a restaurant made of cheese and chocolate...or something like that), but it was a nice surprise and a great time!

On Saturday, we went on a tour through the city, led by tour guide Brian!

We loved the city! It was so unique and beautiful. It had an expansive system of covered walk ways that had tons of cool shops. There was also a fun Saturday market going on with some great finds!

We walked through the main shopping area to a bridge that had some fantastic views of the city.

A giant took this picture of me and Alicia on the bridge

On the other side of the bridge, there was a bear pit! It has been a long time since I've been that close to bears - I can't remember the last time I went to a zoo. They are beautiful animals, but we all decided that they could have used a good grooming.

Enjoying the bears

The bears were very active, but we were disappointed that we didn't get to see them roar. Writing that, it sounds kinda childish, but when your standing over a bear pit, it just feels natural that they should roar! Anyway, we were discussing how one would make a bear roar, and Alicia had an idea: "We should just throw something at them!" We laughed pretty hard at the idea of chunking something at a bear.

Hello, Smokey

There was a really cool bar at the bear pit, so we stopped for some deliciously fresh pretzels and a beer.

Continuing our walk, we hiked up a decent sized hill for another great view. The fall colors in Bern were so vibrant!

Next was the wine festival! Conveniently, there was a huge wine festival going on right next door to our hotel, and Brian had coupons for us to get a discount on the entry cost! Thanks, tour guide Bri! I'm mad at myself for not taking pictures of the festival tent. It was huge and full of really cool booths that served every kind of wine you could imagine. A dangerous bonus was all of the wine tasting was free! Toward the end, we bought some excellent cheese and a bottle of wine to share amongst the four of us as an appetizer for dinner.

Brian had made dinner reservations at a popular restaurant near the bear pit that evening. I was so impressed by his planning skills - more points for our tour guide! Don't worry, we tipped him well :) Dinner was, of course, delicious, and we all shared a banana split and a maple pecan sundae for dessert. I'm drooling just thinking about that sundae. It was really funny - when we were ordering, there was a little confusion about who was getting what dessert. I think I got a little feisty because I wanted to be SURE I was going to get my share of the maple pecan ice cream :)

Brian had met a young couple, Jeremy and Katie, at the Bern Embassy, and they were so nice to invite us all over to their apartment for drinks after dinner. Their apartment was in downtown Bern, and it was BEAUTIFUL. It even had a little porch overlooking the river. I love our apartment and all, but I have to admit I was jealous of their place! After hanging out for awhile, we went to a bar. It wasn't your normal bar though - it was an old gym converted to a bar (basketball hoops and everything were still in tact). It was really well done, though, and we had a great time there. We were glad Jeremy and Katie brought us there, because we definitely wouldn't have found it on our own! To conclude Saturday night, we consumed some delicious döners.

We slept in a little on Sunday and then went to a very Swiss restaurant for brunch. It was glorious. When you walked in, the potent smell of cheese about knocked you over if you weren't careful. The interior was all wood and iron, and they served rösti, a Swiss potato dish. I was SO excited for brunch. Each couple split one cast iron skillet of rösti and feasted like Swiss farmers :)

After brunch, we began our search for a Swiss chocolate store. On our walk, we found a great vantage point - I love this picture!

We also found a really cute coffee shop, and because it was cold outside, we stopped for a very satisfying cup of coffee. I'm mad at myself for not buying some ground coffee to bring home. If we go back to Bern, I'm definitely going to find this shop.

We finally found a chocolate shop! I get so overwhelmed in confectioneries - everything looks SO good that I can't make up my mind! However, sometimes shops like that have things that look good but don't actually taste the best. That's what I tell myself, at least. Not the case here - everything we tried at this little place was A-mazing. Even the piece that I thought looked disgusting was actually soooo yum. So we considered our trip to Bern a success!

Back at the hotel, we said our sad goodbyes. Eric and Alicia headed back to Frankfurt to catch their flight, and I had to go back to Vilseck for more training. I'm just so glad that we get to see E&A in December! That definitely made saying bye more tolerable.

On Wednesday, Brian finished up his work in Bern. Instead of going home, he decided to ride the motorcycle to Vilseck to hang out with me! I was so thankful that he decided to come! I actually was staying at an ADORABLE B&B for my two weeks of training, and I really wanted him to experience it with me. The lady who owns it is an amazing cook, so I ate like a queen every night for two whole weeks. The owner also has a Golden Retriever named Sammy, and I really grew to love that dog! I was very excited to share all of this with Bri.

On the last day of my training, I finished my final exam pretty early, so Brian and I had the entire day to ourselves. The weather was perfect, so I picked up some fruit and sandwiches, and we took off for a long walk/picnic with Sammy!

My guys on our picnic bench

View from our picnic bench

The wooded area near our B&B looked like it was on fire with fall colors. I was in autumn heaven.

The ONLY problem was - Sammy isn't the most well-behaved dog. I mean, he's definitely not the worst I've seen, but he's a little stubborn about stopping where he wants to stop.

Friday night, we had happy hour at the B&B bar with the owner and then took the local train to Nuremberg for the evening! There were a few young people staying at the hotel, so we all decided to go together to see the city and have dinner. It was a really fun evening!

Saturday, Brian and I slept in and enjoyed one last delish breakfast put on at my new home away from home. We planned a fun route that went through several natural parks on our way home to Frankfurt, and then we set off on our journey, Brian leading the way on the motorcycle, and me following behind in Holly Honda.

Our first stop was in a tiny town with this awesome rock formation. The weather was really great, so we sat outside a little cafe and had a cappuccino and then we went on a little hike. Well, we thought it was going to be a little hike, but it turned out to be tougher than we expected! Definitely worth it though. Check out the views!

We continued the drive on some really fun, windy roads, and our next stop was dinner in another cute, tiny town. We made it back to Frankfurt by 9pm, just in time for a scary movie to prepare us for Halloween the next day!

On Halloween, we relaxed and just enjoyed being home. After being gone for two weeks, it was nice to be back in our apartment. We handed out candy to trick or treaters that night (my fave by far was a 6 year old Mary Poppins) and watched another scary movie in honor of the holiday.

Whew! Those two weeks were a blast! Thanks again for coming to see us, Eric and Alicia!!

Ibiza, Spain

As you may recall, Brian left for a work trip on the same Monday that Mac and Joe left. That same week, early on Friday morning, he came back to Frankfurt to re-pack his bags so that we could go to Ibiza that evening! I'm so thankful that my husband is a great, stress-free traveler.

Our trip started out with a fun story. Our small camera died after a long, fruitful life at Oktoberfest. We ordered a new camera on Sunday, but we really weren't sure if it would arrive by Friday for our trip. Every day I checked the mail, but no camera. Then on Friday, the mail was late - they weren't going to have it sorted until 2, which was when we were supposed to leave for the airport. But while I was at the mail room, I saw a small Newegg box sitting on top of a huge pile of mail. It was our camera!! I was so excited, so I snagged it and ran up to Brian's office with the great news. We opened it and checked the instructions - it needed 1 hour and 55 minutes to charge, and we were going to leave for the airport in 2 hours! Perfect! What a great way to start the trip.

For this trip, we decided to try flying Ryan Air, a cheaper airline out of a small airport about an hour away from Frankfurt. So we left work a little early to make our 6pm flight. We were really happy with how our flight went! We even got to sit in the emergency exit row, which makes Brian's flying experience so much more enjoyable :) We arrived at our hotel in time to grab a quick dinner and drink from the bar and then crash for the night.

After walking around our hotel's property the next day, we found an area that was a little nicer and a little more quiet, so Brian had us transferred! We loved our new room. So after moving rooms, we decided to walk around St. Antoni de Portmany, the town where we were staying. We found this really great path along the coast. It was so gorgeous, and it was fun to soak up the sun!

View from the path

Unfortunately with the room change and everything, we had missed breakfast at our hotel, so we stopped at a little cafe to have a nice brunch. After eating, we continued to explore the city.

View of St. Antoni from the marina

As we were exploring, we came across some really great postcards and came up with the idea of finding our favorite and then going to that beach! We found an awesome one and bought it to use as a GPS on Sunday :) We thought that would be way more fun than hanging out on our hotel's yacht.


Haha - just kidding - we wish that was our hotel's yacht! Eh, oh well - beach time! We went back to our hotel to grab a snack and head to the nearby beach for the afternoon. The beach we found was small and really different from any other beach we've been to. We really liked it a lot - the terrain reminded me of the hill country outside of Austin. I know the next picture isn't the best (I took it - ha!) but it shows what I mean about how it looked kind of like Texas.

A better picture of our beach (taken by B of course - love my personal photographer :) )

We spent the afternoon lounging on the beach, drinking Spanish sangria - yum. After plenty of sun, we headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. It was an all-inclusive hotel with a delicious buffet and grill, so we ate most of our meals there.

Bar area of the hotel - we loved the architecture

We were ready for dinner before it opened, so we went outside to enjoy more sun and happy hour!

Earlier in the day, when we were walking back from downtown, we found some neat restaurants that had great views of the water. So after dinner, we walked back to our favorite one called Buddha Bar where we enjoyed the sunset.


The next day was scooter day! Renting scooters is one of our favorite ways to experience beachy places. Each time we've done it, we've had a great time and discovered views and little spots that we would not have seen otherwise. Our first goal, as I mentioned earlier, was to find a beach that we had identified with a post card. The only map we had was not the best, and this beach was not on it, so we just went by directions given by locals. Brian has such a great sense of direction, too, so that really helps! We had no trouble at all getting there, and it was beautiful.

GPS - yep, we're there!

As my long sleeve in the picture indicates, Sunday was quite windy. It made it kind of chilly and the waves were going crazy, so it wasn't the best laying out weather. But that was okay, because we wanted to scoot around more of the island, so we hadn't planned on spending a ton of time lounging on the beach.


The whole week before this vacation, I had been checking the weather, and it had predicted rain throughout the weekend. So we definitely didn't mind the wind - the blue skies were great!



So after we found the postcard beach, we decided to visit a variety of beaches in that area. Back on the scooter to explore some more!

I think one of the many reasons I love renting a scooter with Brian is that it gives us a reason to quote Dumb and Dumber all day. I know it sounds like it would get old, but we crack up all day. We also enjoy looking like complete goobers in our helmets and making funny faces as we pass people on the roads.

"I get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog"

The next beach we found

There were some cute little beach-side restaurants, so we got a pizza at this one. I loved the white canopies.

And we got a cappuccino at this one

While sipping on our cappuccino's, this little puppy paid us a visit! He was SO cute. I couldn't get him to look at the camera though. Just trust me, his face was precious.

Full beach view from the coffee place

After this beach, we started cruising on the scooter again and suddenly realized we were getting close to running out of gas! At that point, we also realized that there were only 3 places to get gas on the entire island, and we were not very close to any of them. Whoops. All we could do was head to the closest one and pray that we didn't run out on our way there! It really was a miracle - we pulled into the gas station and we're pretty sure that if we had sat there for another minute, the scooter would have died. We were very excited to have a full tank and to continue with our beach hunt.

This beach was next. We didn't stay for very long, but we really liked the rocks out in the water. I also liked how Ibiza has wooden boardwalks on all of their beaches!


This next beach was really fun. To get to it, you either had to hike or ride down this long rocky path. A path I'm convinced we're the only ones ever to scooter on. But Brian handled it like a pro! The beach was so secluded and felt very local. There was a little shack serving yummy sangria and a family playing bocce ball.


After that beach, we headed back to return the scooter and to enjoy happy hour at our hotel. This time we got our drinks to go so that we could sit on our balcony. It was a nice balcony and a great place for Bri to smoke his pipe!


After dinner, we made our way back to Buddha Bar for another nice sunset.




Both nights, after watching the sunset, I was hungry for ice cream. Brian's so great - he never craves sweets, but he always goes along with the idea of finding dessert for me. In fact, I think he enjoys the hunt sometimes. The first night we found a little grocery store that sold Magnum ice cream bars, so we enjoyed one both nights on our walk back to our hotel.

Another funny note - Brian and I are not big "clubbers". But Ibiza had adds for what appeared to be some crazy clubs. This one in particular we saw a lot, so I took Bri's picture next to it while he acted out what he thought the club-goers should look like. He makes me laugh.


The next day was our last in Ibiza, and it was a little cloudy, so we spent the day exploring the town and coastline some more. We found some great spots to enjoy coffee and watch the clouds roll over the island. Then when we got hungry, I insisted that we find a restaurant to get paella. It's my favorite Spanish dish, and we had not had it yet! We found this little place near the marina that served wonderful paella.

As you can see, I was so excited, I forgot to take a picture of it before I chowed down.

View from the restaurant

Satisfied with our little vacation, we started to walk back toward our hotel to spend the last couple of hours relaxing there until it was time to go to the airport.



As we got closer to the hotel, the sun came out! It really warmed things up, so we continued our walk to a beautiful point on the island where we had great views all around us. We spent quite a bit of time out there - I read my book, and Brian explored around the rocks.

St. Antoni from the point

Then, sadly, it was time to fly back to Frankfurt. We had a great time in Ibiza - it was a wonderful vacation, and it was nice to enjoy the last little bit of summer!