Deutschland

I hope that everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving! We did. I'll try to update about that soon. Until then, I'll pick up where we left off with Germany.

Our stay in Germany was the shortest of all of the stops. We were only there for about 36 hours- 13.5 of those hours spent leading seminars and manning a Union table at the college fair. I've always been really interested in Black Forest Academy (BFA); all the older TCK's from when my family lived overseas went to boarding school at BFA, and it was this magical land that I was incredibly intrigued by. I even looked at a position teaching there after college (clearly, I ended up in Ukraine). Tons of great folks, including my lovely friend Mindy, graduated from there. It was so much fun to finally see it in real life. Unfortunately, I have almost no pictures from the school itself. We were extremely busy while we were there, and I kept forgetting to take pictures. I have a couple of pictures from our brief jaunt into the village (Kandern) the night we arrived.

BFA is really a rather large school for its kind. There are about 250 high schoolers from- literally- all over the world. The boarding system is really interesting to me, as there isn't a dorm per se. The students board in houses spread out across several neighboring villages. I can say this with any certainty, but I think that would be a cool living experience. Mindy? Thoughts?

Our evening on the town consisted of a walk into town (it's really compact, so it wasn't very taxing), a few pictures of things that looked "German," the purchase of a post card, and dinner at one of the two actual German restaurants in town (as opposed to the Chinese, Greek, and Turkish spots).

We arrived in Kandern around 4:00ish on Tuesday afternoon and left at 5:00 am on Thursday. REALLY quick trip, y'all. Here's the photo-documentation:

"German-looking" buildings. These were about the only two pictures I was able to snap before the sun went down...

Some kind of awesome sausage. The onions were even awesomer.

We love our food. We took pictures of food everywhere except for Spain. We were too jet-lagged to remember our camera over the paella...

Only picture from BFA. This is good, though, because we were too busy talking about Union to take a moment for pictures. Right? Right. Doesn't Brad's table setup look good?

Sorry that the pictures aren't terribly interesting. We did thoroughly enjoy our 36 hours! We met some great people, some of which we hope to see at Union one day. :)

Willkommen in der Schweiz! (Welcome to Switzerland, of course)

We were up early on Tuesday and were off to Germany...via Switzerland! My mom and I talked about how both of us had always wanted to visit Switzerland. Technically, we didn't do much visiting in Switzterland, but we DID get out of the airport, so I count it.

First of all, we are unanimous on the fact that we LOVE Swiss Air. Love it. As in, if it were a person, we'd want to be best friends with it. Every. Single. Person. was extremely nice, helpful, and not in the least bit scary. The breakfast was yummy, and everyone got Swiss chocolate. The only sad part was the my beautiful pink suitcase sustained an injury...sniff.

From the airport, we hopped on a train (that's a bad choice of words, as we actually had to haul two suitcases and two rolling carry-ons with us) and headed off to Basel, Switzerland. I had my camera ready-to roll, you know for all of the picturesque shots of Switzerland I was hoping for. I was disappointed for a while; Zurich was very urban and industrial, including LOTS of graffiti. I consoled myself by taking pictures of things that I thought were funny or weird.

Thankfully, the further we got away from Zurich, the more "Swiss" things began to look. It was really very pretty, and we enjoyed our trek to Basel.

In Basel, we were picked up at the train station by a counselor from Black Forest Academy (Mindy, thought about you!) and started the 20-minute journey to Kandern, Germany. Our time in Germany was so very brief but very full of great moments. I'll fill you in next post.

Shots of the Alps from the plane:

See the dark line along the horizon? Those are peaks of the mountains.

Not clouds! Snow-covered mountain tops. So very Swiss, right?

On the train (one of us is more excited than the other. I'll let you guess which is which.):

Things spotted from the train:

I thought this looked like "Diet I can" (you know, with "can" pronounced as "cahn"). Anyone else entertained by that? Just me? Yeah, I figured.

What do we think this is?

Starting to look a little more Swiss...

There we go!

Next up: Germany!

Fotos!

Brad and I are back in the States now, and I'm able to update! With pictures!

Madrid is lovely. As I mentioned here, Brad and I spent our first afternoon on the continent wandering around Madrid. People had great faith in our abilities; they set us loose in Madrid. Alone. Jetlagged. Wowsers.

We were armed with a map of downtown, as well as a map of the metro. We were pretty dead-on-our-feet pretty quickly, and it took us a little while to orient ourselves directionally. We may or may not have walked in the right direction the first time, convinced ourselves we were wrong, backtracked, and realized we'd been standing exactly ACROSS THE STREET from our destination the first time. Oi.

We had paella for lunch and very much enjoyed the sights of downtown Madrid! Hope you enjoy, as well.

Plaza Mayor:

Check out this guy's "face." So weird.

From the front, this was a big "dog." I felt a little sorry for this poor street performer...crawling around on his knees on the cobblestones.

Things spotted on the walk to the Catedral:

Please note: those are not real people in on the balconies.

The Catedral:

El Palicio:

Brad: "I could totally live there."

Erin: "What about me?"

Brad: "You could live there, too."

Lamp post.

Fancy lamp post.

On the walk to/at Plaza Espana:

Seen on the walk to Plaza Espana. About the time we decided we were totally beat.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Picture taken from the bench across the Plaza, as I whined about never being able to move ever again...

We enjoyed our afternoon of sightseeing in Spain. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Spanish II

Our second day in Spain was very much fun and very much jet-laggy. We were able to sleep late (Brad had to bribe me with Coke to get me out of bed), and then spent several hours at Evangelical Christian Academy, meeting students and talking about Union. ECA is in a little hamlet right outside of Madrid, and we could walk the length of the town in about 15 minutes. It was so cute and quaint, and we loved it. I didn't get any pictures, but that's mostly because it was raining the majority of the time we were there. Bummer.

For dinner, we hung out with the boarding students. It was so fun to listen to them talk about their lives and "homes." We didn't really talk that much about Union, but we had a great time visiting.

Our hosts were a single muchacha who teaches ESL and the daughter of a family who works at the school but are in the States for a few months. She graduated high school several years back and now attends a Spanish music conservatory. They were both a lot of fun to visit with. I would totally be friends with them both in real life.

Today, we arrived in Germany via Switzerland. I'd write more, but Brad and I are dying for some sleep. Preview/teaser: bratwurst.

Bienvenido a España

DISCLAIMER: I HAVE taken pictures. I just didn't bring my transferring-from-the-camera-to-the-computer cord. So, I will update photographically when we get home. After sleeping for a long time.

We arrived in Madrid around 8:10 am Spanish time Sunday morning. We had no trouble in immigration or baggage claim, thank goodness, and were able to brush our teeth, brush our hair (well, I brushed mine...Brad didn't really need to), and change into church clothes before our ride to church picked us up. We had a great time visiting with our IMB host for church, learning about her family and their work here.

Church was good, but after the time change (trans-Atlantic, not Daylight Savings), we were struggling to stay awake. We took turns poking each other so that we wouldn't complete doze off during prayers. We're very spiritual like that, you know. The church very kindly let us set up our Union paraphernalia table after the service, and we were able to talk to a handful of potentially interested students.

After church, Brad and I set off to explore Madrid! Our church hosts dropped us off at the metro, and off we went. The Madrid metro system is waaaaaaaay different than Kiev; it was incredibly user-friendly. The only thing that almost embarrassed us was the fact that you have to push a button/lift a lever to get the doors to open. Didn't realize that at first, so when we stopped at the first stop and the doors didn't open, we got ever so slightly panicky that we were going to be trapped on the metro forever. Ok fine...that was me. Brad was a tad bit more reasonable. Thankfully, we were able to watch people use them before we had to get off. Whew.

We gave ourselves a walking tour of some places in the center of Madrid, including the Plaza Mayor, Catedral de la Almunedo, and the Palicio Real. We finished up by walking to the Plaza Espana, realizing we were exhausted, and heading out to meet up with our host. Brad was super happy because we got to use the metro and take a train (he loves public transport).

We CRASHED at bed time. Like, big time crashed. And then slept for 11 hours...

More to come! Buenas noches.

We're packing. And I'm pinning.

And by "packing," I mean suitcases. Not weapons.

Why are we packing? Because we're going on a work trip.

Where are we going?

...

....

.....

EUROPE.

Exciting, right? Part of Brad's territory as an Enrollment counselor is "international students." We're participating in a college fair circuit that will take us to Madrid, Spain; Kandern, Germany; KIEV, UKRAINE (!); and Budapest, Hungary. I promise to take pictures and notes. Our living room is sort of chaotic right now while we're packing, which is driving me nuts, and I'm trying to make sure that we haven't forgotten anything important. I sort of feel sorry for Brad, though; I don't have a great travel track record...remember this?

On a side note, I've been pinning away on Pinterest, AND I've started 4 projects and completed 2. I'm very proud of myself. I find it to be great motivation. I also have a theory that it's our society's response to our current economic conditions. Can't afford Anthropologie? Make your own Anthropologie knock-off scarf. Can't afford that Pottery Bard coffee table? Repurpose a thrift store find to look just like it. Very use-it-up-wear-it-out-make-do-do-without, in my opinion.

I'm loving it.