J'aime Paris

I have been waiting to go to Paris since high school. I took French for 4 years with the same teacher, Madame Gruwell, and she did an amazing job of portraying French culture and she convinced me to want to be a part of it. I give full credit to Madame Gruwell for my love for French art and the impressionist era. Well my dream became a reality finally 8 years later. Last week I set off with Ethan and Kayce to explore Paris. I will say that it was really sweet of my husband to let me go while he stayed home and worked. He is a keeper. Well first thing I noticed in Paris was I had lost any and all my French skills, I guess learning Spanish and now trying my hand at German there wasnt any room for French anymore. I doubt I will even be able to express how awesome my trip to Paris was, but I would tell anyone that you have to go once or twice in your lifetime. It really is a city of beauty. Everything about it is so amazing from the architecture, parks, museums, and everything in between. This is a city you have heard about your whole life with people you have learned about your whole life and to finally see it was just overwhelming in such an incredible way.  To look up at the Eiffel tower while it sparkles at night, to seeing Van Gogh paintings, and exploring Versailles where so much history is from. We were there 3 days and hit it hard, but I will say I got to see so much. I know these pictures will not do any justice to Paris, but I will try to show you some of my favorites from the trip.

Notre Dame

Saint Chapelle- a beautiful church with gorgeous stained glass windows on every wall of the place.

Arc de Triomphe- We went all the way to the top and looked down the Champs Elysees

My first night in Paris and I saw this....Unbelievable. We enjoyed some real French wine (recommended by a Frenchman) and cheese. It was a perfect night!

Hall of Mirrors in Versailles

One side of the amazing gardens at Versailles.

Everything was covered in gold in Versailles. There were tons of crowns, my mom would have loved it.

Van Gogh self-portrait in the Musee d' Orsay. By far my favorite museum in Paris.

This was one of my favorite paintings in the Musee d' Orsay by Degas.

I have seen this sculpture in books and many replicas, but nothing compares to first hand. Another Degas

Sacre Coeur at night

Sacre Coeur overlooking the city. There were tons of street performers and plenty to keep us entertained for the night.

Got to see Moulin Rouge!

At the top of the Eiffel Tower.....a little hazy but still awesome.

The Louvre

I will say the Louvre is something to check off the list when going to Paris, but I enjoyed the Jardin des Tuileries and all the people outside.

The Louvre was so busy and it was a Wednesday afternoon. I wonder if Paris is busy all year round?

The Thinker

The Rodin Museum was probably one of the most pleasant surprises of the trip. It was in a beautiful rose garden with sculptures throughout it.

The Kiss- my favorite sculpture by Rodin.

The Opera House- I am a huge Marc Chagall fan and the ceiling was painted by him. It was amazing with all the figures flying around; you have to go there and see it.

Great architecture in the Opera House

The Paris crew- Me , Kayce, and Ethan

Like I said this post could not even beginning to show you what Paris has to offer. The trip was amazing and I had a great experience. From drinking french wine, eating baguettes and pains au chocolat to dining at a french bistro and great friends the trip was one I will look back on and smile. I just want to let Madame Gruwell know that France and Paris lived up to all my expectations! Thanks for enlightening me!

BONUS FOOTAGE: Check out some videos from Paris I totally forgot I took these.

Dachau

Along with the visit to Munich to celebrate Oktoberfest came the opportunity to take a guided tour of the nearby concentration camp Dachau.  Named for the town that it was built near, this camp was the first concentration camp built in Germany in March of 1933.   It is unique because it was used as a prototype for most other camps constructed afterwards. 

Dachau was chosen because of its proximity to Munich, about 16 km, and because it was the site of an abandoned munitions factory.  The camp was mainly used to contain political prisoners that opposed the Nazi regime.  On this trip I learned that there is a difference between a “concentration camp”, where prisoners were contained and used for labor to support the war, and an “extermination” camp, where prisoners were sent to be executed (such as Auschwitz in Poland).  That being said, nearly all of the prisoners there were men, forced to work until they died of disease (Typhus), starvation, or exhaustion.  It was also known for containing many religious leaders that had spoken out against the Nazi regime.  Dachau was used over a 12-year span, which is the longest, but it was also one of the first to be liberated by the Americans in 1945.  In addition to the camp, Dachau was also the home of a large SS training facility. 

Over 200,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau, with over 30,000 dying on its grounds or in the surrounding sub-camps.  While it was the longest running camp, the total death toll was only a fraction of the 10 million (Jews and non-Jews; exact numbers not known) that died in the entire system – again, because they would typically send prisoners not fit to work off to extermination camps to be killed.  Of the original camp, the barracks were all torn down and two replicas were built to give visitors an idea of the living conditions, buildings used to house the SS soldiers still stand, the main “registration” and administration building has been preserved, and there is still a crematory building containing mass “shower rooms” (gas chambers) and ovens on the site that was left intact to provide evidence of the horrors that occurred at these camps.  The survivors of Dachau made all of the decisions as to how the camp was to be preserved and how the victims would be memorialized.  A few pictures are shown below.  

Entrance to the camp. "Arbeit macht frei" translates to "work brings freedom" or" work shall set you free"

View upon entering main gates - this is where "roll call" would happen each morning.

Electrified fence line w/ guard tower.  On the right, a model barrack and the foundations of former barracks.

Memorial sculpture

Main walkway through camp

Reconstructed barracks

Crematorium building(original) - kept intact to indict Nazi's shed light on inhumane actions

"shower room" entrance - no evidence that it was ever used (possibly due to mechanical problems)

This is a memorial to all of the prisoners of the camp - survivors and non-survivors

I think that everyone should try to visit at least one concentration camp in their lifetime to try to scratch the surface of the unbelievable horrors of the time.  Our tour guide emphasized that the survivors whom designed the memorial wished nothing more than for future generations to come to grips with what happened there and to ensure that it doesn't happen again - our visit on that day was exactly what they would've wanted.  

I'm not sure how much the average American knows about the Holocaust and concentration camps, but I think that I was blessed to have a 9th grade English teacher that made it a point to educate us in the time period. We read Elie Wiesel's Night, visited a museum in Atlanta, met with a survivor, and completed a literary project on the Holocaust. That's one area where my education didn't fail me. Shout out to Mrs. Traci Shuster!!! 

Oktoberfest 2009

This weekend had been in preparation for quite some time and it was worth the wait. Have you ever been to a costume party with over 100,000 people where everyone wore the same costume? No? Well me neither, but that’s kind of what it seemed like at this year’s Oktoberfest. While Marisa, Jeff, Kendra, Ethan, and Kayce headed out on an early train Friday to catch the sites of Munich and experience the Hofbrau Haus, I finished out my teaching week and caught the 8:00 pm train.

On our way..

Our first stop the Hofbrauhaus

Chalk one up for Kendra for finishing first. Way to go girl! Much more to come.

The band at the Hofbrauhaus playing traditional bavarian music

So excited to be in Munich!

Hanging out with Ulli before all the madness on Saturday

The trip takes about 3 hours on the ICE (express train), which would’ve put me in by 11:00 pm if it weren’t for the hour delay, pushing me back to nearly 1 a.m. before I reached the hotel. Now that sounds unfortunate and it would’ve sucked pretty hard if it weren’t for the 20 or so Bavarians riding on my train that wanted to start the festivities on the train. They jammed some traditional German Schlager music, drank beer, took shots of a sweet liquor, sang songs, and sniffed ground up peppermint (yes, it sounds sketchy and it was, but I did try it and it really wakes you up – they promised me it wasn’t “Drogen”). I only wish that I had my camera with me to share the experience. Arriving at the train station after the Theresienwiese (main Oktoberfest area) closed down for the night (yep, it shuts down around 10:30 – 11:00 because it starts so early the next day) it honestly looked like a scene out of that Disney movie “Ever After”. There were girls running around this modern train station in traditional Dirndl’s with their boobs touching their chins, usually accompanied by guys with traditional Lederhosen (“leather pants”) and Bavarian style hats. The subways reaked of beer and I knew that I had arrived. 

Saturday came early, as we tried to get to the Oktoberfest tents by 9:00 a.m. We met up with our friend, Josh, who is living in Munich and he was sporting the traditional lederhosen with an American flare some Nike high tops. While we did get there by 9 and the beer isn’t actually served until 9:30, nearly every tent was absolutely full. Now when I say “tent” I mean a semi-permanent structure with solid sides and only the rooftop actually resembling a tent; and when I say “full” I mean over 6,000 people already in each tent – there were about 12 tents total. Time Out (Zach Morris style)!! Allow me a moment to explain how the festivities work at Oktoberfest. So, the festival began on October 12th 1810 to celebrate the marriage between King Kudwig I and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghhausen. All of the citizens of Munich were invited to attend the royal event in a field at the gates of the city. These fields were later renamed Theresienwiese (“Therese’s Fields”) in honor of the princess. Basically the festival was so popular that it was decided to repeat the event every year. Today the festival runs from the third weekend in September to the first Sunday of October – it was supposedly moved back only to have better weather. On the same fairgrounds each year a huge carnival is set up with rides and food and vendors and most importantly………big ass tents representing each of the local Munich breweries. That’s right, you won’t find a “Beck’s” tent or “Warsteiner” or other popular beers from elsewhere in Germany. You’ve got to have some serious street cred’ to serve at this mutha’. So each tent is sponsored by one brewery and ONLY that beer is sold inside the tent. Not only that, but you can only have one type of beer inside the tents – the specially brewed Oktoberfest recipe! If you act early enough (like 8 months in advance) you can reserve a table at one of the tents for a certain part of the day. If you don’t have a reservation you must get to the tents early and hope to get in and secure a table. As long as you don’t leave, you can stay there all day. Each tent has live music and lots of crazy people…….Time In!!  

We had a frantic moment as we dashed from tent to tent to try to find an open table and none seemed to be found. We finally ended up at the Hacker-Pschorr tent, sitting at a reserved table. However, the reservation didn’t start until 11:00 am, so we had roughly and hour and a half to enjoy the tent experience. Pictures will follow, but we all had our two liters and left by 11:30. The whole experience was probably like being at a Georgia football game, but the beer wasn’t Busch Light, no one barked like a dog, and the people around us spoke decent English (even if it was their second language).  
 

Arriving at the Oktoberfest fair grounds (Wiesn)

One of the many "tents"

Our boy Josh rocking some lederhosen

Inside the Hacker-Pschorr tent - der Himmel der Bayern ("Heaven of Bayern")

First beer at 9:29 a.m. ....Prost! (german for "Cheers")

one size fits all - the Mass (or 1 liter glass) is the only size that can be ordered

How many Masses can your beer wench carry?  (here is 7, but here record is 17!)

Number 2 - 10:24 a.m.

11:30 - outside the tent, after 2 liters

11:47 - third liter outside of Augustiner tent (Kayce with new German Friend, Markus)

Next, we met up with our friend Ulli, who lives in Munich, and found a place next to some French, Germans, and Italians at a table outside of the Augustiner tent. There we downed our third liter and it was lights out shortly thereafter as we wandered back to our hotel while Jeff and Kendra stuck it out like true soldiers. The four of us woke up in our hotel after a solid 2-hour nap and went to meet Jeff and Kendra at the Hofbrau Haus as planned, but they didn’t show up because they’d had a longer afternoon, featuring five liters of Oktoberfest brew. Meanwhile the rest of us had a late evening dinner at the Chinesiche Turm (Chinese Tower) in the famous Englischer Garten park. Kayce discovered that she hates Leberkaese (“liver cheese” – kind of like SPAM) and Marisa caught some food poisoning from the Schnitzel. All in all it was a really eventful and memorable experience. Enjoy the highlighted pics.

Chinesischer Turm in Englischer Garten ("Chinese Tower in English Gardens")

End of the long day - enjoying Leberkaese (kind of like Spam) at outdoor beer garden

More commentary on the trip to follow from our guest correspondents along with pictures and personal testimonies.

Eintracht Soccer

We’d been wanting to go to a soccer game here in Frankfurt at some point and as luck would have it, the opportunity came up during the very same week that we hosted four of our family/friends.  There are two soccer teams in Frankfurt: a first division team in the Bundesliga (German national soccer league) called Eintracht and a second division team called FSV Frankfurt.  Typically, one game per week is played on either Saturday or Sunday.  The season runs throughout the Fall and into the early Winter.

Soccer, or Fussball as it’s known over here, has an interesting schedule in that every few weeks or so there is a bye week dedicated to World Cup qualification so the players have a chance to help their home countries qualify for the World Cup.  Additionally, there is also a season-long tournament, called DFB Pokal, that is open to practically any team in Germany to see which team is truly the best team in the country.  An equivalent would be a college football tournament that allowed teams from all divisions and even amateur teams to compete against each other in a single-elimination format. 

So, the game that we attended was actually a DFB Pokal match on a Wednesday against Alemannia Aachen – a second division team.  The stadium, Commerzbank Arena (formerly Waldstadion or “Forest Stadium”), seats 52,300 in a covered venue literally in the woods in the south of Frankfurt.  Normally the game would be sold out, but because it was during the week and not a first division match, there were plenty of seats available.  We paid 20 Euros to sit behind the goals and up at the top of the stadium.  However, there really wasn’t a bad seat in the house and we were right in the middle of the Frankfurt cheering section. 

Although the stadium wasn’t close to full, there was plenty of energy in the crowd.  The coolest part was all of the cheers and songs that everyone knew by heart (except for us that is).  A guy on his own P.A. system led the cheers from the standing section below and he literally never stopped through the entire match.  There were songs with clapping, songs with fists pumping, and songs with swaying and pretty much everyone participated.  I will say that at times the guy’s voice was a bit shrill in a thick German accent and tone that resembled the footage of an old Nazi rally from the 30’s and 40’s – scary.  We lucked out, choosing a game where 10 total goals were scored.  In the end, Frankfurt came out on top 6-4. Enjoy the video below.

GO EAGLES!

Our First Visitors

We are sorry for the lack of blog posts lately, but we have been busy entertaining our first non German guests. I am proud to say that my sister, Kendra and my brother-in-law, Jeff were our first official visitors from the States. In celebration of their two year wedding anniversary they decided to come visit us in Germany!  Following in at a close second by one day were my friends Kayce and Ethan. This was Ethan and Kayce's first time to Germany and Kayce's first trip to Europe! It was great having family and friends in town to show them our new life here in Frankfurt and also to travel to new cities together.


Kendra and Jeff on a riverboat tour of the Main River in Frankfurt. What a happy couple!!! Happy Anniversary on Oct. 6th!

Ethan, Kayce and I in the Chinese Garden in Frankfurt. Welcome to Germany!

We have so much to blog about from the fun times in Frankfurt, our group trip to Munich for Oktoberfest, a trip to the Dachau concentration camp, and our trip to Paris. The past week and a half has been amazing and we cant wait to share it with you! So stay tuned and we hope to get all the posts up soon.