Meet the Germany Cast

So tonight while John, Abby, and I were biking to a nearby town to grab a bite to eat, I was talking about my blog to Abby because she has had a starring role in the blog thus far (she can be found in the Sardinia and Champagne blogs). And I realized that except for her, I have been referring to most people as "that guy" or "this girl." I decided I would do a blog entry and introduce my American friends in the States to my friends here so that I can start using their first names when referring to them in my blog. So ladies and gentlemen with no further ado, here are my Germany friends (in no particular order) with some background information on each.


Most of you know these two cool monkeys. This is Sister and her Mister aka brother in law Josh and Gretchen. They thoroughly enjoy hanging out with each other, watching movies together, and eating guacamole. Gretchen also likes to clean and Josh likes Guiness. Honestly, they are the best couple that I know and spending time with the both of them rocks!!


This is Abby and John Stehulak and they have become my Tuesday night buddies. We went out to eat at a German restaurant last Tuesday and this Tuesday we biked 8 km to a nearby town, ate outside, then biked a little ways back before stopping at a friend's house to give us a ride home because it started to rain. John knows a lot about beer, fun, and making good times even better. Abby is best known for her ability to sing great songs while biking in Sardinia and finishing a half marathon without really training. John always provides good times and laughs and does make Josh giggle like a little school girl when he is around, but Abby is subtle and hilarous... so it is always fun when they come around. They are leaving soon to move to Hawaii but I am sure they will be included many more times in my blog before then.


I consider Shannon to be my only friend in Germany so far that I have not acquired from Gretchen. Which means that I am responsible for becoming friends with Shannon all by myself. She is a physical therapist at the clinic and we share a basement hallway because we both provide our services in the basement of the Baumholder Health Clinic. Shannon likes to travel and is always up for an adventure so I really like that about her. We currently have plans to go to Scotland, Berlin, and Barcelona together.


This is Lydia and Patrick. I just recently met Patrick but I have hung out with Lydia a fair amount of times now and she is not only a lot of fun but one of the nicest people that you will ever meet. Her and Gretchen have become really close and it is always fun to hang out with those two. They both came to Champagne and ran the half (as evidenced by the picture).


The gentleman on the left is John Stehulak again.. so enough about him. The guy on the right is actually sleeping at the table in this picture. This was after running a half marathon and drinking Champagne. The sleeping guy is Kevin Lawhorn and he is married to Allison. They are actually leaving in the next couple of weeks to go back to the states. Which is sad because they both are really great people. Kevin and John also have a bromance going on so it is sad to see that be torn apart. The guy in the middle goes by Latza (mainly because that is his last name). He is one of Josh's best friends and he went to Champagne with us and along with Gretchen planned the trip to Croatia that we are going on this weekend.



This is Danielle. She was a nurse that worked with Gretchen and is now a nurse that works in the TBI clinic in the same basement that I am in. Danielle is best known as one of the three best friends that anyone could ever have because she was on the trip to Sardinia with Abby and I. She is married to a man named Michael and Danielle, Michael, Gretchen, and Josh all get along really well and are good friends.


And this last picture is Schieze (with Danielle).. the dog that followed us in Sardinia. He is the most loyal of all the people I have mentioned thus far so he definitely deserves a spot in this blog entry. Danielle also really likes him :)

13 miles of running + Lots of Champagne = A Really Good Time

So we decided a few weekends ago to do a half marathon in Champagne, France. This run was advertised as a good way for people that want to run in costumes to do so and drink champagne since they offered champagne at every water stop. We found that appealing so we signed up!

I have been continuing to run at least 1 mile everyday and made it to day 85 but my hip started to hurt about a week before the marathon. I thought I would just cut back my mileage a little bit and add in more yoga and weight training and be fine. But it was a little bit more bothersome so I wasn't sure if I was going to run it. But then my friend Abby was also a little skeptical too about running it since she just signed up on a whim and has never run more than a 5k at one time. We decided we would just do it for fun and if the time was really bad we would blame it on the champagne. You guys might remember Abby as one of the bikers from Sardinia.. so we figured if we could get through that we could take on a half marathon with a bum hip and a lack of training. Albeit sans Schieze the dog!

We got there and immediately felt a little disappointed that we did NOT dress up. Well, one of us did (I am sure everyone could guess who from the pics) but it would have been fun to do a group costume. My favorite group costume was a group of about 10 people that dressed up as an African tribe with spears and body paint. People really commited to their costumes.. it was quite impressive!

The race was pretty hilly because they brought you up a hillside of vineyards and then through some extremely cute French towns. But the most amazing part were the water/champagne stops. They were PARTIES!!! You were suppose to stop and dance and drink champagne and enjoy yourself. You couldn't walk and get though the pit stops even if you wanted to.. unless you were one of the fast runners in the front. Abby and I actually hung out at one for about 20 minutes. You can see the pictures of Abby at the water stop parties not believing what festivities were going on in the middle of this half marathon.

The other amazing thing was that the champagne went down extremely easy and was refreshing. I was a little skeptical about drinking champagne and running.. I felt it might be a recipe for disaster but I was extremely mistaken... it was a recipe for awesomeness. I did make the mistake at about mile 7 of taking a small amount of red wine because they were handing it out and that was too much but the champagne was really amazing.. better than oranges!

The weather was beautiful and everyone finished. Abby and I actually did pretty decent and had a lot of fun. It was a great way to see some of the Champagne region. It also made us realize how close Champagne is to us.. .about a three hour car ride. We didn't get to tour a Champagne cave so we will have to go back at a later date.

The House

The little road that leads to my house.

So I promised that I would upload some pictures of the house... so here is the lower level. I will let the pictures do most of the talking.



These are pictures of the living room and kitchen.




This is my dining room. The table says "love" in different languages. I like it because whenever I sit at the table I think of Emily since we picked it out together before I left.


I accidentally downloaded this picture sideways BUT this is my favorite part of the house. This is the gate that my German landlord made for me so my dogs don't go upstairs. I painted it red but he built it along with the magnetic portion that allows it to hang up. This singlehandedly made me decide that I do indeed like Germans.

I will post pictures of the upstairs later but that is the downstairs :)

Fields of Gold

Overall things have been going well in Germany. I would even venture to say that things are going very well. I have definitely made some great strides including getting a landline phone at my house, getting the internet at the house, finishing my first Volks March, and going to my first German festival. And today, the ground in the backyard has been broken via a roto tiller for a new garden!!

And the Twins actually beat the Yankees… so I feel like everyone’s luck is just turning around.

But it has definitely been extremely frigid here in Germany and the locals along with the transplanted military people that have been here for a prolonged period of time say that this is extremely abnormal for this time of year. I actually would have started my outdoor garden A LOT earlier if it weren't for two reasons. 1. It has been so cold I seriously doubt that the tomatoes would survive if planted right now and 2. I went to roto till about three weeks ago and accidentally roto tilled my shins immediately after turning it on and called it quits for the day. I was SERIOUSLY lucky because, though, it hurt an extraordinary amount it was just a deep cut on both shins and no small dogs were killed or tetanus acquired by the accident. But that did conclude my roto tilling for that day (so I was done before I even began) and I do believe that it has rained everyday since that occurred so my garden was put on hold until the shins healed and the weather cooperated.

But the weather has been cold and I hear that it might be due to the volcano (sidenote: none of the following information has been validated or verified... it is just fun speculation). I guess that the ash and soot can possibly get up into the stratospherre and cause the sun to not be able to penetrate through causing a major decrease in temperatures and that situations like this could potentially lead to a mini ice age cooling. Which could mean either a cold cold winter here in Europe or maybe even winter during summer. I am not sure how much of this is true or even how much of it I JUST MADE UP because I only briefly skimmed one article I found on cnn.com, but what I do know is that I have Minnesota weather envy and I didn't think that was possible. So I hope all of you Minnesotans are enjoying the beautiful weather that you are having.

Last weekend Gretchen, I, and about five other people went 45 minutes away to a town that was having its yearly "White Asparagus Festival" aka SpargelFest. It was a lot of fun... Germans sure do like to celebrate and this leds me to believe that I MIGHT have been quick to judge them and there bad attitudes. Or maybe just spring and summer bring out the best in them (therefore, I REALLY hope we don't have winter in summer if they become mean again because I would like a few months off from the bitterness that I once felt from them). So I guess White Asparagus is the "King of Vegetables" Therefore, we went to celebrate the King. It really was mainly music and beer and hot dogs but there were also shots of asparagus liquor. I didn't think it was all too bad but NO ONE concurred with that opinion so I guess I would not recommend taking a shot of asparagus liquor if given the chance.

A couple of weekends ago, we also got to celebrate another German tradition called the Volks March. There is pretty much one every weekend around here and you can walk either 5km, "10 km, or 20 km. These walks are pretty much the same theme as any other festival. There is music and beer and hot dogs but this time we celebrated the ability to walk the countryside of Germany. Oh, also wherever there is a festival in Germany there is also sauerkraut and french fries with mayo. I thoroughly enjoyed that experience also.

So needless to say the Season of Festivals has started here in Deutschland. There are volks marches, numerous celebrations, and wine festivals every weekend now. So lots of fun in store in the near future.

I have also convinced some friends to come over Tuesday night so that we can venture to the German restaurant across the street from my house. I would have done this sooner but I know that no one in my town speaks really good English and I don't know German so I have been a lil timid. However, the girl that is coming over speaks German very well... a matter of fact she might have even majored in it so it will be nice to venture out in my small town. I have been told by my landlord that everyone talks about me in town and asks a lot of questions so I am sure they are extremely excited to meet me :)

And work is also going well. I have been busy and enjoying it. But I definitely need an adjustment myself and miss them. My hip flexor has been hurting from running and the past two days I have had to do “the old woman shuffle” instead of running like a normal person. I have been stretching it and even did some quite painful cross fiber friction on it last night. I even managed to make MYSELF cry… I think that is quite a feat. But I really miss getting adjusted because I am pretty sure that would make it all better.



The fields have turned gold here and I included pictures so that you guys can see them. They truly are beautiful and they are everywhere. One of the things that I love about Germany is that they have coagulated towns so between the towns are just fields, countryside, and castles. It definitely makes driving from one place to another beautiful. It also makes running a lot of fun because the panoramic views are gorgeous.

I really do miss all of you guys back in the states. It is definitely different over here but I am really enjoying the differences. I hope everyone is enjoying a beautiful spring and I will blog more now that I have internet at my house.

Tschus