Home for the Holidays: Atlanta - Part I

Ever since we bought our plane tickets in September I'd been looking forward to coming back Stateside for the Christmas holidays. After spending Christmas in Germany last year without friends, family, or Target I couldn't imagine a second year away from the homeland.
School got out on Thursday and as we had dinner with our coworkers who would also be heading home that weekend the snow started coming down in loads. Luckily we made it out of Frankfurt on Friday morning, before all of the heavy snow and delays started to set in. The flight went smoothly and the only hiccup was the fact that our German Christmas Market sausages (6) were all confiscated in NYC by the customs people (shouldn't have checked the box on the customs form).
Since this post is specifically about the Atlanta leg of the trip, allow me to give you the highlights in bulleted fashion:

Top 5 Things to do While Visiting Atlanta This Christmas

1. Hanging out in the concierge lounge of the Marriott hotel with my mom, grandma and Herb, and aunt Amy............drinking free Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, and instant hot chocolate........watching the Falcons in HD..........dropping by the North Georgia Outlets for overstimulation and capitalism at its best........and hitting up classic restaurants like the Olive Garden and Cracker Barrel.

Mom, Grandma, Herb, and Amy post Cracker Barrel - look how happy we look!

2. Visiting the Georgia Aquarium with mom, Matt Davis, and Kim with a visit to the Vortex afterward. The Weeki Wachee Mermaids in the Ocean Voyager tank were impressive!

I nearly inked myself when the sharks swam by in between them and the glass. I mean, there's so much freaking room in there, why do they need to swim that close to the Weeki Wachee Mermaids?

3. Dinner party at the King's, featuring Terrapin Moo Moo Chocolate Stout and a menagerie of finger foods, compliments of Atlanta's Next Top Chef - Chris King.

Old co-workers at GTAA

Our hosts: the Kings.

4. Renewing Taco Mac Passport Membership by tasting a couple of brews over lunch with the Brazells. 200 beers on tap IS something to write home about!

5. Helping my brother Jake start up his foreign money collection with a little birthday present from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

Atlanta: Part I was an excellent welcome home and a nice warm-up for our trip out to California for Christmas.

--Justin

Quick Pre Christmas Wrap-up

Before I can even start blogging about our trip home to the States I must wrap up on the events leading up to that. December is one of my favorite months in Germany mostly in part to the amazing Christmas markets. One Saturday we headed out with two of our friends, Kyle and Janice, to a few markets. Our first stop was the nearby town of Wiesbaden (the capital of our state, Hessen).

Janice and I can't contain our excitement on the train ride out there.

First stop, since it was freezing, Gluhwein stand.

The beautiful town of Wiesbaden

Next on the agenda was the quaint town of Rudesheim. This town reminded me a lot of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. I will definitely be going back there in the summer as it lies right along the river and has some amazing classic German views. Maybe if you come visit I will take you there too.

In the Rudesheim market and all it's glory. I really liked this market, we rode a ski lift over the city, enjoyed some traditional gluhwein and they even had warm Belgian cherry beer (trust me it was good).

A Christmas market isn't complete without a picture with St. Nikolaus

The following weekend was jammed pack with an Ugly Christmas Sweater/Bday Party and a Staff Christmas Party. Our girl Kate was celebrating her birthday in style and we had the pleasure of joining in on the fun.

Justin's homemade sweater complete with battery operated lights attached. (Thanks Katy and Craig)

Prom pose in front of the decorations. If you are wondering about my sweater, I bought it at an Oxfam store and let me tell you Ugly Christmas Sweaters are hard to find in Germany. I guess they don't find it as funny and yes the reindeer on my sweater are upside down.

Doesn't he look so sophisticated? Best part about the night was Justin won best homemade sweater! Prize = a bottle of Gluhwein (can't get enough of it around Christmas)

Even Santa showed up!

After an awesome Friday night, we got back to more celebrating on Saturday at our Staff Christmas Party. It was in an old factory equipped with food, drinks, and a DJ. It was a fun night for all of us co-workers to get dressed up and cut loose.

We clean up pretty well, right?

Needless to say before going to the States for actual Christmas we had a lot of fun leading up to it in Germany. Lots to share about our trip home and I hope all of you had as much fun during your holidays as we did.

Happy New Year! Can't wait to see what 2011 will bring!

Lastly, sorry for the lack of blogging in recent months, I hope to get back on the horse in 2011. More German food, funny German interactions and of course more travel.

--Marisa

Christmas isn't Christmas without a tree.

 You might remember this guy from last year, but this year he has a few more ornaments.

It might be small, but it is full of spirit.

My favorite pick up. It represents all our travels.

Who doesn't love a moose?

Justin's new favorite

Our favorite purchase of 2009

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are enjoying yourself no matter where you are or who you are celebrating with.

Cookie-making with co-workers

Two Sundays ago a few of my lady co-workers got together to get in the Christmas spirit. We picked a recipe and bought supplies and had a go at cookie-making. You think it sounds easy, but you try finding baking supplies in German or just finding vanilla extract at all in this country. Either way we knew it was going to be a good time. My recipe was spiced sugar cookies other recipes included normal sugar cookies, chocolate sugar cookies, pinwheel cookies, checkerboard cookies and chocolate chip cookies. We had Christmas music blaring and flour flying everywhere. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon and I can't wait to make more with my big sis when I go home for Christmas!

The goods

The decorating table

Some of the spiced sugar cookies all decorated

The crew from left to right- Kate, Gina, Me and Laurie

What are your favorite Christmas cookies? Have any good recipes?

- Marisa

ISF Entertainment Evening

Some of the students at my school do some impressive things and this past Friday was a great example. Last year a group of 9th grade girls started a student organization with the goal of raising money and awareness for women in Africa. Throughout the year they put together various fundraising efforts with the biggest event being "Entertainment Evening", where students and teachers perform songs, dances, and skits in the school auditorium. Last year I participated by playing/singing an acoustic version of Outkast's "Hey, Ya", which was a lot of fun and the whole evening was quite enjoyable.

This year I decided to play "Live Like We're Dying" by Kris Allen. I also paired up with another colleague from Mississippi to play "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. It was another great evening and we had a lot of fun with it. Below are videos of the performances.






--Justin

Thanksgiving weekend visitors

We were so lucky this Thanksgiving because we had three visitors come to Frankfurt! We didn't cook a traditional American Thanksgiving, but we had a darn good time and threw in a few American things. Our visitors included Jason Tatum, our college buddy who is doing campus ministry in Birmingham, England. He works near the University of Birmingham at a place called Canvas, you should check it out. Another guest was my Georgia Tech volleyball teammate none other than, Katie freakin Mohs. Katie works for Siemens and took a job in Nuremberg, Germany this past August. This was our first of hopefully many get togethers. Nuremberg is about 2 hours from Frankfurt by fast train. Last but not least was my other Georgia Tech teammate Ulli Stegemann. Ulli is German and lives in Munich.

The whole gang (minus me)

The weekend included many laughs and lots of good times. We enjoyed schnitzel, schnapps, farmer markets, Christmas markets with Gluhwein, touring around Frankfurt, beer, naps and some American football. It is always great to see familiar faces. You know how it is when you are around people that know you. When I get controlling and pushy, yes it happens, good friends just laugh and call you out.  Or when I get over-excited they just smile and say that's Marisa. Thanks guys, you are true friends!

We had to!

GTVB Reunion!

All of us sprawled out in our tiny apartment watching the GT vs. UGA game the morning after on Justin's computer. I am not going to even comment on the game.

I had such a good time with these three and I hope they did too. That being said visitors are always welcomed at the Jackson's.

-Marisa

Das was?

Translated to English- Is that it? And I have to say NO WAY! I finished up my first German class last week and I have to say I really enjoyed being in a learning environment again. Yes it got annoying going to six hours of German a week for two nights a week three hours at a time, but I can confidently say I can now put a whole German sentence together. My teacher, Michael, was great and made the class really fun. We had people in the class literally from everywhere and for some the only way to communicate was in German. 

On our last class all of us that were left went out to dinner. From a class that started with 16 it ended with 6 or 7 committed students.

I have to say starting a new job and learning German has definitely been exhausting at times, but totally worth it. I will be taking a break now for the holidays and to actually study what I learned and then I hope to get in another class probably in February. 

-Marisa