Thanksgiving in Italy

We weren't in the United States for Thanksgiving this year, but that didn't stop us from celebrating... twice!  We got back from Germany a couple weeks before Thanksgiving and decided it might be fun to invite one of our Italian friends over to experience good ol' American Thanksgiving.  They of course didn't get a random Thursday off of work, so we decided to have Thanksgiving with them the Sunday night after Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving day, Robbie's commander had everyone over for a big dinner.  There was so much food--three turkeys, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, rolls, and several types of dessert.  It was a lot of fun.  The only hitch was our water heater breaking earlier in the day--I had to run to a friend's house to shower before the big party, then Robbie ended up having to drive back to our apartment right before we started eating to meet the guy who was fixing it for us.  We ate tons of food, then Michael played on the trampoline with the big kids for a while.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year.  The wonderful experiences of living and traveling around Europe, our sweet little family, the friends and family we have back in the US, and the new friends we're making here who are from all over the world. One of the things I'm most thankful for every day is baby snuggles like this:

We had a great time. It was nice to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a big group of Americans and have that little piece of home over the holidays.

I cooked most of the day on Saturday and Sunday to prepare for our second Thanksgiving with the Italians.  When we originally asked, our friend said he was familiar with American Thanksgiving and turkey and all that. But when he and his brother came to our house, they said they really only have seen it on TV.  Luckily, they were ready to try new foods and brought their appetites. It was like having two Marks for Thanksgiving!  They were really impressed by the turkey, which was funny to me because it was only 10.5 pounds.  I figured we didn't need a huge one for only four people and I didn't think I could fit one much larger than that in my little oven.  It did look pretty though.

As I finished cooking and set everything out, Robbie explained what everything was.  We had just about everything--turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, applesauce, cranberry sauce, corn, green bean casserole, rolls, and pumpkin pie.  The only thing they had tried before was the mashed potatoes and corn.

We had a great time eating and talking. It was a really fun night, and it was cool for us to be able to share a little of our American culture with our Italian friends. I was happy to have cooked them their first Thanksgiving dinner.  They stayed for awhile and we talked, were entertained by Michael, then they packed up some trays full of leftovers (because it's not really Thanksgiving without leftovers!) and headed home.

Although it's a little late, Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family back home! We hope you had as wonderful a holiday as we did.

Germany: Heidelberg Castle

We arrived in Germany and were lucky to be able to stay in our friends' house rather than the hotel.  Not only did we have a kitchen, a crib, a bathtub, and toys for Michael, but they also left us a list of places to go and restaurants to eat in.  Not knowing how busy Robbie would be once work started, we wanted to try to knock stuff off the list right away.  We went to eat the first night in Kaiserslautern, a good-sized town near Ramstein Air Base.  We got there a few minutes before the restaurant opened and played around a little in a small plaza we found near the restaurant.

On our second day in Germany, we decided to drive down to see Heidelberg Castle.  We'd heard good things, the weather was good, and Robbie just had to go in to work to check in.  First, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant our friends recommended to get a little taste of home.  I think if we had eaten there in New Mexico, Arizona, or California, we wouldn't have liked it very much but since it had been 3 months since we had any Mexican food, it hit the spot. 

Michael was so funny--we sat down and they brought us some chips and salsa. He watched us each dip a chip in the salsa and eat it.  We gave him a chip and he picked it up and started reaching for the salsa. Robbie and I both grabbed to get the bowl away from him since he spills everything but he somehow got past both of us, dipped the corner of his chip in the salsa, and ate it.  He loved it! He was so cute dipping his chip, licking the salsa off, then reaching out to dip it again. The only time he spilled was when the waitress brought our food, and we both got a little distracted. Robbie and I were so impressed that he figured out exactly what he was supposed to do and acted like he's known how to eat chips and salsa forever.  It was cute.

After lunch we drove to Heidelberg.  The castle is huge. It makes our Ferrara castle look like a guest house.  It was situated up on a hill, so we had a bit of a climb to get up there. It was worth it.  The views were amazing and the castle itself was pretty impressive. 

It looked really cold and windy outside as we were driving, so we bundled Michael up.  It ended up not being too bad, but he looked so cute in all his winter gear!

This is one of my favorite parts of the castle.  There was a circular tower kind of thing, but a big piece of it had come apart and just fallen off.  I don't know if the picture really does it justice, but the piece that's laying diagonally with all the foliate growing on it  was once attached to the rest of the tower.

There was a really pretty courtyard with views of the city and the river below.  We walked around here and let Michael run a bit before heading inside.

Once inside the castle walls, there was another courtyard.  You had to go on special guided tours to go inside the castle, and Michael doesn't usually cooperate with that kind of thing, so we walked around and did what we could without going on the tour.

One of the coolest rooms had these giant wine barrels. We looked at the barrels, walked around a little bit, then Robbie and I tried a wine they had and Michael and I shared a German soft pretzel.

We went out to another balcony on the other side of the castle and got some more pictures of the city and views.

We had a few extra minutes before we had to head back home and I had seen the steeples of a couple of churches I wanted to go see before we left, so we headed back down the hill into town.  I was disappointed that one was closed and there were people doing some kind of filming in the other so we couldn't go in and look around in either of them.  It was fun to walk down the pedestrian street and see the shops and street performers.

Then we walked back to the car, took a couple more pictures of the castle in the late afternoon light, and headed home.

I wish I had more posts about Germany.  Robbie's schedule was great for going sightseeing, but the weather didn't cooperate with us. It was cold and rainy the entire time we were there.  I was especially disappointed to miss seeing Trier, the oldest city in Germany with a lot of Roman ruins.  We drove up there one day, but by the time we got there the rain was really coming down and we didn't want to drag Michael around in the cold.  We did make it to Saarbruken to go to a mall one day, then when our friends got back we split up for an indoor playground/shopping day. 

It was a fun trip. It was nice to be in a place where everyone spoke English again and we could get some of the foods we missed (Baskin Robbins! Stuffed crust pizza!). Michael and I did a little exploring in the town where we were staying, played in the park, and found a nice walking path.  The good thing about a two year European assignment is we'll have plenty of time to go back!

Leysin, Switzerland

Robbie has to be in Germany for 2 weeks for work, so we have our first opportunity to travel outside of Italy!  We made it to Germany two days ago, but on the way decided to stop for a couple of nights at a little ski town in the Swiss Alps called Leysin that some friends had recommended.  The drive up was beautiful--the leaves are all changing for fall and the mountains are breathtaking.  This is the first time I've lived anywhere with seasons, so I don't get tired of seeing all the beautiful fall colors.  Partway up one mountain (still in Italy) we stopped so Robbie could get a few pictures of the mountains and the trees. And of us.

We crossed into Switzerland in the middle of a tunnel in the mountain somewhere.  It's funny how quickly things changed once we left Italy--as soon as we came out of the tunnel we saw rolling hills and pastures with cows, sheep, and goats.  There were log cabins and big piles of wood along the road, and everything was green and gorgeous. The roads were really winding and normally I'm not the greatest passenger on long, twisting-road car rides but Robbie made me take some motion sickness medicine before we left and I'm glad he did. I enjoyed the drive much more.

We got to Leysin just as the sun was setting.  If we had driven straight through, it would have taken about 6 hours from our house.  We checked into the hotel, and decided to just have dinner at the buffet in the hotel rather than drag Michael out around town.  It was quick and easy, and we went back to our room to get to bed.

In the morning, this is the view we woke up to out our big picture window

:
We got dressed and headed into town to find breakfast.  It was such a tiny, quiet little town.  However, it was also the off-season so I'm sure it's packed and bustling once the snow falls and the ski slopes open.  We found a little croissant and sandwich shop, got a couple of cappuccinos and pastries and had breakfast outside.

After breakfast Michael was ready to take a nap (and we had a bit of a rough, not-sleeping night before so he needed it) so I hiked back up the hills to our hotel with him to get some rest while Robbie walked around the town a bit more and took some pictures.

He met us back in the hotel room and we got ready to go ride the ski lift to the top of the mountain.

The views up there were amazing too.  We walked around a little up top, and had lunch in the ski lodge thing up at the top.  The food wasn't super great (most of the stuff on the menu was cold--meat and cheese plates, salad, and cold soup) but the views made up for it.  And the deck with the tables rotated really slowly so you could see the views all around as you ate. 

 6,719 feet

We walked around a little more.  Michael and I sat and watched the ski lift cars go in and out for a while.  He played with rocks and practiced walking on hills.  We watched a guy paraglide off the mountain, and big groups set out for hiking, rock climbing, and mountain biking.  The weather was beautiful--we were expecting cold and snow, but it was probably at least 70 degrees down in town (a little cooler at the top of the mountain, obviously). 

We headed back down the mountain so Michael could take another nap.  Once he woke up we went to walk around the town a little more since I hadn't had the chance to yet.  The guy who checked us in at the hotel recommended a cheese shop for dinner called Le Formagerie, so we went down there and had some fondue for dinner.  It was really good. 

We had a really great time on this little stop, even thought it was really only a day.  The next morning we packed up, checked out, and had a quick breakfast at the same croissanterie, and hit the road for Germany.  Robbie got some really beautiful pictures and was feeling at home back in the mountains again.  A couple things we didn't know about Switzerland until we got there (mostly because we never really thought about it): they speak French.  We know pretty much no French.  Enough to say 'hello' and 'thank you' and that's about it.  It's interesting how your brain works when you're learning a new language. Whenever someone asked us a question, we automatically answered in Italian.  Even though we knew they weren't speaking to us in Italian, our minds went "foreign language--Italian." They also use the Swiss franc as their currency. They accepted the euro everywhere we went, but we got change in Swiss francs and now have a handful of those we can't use until the next time we go back to Switzerland! 

I'm pretty sure there will be a next time. It was one of the most beautiful countries I've ever seen.  Now, two weeks in Germany!