GERMANY!

Okay so Life in Italy with the Brenners took a road trip to Germany.  The girls had a swim meet in Ramstein so we thought we would make a long weekend of it and explore Germany.

First of all, the swim meet was TERRIFIC!  The girls swam great.  They both dropped seconds in each event they tried.  Blythe took 3rd in the 100 IM, 1st in the 100 freestyle, and 2nd in the breast.  Delaney took 4th in the 50 freestyle, 2nd in the 100 freestyle, and 6th in the breast stroke.  We had no disqualifications and they scored points for the team in each of their events!!  Go Brenner girls!!

We flew to Germany and as Delaney looked out the window and saw snow, her excitement mounted!  The girls could not wait to get off that plane to throw a snowball or two.  Thank goodness for Lands End!  Grandmum ordered them winter stuff for Hanukkah and it came in just in time. They had boots on and they just needed to add their coats and gloves.  They stomped the whole way into the terminal!!

The drive to Ramstein was beautiful.  Seeing all the snow covered trees and rolling hills was just gorgeous!  It certainly put us in the holiday spirit!  We hit our first Christmas market in Ramstein.  They just had a few boots with food and gifts.  They had some really cute holiday smokers.  How picked up a couple for a friend at work and we picked out a cute pot bellied man.  He will look cute on the mantle with our other decorations!

A little smoker!

We went to dinner at big Emma's.  It was a German beer house.  We had heard the food was good but huge portions.  I had a half portion of wurst and it was 4 huge sausages.  We did find out that the girls LOVE schnitzel.  It is really yummy!  Now we need to try some noodles!

After the meet on Saturday, we headed to Kaiserslautern to their market.  It was so much fun.  All the different smells and sights.  All the boots have lights so it is all very festive.  Delaney even managed to find the perfect place for some great holiday photos.  It was super cold outside.  I can see why the Germans drink gluwein, while at these things.  Gluwein is mulled wine.  It is hot so it warms you up!  Sometimes they add liquor to really warm you up.  We got one with jagermeister, boy was that strong.  Brought back some rough college memories.  How could not even finish his!!  I think the kinder was better. This was the kids non alcoholic version.  They also made real hot chocolate.  It was not the girls favorite but I loved it!!  At these markets, they have little fires along the way so you can warm up as you go.  It was such a fun way to get in the spirit!  We tried all sorts of things from brats to wild boar stew.  It was fun to be eating such different food!

This is her copper bowl.

Family Photo!

Sunday we went to Heidelberg.  This is a beautiful city on the river.  There was a pretty big Christmas market here.  We wandered the streets checking out all the things the town had to offer.  Blythe used her Hanukkah money from Aunt Linda to buy a ceramic dragon smoker.  He is really cute.  She can not wait to get him working!!  We saw some great decorations and went into some of the most festive shops.  We experienced some more food and enjoyed a waffle before heading up to the Heidelberg schloss (castle).  The castle was really amazing.  Parts of it were falling apart but it still towered over the city.  There were amazing views of the city below from the castle.  There were more markets outside the castle.  There was a metal worker right next to the castle.  The girls begged to make something.  It was late in the day and the sign said the project could  take up to an hour to complete.  The girls wore us down and we let them each make something.  Blythe chose a bowl and Delaney chose a bracelet.  I have to say that it was well worth the money.  The girls turned their strips of copper into really neat creations.  Yes daddy and I helped them, but they really stuck with it.  They worked really hard and were eager to complete their projects.  Even as the sun went down and it started to get cold, they kept working!  Their hard work paid off and they have really unique souvenirs.  We were really glad we took the time to make them =)

The castle glowing at night!

Delaney working hard at the anvil!

Back on base that night, we stopped in the Germany beer hall.  There we had noodles!  All I can say is that Julie Andrews was correct, Schnitzel with noodles is one of my favorite things!  Yummy!!!

The gingerbread house.

Eating Reibekuchen

Monday we stopped in Berncastle-Kues on the way to the airport.  This is a quaint little town in the valley.  The streets were all crooked and narrow.  The houses were typical German style homes.  How and I enjoyed just strolling the streets looking at the architecture.  This market had all little fair tales throughout the streets, one house was decorated like Hansel and Gretel.  We even found the Nutcracker castle. At this market, we found a new food, reibekucken.  I saw someone eating it so I had to try it.  It was a potato pancake that was out of this world!!  We all liked them so much we had to get a second order!!  This time we opted for the applesauce.  Yummy!!  These were way better than any latke I could have made!! This was the perfect ending to our trip to Germany.

 I hope this is the first of many trips because this was such a beautiful country! Thank you Germany for getting us in the holiday spirit!!

Naples Underground and Ercolano

We had a wonderful thanksgiving here at the house.  How made the turkey and I worked on the sides.  We had two families come to the house and join us. They brought desserts and a ham.  Long story, Janelle prefers ham! It was a lot of fun.  The kids ran around and played all afternoon and the grown up just got to enjoy some good company and a glass of vino!

Since we did not travel for the holiday, I told the family we needed to explore some things around here!

Naples Underground was our first outing.  We took the train from the JFC to downtown Naples.  It was not hot and I found a seat, so the ride was uneventful=)  We followed the map to the right square!  We were a little early for the noon tour, so we checked out Christmas Alley.  This is a street lined with Nativity cribs.  The Neapolitans love to decorate Nativity cribs.  They do the usual Mary and Joseph but then they do what the village would look like.  They make all different little scenes of every day life.  There can be pizza makers, meat markets, cheese stores.  They are really quite elaborate.  The girls had fun looking at them and snapping a few pictures!!
We went to the Underground for noon and had a private tour.  It was really awesome.  We went to an apartment that had been an old woman's house for many years.  She even had a cellar that when she pushed her bed back, she could access.  Upon inspection of the house, it was found out that the house was built in the old theater of the Romans.  It was amazing to see the brick from years ago hidden behind layers of plaster.  This was a recent discovery, just in the last 10 years.  It was amazing that there is a whole apartment building covering this old ancient theater.  We then walked down the street to a discovery in the last month!  Another person left their house to the city.  Once the plaster was removed, they found parts of the theater.  It was amazing to think people were living on top of this stuff and had no idea!!

We then got to go underground.  There were 121 steps to the underground.  These were aqua ducts back in the time of the Greeks.  They were used as a bomb shelter in the 40's during WWII.  It was crazy to think people piled under ground to try and stay safe.  There was a huge network of tunnels all built by the Greeks to get water from the mountains to their cities.  There are lights now, but it is hard to imagine being down there with hundreds of people and no light.  We did get a glimpse of that feeling.  For the last section, we had to light a candle to guide our way.  The path was very narrow.  How and I had to duck many times.  We also had to walk sideways in order to make it through.  The path opened up to a big pool of water.  It was really cool!  It was really pretty in there!  It was the perfect ending to a neat maze under the city!  The girls had sort of grumbled about going, but after the last part, they were so excited.  They apologized and said it was one of the coolest things we had done to date =)

The next day we went to Ercolano.  This was just a short drive from the house.  This is a smaller and less known version of Pompeii but Ercolano is more well preserved.  It was truly amazing to see this huge archeological find in the middle of a thriving town.  There were apartment building circling the site.  That is one amazing thing about being in Italy.  Italians are always in touch with their past.  They do not take down old stuff, they just build around it!  Ercolano is an amazing little town.  You can see house and how they use to live.  There is even plaster left on some of the rooms.  The colors of the art is so vibrant.  I can only imagine what it looked like when it was first made.  Ercolano was covered in hot ash from Vesuvius.  It is unbelievable that there is anything left to look at here.  But some of the support beams on the houses are still visible as black chars of wood.  The Roman bath houses are huge!  The girls thought it was so funny that the Romans took baths together.  We tried to equate it to a gym locker room.  So once we found the men's bath, Delaney went running around looking and found the woman's locker room.  She was so proud of herself when we found the sign saying it was indeed the female baths!  A recent discovery at the site is that of a boat.  They found hundreds of bodies in the boat tunnels trying to save themselves from the ash.  They are now reconstruction one of the boats.  It was really impressive to see how they are piecing these chard remains together.  The girls were fascinated by the process!  Who knows, maybe we will have future archeologists!