Lagging Behind

Well, I'm behind on my blogging. I've been sick and not felt up to a big blog update. I've been staying busy with AWCA activities and preparing for my parents' visit. I went to Venice, Italy last week with several women from the club, and I need to post about that for you guys too. This past weekend we did a little shopping in Rotterdam and layed low. We have lots of trips coming up during my parents' visit so we wanted to take it easy. I did take one picture in Rotterdam I thought you guys would find interesting.

This is a "coffee shop". From the looks of it they offer more than just coffee. We didn't go in, but I'm assuming that little green leaf is also on the menu. Maybe I'll investigate further when Eric's cousins come to visit in May. We'll be doing several days in Amsterdam then.

We also have Oscar again this week while Stephanie and Mike are back in the States wrapping up some wedding planning. He's still cracking us up. Today we took a nap together on the couch since I'm a little under the weather. I think Oscar was having an intense dream because I woke up to him quietly barking in his sleep! Could it be he was remembering that big hunk of bacon he scored the other weekend? Eric is such a pushover.

The other day when we came home I couldn't find him anywhere. I started to get worried and then I realized he was snoozing in one of the living room chairs. I don't know how he got up there. He's short and has a bad back so I didn't think he could make the jump up. I guess I was wrong.

Another quirk of Oscar's is that he will only eat if you are at home with him. And he doesn't like to eat out of his bowl. He likes to dump his food out first then eat it off the floor. Usually he dumps it in a small pile beside the bowl. But more recently he's decided that he'd rather dump it out in a long string spanning the length of the entire living room. So this is what meal time looks like:

Tomorrow we head to Berlin for the Easter weekend. We get back Monday night and my parents arrive Tuesday afternoon. I'm sure I'll continue to lag behind since we'll be doing so much with them. I'll try. Maybe I should lower my expectations and be okay with shorter posts for you guys. Hope everyone is well!

Dogs, Dinners and Dances - Oh My!

Hello, All! Still having a great time here staying busy with all the great new friends we've made. Eric was getting jealous of my social calendar, so I tried to fit in a few husband-friendly events towards the end of the week.

Last week we watched my friend Stephanie's dog, Oscar, while she was in Berlin and Normandy with her dad and brother. It was nice having a critter around. Oscar is 17 years old, so he's pretty set in his ways. But he kept Eric and I laughing with all his quirks and grunts. He usually sleeps about 20 hours a day and the other four he's mildly awake for 3.5 hours and semi-energetic for the other half hour.

Here's Oscar before I try to rouse him for a walk:

And once he finally decides to acknowledge me:
A big stretch before a walk:
And I asked him to pose for this one:

Wednesday I went on a tour of Antwerp's City Hall. We had a great tour guide who was very informative and I really enjoyed hearing the history of the building. And it was a treat to see the inside since it's often off limits to tours when official city business is being conducted.

These are pictures of the front facade of City Hall which faces into the Grote Markt.

In the summer, flags of 63 (i think) different countries are hung on all the flagposts. I'm looking forward to seeing that. I'm sure it's really colorful.

And this is a mural that hangs in the wedding room. Everyone who wishes to get married in Antwerp must first come to City Hall for an official civil ceremony. Then you can go on to have a ceremony in your church of choice, or use the space available in City Hall for a reception. There are several murals on the walls of the wedding room all depicting wedding from different eras. This picture depicts a wedding from the 15th century. The bride and groom (the names escape me) were both traveling and were supposed to meet in Antwerp to wed. A special church was even built just for their wedding here in Antwerp. But the story goes that they met one day earlier in a town just north of Antwerp and they couldn't wait one more day to marry so they married in that town and the Church built for them was never used. The story also goes that the groom/prince dies early in life and the bride/princess can't accept it so she travels around Europe with his body and goes a bit crazy.

Thursday I went on a tour of a local micobrewery, the 'T Pakhuis. We got to sample their three beers, Atwerps Blond, Antwerps Bruin, and Nen Bangelijke. We were told that Bangelijke is slang used by college age kids and it means "extremely good". I'm guess they think it's extremely good because its alcohol content is 9.5%!

Thursday night a group of friends went to dinner at Las Manas. Steph, Mike (her fiance), and Steph's brother and dad were in Antwerp before heading out to Normandy so we all decided to get together for some Spanish food. It's Mike, Stephanie, Eric, Me, Nicole (remember her from when I went to the indoor ski place?), her husband, Sean, then Jason, Steph's brother, and Steph's dad.

After dinner we headed to De Vagant for some Jenever. Jenever is a form of gin that comes in many, many flavors. So far I've tried sour pear, blood orange, kiwi, mango, vanilla, tripple berry, citroen, chocolate, and apple. They're served cold in shot glasses and I think they are intended to be sipped. I'm not saying that's always how they go down, I'm just saying some people sip, some don't.

And on Saturday night we attended the American Women's Club's annual Diamond Gala. It's a fundraiser and the charity chosen to benefit this year was Het Spinneke which means "the spider". The purpose of the organization is to help create a network, or web (hence the name), for families with handicapped children. There's a silent auction to help raise money. There were 40 items on which to bid ranging anywhere from paintings to trips to certificates for spas and dinners at Antwerp restaurants. I helped to prepare for the auction by way of wrapping the gift baskets so I knew what would be available. And early into the evening I had my eye on a hand-painted tea box from Hindeloopen, Holland. I watched the bids, and right before bidding closed, I made my move.

And here's my new tea box:



We had a really fun time. I got my hair done, and we got all dressed up. Dinner was great, and Nicole, Sean, Eric and I were the last four on the dance floor.

Sean and Nicole:

Putting those accounting skills to use... helping to tally up the auction proceeds. We made over 12,000Euro!
Once the auction was wrapped up, we could finally get our boogy on. Nicole and Sean dance to Meatloaf:
I think Nicole even got some video of us dancing. I'll see if I can get my hands on that to upload for your viewing pleasure!

And, of course, one of my hair:

Anyway, that pretty much wraps up last week. We still haven't decided on what to do this weekend. Maybe a day trip somewhere?

Oh, and one more thing..... do none of you people find Ausfahrt funny? Have you no sense of humor at all? I thought I'd get at least a comment or two on that one. You disappoint me!

St. Goar & the Rhine River Valley, Germany

Hello, All! Time for another episode of "The Garvin Travels." On the recommendation of several friends, we ventured to the Rhine River valley in Germany this past weekend. More specifically, we stayed in a quaint little town along the river called St. Goar. This area is fairly touristy during the peak season, but since we were there before things really get going for the year, it was pretty quiet. In fact, the hotel we tried to book a room at (online) called to tell us that they weren't yet open for the year. So they recommended another hotel that was open, and we ended up being the ONLY people staying there Friday night. It was a bit odd knowing we were the only ones there. Not even the owner stayed - I think she has a home across the street. Anyway, I've never been the only one in a hotel before and it was an interesting feeling. Hotel Hauser is situated right along the Rhine, so we had really nice views:



View from Hotel Hauser from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.

After a lovely breakfast Saturday morning compliments of Marianne, the owner of Hotel Hauser, we set out to explore Burg Rheinfels, the local castle. We hiked up through the castle gardens to get to the castle and enjoyed the views back down toward the river.

Stopping for a break (and utilizing the timer feature on the camera) on our climb up to Burg Rheinfels:

In this one you can see Burg Katz in the background (I know I called it Hotel Katz on the video, but it's not a hotel, it's currently a Natural Science Grammar and Boarding school. We were told that it's actually now privately owned by a Japanese family.) The town below, St. Goarhausen, is directly across the river from St. Goar. Apparently on town-naming day, someone wasn't feeling so creative.

A look down onto St. Goar:


Part of Burg Rheinfels has been renovated and turned into a hotel, but there are also original ruins of the castle which was built in 1245! Luckily they provided us with an English version of a guide to the grounds. With this we were able to explore the castle ruins and understand what used to be where.

This was the western wall of the inner courtyard. The arsenal and the kitchen were to the right.


Some sort of cemetery within the castle walls:

"Inside" the castle (using the camera timer again.... Eric's favorite):

A pile of catapults... how neat!

This wall was really tall, but according to the info sheet, it was originally even three stories higher!

And this is the underground vaulted chamber for the soldiers:

And Eric in the chamber. You can't see this, but he's using a candle we were given with our entrance tickets to explore the unlit nooks and cranies (and big huge underground rooms).

I thought this picture was cool b/c you can see the many grapevines growing on the hillsides. The Rhine valley is known for the great wines produced in the area, most specifically, Rieslings (my favorite!).

After all that exploring, we were hungry so we drove south along the river to the town of Bacharach. Not much was open, but we found a great little restaurant and took the suggestion of the waitress for a very traditional German meal. I know you're all bummed that there aren't any menu pictures this time, but here's a picture of what arrived on the table (we had no clue what we had ordered):

The potatoes were awesome, the sauerkraut great, and we found out after eating that those patties were some sort of special pork from the local butcher.

After our Rieslings, Eric ordered a beer. Can you tell how enormous this mug is from the picture?

We wanted to buy some local wines, so the same waitress (man, she was helpful) recommended a little winery up the hill. On our way up we saw the castle in Bacharach.

And then we bought 8 bottles of wine from this place:

On Sunday we went to Mass (in German) at St. Goar's namesake. That small statue of St. Goar is one of the oldest know images of St. Goar. It's older than the church itself and was transfered to the church after it was built.

After mass we started the meandering drive home north along the river. We stopped in Spay, Germany and could see Marksburg Castle across the river. Construction began on Marksburg in the 12th century and it is the only castle along the Rhine that has never been destroyed:


Marksburg from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.

We also decided to stop to check out Stolzenfels Castle. Had we known how far we'd have to hike up to get to the castle, we may have decided differently, but you know hindsight. At least the walk up was scenic:

Picture break (love that self-timer):

Almost there....

We made it!

I don't have much to tell you about Stolzenfels because the tour we tagged along on was totally in German. According to our guide map, the castle was destroyed by the French in 1689 and then rebuilt for a Prussian king in 1836. So this castles was much more intact. Some of the rooms had been preserved with furnishings from when Frederick William IV (the Prussian king) lived there. I'm sure much more interesting information was given during the tour, but oh well.

And that was it. We drove home from there. One more thing, all along the drive there and back we kept seeing this sign. We first saw it during out visit to Switzerland and thought it was the name of a town. I had regretted not taking a picture of the sign. As it turns out, it's not the name of a town at all. Does anyone else find this as funny as we do? Say it aloud and you'll figure it out:

Even funnier, it means "exit". he he he

Flashback

Hey there! Eric and I went to see The Smashing Pumpkins in Brussels the other night. I saw them when I was in college (2001/2002) and Eric has seen them several times too. The first time was '93/'94 (yeah, I know... he's old) and most recently in 1998 (which really isn't that recent at all). Anyway, we had fun and thought you might like to hear a little:



Smashing Pumpkins from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.


Here's a bit of an acoustic song Billy Corrigan performed. We had never heard it before, but liked it:

Smashing Pumpkins2 from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.


And here's a few pictures too:


Basically, from what we gathered, the concert experience is pretty much the same in Belgium.

The Ardennes and Luxembourg

A new excursion this weekend. Saturday morning we set out for Luxembourg City. Our aim was to leisurely drive south while taking in the scenery of the Ardennes Forest, stopping at the Bastogne Historical Center (which is located on one of the battlefields from the Battle of the Bulge and has an American Memorial), and then eventually checking out some of the sites in Luxembourg City.

On the drive down toward Bastogne I read in one of our guidebooks about Durbuy, a cute little medieval town. We decided to stop there for lunch and try one of the recommended restaurants, Hostellerie le Sanglier des Ardennes. Durbuy was really quaint with windy, cobblestone streets and cute artisan shops. We found our restaurant and opted for the 4 course lunch menu. It was really good, but took a REALLY long time! Here are a few pictures of Durbuy:

Our lunch restaurant:

The view from our table at lunch:

Here's a video we took on our drive. The scenery was pretty and a nice contrast to the northern part of Belgium that is incredibly flat.

Ardennes Drive1 from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.

Our lunch took so long that the Bastogne Historical Center was already closed by the time we made it there. So we journeyed on to Luxembourg City, enjoying the drive along the way.

The next morning we set out for the sites of Luxembourg City. We first needed to find some breakfast so we walked, and walked, and walked looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING that was open. We have never walked for so long in a city and not seen an open restaurant. In fact, I almost entitled this post: "Never go to Luxembourg on a Sunday unless you're not hungry." Anyway, we finally found a place that was open, but it was only pastries and coffee so we ate something to tide us over and then walked, and walked, and walked back to the city center. We hadn't planned that well and didn't have a city map, and since nothing was open, we couldn't get one. So we admired the old city walls:


And admired the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame from inside and out:


And then we decided to get back in the car and tour the Valley of the Seven Castles. It's really just a drive along the (very small) Eisch River, but it was very scenic and supposedly has one of Europe's finest concentration of castles. There are castles in Koerich, Septfontaines, Ansembourg(2 here), Hollenfels, Schoenfels, and Mersch. We only found 6 of the seven castles- the Mersch castle elluded us and our empty bellies did not lend themselves to a lenghthy search.

Here's a picture of the Castle at Koerich: Mostly ruins

And the 13th century castle at Septfontaines:

There were two castles at Ansembourg, but the first was so hidden up in the hills, among the trees, that we couldn't even take a picture of it. The second was from the 17th century as opposed to the first from the 12th, but we couldn't get a good shot of that one either.

Here's what the castle at Hollenfels looks like as you enter the town:
And here's what it looks like closer up with me jumping up in front of it. I'm a dork... I know.

Here's a the view from Hollenfels Castle:

We are now totally pros at the full-arm-extention-b/c-no one-is-around-to-take-our-picture-shot:


And this is the Castle at Schoenfels:

We used our handy TomTom GPS to navigate between all these tucked away towns. The roads were pretty bare and we felt like we were all alone exploring the Luxembourg countryside. While typing Hollenfels into the GPS, I saw that there was a Holler, Luxembourg. Being that Holler is my maiden name, I was pretty excited to find this. We mapped it and realized it was fairly close to where we were (really everything in Luxembourg could be described as "fairly close" since the whole country is only 35 miles across at it's widest point) so we decided to take a detour and check out Holler. You can click here if you want to see where Holler is in Luxembourg. It's basically in the most northern area, nearly equal distance from both Belgium and Germany.

I got even more excited when I saw this sign and confirmed that Holler did, indeed exist:


And now........ what I'm sure you've all been waiting for.......... your personal tour of Holler, Luxembourg:

Holler, Luxembourg from Melanyann Garvin on Vimeo.

Hope you enjoyed a little peak into our weekend. Where to next?